going places (literally)
Super long weekend! Woohoo! A lot of my dormer friends actually went home. While I would've jumped on the first plane back to CDO had I the opportunity (and the great amount of strength that jumping on planes requires), the weekend in Manila wasn't too bad.
Saturday
On an impulse, I paid a visit to Cafe Xocolat, the inconspicuous little shop right across Box O' Rice, a few steps from my dorm. At the entrance, I was surprised at how un-cafe-like the store was. It looked a bit like my lola's house before it got renovated. Part of the cafe's charm, I guess, is that it used to be someone's actual home. The inside is wonderful as well, but I will not go into detail; you must visit it yourself. (Oh, and the food was delicious. A bit pricey, but worth it.) I wish I had taken more pictures, but I didn't wanna look like a cafe' n00b. Ugh. How pretentious of me :|
I finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife in the cafe'. I think the baristas got annoyed at me staying for so long, but I didn't really care anymore. What I DID care about was Henry and Clare ;_;
I went jogging that night, and when I was done I just decided, on yet another impulse, to check out the Ateneo high school. It was gorgeous. Blue and white lights hung from the trees and in quadrangles, and everything was so peaceful and quiet. The picture I took with my phone (below) looks really ugly though. Don't trust it.
Jay Leno said, "Paradise is the ability to know you're in it before you're cast out of it." If that's true, then I must be in paradise. I'm eight months into my college life and I still find myself feeling that same sense of wonder I felt when I first visited the campus last April. I often think to myself, "Wow, I'm here", the very same words I remember repeating in my mind all throughout the OrSem last June.
But, like Ginoong Devilles said last semester, Ateneo is a mystification. The magic we find in Ateneo is limited only to Ateneo and serves as a shield from the realities of the world outside. For example, in the campus, students leave their bags and even laptops lying out in the open without having any fear of them being stolen. However, any Filipino with common sense will tell you to cling to your belongings like barnacles to a whale (weird analogy) when you're, say, taking a train. Or eating at Jollibee, even if there's a guard around.
Another thing I remember Sir Devilles telling us is this creation of an "otherness". You know how one of the school's main thrusts is that Ateneans are persons for others? Well then, who are those "others"? They're everyone who's NOT an Atenean!
I may be over simplifying things, but that sounds a little bit elitist to me. And while I may be coming off as an elitist myself because of my incessant ranting about how ~magical~ I think my school is, all I'm really trying to say is, "I love my school and I have no regrets about any of the decisions that got me here."
I don't know. Will I still feel this amazed and enchanted by Ateneo in a few month's time? Only God knows. But I'll let you know as soon as the answer comes.
Sunday
Uh-oh. How do I follow that up? I think you might find Sunday's events a bit... mundane. For me, however, they were just as ~magical~ as Saturday's.
Since Health Sci Night is on the 26th, I figured I needed to go looking for something to wear pretty soon. Having nothing better to do, I thought I'd get started on ~shopping~, so I took a taxi to Sta. Lucia Mall in Marikina (i.e. NOT Makati), because I had spent a teensy weensy bit of time there previously and I wanted to see what it was really like.
The taxi driver didn't know how to park in Sta. Lucia, so he ended up dropping me off in Robinson's, and I paid P70 for taxi fare. Not bad...?
I'm glad he did drop me off in the wrong mall, because I'd never been to this particular Robinson's before. I was happy to see that it looked a lot like the one in CDO, only with five floors, of course. After having checked everything out, I exited and walked to Sta. Lucia (right next door, but there isn't a bridge or anything connecting the two buildings, so one has to walk along Marcos Highway to get to the other mall).
Sta. Lucia, as I found out, caters more to the lower middle class. It's no Greenbelt. The stores were mostly selling clothes and cellphones. I did, however, find this adorable little scrapbooking store whose name I did not bother learning. I'm too lazy and un-artistic to keep scrapbooks, but this store just looked really interesting, so I decided to check it out.
They were selling a bunch of cutesy, useless stuff, like jars full of buttons or gigantic, chunky cardboard letters. There were colorful boxes strewn in one corner, and I spent a lot of time ogling them. I have a thing for pretty boxes, even if they are empty. I also adore cute notebooks. The more you know, eh?
I especially loved these boxes full of cutesy paper. It was just so... CUTESY LIKE OMG.
I got up at 4 AM today feeling awake, alert, alive, enthusiastic. Today was the day of Patigasan, the Health Sciences Society's interbatch sports competition! I had signed up for the fun run, which starts at 7. Yesterday I did the math and figured that four was the best time to wake up and get breakfast at Jollibee, but when I woke up and the sky was still so dark, I thought walking to Jollibee was too dangerous (also, I didn't wanna have to step out of the dorm and look for a trike in the dark). So I went back to sleep and woke up at five.
I've always enjoyed walking along Katipunan, especially (okay, friends and family, you may not like what I'm about to say, but I'll say it anyway) at night. Don't worry, of course I don't stay out too late, and I don't go traipsing into the suspicious-looking alleys I pass by either. I just like feeling the cool air, looking at the shops and the lights and the people, even hearing the traffic noise. Oddly, it gets me thinking.
