It's crazy to think but its a whole new revolution around the sun for me.

Been a while since the last update, but hear me out. The bar exams take so much of your life.

While it seems enticing to stay in a hotel for a week, and have all your needs taken care of by an organized group of juniors, the immense pressure to succeed for a whole week outweighs the luxuries. It doesn't feel like you're the king of your domain. But you feel like a soldier being given everything before a suicide mission. I'll tell you more about it one day, when I feel comfortable talking about the bar exam. But this September has been some sort of a wake up call.

As I type this, I'm listening to my friends in a discord voice call. These are one of many calls that I sit around and bum in. For almost 90% of my life, September is full of academic related activities. Now I'm (de facto) unemployed while waiting for the results of my bar exam. Its weird having all this time to myself. So much so that when I found myself lounging in a mall after hanging out with a friend, I asked my parents what errands I could do for them to chase that feeling of doing something, anything.

During the one week I was studying mostly on my own, I realized theres still a new thing to conquer at this age. Its something called adulthood. And its tough. One moment I'm sitting peacefully down on my desk. But now it feels like I got hit by a freight train at high speed, and now a lot has changed. You realize every movement you do costs money. The taxes you pay from work go in the pockets of congressmen and their nepo babies, who flaunt their ill-gotten wealth on social media. (Kind of enraging to grow up in this time.) Back to the point, there comes a point where it hits you that you've all grown up. And having to take care of yourself during the toughest intellectual battle of your life shows that.

So maybe I wont be able to sit with my friends all the time anymore, but I'll be ok coming back and listening to them. Maybe change is scary, but I'll learn to adjust. Maybe some dreams will die, but I'll learn to chase new ones. If I get my leash separated from family, maybe I'll finally run with the world. These are ruminations of the sudden realization that now I'm closer to my 30s than when I started my 20s. Will I be ok having to finally join the rat race without a safety net? Who knows. There are reasons why there are jokes about gifted kids falling and school bums succeeding. It's a completely different hellhole.

If indeed these thoughts seem incoherent. It's probably because I'm at a point in my life where I'm not sure what I am anymore. And these are rapid fire questions that I'll ask today, but will solve in the future.

But today we celebrate for making it this far. Thank you for your support. And I hope life gets better for us.

P.s. Still working on the zine. Dont worry :>

It turns out when you're planning for something, and a huge storm comes in to turn your kitchen into a waterfall, you don't get anything done at all!

Last week a lot were slated to be released. But by the divine providence of the storm everything got flooded. There were a few leaks in my room but the kitchen turned into the hip indoor waterfall everyone wants in their house. Safe to say, other than studying, I couldn't get anything done :(

Not to worry though. At the start of this week, THEN the work begins again. It takes a lot of discipline to keep yourself in check. But we can't play all the time. Though I'd like to share a few things about the zine.

The idea came right after my friend passed away. I sat in the car while it was going to the hospital (for an entirely different, yet equally tense issue) and wrote the whole idea. Reserving the words as it is, its about saying what you wanted to say. Then started the writing. Its the first time I thought of the prompts and ideas instead of taking it from a song. Maybe these were song lyrics all along. But these go without a tune... yet.

I'm excited to share more soon! First, I gotta mop the floors though.