REUNION, AT LAST.

I received a phone call from Mom this morning and she reported that some of my high school batchmates were gathering in Montessori. I was so fired up that finally I had time to go out with them. Next thing I knew, Rina was on the other line and she was instructing me to follow them to her resort and join a swimming reunion party.

I could not believe it. At last, I would be reunited with my darling batchmates again.

After taking a shower, I put on a cute spaghetti top, beach shorts, and my swimming flip flops then drove away to Loreland Resort. Once there, I saw Margay, Dona, and Czare at the gate. At the hut, Leo, Arn, Caryl, Rochel, Jan, and Rina were waiting.

You guess it: We gave each other big hugs and high squeals of shock and excitement.

For the first time in seven months, there I was, enjoying and catching up with the bunch of people I feel most at home with. The batchmates I was with today are not my barkada back in high school but I guess it doesn't make a difference, y know. After all, a batchmate is a batchmate as a white rose and a red rose are still roses. (Duh. Something like that.)

Oh goodness, I nearly drowned. I thought I could swim! Although my swimming skills eventually came back, I still suffered briefly from choking chlorine the first times that I tried the freestyle I used to do. Speaking of choking, everyone also choked when tangling with each other in the game "Dr. Quack-Quack" on the water. It was intoxicatingly fun. Or maybe it's the chlorine that made me intoxicated. Blech.

When everyone was already exhausted swimming and playing games, we hang in a really cool suite overlooking Manila, Tagaytay, Batangas, and Laguna Bay while eating pizza. Stories about our schools and universities were overflowing. I guess everyone used up their salivas.

So when's the next time gonna be, huh? After another seven months?

Bummer, I have a stomach ache attack again. Damn you, Coca-cola.

2:44 AM

First off: ELLA! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!

It's unusual for me to be posting at 2:44 in the morning. I actually just woke up after sleeping too early. When Gilmore Girls' credits came up, I was already dozing off, television on.

I don't actually have a topic in mind for a post but I'm still posting for the sake of posting.

Disregarding a couple of breaks, little yawns here and there, and short whiles of sitting prettily with Dana while looking for something we can be useful in, this day (yesterday) is one of the busiest days I had.

I woke up yesterday like I used to wake up when I had classes. Uh-huh, at 5:30 am. I was still dizzy and slighty nauseous for sleeping late the night before that. I just had to accomplish everything that evening - from drawing and coloring visual aids, coming up with activities for the kids, to researching and tagalizing modules - and I'd done it by 1:30 am before I went to an undersized sleep.

No, don't pity me. Crammers deserve that.

So I commuted straight to Daniw that morning. While in the library, we made finishing touches to our props while having a noisy chat with our project groupmates and with Dana's fellow Povedans. After a few preparations, we left the center for a nearby barangay. Once there, ate Mimi, ate Dana, and three other ates gathered the kids for our catechism session. The Povedans handled the "Lovestruck" session, a peer group counseling to high school students about love and courtship. I was previously assigned to the group counseling but there were no volunteers for the catechism group. Thus I was made head. Kamusta naman 'yon?

The events that followed that were:
- seminar for parents on what else but parenting, still in the barangay
- Cello's donuts break with Dana. The first doughnut that I bought slipped to the floor and so, heartbroken for the lost doughnut, I bought another one.
- seminar on paper-writing, or UNIV paper writing to be more specific. This time in Daniw. The speaker was our to-be journ professor who has close affiliation with the center. Miraculously, Dana and I ran out of questions and we felt bad about it. Is it because I'm still not over that lost doughnut? Or is it because Dana got a new, vava-voom haircut?
- my third meditation and second Benediction rite. Dana didn't attend this anymore because her driver had been waiting for more than 2 hours. As usual, I was still lost with all that Latin while everyone else was in sync. Hmph. Eventually, I will learn them. Humanda kayo.
- returned to Antipolo with Julie, a UP EEE sophomore, whom I just met after the meditation. She also happens to be my groupmate for the upcoming career orientation project.
- arrived home and ate my dinner, food from my damn cute little cousin's birthday party that afternoon. Another consecutive family reunion that I missed. Gad, how much more of those am I going to forego? I should be in the next one.

