Monday, December 05, 2005

LAE IRONIES

LAE Ironies

If I had only read this book prior to taking LAE 2005, I would have been sure to pass it.

First, I would have had SURE answers for TWO vocabulary words: briquette and woozy. Briquette – I’ve never heard before. In the book, the love affair (which comprises the essence of the story), was commenced by the leading character’s encounter with his love interest, and… briquettes. The context so clearly describes what a briquette IS, that I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time for knowing now what it meant and being certain I made a wrong guess in the LAE. As for woozy, I’ve heard it before. See, by just looking at the word itself, anyone can get a general idea what it means. And that’s just what I know about the word woozy – general. LAE vocabulary questions, however, are anything but general. The exam doesn’t ask you to give a rough answer, it demands the “nearest” or worse, the “specific” answer. So there went two sure points. I just hope it won’t make the difference or I’m going to hang myself.

Second, the infamous LAE essay. This year, the LAE committee had to get all odd and chose an elementary-ish question – “EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW: Myth or Truth?” I seriously wanted to write “Kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan???” What was that about anyway? A test of naïvete? I expectedly answered, “myth.” I went around circles, no, make that zigzags and broken lines, talking about how it’s a myth. Later on, when I got the chance to ponder more about it, I wished I had answered “truth”. That would have at least set me apart from the rest. Then again, with my scrambled brain at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to defend it. (I couldn’t even defend the most obvious, easiest answer, certainly I had no more brain cells left for a little more thinking.)

I was already certain after the exam that I’d get a low mark in the essay part (I’m lucky if I won’t get a zero). Then came this book. There’s a paragraph that really hits home. It conveyed exactly the point I was driving at in my essay, except it was done elegantly and eloquently.

“… I felt it for the first time when I was working on the legal codes and drafts of the Enlightenment. They were based on the belief that a good order is intrinsic to the world, and that therefore the world can be brought into good order. To see how legal provisions were created paragraph by paragraph out of this belief as solemn guardians of this good order, and worked into laws that strove for beauty and by their very beauty for truth, made me happy. For a long time I believed that there was progress in the history of law, a development towards greater beauty and truth, rationality and humanity, despite terrible setbacks and retreats. Once it became clear to me that this belief was a chimera*, I began playing with a different image of the course of legal history. In this one it still has a purpose, but the goal it finally attains, after countless disruptions, confusions, and delusions, is the beginning, its own original starting point, which once reached must be set off from again… “

(*Note: Incidentally, chimera means fantasy, something similar to “myth”.)

First time I read it, I wanted to cry. Now, I sigh. SAYANG. Not to borrow the lines word for word, just the “general” idea. It was what I was saying in the essay anyhow, but I just couldn’t organize my thoughts then to form something, at most, half as good as this paragraph. I just kept on repeating how there’s always an attempt, and that we always fail, blah, blah, blah. (((( SIGH )))) If I had only said it in this manner… (((( SIGH )))) again…

My only hope now is that, with the increasing complexity of the exam and the length of time dedicated into thinking and stressing, everyone else was as jumbled up as I was when they reached the essay part. I hope this is the case, for my ego’s sake. (I’m bad, I know. I’m bad.) I wonder what got into (or out of) my head. I regret now taking that exam. Three months from now, my self-esteem is going to hit rock bottom. Oh well. Whatever.



The title of the book, by the way, is “The Reader” by Bernhard Schlink. Great book.

Posted by xam :: Monday, December 05, 2005 :: 4 Comments:

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