Day Four

May 28^th, 2011

Jeez, they weren’t kidding about the down and dirty part.

So for the final day of the ME Prep Course, our venue changed from Escaler Hall to Leong Hall. Leong Hall was way bigger than Escaler Hall, and it was colder, too.

Today we didn’t start with an exercise, instead… well, I can’t remember what we started with. All I remember is that there would be a talent show before lunch, so we should practice. Oh, now I remember what we did. We had more talks.

The first talk was from this guy who shifted out of ME. When the screen showed ‘Shifting Out of ME’ we all went “Ohhh…”

Elroy Rendor

An incoming senior currently taking up AB Developmental Studies and taking a Minor in Filipino Literature

Though being an ME student is such a big honor, Elroy has chosen to shift out of the course for reasons only he himself know. However, shifting out of ME even gave Elroy a lot of opportunities during his stay in the Ateneo Loyola Schools. In fact, he is currently the President of the Developmental Society of Ateneo, the home org for AB Developmental Studies majors.

But this guy shifted out of ME intentionally because he felt that it wasn’t the course for him. He was probably my least favourite speaker from the entire Prep Course, mainly because he was talking about his passion for Filipino literature.

Another speaker was this guy who, after graduating from ME, worked at Unilever and got promoted 6 times in 7 years (wow) before he quit and co-founded Happinoy (I don’t know if that’s the exact spelling). He talked about ME students learning Corporate Social Responsibility.

Mark Joaquin Ruiz

Graduated in 1999 BS ME

Mr. Mark Ruiz spent seven years of his life working in Unilever Philippines. He has had a number of different positions in the company but later on decided to pursue his true passion: social development. Mr. Ruiz is currently the Managing Director of Hapinoy and the Founding Partner and Vice-Chairman of Rags2Riches, a social business enterprise helping a Payatas-based community create fashion-designer items from recycled rags.

He was another speaker that I connected with because he said that his dream was “to change the world” and yeah, he acknowledged that it was cliché. He pointed out that remote areas had no access to the supplies that they need, and they also don’t have access to the market to sell their produce.

The final speaker for the entire course came as a surprise. The hosts—by the way, I remembered their names! Kim, Paui, and Mark—said that he was someone we already know. It turned out to be this other gay guy (the other gay is Mark) who used to host the Prep Course for the earlier batches. He also hosted our Prep Course and made a lot of jokes. His topic was what we all were dreading: what happens when you’re forced to shift out of ME.

Mico Suba

An incoming senior taking up BS Management

Mico Suba was forced to shift out of ME after he got his second D during his second year in the Ateneo. However, amidst being forced to shift out of ME, Mico has managed to show everyone that being in another course is not bad at all. In fact, Mico is not the Business Cluster Head for the Council of Organizations in the Ateneo.

This guy was really funny. He always says this “echos” thing that makes us laugh. So he recalled how he was asked to shift out of ME because he got a D in Accounting under our previous speaker, Dr. Darwin Yu. He said he even tried to beg, and was daring enough to jokingly flirt with Dr. Yu haha. But wala talaga, he was forced to shift out to Management.

He told us at the beginning about his achievements in the Ateneo High School. He was really smart, got exempted from many exams, he was a winner of many awards, etc. And just like that, he was out of ME. He told us that it wasn’t until 2^nd Sem 3^rd year that he finally told his parents that he wasn’t in ME anymore.

But when asked if he could have a second chance, he said he wouldn’t do it differently because after getting out of ME, he wanted to feel better about himself so he joined many organizations.

Anyway, I can’t remember much of what happened during the talks…

So next was the Talent Show. Since the guys on our team were epic dancers, we decided to dance to this song I can’t remember the title of. I am a person who really hates dancing, but when we entered the Hall again after practice Cam Ang said we should do our best and “walang hiya-hiya!” so somehow when team Star Wars was called on to the front, I danced for fun for the first time in a long time. And get this, I even had a semi-solo freestyle haha, by semi-solo, I mean there were two of us. But I was forced to do that, so that doesn’t really count as daring…

So they told us to get ready for lunch and leave our stuff because after lunch we would immediately start off with the Amazing Race. Oh! I just remembered about some of the talents.

The most famous one would probably be the beatbox girl. She was really good. And the guy who can finish a Rubik’s cube in less than 20 seconds, and a 4x4 one in less than 90 seconds. These were probably the more stand-out talents, because the rest were just good dancers or good singers.

So after all the teams finished showing their talents, the hosts said that all the seniors saw that there were a lot of really good dancers so they decided to have a dance-off. They were five people, and yeah they made us go “woaaah!” But nothing you can’t see on TV. Enrique and Rommel were a part of that. There was also this one girl who was really good.

It’s now time to explain the Amazing Race. It was EPIC. Basically we had two hours to complete as much tasks as possible, there would be 16 stations all around campus and we were 14 teams so that gave us some margin. There were designated people in charge of each station and they would give us points based on our performance in the tasks.

The first task was to tie our ankles together and we had to run across SEC field to our team flags. We would then get the flag, cut ourselves free and move on to the next station.

We had a problem walking together so we decided to hop on our left foot since the ribbon was tied on all our right feet. But then when we did get there, our knots were really tight, and we didn’t have any scissors (Aldrich ran off to get some but he wasn’t there yet) so we were kinda the last team left of the field haha. Cam Ang and Paeng Valenzuela even had to help us get out of the ribbons haha.

So then we ran to… I don’t know the name of the building, but we ran towards it. The next station there was a white square tarpaulin on the floor and the rules were that we had to flip the white square while we were all inside it (we were 12 and the tarpaulin was like, a square meter) and we couldn’t let our feet touch the ground. So imagine twelve people squished together on top of a white square tarpaulin trying to flip it without ever leaving it.

Note: If you recall, I said we were 13 in team Star Wars (not including the facis) and yes, we are 13, but sadly Caje couldn’t join us because he was having family problems (I overheard Aldrich).

We managed to do that by folding it and then tucking the edge between our feet and then jumping all at the same time. We had a five-minute time limit and we did it with few seconds to spare.

The next station was right beside it. There was a cooler, ice water, and some apples. You can already guess what we had to do. We had to dunk our heads in the freezing cold water and transfer an apple to another container beside it without using our hands. And remember, it was raining THE WHOLE DAY so we had to dunk our heads in ice-cold water and then stay under the rain.

It was really easy for me to get the apple, but harder for the others. So after that we ran to a small clearing in the forest-like places where there were upperclassmen with water guns. The next task only required 10 freshies so I didn’t join because I didn’t like getting water gunned in my eyes. So their task was kinda like that baseball bat thing where you spin around for like, ten times and then you try to run. But instead of running, they had to frog jump and go around an orange marker. One of my teammates got really dizzy and stumbled around like he was drunk.

So the next station was where it got really dirty. There was this supposed ‘electrical wire’ (made of string) that we had to go over without touching it. The boys lifted the smallest but fairly strong boy in our team, Sam, first and then next was Enrique. So now we had two boys on one side, and two boys on the other to just lift the girls and the rest up and over the electrical wire. We have this one heavy guy, the same guy who stumbled around, and so he went third to the last. The last was Rommel and his was the most epic. He’s a dancer, remember, so he took a few steps back and started running towards it and did a 360 flip and landed on his back on the floor.

The floor was full of that light brown clay-ish mud that made a weird splack sound when you land on it. Rommel wasn’t hurt, his shirt just got really brown.

