Binat

So it's a Friday morning and I'm not supposed to be home. I'm supposed to be in school, listening to a report about organizations as cultures. But for the second time this semester, I'm skipping out on my "terror" prof's class.

You see, I got sick. I didn't know what hit me. I partied Saturday night, then pulled an almost-all-nighter on Monday, which made it quite understandable when I went to class partly wasted on Tuesday. I woke up on Wednesday feeling like I was going to have a cold, and by the time I got home from class, I was feverish. By midnight I had the flu, and my temperature was steadily rising. At around 5 or something, I had chills, and when I didn't stop shaking my parents brought me in for a check-up.

Turns out it was binat. It's one of those Filipino words which have no exact counterpart in English, I don't know, perhaps it could be relapse? I was sick since the first week of February, and I thought my cough and colds were all gone but apparently they weren't. So now it's back and it's worse. It's like twice the flu I had in the past two weeks, ugh.
 

But I guess it's not so bad—it did give me an opportunity to blog. I've been so caught up in stuff lately that it seems like the only time I can sit in front of my laptop and cough up a few paragraphs of thoughts (pun not so intended), is when I'm forced to stay home to rest and drink a cocktail of capsules and tablets.
 

I wish I could say that I had a life-changing insight during the time they brought me to the hospital and the nurses were sticking needles and drawing blood from my arm, but no such luck. It wasn't like it was a near-death experience anyway. I just got scolded several times, by my parents, by the doctor, and by my ancient pediatrician who happened to be around that time.
 

 Uh-oh. Sorry, I couldn't find anything better. Haha.

However, I did learn two simple lessons. One is to slow down a little. I haven't exactly been the busiest student—I admit that I spend a hefty amount of time everyday just idly loitering around, thus earning me the title of tambay idol from my friends. But all the same, there's no time to just breathe and rest and not think about anything negative, or anything I need to do for tomorrow. It's so fast-paced. Meeting new people, falling out with old friends, coming together, and growing apart. Spending every single day planning for the next few days and executing yesterday's plans. I've been so busy running around after eveything and everyone, and all the stress has finally caught up with me.
 

The other thing I learned, is about the concept of binat. It's not just about being sick, it's about all the other negative things in life that we keep inside, too. Sometimes we have ill feelings toward other people, or unresolved issues which we keep under the surface for too long, hoping that we never have to face them. But like my disgusting colds, we have to make sure everything is flushed out of our system, or else they'll keep mutiplying inside and finally take their toll some other time, seemingly out of nowhere.
 

Oh, there's a third lesson, too—and this is probably the most important out of all I've been yakking about:

Kids, always drink your vitamins. They really keep you healthy and save you the trouble of getting sick like I did.

Stay healthy, folks.