Syagit

          I went to Syagit 2012 last night, and I only have one non-blurry picture to show for it:

         For those who don't know, syagit is "scream" in Bisaya. I don't mean to say that to "syagit" is to "scream in Bisaya." The Tagalog counterpart of syagit is sigaw, and its English counterpart is yell, or shout. You get the picture.

         But that's not important. Syagit 2012, the event, is a fiesta away from home for people who are from Cagayan de Oro and are now in Manila. It happens every August, during the actual fiesta of CDO. And it's always organized by UP Kagayhaan, which is this org in UP for people from CDO. Pretty specific, right?

         On the plane coming here I sat next to this girl named Christine (or is it Khristine, or Karen) and we actually spent the whole flight talking. (It was the first time I'd ever had a real conversation with a stranger on a plane.) She's a lawyer who, like me, came from CDO and studied in AdMU. At the end of the flight she even gave me her calling card and said to call her if I needed anything. I said, "Thanks, I'll call you if I get into any legal entanglements." She said, "I hope you don't." 

         Anyway, the reason I bring up Karen (or Christine or Khristine - I'm too lazy to go check her card) is that she was telling me that there used to be an org in Ateneo for Kagay-anons like us. She said that there actually used to be an even bigger org that united all Kagay-anons from UP, AdMU, UST, and DLSU. I wonder where that went. I would love to be part of an org like that and surround myself with people from home. 

         Okay, so back to Syagit.

         

         From what I'd been hearing about it from my friends (and from the Facebook events page), Syagit is supposed to be like a fiesta away from home. So I was expecting banderitas, a big stage, lots of excited people speaking Bisaya, and okay, some alcohol (that I would vehemently refuse [hello dear parents]!). Instead, what I got was a cramped venue (it was in Moonleaf Maginhawa), lots of hipsters I didn't know, and a milk tea that didn't have pearls in it. 

         And nobody was speaking Bisaya! :(

         I did get to see my high school friends Joseph and Donna again, but we didn't talk much. They both had organizer things to do. Overall, the event was a little disappointing. I wanted to sit down with Rap somewhere and listen to the performers (who weren't even up on a stage. They were just... there), but most of the tables were either wet from the rain or surrounded by packs of smokers. So we ended up sipping milk tea from inside the cafe (if you can call Moonleaf a cafe), listening to the muffled sounds of music coming from the outside. 

        But at least there was space for conversation. Because it was a topic that had been on my mind frequently, I talked about things that scared me. Or rather, doing the things that scared me. I talked about how if you lived a peaceful life where you contented yourself with doing only comfortable things and never pushed yourself beyond your limits, you would never have really lived. Like if you like reading books, and all you ever did was read books, or buy books, or read about books, then on your deathbed would you not be saying "I wish I had done something more"? 

        And then Rap talked about how you don't need to do things that scare you if you really don't want to. Like taking sword swallowing classes. Or entering a poop-eating contest. "I doubt you'll ever think when you're old, 'I wish I had entered that contest.'" 

        He told me that instead of forcing yourself to do things you absolutely do not want to, you should instead do the things that you DO want to do, but scare you. He said this like it's something he's always known. It surprised me because I'd been looking for that answer for a long time, and here he just says it like it's the easiest thing in the world.

       Here are a few things that I want to do but am too scared to:

1. bungee jump
2. wear a dress to school 
3. sneak into an event (like go to a concert without paying hehehe)
4. strike up a conversation with a stranger in the elevator
5. fall in love

       Just kidding about that last one. HAHAHA. I remember asking a similar question on Formspring before ("What do you want to do, but are too scared to?") and mostly everybody answered "fall in love." Blech. I also remember asking "What's the biggest lie you tell people?" and they answered "That I'm okay..." BLECH!!!! Seriously, people? Emo is so 2003! 

      So anyway, going back to Syagit. Rap and I decided to leave pretty early (we spent a little over an hour there), since we had finished our milk teas and I had gotten pretty bored. It was 9:30 on a Saturday night, and we didn't feel like going home yet. So he called up Bel, our blockmate, and within minutes we picked her up and headed off to... uh, this Mexican restaurant in Katipunan...

     We talked a lot and ate nachos a lot. The conversation was quite interesting but it would be unwise to post snippets of it here. Come 11:00, it was time to go home. I went to sleep feeling happy that my night hadn't ended at 9:30.

          Today I'll probably be working on stuff for SA. Bungee jumping still scares me. But I wish I had money so I could go shopping for a dress.