Our next stop was—wait, you should understand that this isn’t just any ordinary walking around to the next stop, this was RUNNING like freaking hell to every stop! So we ran to the next station and the task was for two people, they tied a stocking around their waist and on the end of the stocking was a tennis ball. Their task was to try and knock out bottled spread across the small field using the tennis ball.

After that task we did a bunch of other physically challenging tasks. There was one where we had to use our hair (we were four girls in the team, the guys just used their hands) to transfer water from one bucket to another. The water just dripped to the floor all the time, and don’t forget: it’s still raining. Every single task we did, we did under the rain.

There was also a task where you slide on your tummy under strings; you’re not supposed to touch the strings.

There was also a task where you lay flat on your stomach side by side, then one person rolls on top and then the next person, and so on.

There was also a task where we had to carry a tire like, a block distance away—UPHILL--and shoot it through a pole, all the time holding it. We were twelve people trying to hold a tire. Some of us just pretended to hold it, but holding it wasn’t the challenging part, it was walking back and forth THREE TIMES.

There was also a fun task at the Social Sciences building where we weren’t allowed to speak, and we had to follow the instructions given to us without making any noise. The first task was to line ourselves according to height; the next was according to foot size, and the last according to tongue length.

There was also a weird task where we had to pass around an orange using only our mouths. That was really awkward because for some reason, we were positioned boy-girl-boy-girl when that wasn’t even a requirement.

There was also a task where we had to eat this Sweet Corn, marshmallow, and chocolate syrup mixture without using our hands. And after we finished that, one guy had to sift through a bowl of flour to look for the hidden Polo candy… using his FACE. This is when things got crazy. Remember when I told you that Micx was going to do something crazy? Well, this is it:

While the person in charge was explaining, she cracked an egg over the flour mixture, and we were all “ohhh” and then when they said “go!” Micx simply ate the raw egg. He opened his mouth to the one in charge (I think her name was Coco) to show that there was none left and she just stared in horror at Micx.

We all stood there for, like, three seconds, frozen.Then somebody somewhere yelled “di mo kakainin!” then we all erupted into laughter. Micx was still clueless so that Coco girl explained that he had to find the Polo candy and not eat the raw egg.

Another task we did was in the middle of a soccer field (still under the heavy rain). There was a stretcher made of bamboo and cloth and two guys had to carry everyone halfway across the field to two chairs one by one.

There was also a task at the JSEC where one of us had to be blindfolded (it was Rommel) and the rest of us would run to cups placed on tables far away and then hop on one foot back to Rommel and give him the drink. He would then have to taste it and guess what drink it was. We got 8 out of 15, I think.

There were other stations but we could only do those in the span of two hours. We then ran back to the walkway in between the SEC and JGSOM buildings to hang our team flag on the clothesline. We were, I think, the fourth team to finish.

Tired and aching, we shlopped-shlopped (our shoes were filled with water) back to the bathrooms beside Leong Hall and I stayed in the stall for maybe 15-20 minutes because I wore skinny jeans and they’re really hard to get out when wet. Plus my Converse shoes were boots-ish with double laces so that took me 5 minutes to get off.

I left the comfort room barefoot because my feet were aching so bad and just fell so good being released, and my shoes we dripping wet. We weren’t allowed to make a mess in Leong Hall so that was another reason why I didn’t wear my shoes in.

And also, remember my pitifully damaged Motorola phone? Well it just got even more damaged because I kept it in my pocket throughout the Amazing Race. Remember, we lay down on wet grass and mud and rolled around and ran through the pouring rain. It’s safe to say that it’s pretty much like I dunked my phone in a bucket of water and swirled it around several times.

Every time we had an activity outside the halls (Escaler and Leong), the hosts (Kim, Paui, Mark, and the gay guest-host, Mico) always do this matchmaking game. They call in freshmen guys and introduce them to the VIP people of MEA like President Tel Ang. Then they’re asked hypothetical questions like, ‘if you were to take Tel on a date, where would you go and why?’ and the guys would have to answer.

It wasn’t an official game; it was just something they did to pass the time while waiting for the other teams.

The last part of the program was the awarding ceremony, there were individual awards and there were group awards. Team Star Wars won twice; once for being 2^nd place in the Hollywood Squares game, and the second time for being the overall 1^st runners up. Yaay!

The ME Uncut Movie

One more thing, throughout the three-day Prep Course, as a clever introduction to each speaker, the MEA made a short film starring Rafael Valenzuela and Cam Ang, the project heads for the ME Prep Course 2011. The movie was a mix of Saw, Inception, Sucker Punch, and the movies that made up the different teams.

The plot went like this: for some reason, Paeng (Rafael) got an F and was in some sort of detention place, and then Cam came and saw his F and was like, “F ka nanaman?” and Paeng said, “At least di ako cheater like you!” and then they started arguing.

Then suddenly, everything stopped, and a voice said that they had an hour to find a glass, or else they would die, or something like that. So they went to look for this Starbucks glass cup thing. The voice also said that there was a bomb in the school and they had to find it and diffuse it. The bomb was planted by a non-ME student. In order to find out who planted the bomb, we had a talk about ‘what makes an ME student’.

Throughout their adventures, Paeng and Cam Ang kept meeting the TLC’s of the teams who were dressed up as their characters.

Somehow they got trapped inside a room haha, and they saw the bomb, which was either an iPod Touch or an iPhone. They made a light joke about La Salle here because there was a green button and someone said “Don’t press the green button! It’s green eh, ;)” and we laughed.

So after they were able to diffuse the bomb using stuff they learned from ME, the glass Starbucks cup thingy appeared. The voice then said they had to find more things: a key, a map, and the last thing was a mystery (Sucker Punch haha).

They found the map with the pirates from the Pirates of the Caribbean team. Then Cam was “kidnapped” and Paeng was alone, trying to find her. While he was searching for her, he saw one of our funny bading hosts, Mark, preparing to jump off the ledge or something. Paeng asked why Mark wanted to jump and Mark said something about how ME was really hard and he wanted to shift out na. Then we began our talks about shifting out.

A funny part there was when Paeng asked Mark how he felt ba talaga and Mark had a flashback to him singing ‘Bleeding Love’ and dancing around a black curtain.

So somehow Paeng found out that it was Jacob Black from team Twilight who kidnapped Cam Ang and this other girl. Jacob said that he hated ME students because he wasn’t able to make it in the course. Jacob had a flashback to his times with Edward (the other TFC of team Twilight), when they used to run around the Ateneo campus.

While he was flashbacking, Paeng freed Cam and the other girl and they started running. Jacob caught up to them and Paeng said “Let me handle this,” and they fought kung-fu style. Paeng won and Jacob disintegrated and left behind a necklace with a key on it. Paeng caught up with Cam and there was a kilig moment when he put the necklace on Cam hahaha.

There were other more adventures with the other TLC’s but I can’t remember much, eh. There was also this part like Slumdog Millionaire where, in the video, Paeng and Cam entered Escaler Hall (where we were at that time) and then, in real life, they were acting in the Hall with us there. So on the projector screen there was the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire question thingy and the questions were like, ‘what do you call the Math for Management Engineering?’ and they chose ‘Call a Friend’ and so we had the talk with Mr. Chan Shio (do you remember him?) about Ma18 a/b haha.

