Saturday, July 18, 2009

Late as the Blue Worms


Rain, rain please go away! Come again another day. Well, that’s my wish: to make the rain stop for just this day. As an info, the tropical storm “Isang” already left the Philippine Area of Responsibility and that, for me, delivered good news and bad news. The bad news is that classes resume and the twist, it’s a Saturday! x( The good news is that the class’ tour in Ateneo de Manila University would still go on. A big “YEHEY” for that!

4:13am, the time I woke up from my pleasant dream because of my silly noisy alarm clock. It’s a rainy Saturday and guess what, I have classes because it’s our 1st Monthly examinations (subjects are Physics, Social Studies, Basic Accounting and Filipino). I left home at around 6:00am and arrived at school 30 minutes after. When I arrived, as usual my classmates were noisy as they review. An hour passed and exams began.

Filipino was a major headache. Even I read the whole first 3 chapters of El Filibusterismo, what made the test quite hard was the “vocabulary words part (talasalitaan)” wherein we have to scramble the jumbled letters. The definitions given were very unfamiliar and not discussed to us. Physics was okay but Accounting was quite confusing. Our guidance councelotr Mrs. Jona Cruz was already outside the corridor waiting for us (top 10 students of the previous year) for the seminar that would be held in ADMU. I panicked because we’re about to leave and answered the test as fast as I could. After the tests, we (10) left the school campus (*we have a service at last! X).

After almost a hour of travel, there we were: ADMU: Ateneo de Manila University. It’s so big and we got even lost finding the correct gate where the seminar would be held! Upon arriving, 11 of us (10 students & the guidance councelor) signed up. We entered a very large, BLUE room wherein they call it as “Leong Hall Auditorium” if I wasn’t mistaken. Funny thing happened inside was that we only sat there for attendance and later called back outside for the campus tour. We were accompanied by another school who are also participants and our tour guide’s Ms. Nadine, a Senior in the said school.

She took us to the different wide & huge areas, buildings and hang-outs inside the campus. All I could do was to open my mouth because they were all so BIG! The structures are named after their “creators” and most of what we’ve seen were “tongue-twister” and Chinese names such as the Schmitt, Burchman’s and I forgot the rest of them. The place’s like a paradise and you could really see the “freedom of the students” to relax, hang-out and study quietly and even privately. There were several wide benches, countless areas of grass, fresh air comes from dozens of trees, cool rooms, huge libraries, what more could a student studying there ask for? They have 2 libraries, one’s old and when we got there we saw the “making” of the new library. Then, as we walk inside, I took the advantage of taking the “stones of Ateneo” (it’s been one of my behaviors to take stones or rocks as my souvenirs when I go to different places, and FYI, it’s my 37th stone! :D) Most of us (CCCians) were quite humorous and called each thing we see inside the campus as “... of Ateneo” such as “nalalanghap natin hangin (air) ng Ateneo”. :D

After the 1-hour tiring tour,we proceeded to the 4th floor of the first building but we had to survive the 87 stair steps (and we made it! :D) and there the most exciting part of the tour took place: eating time! Several schools arrived before us and of course we’re excited to taste the pagkain of Ateneo! We had macaroni lasagna, egg sandwich, pemiento sandwich and Zest-O juice drink. Well, we hadn’t take our recess break at school so gave our best “performance” there in the cafeteria! 4 of us finished all 4 components while I hadn’t finish my pemiento sandwich and the rest of the girls. I’m really a picky person when it comes to food and I admit it. As we eat our delicious food, there’s a surprise guest in the cafeteria and it’s none other than, Mr. Robi Domingo of Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition Plus! Girls inside the area screamed like aliens when they saw the True-Blue Atenista. He’s the 15th actor I’ve seen in personal and his face is just the same when he’s at TV (of course). We decided to have “picture-taking” with him but he left immediately. Ouch for the girls and too bad I didn’t bring any remembrance of himfor my mom who like him. :D After the 5-minute commotion, everyone went back in the eating business. My classmate Shar decided to give her bread to me and I chose to take home the tinapay of Ateneo. What comes next after eating? What else, picture-taking each angle of the place. xD