Katipunan at 5 AM is even more spectacular than Katipunan at, say, 8 PM. There's that darkness of the sky that I love about night walks, and the darkness of the streets as well, since most of the shops have closed. The yellowness of the street lights and the coldness of the air make me feel like I'm walking along a pier in Cagayan (oh memories). There are five or six other people on the street, and few cars pass by. It's a strange sort of peace I'm not used to seeing outside of Ateneo, and I enjoyed every single second I spent on that walk this morning.
After breakfast, I walked back to the dorm and the dark sky was beginning to show only traces of morning, as if it had gotten some sort of papercut and was bleeding orange (lame attempt at being descriptive).
At seven, it was Patigasan time. There were more people than I had expected, and we were all gathered outside the Cervini dorm. Before the run itself I had my Fun Run Survival strategy all mapped out in my head, and I had even written this out on a Post-It just so I wouldn't forget:
I "regained" "composure" around my third lap, just jogging behind Bel and Mariel, who would sometimes get a long way ahead of me. But come lap six, Rap and I just ended up walking.
Most of us got six laps total. Not bad, not bad. (Special mention: REN DID ELEVEN LAPS OMG)
After that, we all headed down to the Jesuit seminary covered courts. The path going there is, I think, the most foliage-filled in all of Ateneo. It looks like a jungle down there. So un-Manila-like.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun getting to play with my blockmates. We played dodgeball, "soccer", and frisbee. I was happy.
Also, there was SO MUCH FREE ICE CREAM. And we ate pizza for lunch. A box of alfredo (it's a carbonara-ish pasta) was passed around, but since there was only one fork, the block ended up sharing it. Thankfully I was excused from the spit sharing because I had (and still have) a cough.
Anyway, long story short, the freshmen won. Wooohoo!
(Edit: Please excuse me for writing incoherently and uncreatively. I am, like my euphemisms, tired.)
Saturday
On an impulse, I paid a visit to Cafe Xocolat, the inconspicuous little shop right across Box O' Rice, a few steps from my dorm. At the entrance, I was surprised at how un-cafe-like the store was. It looked a bit like my lola's house before it got renovated. Part of the cafe's charm, I guess, is that it used to be someone's actual home. The inside is wonderful as well, but I will not go into detail; you must visit it yourself. (Oh, and the food was delicious. A bit pricey, but worth it.) I wish I had taken more pictures, but I didn't wanna look like a cafe' n00b. Ugh. How pretentious of me :|
I finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife in the cafe'. I think the baristas got annoyed at me staying for so long, but I didn't really care anymore. What I DID care about was Henry and Clare ;_;
I went jogging that night, and when I was done I just decided, on yet another impulse, to check out the Ateneo high school. It was gorgeous. Blue and white lights hung from the trees and in quadrangles, and everything was so peaceful and quiet. The picture I took with my phone (below) looks really ugly though. Don't trust it.
Jay Leno said, "Paradise is the ability to know you're in it before you're cast out of it." If that's true, then I must be in paradise. I'm eight months into my college life and I still find myself feeling that same sense of wonder I felt when I first visited the campus last April. I often think to myself, "Wow, I'm here", the very same words I remember repeating in my mind all throughout the OrSem last June.
But, like Ginoong Devilles said last semester, Ateneo is a mystification. The magic we find in Ateneo is limited only to Ateneo and serves as a shield from the realities of the world outside. For example, in the campus, students leave their bags and even laptops lying out in the open without having any fear of them being stolen. However, any Filipino with common sense will tell you to cling to your belongings like barnacles to a whale (weird analogy) when you're, say, taking a train. Or eating at Jollibee, even if there's a guard around.
Another thing I remember Sir Devilles telling us is this creation of an "otherness". You know how one of the school's main thrusts is that Ateneans are persons for others? Well then, who are those "others"? They're everyone who's NOT an Atenean!
I may be over simplifying things, but that sounds a little bit elitist to me. And while I may be coming off as an elitist myself because of my incessant ranting about how ~magical~ I think my school is, all I'm really trying to say is, "I love my school and I have no regrets about any of the decisions that got me here."
I don't know. Will I still feel this amazed and enchanted by Ateneo in a few month's time? Only God knows. But I'll let you know as soon as the answer comes.
Sunday
Uh-oh. How do I follow that up? I think you might find Sunday's events a bit... mundane. For me, however, they were just as ~magical~ as Saturday's.
Since Health Sci Night is on the 26th, I figured I needed to go looking for something to wear pretty soon. Having nothing better to do, I thought I'd get started on ~shopping~, so I took a taxi to Sta. Lucia Mall in Marikina (i.e. NOT Makati), because I had spent a teensy weensy bit of time there previously and I wanted to see what it was really like.
The taxi driver didn't know how to park in Sta. Lucia, so he ended up dropping me off in Robinson's, and I paid P70 for taxi fare. Not bad...?