Another question was ‘what field do ME students usually end up in’ and the correct answer was, of course, the one about financial or business whatever, but the choice for D was Medicine and Paeng chose ‘Ask the Audience’ and we were yelling “D! D! D!” so that kinda ruined their plan haha.

But it was alright because that’s when we had the talk with that guy from P&G.

So finally, the last part of their adventure: the mystery. If you watched Sucker Punch, you’d know that it would be a sacrifice. So they went to the MVP building and to the elevators there. The voice said that there would be a message on top of the red button (the red button was the fire alarm). Cam took the piece of paper and read out loud, “The one who enters the elevator… will leave this limbo.” Not her exact words, but you get the point haha.

So they started arguing about who should go in. Cam was saying that she never really sacrificed anything in her life, and that she was a cheater and she deserved to stay in limbo, and that Paeng should be the one to go. Paeng refused, he said that she should be the one to go in the elevator (I don’t remember his argument haha).

The elevator doors opened… and inside the elevator were my TLC’s!!! Hahahaha, Aldrich and Bea were in there dressed in their Star Wars outfits. Bea asked something like, “So who’s going in?” and, having no choice, Cam went in.

Funny fact, Aldrich plays Anakin Skywalker, who is also Darth Vader, and if you watched Star Wars you’d know that Darth Vader breathes like an asthmatic person, so Aldrich was breathing so loudly behind Cam like “Fssshhhh, Fshhhh!”and he was staring at the camera.

So Cam entered and Paeng had to be left behind in limbo; they played emotional music and everything was in slow motion when the elevator doors closed.

Paeng looked at the floor and saw the crumpled piece of paper and he read it to himself. It said, “The one who enters the elevator will be stuck in limbo forever…” or something like that. Then we were all “woahhhh” and Paeng was devastated hahaha he started walking around like he was lost.

Then he woke up and he was back in the detention-like room, but Cam wasn’t there anymore, she was supposedly stuck in limbo then. So he left the room and was looking really sad, he was walking by the glass stairs in the JGSOM building. He was looking down at the floor so he didn’t notice the girl he bumped into. They both dropped some stuff and when they bent to pick them up, Paeng saw that it was Cam Ang and didn’t bother picking the stuff up anymore.

I don’t think Cam remembered what happened in limbo because she walked away kaagad . And when Paeng called her she said, “Ano? Tatawagan mo nanaman akong cheater? “ and started walking away again. Paeng did this goofy smile and then ran after her (it’s supposed to be romantic haha). Then the camera panned down and showed the stuff that Paeng dropped. It was his token shaped like a top. If you watched Inception, you’d know that their tokens determine whether they were still dreaming or not.

The token was still spinning.

Oh! There’s one more thing I have to say about ME that isn’t said much online because I heard it the first time during ME Prep Course.

There is an old saying in ME:

“Look to your left.”

We looked to the person on our left.

“Look to your right.”

We looked to the person on our right.

“One of you won’t be able to finish ME.”

Obviously we were all “woaaaaahhhhhhhhh” when they first told us that. But every speaker that we had also mentioned that and said that it wasn’t true. We are a batch of 222 people. Professor Chan Shio or… something like that… even said that maybe 100+ of us will graduate.

So anyway… our prize for winning 1^st runner up, by the way, was a lot of Fudgie Bars and Jelly Sticks. We also endorsed Fit n Right while doing the task in the middle of the soccer field. We drank Fit n Right in the rain and looked sexy.

I can’t think of any more, so bye-bye.

And oh yeah, one last thing… remember when I said waking up at 4, going back to sleep, and then waking up at 5 again was relevant throughout the story? Yeah, I lied. It’s not.

I’d like to acknowledge the sponsors of this event

Jansport, Yoh Froz, hp, Krispy Kreme, Lipton, Rebisco, Fit ‘n Right, Dewberry, Pepsi, and Bacchus.

Speaking of Bacchus, they gave us Bacchus energy drinks after lunch today to get us high and energized so we could perform the tasks. I didn’t drink mine because I’m strict about what I drink. There are a lot of things more that I could say but just can’t remember.

EDIT: I just saw an article on Yahoo! that children should not be drinking energy drinks. I'm a child at heart, so it's a good thing I didn't drink Bacchus. #:-S

Day Three: Weird "Dehjaboo" Day

Note: If you're unfamiliar with the joke in the title... well, I'm making fun of a teacher at my High school (EDIT: I can't believe I wrote the actual name haha) because she called deja vu 'dehjaboo'. I don't mean that in a bad way.

Day Three – Day Two of the Prep Course

May 27^th, 2011

Today went so much better than yesterday. After consoling myself through my blog and accepting that I should just work hard to stay in ME rather than beat everyone else, I started the day feeling tentative. I had no idea how the advertising game would go, and how it would make me feel.

Today was also a pretty weird day. So weird, in fact, that it seems almost unbelievable. For starters, let me tell you about the Secret Task.

Each team (if you can recall the teams) member of a team has to do a ‘Secret Task’ that only he/she knows about. It’s scribbled on a piece of blue paper with your name on it. Mine was ‘Tell a knock-knock joke to 5 of your team members.’ I had to ask help from my very special and very helpful friend, Alex who told me about a few knock-knock jokes that made me laugh. The problem was actually getting the courage to tell these to my teammates.

EDIT: I realized that I wasn’t able to do the secret task because it slipped my mind. I wonder if Aldrich and Bea know...

I planned on telling them during lunch, but when lunch came, the timing just wasn’t right. I decided to just go after them one on one. So during lunch my other teammate, Chrissie, was reacting to her Secret Task. While she was trying to convince my other teammate, Matthew, to help her do it without actually telling him what it was, my mind wandered…

I imagined if my Secret Task was to do the thing in 500 Days of Summer when you have to say ‘penis’ and the next person has to say it louder and you keep going. After lunch, we were asked to head back to Escaler Hall when Chrissie came up to me and asked, “Do you want to help me do my secret task? Did you watch 500 Days of Summer?” and I said, “Hang on… I think I know what you’re task is!” and she said “Yeah!” and then we laughed and laughed.

She did it with our other team mate as we walked back to the Hall, they were yelling ‘PENIS!’ although Enrique was saying it like ‘pee-NISSSS!’ to hide the fact that he was actually saying ‘penis.’

This task eventually led to the changing of our Star Wars team yell to ‘Vwoosh, vwooosh, PENIS!’ (the ‘vwoosh’ is the lightsaber sound)

And BELIEVE ME, I had no idea that that was her secret task at all. I didn’t even subconsciously know that that was her task, so it was really weird that I thought of the 500 Days thing out of nowhere. Mmmm... female intuition...

Another weird thing that I can’t explain is my other teammate Micx (I don’t know his last name or his real name but I know he’s on Facebook). It’s like I’ve seen him before, but maybe that’s just because he looks like a thinner version of Jag-Jag’s older brother. He’s white, wears glasses, and has acne. And he is also a dancer and walks kind of… you know... (I know because I walked a few paces behind him on the way to the bathroom). Anyway, he has this older brother who was part of the Traveling Salesman game. I think I better explain to you the game, or else you’ll be slightly confused.

