LOSER.

It used to be tabby's favorite word in high school.

It remains to be a favorite word.

when she was young tabby would repeatedly hear this word form her father. maybe not the exact words but other forms of word but they all give the same meaning: loser. but they all mean the same.

when tabby took the phil sci exam and did not pass, her father called her a liar for saying that the exam was easy. he said she did not have brains for phil sci. so. maybe really it was easy, too easy since she just guessed all answers to it. she didn't even have to compute.

months passed and she was tried again for another exam in up hi. she thought it was also easy but she knew better. by simple analogy from her phil sci experience, when the exam was easy, it is more likely she didn't pass. before they were let out, the proctor informed all examines that the notices will reach them by April. when she got home her father asked her how the exam was. she knew better so she said it was hard. her father told her that maybe she had brains for birds since he found it hard. the exam was much easier than phil sci's. so again, by simple analogy, it more likely she didn't pass. she sighed.

it was a hot afternoon. and she was tired. her father was lying on the couch. reading. (so he'd grow brains as big as dexter's or those mars atacks martians.) it was even hotter when she got to her bedroom. she changed clothes and went out to play. on the playground she palyed the scene over and over again. she wouldn't really pass because her father said so. and that's what those simple analogies say.

April came and no exam notice arrived. her father asked her when they should be expecting the notice. honestly, she muttered, "in April". but it was already April, her father chuckled. "I told you you wouldn't pass." maybe i really have brains for the birds, tabby thought to herself. bird-brained or not, she went out to play still. it was easy to forget about things then and to let loneliness and depression pass. you just spend the day running around and imagine good things and you'd less likely to get lonely. you just have to deal with nightmares at night though.

she finally got the notice in may. she almost gave up on it and had imagined situation in her mind. the opening of high school might be the most embarrassing because she would go to school where most of her grade school mates would also go to. they would know she didn't pass. she had prepared herself for the moment. but the results said so and she had to wake up early the next day to go to Iloilo with her mother. she had to look for decent clothes. she could hardly find any decent clothes. everything were either 1 size smaller or 5 sizes bigger. so forced herself into a pair of snugly fitting jeans and over sized tshirt which her aunt handed down to her. her father didn't say a thing, except that he almost thought she didn't pass.

more nightmarish episodes happened and the terrorism became even worse. now because she went to a premier high school and on weekly allowance she had a lot to prove. her father kept on telling her all his salary were being spent on her. so she tries hard to save and hardly spend on "unnecessary" things. she starved herself millions to times to acquire 100++ cassette tapes of the music that help her survive adolescence, away from home and perennially broke. he father said they were useless music because you couldn't eat a cassette. they couldn't even make you any more intelligent that a bird. but she treasured them. and treasured them so much she had a special place for them in her room. she even catalogued each one of them. she read facts about her favorite bands. she learned about their influences, their favorite books. she dug deeper. she dug for those books and those poets and poetess and writers and other musical gods they kept mentioning in their interviews. it grew in her and she knew there was no turning back. she made and kept friends based on their musical tastes. then it grew to literary tastes. then the standards became ideals.

but the worst is yet to come and she made a major decision that forever altered her relationship with her father for the worse, maybe. for her, however, it was the turning point in her life. and from then on she worked hard to earn respect for herself. she learned that the little you talk, the little the critics are so she stopped talking. she stopped talking to her father. she stopped telling her about her running schedule, her subjects, her room assignments, her grades, her boarding house, her whole life. she just stopped talking about her to her father.

years and years later, people tell her her father fears her. but she believe it wasn't her he fears. it was her silence.

now tabby is an adult and married. she thought the terrorism will end but they just never do, don't they? she forgot to remember all things presumed and assumed are bound to be incorrect unless proven otherwise. but it is a good thing she has established respect for herself that no amount of debasing could even tear it down.

at a young age, however, she has concluded that women are always bound to be humiliated by men, whether publicly or privately. and no matter how much or how far women's achievements will take them, they will all come home to emotional battery of degrading and demeaning from their husbands. tabby has witnessed her father do it to her mother countless times and has similarly experienced that first-hand. she abhors marriage and believe it is the worst decision a woman could make for herself. she has seen far enough to believe otherwise. all her friends are products of bad marriages, if not dysfunctional family. their fathers either left them or ceased to function as such.

it was too late for her to make a grand exit like kurt cobain.

so she will keep on fighting. and fighting. until PhD.


hay puta. bahala na si batman.