OF EYELINERS AND HIGHLIGHTERS

Nothing feels worse that being accused of trying to be someone you are not.

Eyes are the windows to the soul. I usually come to school without make-up. I do not even wear lip gloss to make my lips look “better.” I have reasons for not trying to dress up fashionably. For one, it is time consuming. Another reason is that it is expensive to go beyond the standard of coming to school with office attire. One school day, I decided to put some eyeliner on my eyes because I wanted to learn how to put it. To my dismay, a girl approached me and told me how I was trying to look Chinese, just because we both have a happy crush on a classmate who happened to have Chinese blood. I do not have anything against the Chinese race. In fact, I have friends who are Chinese and I love them. I look up to their culture and traditions and how they effectively and efficiently manage business. But in no way do I desire to look like one. They are pretty and handsome faces but I am born a Filipino. I should be happy with the natural features that God has given me. I have never attempted to look like someone else, not to attempt to attract a guy, not for any reason.

Color everywhere. I can certainly call myself a diligent student. Since grade school, I have always had this passion to learn and excel in whatever my teachers would ask me to do. There is an inherent hunger for knowledge within me. Back in college as a working student and a scholar, I managed my time so that I would still have the time to study. I believe my hard work was inspired by the fact that I did not want to settle for mediocrity and waste my precious time - spent, but not well spent. In law school, there is even more “pressure” to study hard. The class requirements are really demanding. I have to exert efforts to maintain my scholarship, to finish law school, to pass the bar, and to become a lawyer. The bigger picture would always be to become a lawyer with a heart someday. I have always loved the line from Bukas-Palad’s Pilgrim’s Theme, “To find a higher dream in the greater scheme of things.”

I believe I know myself (I should) but not everybody knows me well enough. In fact, it is not really significant to be known. However, it really annoys me when somebody else tries to pretend that he knows me well in a very different manner. Whenever this particular person sees me, she would always tell me that if the guy really likes me, I do not have to exert any effort to be noticed by him. I find it irritatingly absurd how another person could perceive my actions in a very unusual way – very strange that I have never even thought of it before. I am not studying to get good grades and please others. Granting for the sake of argument that I wanted to please other people, I would have tried pleasing my family, my scholarship benefactors and my friends who “matter.”

Why would I try to make a guy like me? I may like him (a bit) but it does not mean he should like me back. It does not mean I have to dedicate him all the strokes and colors of my highlighters in the hope that he would someday realize that all my sacrifices are dedicated to him. I am a firm believer that each person should act in as much as possible, rational manner. I just find it too irrational to make one’s life revolve around a single person. More so, I find it too illogical to judge another person that she is acting like one when in fact she does not.

I would possibly continue using different colors of highlighters to make my studying easier. However, I might opt not to use eyeliners often. Not because I do not want to be accused of trying to look Chinese but because having them on my eyes feels uncomfortable that I could not scratch my eyes. I can live with another person thinking about me in a different way. Even if it feels bad, I should be thankful for her time. Instead of flipping the pages of the Revised Penal Code, she found the time to fabricate stories that I spend the rest of my life trying to please a guy, with reasonable doubt of course. Probably, there is something worse than being accused of trying to be someone you are not. The worst thing is being victimized by someone’s projection and not being able to defend yourself. The worst feeling is being caught off guard merely because you have a tendency to look “too good to be true” and be afraid to burst out angry emotions and shout at the person’s face, “BAKA IKAW”- in Filipino, with all the sarcasm and pun intended.