So on the first day of ME Prep Course, towards the end we were asked to make a Hollywood star. (Make her top, bottoms, and accessories and give him/her a whole new persona) Yesterday, we also completed the ‘prototype’ of our design. To give you a brief description of what my group mates decided (emphasis on my group mates because I, having no interest or experience in fashion, didn’t really participate in the designing part) it was like this:

We all had to buy one plain white shirt because that was what we mainly had to sell to the people. So our plain white shirt was decorated with a black and red gothic star look with other splattered-looking designs. It was really very simple which—today—turned out to be a really good thing. (EDIT: Because we had to make the shirts talaga so the simpler the better so we could finish faster. There was a time limit kasi.) **(EDIT: Oh, God, I'm such a conyo loser.) The upper part of the shirt was bare because the boys managed to haggle a couple of beaded necklaces that we could use as accessories.

The skirt was made up of three layers of scrap cloth—yellow, green, and purple (it was likened to many things, among them halo-halo and eggplant) masking-taped, yes, MASKING TAPED, together. We opted against buying thread and needles because they cost so freaking much.

If I hadn’t already told you, the people selling (it’s all fake selling, we used imaginary money) have really high mark-ups apparently (I don't really know what that means, but I'll use it for now). For example, a P7.00 paint brush was sold for, like, P40.00.

So anyway, we were talking about Micx, right. But I have to explain the game so please keep up.

After we dressed up our model, which was Chrissie, we had to perform a commercial. We went with Lady Gaga and her song ‘Poker Face’. The boys in my team were mostly dancers, so they played Lady Gogo’s (yes, the name is extremely lame and so is the reason: ‘because she’s always on the go-go’) back-up dancers. I played a fan and the designer of the shirt when I actually just helped in making it.

Our performance was okay, but the other teams’ were just really nice and well thought-of. No bitter feelings here haha, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It was really fun. I had never been less nervous about going on stage in front of 200+ people before.

So our comment from the freakishly strict Bianca (?) was that the dancers were really good, and she was also the one who called our skirt eggplant-looking. Oh! And she said that it was fitting that we chose Lady Gaga because Chrissie looked ‘ewan’ and everybody in the Hall went like “Ohhhhhhhhh!” and the hosts were like saying, “Hey, there’s another Mean Girl here!” (One of the teams was Mean Girls, so that's kinda supposed to be a joke...)

So anyway, the next part of the game was going around campus and trying to sell it to people. The MEA really planned this out well because they stationed two people in different parts of the campus as prospective buyers. They had their own personalities, which made everything so much more fun.

Our first stop was Paris Hilton, her stuffed dog, and her bodyguard at the Cafeteria. The main objective was to try and sell our shirt, the white shirt cost P40.00 (isn’t it weird how everything seems to cost 40 haha) and if we added the price of paint we realized we needed to sell the shirts for P75.00 each or more in order for us to earn a profit (it’s not really our profit and it's not really real money).

If the celebrity wasn’t convinced (which, I think, is a scripted part, they were told NOT to be convinced) we would ask stuff like, “What can we do to make you buy it?” so Paris asked our team to produce a girl and boy, and the boy would take her stuffed dog and pole dance around the girl. It’s not as dirty as it sounds, but it looked dirty hahaha. Rica (the girl from Philippine Science High School) volunteered herself to be the pole, and judging from her face as Sam (my other teammate) danced around her, she totally regretted it. Sam looked like an expert pole-dancer.

But still, Paris was not convinced. She asked us what other talent we knew and Rica bent her fingers backwards and I was freaked out by that. Then Rommel made his tongue dance, but what made Paris really laugh was when… crap, I forgot his name… Rey, maybe, touched his nose with his tongue. So she bought, I think two shirts for P95 each. Not bad, eh.

Our next stop was Miranda Priestly (?) and her assistant from The Devil Wears Prada. Man, was she a bitch. She was totally not impressed by us, so we danced for her. In the end she only bought one shirt for P60 and we had to settle because she was threatening to, well, not leave, but you get the idea.

Next was (don’t worry, we’ll get to Micx’s weird thing soon) these two really funny ballet dancers. The theme was Black Swan, they spent the entire time ballet dancing which was really funny. They also talked in this weird, otherworldly voice and they kept saying that we should dance with them and “lose ourselves in the music.”

At first we were just standing there and saying stuff like, "Sige na, P150." Then they would say "Whyyy aren't youuu danciiiing? You must loooose yourselves in the muuuuusiiiic..."

So we all danced in slow-motion ballet, and while we haggled the boys started speaking in the weird voice that they were doing and they asked, “whyyy are you copying our voooooice?” and Sam said, “Because we lost ourselves in the muuuuusiiiic…” and we all laughed.

So the next stop was Hannah Montana and this short girl wearing a striped jacket and a beanie. I didn’t know who the little girl was until we left. I found out she was Lily haha.

So Hannah Montana was probably the coolest one, because we had to do the Hoedown Throwdown and that was soooo fun. I never liked dancing but this was a dance I didn't mind doing. Speaking of my lack of dancing skills, there was another cool dancing experience but I’ll tell you about that later.

So Hannah was really REALLY nice, but we only got to sell her a couple of shirts for P60 because we were almost out of time. She was really flattered by us because we said the star on our shirt was for her.

Oh! We also had to sell our product to Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. Since our theme was Lady Gogo, it went really well. She asked us to sing and dance Poker Face and we did (yeah, I did! Can you believe that? I actually danced haha) and then Katy Perry asked us to sing some of her songs so we sang Teenage Dream . In the end they bought five shirts for P120 each. That was the most expensive shirt we sold.

Next comes the weird part. We went all the way to the farthest building, which looked like the place for Med students, where the supposed Troy and Gabriella were. The guy playing Troy was Micx’s older brother (there were similarities) and the WEIRDEST thing was, I felt like I knew them already, which was impossible. But seriously, I felt like I already met these two brothers before.

The older brother was like this, cool, I-don’t-care guy who always had one eyebrow raised and Micx was this dorky, slightly gay, dancer boy. (EDIT: He did a really crazy thing in the last day, better watch out!) You wouldn’t understand because obviously, you’re not me haha, but this was just really weird.

By this time, we only had five minutes left, and I could see my faci—short for ‘facilitator’, sophomore students who were in charge of the teams—Bea was getting worried.

So in the end, after dancing ‘We’re All in this Together’ we were unable to sell any shirts to Troy and Gabriella. Some of my team members felt that we should just sell one more shirt for a high price. We stopped selling many shirts for a small price because that would mean more work for us.

The last celebrity we tried to squeeze in were Brad and Angelina. It was hopeless from the start. We only wanted to sell one shirt for a lot of money, but Brangelina needed to buy a lot to give to the children of Africa. My teammates' argument was that they could give it to their favorite child but they said no. So we just gave up. Oh, not before they asked us to do 30 Jumping Jacks.

So the next weird thing happened when we were making the shirts. I worked with Rica to paint the shirts while the others made the skirts. I think we had sold only 17 shirts and 7 skirts. So I was smearing the shirt with red and black paint when I remembered this dream I had this summer. I wasn’t even sure if it was a dream because it could also be déjà vu.

I was sitting in the exact same place, to my left were the stairs that led downstairs. I remember in this dream/déjà vu that I was sitting on the floor working, when my older brother, Francis, who graduated BS Mgt years ago, came up and told me he going to start teaching at the Ateneo.

Well, my brother didn’t show up, but I remember in that dream I was doing the exact same thing: hand painting a T-shirt. Weeeeeird...

Okay, so what else do I have to tell you… oh, the funny dancing thing. And the game show!