1:00pm we finished the “bonus round” and we thought that our mission’s done: we saw an Atenista actor and we ate (xD). After we had our bathroom break inside the white and sparkling lavatories, we went back inside the auditorium. There the seminar REALLY began. The title of the event was “The Public and Parochial High School Orientation” lead by Ms. Camille which was about “why Ateneo is the school to choose”. There we learned that the motto of the school’s “Excellence is a choice. Excellence is the Ateneo way.” While we’re waiting for the program to start, a 7-minute video of stunning photography of Ateneo was presented to us. Me and Pau were commenting on each nice photo featured in the slideshow and that made me be aspired to have my 3rd course of choice: Photography. After the slide, the program began, with singing of the anthem and a video which served as our prayer.

The seminar featured 2 speakers, one Atenista and one from another school. The Atenista girl’s Ms. Miriam who presented a video AGAIN, featuring numerous Atenistas talking and describing their home, Ateneo. I could remember that Robi’s there AGAIN xD, Chris Tiu and Nikki Gil. Ms. Miriam discussed different courses offered by the school which were separated in 4 Loyola Schools. I found my “course” which is BS Biology or BS Life Sciences in the school of Science and Engineering. As I was inside the auditorium, I realized that people from Ateneo really speak fluently in English and really are smart, and I think I’m not deserving to be there if ever I’d pass the ACET (entrance exam). As of now, I’m really afraid of going to college for so many reasons:

1.) Life will get complicated
2.) My communication skills are not that good
3.) More sleepless nights
4.) Afraid of being separated away from my friends.

After the 1st speaker, Ms. Fatima Panglinan whom she came from Rizal University I think and now a 3rd Year college student in ADMU. I was really inspired by her story (even she’s still sick making her speech in...straight Filipino) that she began elementary in private school then transferred in public when she went High School. She lost hope and became pessimistic that “Paano ako makakapasok sa school na gusto ko, isa lang akong public school student? (how can I enter the school I like, I’m just a public school student?”.) But she gave her best and now, she’s an Atenista. Wow! I’d like to be like her. I feel down whenever I’m thinking the same thing. Her speech gave me courage that I can do it! :D

Then, the seminar ended. But before that, questions were entertained regarding the applications. There’s one student who’s very funny and caught the “eye” of the “audience” because of his slow, DJ-like way of talking in straight Filipino !” Haha he’s so funny and he asked 3 questions I think which made the sleepyheads inside the room wake up.
“Nais ko sanang maitanong po sa inyo kung paano ninyo ako mahihikayat na dito mag-aral sa Ateneo de Manila University.”

After the whole thing, we left ADMU. I performed my last “touches” and “waves” inside the campus. My wish of visiting my dream school finally came true. I was 1st year when my visit there got intervened because I had flu during that time. Going back, while we were inside the service vehicle, we had comments about entering the school + music & food trip. The application forms given to us were free of charge instead of P500 and we decided to pass them together in July 24. We had our final laughs for the trip and then came home.

Last laugh of our talk:

“Kailan kayo manunuod ng “Transformer?” SHAR-
“Isa lang papanuorin niyo? Transformer?” –LANCE- LOL!


*picture from www.abs-cbn.com
*blue eagle picture from http://basketballkenneth.blogspot.com/

3 remarks:

raiChie_0823 said...

waw....nkita nyu tlagah si robi...??....hahaha....:D

Superjaid said...

wag kang matakot magcollege,it may really be a big change..pero masayang maging college lalo na kapag gusto mo talaga yung course na kukunin mo..Ü kaya mo yan,go,go,go!^__^

Traveliztera said...

future blue eagle na ba hehehe

nice...si robi... ! hehehe

masaya sa ateneo hehehehe... good luck sa college life a! enjoyin mo ang highschool days mong natitira dhl super kakamiss... pero magugustuhan mo sa college. :)

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