But hey, who's complaining? I'm definitely not. Definitely.

Don't Speak

But please, let me ...



GWEN STEFANI is a
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I Call This an Update

I haven't updated for 13 days and that's quite enough for me to be branded as "The Pathetic Blogger." Tsk, tsk, tsk. Shameful, I know.

What can I say? It's the sem break. It's four weeks of non-academic bliss for the most part because it's also four weeks of academic anxiety about our first semestral grades, our dreaded but much-awaited GWA, and the fate that awaits us in the latter half of the academic year.

Magsusumbong lang ako sa inyo ha. Blame them! Sila kasi ang may kasalanan kung bakit hindi ako naka-update ng labing-tatlong araw:



Kaya please bilhin nyo na lang sila sa'kin kasi sobra na yung pang-aabuso nila sa mala-diamanteng oras ko.

Balik sa kwento *ehem* Back to the real deal, here are a couple of photos shot during the last days of our Creative Writing 10 class in the College of Arts and Letters.


The Class (half of it, at least). There's the great April Yap, our teacher, second from left.


The Girls. This is my group of friends in CW10. Clockwise from left: Jen, Rej, Zen, Rorie, and Mimi (me).

O ayan, nag-update na 'ko.

My Second Film

For those of you who don't know, I have a dream of becoming a filmmaker but given my college track, I don't think that's ever possible.

I'm always going to prefer being a journalist anyway.

Back to filmmaking, I've posted some screenshots of our docu film as a final project for Philosophy 10.


Jeanna (a sophomore) and me, sitting by the A.S. steps, in a hilarious scene about her writing a paper about Kama Sutra for our classmate.


Jeanna and me, again.


Jeanna and me, laughing.


Our philo10 classroom. A.S. 422.


An interview with Ate Glow. I'm telling you, he's real smart. Yes, she's a HE.


Guess which foot is mine.


Our philosophy teacher in a candid scene for the credits.

For the background music, I made use of U2's "Vertigo" and Sum41's "What We're All About". It's unimaginable, I know, but who would believe that these songs really fitted in?

Maybe I'm going to upload some clips of the film in Friendster. Just maybe.

SNAP!

It is when you've grown closer to your friends that you have to part and not see each other that often anymore.

That's the sad thing about U.P.

Every semester, you're going to be with a bunch of people whom you really click with and then snap! There goes the midterms. Another snap! There goes the finals. Snap again. And it's the end.

You meet with your group of friends in every class and of course you try hard to know them well. You also look forward to those bonding sessions you have 1.5 hours, twice a week. You go through the same time-consuming projects and the same bloody exams. You study under the best or the worst professor under the best or worst circumstances. And you go out once in a while to binge and talk and laugh.

Then you go to another class, greet your crush while flashing your trademark smile. He greets back wearing his own trademark smile . You tell yourself, silently of course, how cute he is and that outfit is just so amazing in him. Then you daydream but not about your crush. While you're doing that, your professor announces important deadlines and you don't hear him. You curse in your head. You snap back to reality. Then you daydream again, this time about your crush.

You say goodbye to your crush after class but this time you're smiling lopsidedly. He's talking to another girl. Hmph, not that pretty. Still you curse in your head with another four-letter word . You walk ahead but your head turns back to pry with your eyes. Then snap! You're eating lunch with your blockmates. Relief, relief.

Now that the semester has ended - except for the block lunch - all of those are gone. Time for a new one.

It's sad but it's the way it is.

And you're going to live away from home, God knows where.

CW10, Kas1, Math1, Bio1, PE2, and Philo1 classmates! Hay, there's nothing we can do but hopefully run into each other.