So funny dancing thing. This was the first activity that we did. We (the freshies) had no energy in the morning so they decided to have this exercise activity. The first was what they called the traditional ME breakfast. It was not a real breakfast, it was this crazy fun dance where you prepare your own breakfast. The funniest step was when we had to put bacon on our sandwich so we had to ‘kill the pig.’ We looked like the Spartans of 300 stabbing invisible pigs with our spears.

So after that they called on a guy who made us do some dance steps. It was really cool because at first, it seemed like he was just thinking of the steps on the spot. The song playing was California Girls by Katy Perry. So we did the steps and they were really fun. Then the next song was a Justin Bieber song, I think it was ‘Somebody to Love’ and we were all like, ‘woahhh’ because suddenly the dance steps coincided with the song. Like, there’s this one step where we look like we’re playing the violin and there was actually a part in the song when Justin says ‘violin’ haha.

So anyway…

Before I talk about the game show, I’ll tell you how my day got lifted up. Remember yesterday I was really bummed because I felt so stupid? Well, we were having this batch picture where we went into the grassy part and had to form the Hollywood star on the floor thing.

Our team was part of the star so we were placed in positions. Some people were on the roof, directing the other MEA members to fix the arrangement. While we were waiting, we got to chat with my other faci, Aldrich, who is really handsome haha. So we were talking about Math 18 a/b, which is the Math for ME freshmen. He told us about his first Long Test. You see, in ME, if you fail your first two LT’s in Math, you’re out of the program. Harsh, eh? But apparently, this year it’s different, if you fail your Ma18 a/b, you can take basic Math and come back to ME, that would take longer, but at least, right?

So anyway, he said he got a low score on his first LT because he was really nervous and got mental blocked. So he advised us to just relax. And the thing he said that somewhat made me feel good was when he said that he didn’t know what polar coordinates were and he asked if we studied that in High school, I nodded and he said, “Yung may flower na graph, diba?” and I was like, “Yeah!” and so I felt relieved because there was finally something I know that my other teammates didn’t! I knew they didn’t because they said “no” when he asked if they studied that in High school.

So I felt really good after that. Next was the game show (these events are not in order, mind you). It was themed like that show… Hollywood Squares, I think. I remember watching this on Star World when I was really young, after or before that show was the Brady Bunch haha. Anyway, it wasn’t the tic-tac-toe way, since we were many teams.

There would be a question, and the hosts would call on the TLC’s, that’s also what they call the faci’s, it stands for… ‘Teaching and Learning Catalysts’. It was scripted again, because obviously they had to know the answers. The questions were about random things, but there were also Math questions. I didn’t answer much of the Math questions because I knew the others would answer them better and correctly haha. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel bad. I was more into the game than trying to be good at math this time.

There were other questions anyway. Like, what was the name of the new POTC movie (On Stranger Tides) what did Lindsay Lohan say her Halloween costume was in Mean Girls (Ex-wife, I tried asking Alex what the answer was but then Rey answered it like *snap* and we all looked at him and he said, "Ano? Kakapanuod ko lang.."), what’s the name of the photocopy lady in Ateneo (Ate Alma), how many D’s can you have to stay in ME (One overall, yes that’s scary), and others.

The math questions, honestly, I could have answered. Or at least tried to answer, and I would’ve gotten the correct answer. But I didn’t bring a pen so I didn’t take a piece of scratch paper.

There was also a question worth five points. It was taken from the movie 21 probably because it was related somewhat to probability or statistics. It’s the one that goes like:

If you have 3 chests and one of them contains the prize, and you chose A, and the hosts opens chest C and shows you that there is nothing in there, will your chances increase if you switch chests?

This was a tricky one because the question is a little weird. We answered No at first because when there were 3 chests your chances were 1/3 or 33.33% chance, and when he took away one, it became 50% chance, so if you switch your chances would be the same, right? But somehow in the end we changed our answer to Yes because we understood the question to be ‘would your chance to win the prize increase ?’ and yes, from 33.33% it increased to 50%.

But while our answer was waiting to be checked, we were thinking the answer is ‘No’ again because there was still the question of ‘switching chests’ after the guy removed one. But ‘Yes’ was the correct answer anyway. So I guess we just didn’t hear the question right or the question was wrongly stated.

Oh, and we had a talk with Professor Chan Shiao…or something like that.

EDIT: It was Christian Chan Shio

Finished BS and MS Mathermatics in ADMU

Sir Christian Chan Shio is an instructor in the Math Department where he has taught among others the usual ME Math subjects: Ma 18, 21, 22, and 151.

EDIT: The whole treasure chest thing, was actually a probability concept called the Monty Hall Problem. Math 151 talks about Elementary Probability Theory and basically the explanation to that lies in the fact that you had a much greater chance of picking an empty one first.

[If you don't want to read my explanation, you can click on the link to go to a YT video, or you can just skip this altogether. and read the paragraph after the next.]

The problem goes: you have 3 chests, one contains the treasure and two are empty. You have 2/3 chance of getting nothing, and 1/3 of getting the treasure. The host, who knows which chests are which, opens one that he knows is empty. Now he asks if you want to switch, so you weigh your options in terms of probabilities. You're now thinking, you have a 50-50 chance of getting the treasure since only two chests remain. 1/2 is much better than your odds the first time, which was 1/3. So your odds increased. But do you switch? You'd say it doesn't matter. However, the correct answer is counter-intuitive. You should switch because the probability that you picked an empty chest is 2/3 at the beginning, and if the host opens the only other empty chest, you're certain that the other (not yours) chest has the treasure! Now you say, yeah but that's assuming you know that you did get the empty one. What if you got picked the one with the treasure first? And you'd have a point, but in terms of probability you are more likely to pick an empty one than the treasure one anyway. That's why I said the explanation is basically the fact that you have a higher chance of picking an empty chest first. So this problem would work even if you had 100 treasure chests and the host opens 98 of them so you're left with two. Since you had a 99/100 chance of picking an empty one, and the host opens all the other empty ones, the one he left unopened is MOST PROBABLY the one that contains the treasure.

[Continuing from Chan Shio]

Our faci’s said he was the best professor we could get for Math. UN-FRACKING-FORTUNATELY, he would NOT be teaching Ma18 this year.

Instead, we have a high possibility of getting the ‘terror profs’ that the ME students call GCF—it’s a play on the mathematical ‘greatest common factor’, it actually means… uh… Garces (?) C-something and Francisco. They are the WORST teachers you could possibly get. Francisco is actually nicknamed FFFF because her name is F-something F. Francisco and the last F is your grade.

Funny and terrifying at the same time. The worst of them is Cabral! I think that’s her/his name. I think it’s a she. She doesn’t give partial points (it’s what Aldrich calls points profs give for just writing the given or having a solution). My other faci, Bea, told us about her prof that got pissed at one student and walked out of their class and just said, “see you at the long tests!” so they had to self-study until the long test.

So, what else… Oh, we also had another talk from an ME student who graduated last year. He is now an Asst. Brand Manager at P&G in charge of Gillette and Growth products. I don’t know why I remembered this and not other important stuff. Anyway, he talked about his love for Marketing and he gave away some P&G stuff to those who asked questions.

