Huzzah, I am not yet dead!
I’m sooooo sorry this took so long. I’m slowly but surely emphasis on the slowly trying to write all the things that have happened in the past year and a half, while keeping track of the current stuff. I have no excuse. It’s spring break over here (Hear! Hear! Filipino student on spring break? You probably already have an idea of what one of the future posts will be about.). And I’m working. Oops, so much for no excuses.
Either way, if you’re still sure you want to see what madness my classmates and I have been up to, read on below!
The first three months of the second semester, incidentally the last three of the year, was pretty much a cycle of classes, homework, papers, no lunch break for me, and milk tea sessions that, in all honesty, could be our version of a drinking session for all our loudness and the things we end up talking about. Nothing eventful really happened during these first three months, as most of our time was occupied with schoolwork, documents, making and updating curriculum vitae, thinking up a scholarship-worthy essay, and applying for said scholarship. I’ve already written about the first few weeks as they happened, so I’ll skip right ahead to December.
December was when Rise of the Guardians came out in the Philippines, almost a full month after its initial release. Sucks, but eh, that’s pretty much the norm. Anyway, some of my lovely forever classmates decided it would be an awesome stress reliever (December = midterms = …do I even need to elaborate on this one? Lol.) to watch a movie with a cute protagonist.
“Want to get some ice cream?”
We ended up skipping that year’s Lantern Parade, an annual event in our school. I guess it’s safe to say it has a reputation, as people from other universities come to watch. Actually, not all of us came to watch the movie. Some of us stayed to watch, and ended up planning something that would also pop up in a later post.
[More about the 2012 Lantern Parade here and here, and the 2013 one here. The fireworks display at the end of the program is always something to watch out for. For those of you who are interested enough to take a peek at the festivities, you can watch it over here.]
Immediately after the movie, I went to a friend’s house. After the fun and play, it was time to go on a two-week trip to her grandmother’s area for a pretty weighty paper; we needed to do a linguistic survey of an area. I won’t elaborate further on the mechanics of said paper because I might end up tearing up again. That thing was traumatic. but know that nearly half the class was near to tears or crying by the morning of the deadline.
It was our first taste of being on the field, and it was actually pretty fun. It was during this time that Anne awesome friend of mine and I got significantly closer to each other. Having shared the same room and even the same bed, I suppose it was inevitable. NOT. But more of that later. Like a whole year afterwards from the time of this story. It’s one of the many things I loved about that trip. I found a dependable research partner, a comfy cushion, and a precious friend.
…Would you like another helping of mozzarella? Lol, I kid.
*cough*
Anyway.
My survey area included parts of a mountain range (Sierra Madre, if you know where that is), and the mode of transport in the area was mostly private vehicles. Said private vehicle is usually a motorcycle. Imagine riding in a motorcycle with three people as you go up and down a pretty steep slope during a heavy downpour. Oh, and did I mention none of us had helmets? Big idiot right there, I know.
As I said, fun. Let’s just not delve into what I consider as fun. For the sake of your sanity.
I may have mentioned something in passing regarding our application for scholarships abroad. For some reason best left unknown, the essay I submitted was somehow able to convince the board of judges that I was a decent human being and I passed the first screening, and so needed to come in for the final interview. As it happened, the interview day fell right in the middle of the week-and-a-half that I wouldn’t be home. The place I was in was about an eight-hour trip away from home and school, so it wouldn’t exactly be an easy trip. Add the expenses in said travels, and you get one cringe-worthy sum. That part was decidedly not fun.
You may have already noticed that I may be a stubborn idiot at times (travelling during a storm when roof-level floods were being reported? The heck was I doing?), and so may not be surprised when I say that — tada — I spent an accumulated amount of more than twenty-four hours on the road, got an aching bum, and had a significantly lighter wallet afterwards.
I regret nothing to this day.
During the two-and-a-half days that I was back home, I was able to visit a much missed Potato and catch up with her. Her university is located pretty far away, so it wasn’t very practical to go as often as I would have liked. She introduced me to some of her friends, happily accepted the chocolate I gave her for her birthday (which was also the day of the interview), and went off in search of more sweets. Yes, Potatoes love sweets. And chocolate. And pie. She loves pie.
When I went back to finish my fieldwork, things progressed pretty quickly. We were soon done with our data collection phase, and I was surprised to find that we even had a whole day to explore the area for leisure rather than work. And explore we did. We went to different beaches, had a picnic by the bay, had a small hike, went to soak and scream and shout. The water was dead cold dammit in a natural waterfall, clothes and all. The place was just oozing with them. Literally.
The results of the final interview came out on the twenty-second, but as the night of the twenty-second was the time I got home, followed by preparations and festivities and added with internet connection problems, I only got to see it after a few days. It was actually because my forever classmates tagged those that got in that I knew the results were even out. Crazily enough, more than half of us got in. So we’ll be spreading madness and random episodes of who-knows-what together in Japan. We were both ecstatic and disappointed — so many of us got in, and yet not all of us did. Somehow, I think we expected something like that to happen, but being faced with the reality of it still felt different. Do you want cheddar with your mozzarella? XD
I was staring at the post for all of two minutes before fully digesting it. I wasn’t even aware of the date by then; that’s how messed up my sleeping schedule had become with all the effort of doing all the usual Yuletide festivities while keeping up with my paper. I only realized the date when someone mentioned presents.
I saw the post on the morning of the fourth Tuesday of December 2012.
I barely suppressed the whoop that nearly escaped me. (My mother was still asleep at that time. Come to think of it, I was the only one awake that time. All of them were either still asleep or still sprawled on their respective beds.) The first person I told was my sister, saying nothing when I woke her up and just showing her my phone. After grinning like the idiot that I am and giving a hearty greeting of “Me~rry Christmas~!”, I ran off to tell the others about it.
Much drama, yes?
No, actually.
My sister topped any reaction that I might have had. My ribs ache just remembering the grapple bear hug I got. She also made a tissue pack of the shirt I was wearing then. Blech.
The Paper Mill of Madness 