I'm glad he did drop me off in the wrong mall, because I'd never been to this particular Robinson's before. I was happy to see that it looked a lot like the one in CDO, only with five floors, of course. After having checked everything out, I exited and walked to Sta. Lucia (right next door, but there isn't a bridge or anything connecting the two buildings, so one has to walk along Marcos Highway to get to the other mall).
Sta. Lucia, as I found out, caters more to the lower middle class. It's no Greenbelt. The stores were mostly selling clothes and cellphones. I did, however, find this adorable little scrapbooking store whose name I did not bother learning. I'm too lazy and un-artistic to keep scrapbooks, but this store just looked really interesting, so I decided to check it out.
They were selling a bunch of cutesy, useless stuff, like jars full of buttons or gigantic, chunky cardboard letters. There were colorful boxes strewn in one corner, and I spent a lot of time ogling them. I have a thing for pretty boxes, even if they are empty. I also adore cute notebooks. The more you know, eh?
 |
| Ahhhhh so many cute notebooks I don't have a need for! And look at those mini paper roses! |
 |
| Cutesy paper!!! |
It took a lot of me to just suck up my breath and walk away, empty-handed. Because really. I don't think paper with owls on it is going to have a functional purpose in my life any time soon.
In the jeep going back to Katipunan, I realized just how much I loved exploring the city, and how next weekend I'd love to go somewhere farther. I've already got the key points marked out in my map of Manila.
Oh, by the way, the driver of the jeep had an iPhone. Like, an iPhone iPhone, and not a Chinese imitation of it. I wonder if he's got a Mac to connect it to as well.
When I got back to the dorm, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's! Thank you, Jessica!
Note to self: Please watch the following movies. And, shame on you for joining the LFC without having watched these films.
- Fight Club
- Juno
- Star Wars (the whole thing)
- Pulp Fiction
Monday (today - NO CLASS WOOHOO)
I got up at 4 AM today feeling awake, alert, alive, enthusiastic. Today was the day of Patigasan, the Health Sciences Society's interbatch sports competition! I had signed up for the fun run, which starts at 7. Yesterday I did the math and figured that four was the best time to wake up and get breakfast at Jollibee, but when I woke up and the sky was still so dark, I thought walking to Jollibee was too dangerous (also, I didn't wanna have to step out of the dorm and look for a trike in the dark). So I went back to sleep and woke up at five.
I've always enjoyed walking along Katipunan, especially (okay, friends and family, you may not like what I'm about to say, but I'll say it anyway) at night. Don't worry, of course I don't stay out too late, and I don't go traipsing into the suspicious-looking alleys I pass by either. I just like feeling the cool air, looking at the shops and the lights and the people, even hearing the traffic noise. Oddly, it gets me thinking.
Katipunan at 5 AM is even more spectacular than Katipunan at, say, 8 PM. There's that darkness of the sky that I love about night walks, and the darkness of the streets as well, since most of the shops have closed. The yellowness of the street lights and the coldness of the air make me feel like I'm walking along a pier in Cagayan (oh memories). There are five or six other people on the street, and few cars pass by. It's a strange sort of peace I'm not used to seeing outside of Ateneo, and I enjoyed every single second I spent on that walk this morning.
After breakfast, I walked back to the dorm and the dark sky was beginning to show only traces of morning, as if it had gotten some sort of papercut and was bleeding orange (lame attempt at being descriptive).
At seven, it was Patigasan time. There were more people than I had expected, and we were all gathered outside the Cervini dorm. Before the run itself I had my Fun Run Survival strategy all mapped out in my head, and I had even written this out on a Post-It just so I wouldn't forget:
The key is conserving energy, so no matter how tempting it is to try to outrun other people, keep to your own pace.I ended up dizzy and out-of-breath around three minutes into the run. Everyone else was so fast, I didn't wanna be left behind :|
I "regained" "composure" around my third lap, just jogging behind Bel and Mariel, who would sometimes get a long way ahead of me. But come lap six, Rap and I just ended up walking.
Most of us got six laps total. Not bad, not bad. (Special mention: REN DID ELEVEN LAPS OMG)
After that, we all headed down to the Jesuit seminary covered courts. The path going there is, I think, the most foliage-filled in all of Ateneo. It looks like a jungle down there. So un-Manila-like.
 |
| See those green things off in the distance? TREES :O |
Also, there was SO MUCH FREE ICE CREAM. And we ate pizza for lunch. A box of alfredo (it's a carbonara-ish pasta) was passed around, but since there was only one fork, the block ended up sharing it. Thankfully I was excused from the spit sharing because I had (and still have) a cough.
Anyway, long story short, the freshmen won. Wooohoo!
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| Health Sciences 2014! (credits: Jonnecker Kingsu) |
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| (a little bit of) Block XX! Look at our pretty ~trophy~ that's ~gold~ (credits: Jonnecker Kingsu) [You can click on the picture, or any of these pictures, for that matter, for a better view] |
I love your blog so much!:) keep it up.
ReplyDeleteOHMYGOSH!!! Is this for realz? :)) Thank you so much! >:D<
ReplyDelete