EDIT: He was Raymond Castillo

Graduated BS ME in 2010 and is currently an Assistant Brand Manager in Procter & Gamble

He graduated with an Honorable Mention Awards last 2010 under BS ME. Presently, he works as an Asst. Brand Manager for Growth Brands for P&G Philippines. Some of his incredible achievements include the following:

Being a National Finalist in the L’Oreal Brandstorm 2010: Named Champion for the University of the Philippines Junior Marketing Association Major Marketing Event Electrify last August 2009; Name Best Intern for Johnson and Johnson Shine Internship program last May 2009.

What else… what else… I tried using the vending machine but I couldn’t get it to work so I just gave up.

Okay, just a reflection. I really think this ME Prep Course thing was really helpful. We got to understand more about our course and how it is true, what I’ve read about in forums online, one of the BEST things about ME are the people you meet. All the upperclassmen, the faci’s, the members of MEA, they all seem to be really good friends. And they all seem really fun people. And they also have time to participate in orgs like the Blue Repertory, Ateneo’s theatre group where Aldrich is a member of. Or the Blue Babble, the cheerleading org, where Bea is a cheerleader.

So, you see, the students at ME are not only smart, but they’re talented, too. And sometimes that makes me feel bad, you know, like, can I be as talented as they are? And it also makes me feel more comfortable because you start to think that, if they have time to be a part of orgs and still maintain in ME, then I could, too. It’s just all about working hard.

It’s also hard to adjust to the fact that everyone around me is SMART (and I don’t mean the SIM card, but it's true, I think Ateneo favors SMART over GLOBE). I can’t find any GG people here haha. I’ll miss hearing people say “GG ako sa exam!”

Anyway, it’s already 8PM and they asked us to get a lot of rest because we will be having a REAL Amazing Race tomorrow. We’re gonna get down and dirrrty.

EDIT: Steps O'Fifteen didn't upload any new pics yet so...

Day Two: ME Uncut

Day Two – Day One of the Prep Course

May 26^th, 2011

Okay, so I feel like crap.

The day didn’t start off that bad, which makes the ending even worse. I woke up at the scheduled time, left earlier than planned, and got to the Escaler Hall at the SEC Building. I sat on the benches by myself for a while until some fourth years came up and introduced themselves (I already forgot their names) and dragged me over to two other girls, Mon and Catherine (I’m quite sure this is not the spelling of her name, but I don’t know the real one and I like this way better). We had awkward chats about what High school we were from.

And oh, one of the BEST feelings I’d had all day—and take note how low this is—was when the fourth years who approached me (I think one of their names rhymed will ‘Gel’) asked what High school I was from and I said O.B. Montessori and they asked if I was the only one, and I said ‘Yes’ in a sad voice and they said they knew a girl from O.B. named Kimi David and I’m like ‘Yeah!’

That was pretty much a high point of the day.

EDIT: The name of the girl whose name rhymes with ‘Gel’ was Tel Ang, President of the ME Association (MEA) hahaha. That was somewhat of an honor.

So I chatted with Mon and Catherine for a while. I found out that Mon was from Eastern Visayas and when I asked where she stayed during the weekdays she said in Cavite and, I’m no expert at Philippine geography but I’m sure that’s still far from Ateneo. She said she was just waiting for her dorm application to push through or something.

So when it was time to register we lined up and paid the P580 fee and signed our names. Written beside our names were our ‘teams’ (later to be called ‘families’) and I saw that mine was Star Wars. The other movies were: Mean Girls, Harry Potter, Twilight, 300, Up, Avatar, Rush Hour, Pirates of the Caribbean, Grease (no idea why), Toy Story, Transformers, Zoo… something Zoolanders, I think, First Love (I don’t know what that movie is), and… I think that’s all of them.

EDIT: The First Love team was actually based on a McDonald’s commercial. The TLC there was kinda cute haha.

So it began with an introduction from some guy whose name I forgot, and a girl who, I think, is the president of the MEA (EDIT: Yeah, no… it was Cam Ang and Rafael “Paeng” Valenzuela, they were the Prep Course heads haha).

The one with the mic is Tel Ang, MEA President. The laughing girl is Cam Ang and the guy in the suit is Paeng.

But they weren’t our hosts, our hosts were 3 students: Kim (that’s a guy), uhm… a girl, I forgot her name (EDIT: Paui), and a gay guy with a manly name (EDIT: Mark, and I'm not saying gays can't have masculine names). I only remembered Kim because it’s a girl’s name and it was a guy… I think the girl host’s name ended in an ‘ee’ sound (EDIT: Yes, I just said her name a while ago).

(L-R) Mark, Kim, and Paui)

So when we registered and found out our team names, they have us a puzzle piece of a poster for that movie, I got a piece of Count Dooku’s head. Oh, and this was another coincidental moment for me, because the only movie on my iPod is, well, Star Wars! So I watched Star Wars while I brushed my teeth earlier this morning, and it seemed fated that I would be in team Star Wars.

So inside the Escaler Hall, I sat beside Mon and Catherine until they asked us to group ourselves according to our teams by completing the puzzle. The first person I met on my team was Jamie. The next was Rommel. And I just followed the two of them. When we finally got our piece done, we were asked to sit and all the talking began.

The first speaker was Kenneth something, I’m not very good with remembering names, sorry.

EDIT: It was Kenneth Abante. This was his description in the booklet they gave us at the end.

Kenneth Isaiah Ibasco Abante

Currently studying BS Management Engineering

Ken Abante said that he simply wants to be introduced as an ME student and the Coucil of Organizations in the Ateneo President.

Okaaay… that really wasn’t useful information haha.

He talked about ME and how he almost shifted out because he didn’t feel like he was doing what he was really passionate about, but then he realized that ME was not about the cold, hard numbers, but it was about helping other people by finding the meaning behind the numbers. He talked for a while and it was very inspirational and I could relate to it because he knew every single point of fear that I had entering this course.

In the beginning, he actually asked us who of us entered ME not knowing what it was, and a couple of us (including me) raised our hands. He also asked who of us were valedictorians and salutatorians because it was also one of his insecurities when entering ME. A lot of the students who get in ME are the top students of their respective schools. I didn’t feel uplifted or proud when he said that, considering my high school (no offense to my high school).

So he talked it through and I finally understood that this was the perfect course for me. He also said that he thought of ME as a way into a corporate world of cold, bloodthirsty businessmen, but he realized later on that he was helping a lot of people because employees from other courses, when they work, they show you the profits, the costs, etc. But an ME graduate shows the possibilities of many other choices, like providing jobs for 5,000 people while earning a profit… or something like that. That was many hours ago, I forgot already.

Kenneth made it seem so easy. He never told us about how hard it would be to stay in the course.

The next speaker was Dr. Darwin Yu, he was the head of the ME program, I think, and had something to do with its curriculum.

EDIT: This was his description in the booklet:

Mr. Darwin Yu

Graduated as cum laude from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1983 with a degree in BS Management Engineering

Mr. Yu is an Assistant Professor for Finance and Accounting under the JGSOM. When he graduated in 1983, he worked with the National Economic Development Authority for 2 years. In 1986, he went to the United States of America and worked there before going back to the country in 1991 and since then, Mr. Yu has been teaching in the Ateneo under the Finance and Accounting Department.

He talked about the retention requirements. I need to maintain a grade above 1.8 in my Math subjects… the only way I could be asked to leave the program would be if I got more than 2 D’s, or an F or a W. And some other stuff I don’t want to bore you with.

EDIT: This is what the booklet says about Retention Policies. I’m posting this to give you an idea of how hard I have to work, and also as an explanation to why I won’t be seeing much of my High school friends anymore.

EDIT#2: I got Darwin for ACC20. I must say, he makes things appear harder than they should be just because you're in ME. :\

Ø Any student who receives a grade of ‘F’ or ‘W’ in any subject, major or non-major, during the screening periods, shall be asked to leave the program.

Ø An ME student may incur at most one D in any subject. A student who gets a second D will be asked to leave the program.

Ø No one is allowed to unload in any semester.

The rest are not important and unlikely to happen.

Also,

During the first sem of freshman year, the first two LT’s in MA18 are crucial to students’ stay in ME. One has to garner at least half of the total points or 100/200 for both tests combined. If one fails to reach this minimum, he will be asked to take the basic track as opposed to the normal track of MA 18.

Once in the basic track, one has to reach at least an average of B for both MA18a and Ma 19 in second sem to be able to get back into the course. If he is unable to achieve is, then he is forced to shift out to another course.

It was a really scary talk haha.

Oh! But one thing he said really got to me, and right now, feeling this crummy, I think it really helps me:

“The fact that you’re here right now, means that you can do it.”

*Okay, so those weren’t his exact words, but you get the point. The fact that I was sitting there, in that Hall, made it clear that Ateneo thought I could do it. I can take ME.

The next speaker was this guy I already forgot his name, who attended the JTA program.

EDIT: Rafael Cruz

Currently studying BS ME

Fael Cruz is an incoming senior who went for a JTA. However, he is a good example of a student who manages to balance his academic and extra-curricular life. Case in point, Fael is a guitarist for the Blue Repertory. Aside from this, Fael is also the team captain of the rowing team.

He talked about his stay in France and his travels in Western Europe. It was okay. He didn’t tell me things I didn’t know already about the JTA.

The next speaker (yes there were this many) was Chris Tiu, the famous basketball player who also took ME. He told us a lot of fun stuff about his experiences in Ateneo.

One of the annoyingly funny bits was when he said that his friends who attended the JTA program had QPI’s of like, 3.75 and he said he was very far from that.

He said his QPI was only 3.3.

The whole hall was like, “Whaaaat?!” and he was earnestly saying, “ Yeah! Malayo pa yun!” and he related experiences like, when people say to him, “Oh, you’re a basketball player for the Ateneo Blue Eagles, right? What’s your course?” and when he replies, “ME” they all go, “ wehhh, yabang mo!”

EDIT: Chris Tiu

ME graduate and all-star basketball player

Is a Filipino professional basketball player of Chinese-Filipino descent. He currently plays for the Smart Gilas team and is also a TV host, commercial model, and politician. He got his collegiate education at the Ateneo de Manila University where he finished his two major courses, BS ME and Bachelor of Science/Master of Applied Mathematics, Major in Mathematical Finance, Minor in Chinese Studies.

Wow.

So after Chris Tiu was a lady named Florence.(EDIT: Her name isn’t in the booklet hahaha!) She works at some office and she talked about careers. She said something really cool at the beginning of the talk:

She showed pictures of hands and we were asked to guess whose hands they belonged to. There were Michael Jordan’s hands, Moses, Steve Jobs, some other people, and Jesus Christ. The cool thing she said was, “You put nails in my hands, it means nothing. You put nails in Jesus’ hands, it means everything.”

Florence, with a list of companies where ME graduates get recruited

I don’t really remember why she said that… You may be noticing a pattern here; yes, I probably do have short term memory loss. I will only remember what she talked about days or years from now.

So let me tell you how the day started going downhill. Or wait, to make you understand how I felt, let me just say: let me tell you how the day began to plummet to its death at 5 billion miles per second.

After lunch we had this Amazing Race-like game (EDIT: It was actually a mini-Amazing Race, the real one would be on the third day) where we go to different parts of the nearby campus and ask people to sign on our paper, and occasionally we have to answer questions or do challenges. At first, I thought this would be fun, running around, getting exercise. But it was when we had our first question did I start feeling bad.

It was a Math question, something about finding the critical points of this equation. Since there were about 10 of us (EDIT: 13 actually, plus the two TLC’s) crowding around the tiny piece of paper, I really couldn’t see anything. I just saw a bit of the equation that went something like this: (X^2 + 4x + 4)(x+?)(x+?)

Upon hearing the words ‘critical points’ I knew there was nothing I could do to contribute to this question. Although… now that I think of it, I do remember there being critical points during our review class last summer. But whatever, it’s too late. They were going about naming points, and one of my teammates, Rommel, asked “Can you factor this?” to my other teammate, referring to the (x^2 + 4x + 4) equation. I could do that, but after that, I didn’t know what else to do. They were all saying stuff like “Negative two, positive two, negative one, positive four” and I’m like, clueless to what they were saying. Well, I knew they were naming points but I had no idea how they got there.

***(EDIT after almost a year: OMG! I feel so stupid right now hahaha! The critical numbers in that equation are soooo f-ing obvious!!! Dr. Garces breezed by that lesson in two minutes. Oh, God, I wasn't as smart as I thought I was then hahaha! I'm pretty sure any O.B. high school student can answer that by now... jeez... I am an idiot.)

***(EDIT in 2015: HAHAHAHAHAHA I still can't believe how dumb I was! Jesus H. Christ!)

So after that I started lagging behind. The next challenge was to dance and sing a romantic song, but we managed to persuade the judging lady to just let us sing while Rommel danced, because he was a dancer (like, street dancer, not ballroom). After that, we had another challenge, to perform an 8-step dance thingy that will be pictured.

After that we had to do this thing where you’re sitting on the floor back-to-back with another person and you have to stand up without pushing off the ground with your hands. After that there was another question, I think and this time there was an equation and I heard my teammate Jamie say something about “synthetic division” and I just felt even more stupid because I didn’t know what that was.

So, as you can imagine, for the rest of the day, I sulked around and didn’t really pay attention to everything anymore. I just kept thinking about how maybe I was one of the smartest people in O.B., but in the outside world I’m just a regular student.

Then I remembered what the first speaker, Kenneth, the speaker whom I connected with the most, said. He said that he felt humbled after taking ME. He felt humbled because he was finally able to accept that people were better than him in many things, especially in Calculus. The trick was to be open. That was his underlying statement: to be open.

I now realize that I have set unrealistic goals for my future. I dreamed of being Summa Cum Laude when I know I have really poor studying habits. It’s not bad to dream but I know I should be looking at this logically. I should just start by focusing on getting through the first semester of my first year. And then focus on completing my first year, and so on. Baby steps.

I began this blog feeling very bad about myself, because I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. And after typing this all down I remembered what I felt the last time I felt this way and how I solved that problem. I remembered that I didn’t have to be the best at everything, as long as I did my best. So, yeah, there are a lot of things that I don’t know. I may not be as good at Math in college as I was in High school. But that just means that I have to study more.

I finish this blog feeling excited. I can’t wait to ‘begin with the end.’ More than once during the talks did they ask us to begin with the end; to ask myself: Who am I doing this for? When I realize that, everything starts to fit in place. Hopefully I will be able to focus on my studies, and not on my internet life, or reading, watching TV.

P.S. Remember to inform my high school friends of the possibility that I may not see much of them anymore, except during breaks.

P.P.S I realize I never really explained the team system. It’s basically like this, we were all grouped into different teams (the movies) and each team had 2 main facilitators called TLC’s which stand for Teaching and Learning Catalysts. Our two TLC’s (I call them facis, it’s shorter) were Bea Crisologo and Aldrich Alcantara.

At the beginning of the event, there was this short play, all the facis were dressed up in costume. There were two girls and one guy in a red wig that played Charlie’s Angels. Charlie asked them to gather 14 pairs of TFC’s then the show started. Our TFCs were Star Wars themed, so Aldrich played Anakin Skywalker (the dark version when he’s wearing black, but still with a blue lightsaber) and Bea played Padme (the white outfit and the gun).

The Mean Girls vs. The men from 300

The guy playing the redheaded Charlie’s Angel was really funny. He had a really high voice and kept saying bad words. When the two facis from Transformers went on stage there was an Optimus Prime head gear on the floor and the redhead kicked it and said “Bitch, get out of my way!"

Another funny moment was when the phone was ringing because Charlie was calling, and there was a mix-up so the redhead and the tall Charlie’s Angel both answered the phone and were talking at the same time. The redhead turned around to the other Angel and said, “Bitch, I’m on the phone!”

The redhead did a lot more funny things that I can’t put in words.

[Photos courtesy of Miguel Sanchez, STEPS Docs]

Day One: The Arrival

Day One – One Day Before the Prep Course

May 25^th, 2011

Okay, so I’ve been thinking for over three minutes about how I should start writing this post. I guess the easiest way is to start from the beginning and work my way to the end, unlike those complicated movie plots where they show flashbacks simultaneously with current events (like The Social Network).

We were set to leave Timog (the place I affectionately call my home) at 8:00 AM. My older brother, Francis, would pick us up (he’s an adult so yeah, he doesn’t live with my parents anymore) and take us to my flat in Katipunan, One Burgundy Plaza, right in front of Ateneo. The night before, I set my phone alarm to 4:10 AM. It was only before I fell asleep that I realized I alarmed my phone 4 hours before I actually had to leave. So I woke up at 4 and went back to sleep and woke up again at 5. This is totally irrelevant but I’d like you to know that because it is very important throughout the story.

The first thing I did, obviously, was to go on Facebook. I replied to some posts by my best friend, Paolo… most of them regarding the 2011 French Open. And speaking of my best friend and the Roland Garros, I feel it necessary to share with you an exciting experience I had had yesterday.

So after doing my cardio exercises (yes, I do that) in my room while watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S., I took a long relaxing shower. I was home alone at that time so I brought my phones in the bathroom with me in case my mom would call.

Have you ever imagined that you had super human intuition? Like, sometimes you can predict things that were yet to happen. I normally find those experiences awesome, but this time I really wished I was wrong.

So there I was, shampooing my hair humming Simple Plan’s ‘Jet Lag’… when I mentally FACE PALMED myself and remembered that the French Open airs live every 5pm. And yeah, it was past six already.

I hoped Masha wouldn’t play that day (looking back, that already seemed hopeless since it was already Day 3 of the 1^st Round and she still hadn’t played), and as I was slapping on some conditioner, my ‘One Missed Call’ message alert tone played. I grabbed my 4-year old pitifully damaged Motorola flippy phone with a wet hand and saw Paolo’s text:

“SHARAPOVA ON BALLS!!!”

*that may not be exactly what he said, due to my inbox having a max capacity of 40-something messages, I had to delete it and I wasn’t able to memorize it.

I—quite literally—jumped in frustration. Good thing I didn’t jump that high or else I would’ve slipped and this would be a different story. I made a sound sort of like, “GRAGH!” and considered my options for a split second.

I grabbed a towel and ran, dripping all over the floor completely, uhm… unclothed… to the living room and turned on Balls TV. I felt weak with relief when I saw that it was only the first set and the score was, I think, 1-1.

Yes, that is probably a sign of addiction…

That's Masha's serve against Taipei's Yung-Jan Chan. A match that I did miss because I was in Manila at that time. The game I was able to watch was Sharapova v Lucic.

So anyway, I finally logged out and got ready for the trip. The time it takes to get to Manila from Pampanga is around 2 hours, I guess. While waiting for my brother, I got to watch the first bits of Nadal vs. Isner, the match that I missed last night because I had to sleep early. Nadal was clearly not doing well against Isner.

So my mom and I got to our flat and brought up some appliances like… some sort of hot water maker thing and something I call a ‘skillet’ even though I don’t think that is what that was.

Then my brother dropped us off at Trinoma on his way back to Pampanga. To pass the time (we would later meet with my dad, my sister, and her husband for dinner), my mom and I watched a *shiver* Tagalog movie, and if you’ve read my previous blogs, you would know why I tolerate such things.

While I was watching, I told myself this would be good experience for when I become a director: I would know what to fix in Filipino movies. The story was better, the writers were obviously aware of the redundant storylines of other romantic movies, so this movie felt more real. The events were believable, but the results were not. I don’t want to get into it, so we’ll move on.

I looked for Lady Gaga’s next album (an early birthday present for the aforementioned best friend) and was forced to ask the saleslady at AstroVision if they had it, making me look like a fan. They said it would arrive tomorrow, and I couldn’t be there tomorrow since my Prep Course was from 8 to 5.

There was more walking around and buying of appliances and utensils. By that time we already met up with the others. We then left Trinoma—not before I saw who else but MR. RAMOS! It was unmistakeable. My mom and I were ascending the escalator from the supermarket when I saw the ever so familiar maroon shirt that my teachers (and sister) wear frequently.

My first reaction was, as is true to all students, to HIDE. But that was unnecessary since he was in front of me anyway. He was with a female teacher that seemed familiar from the back. He waved good-bye to her and they parted ways, he going left, she right.

The floor of my room is made of marble.

When I touch the floor,

it’s so cold it feels like it’s wet.

So we left Trinoma to eat at Banapple where we talked about tennis, Ateneo, etc. Then my phone ran out of battery.

My brother-in-law took us back to our flat and so here I am, a little over an hour later, typing this in MS Word on my dad’s netbook. There is no wifi in this building, and no lovely neighbour to supply me with one. I really hope my dad gets the connections up by OrSem. (I’ll post this when I get back home.)

In my luggage bag I brought an assortment of clothes. Most of the shirts for my ‘house clothes’ are my Senior shirts from high school. I also brought five pairs of socks because I was told it was going to rain. Unfortunately, I only brought four shirts because it slipped my mind that it was going to rain when I packed my shirts. Yes, I am that stupid.

I also brought a handful of keychains, all displaying my love for my birth country, Canada: four keychains for Vancouver, one for Manitoba, and one for Canada itself.

I also brought with me an ‘I heart OB Montessori’ blue pin that my brother bought during the homecoming Formal Dinner.

I also brought a very special… minute-glass given to me by my other best friend, Harvey. It’s glow-in-the-dark and its design is suspended animation. I wanted to bring something from Paolo, but at that moment, I couldn’t remember anything but the book, Ideas and Opinions of Albert Einstein, and that couldn’t fit anymore with the other stuff. Just now I remembered that photo of us and our other friends at Ocean Adventure. I’ll take that next time. I can’t wait to decorate my room!

I’d love to take photos of the scenery but there isn’t one, really haha. It’s just the yellow headlights of cars passing by. I can’t see the buildings because it’s dark outside.

My foot hurt just now,

probably from the radiation of the charger.

I’m listening to an iPod with earphones that only work in one ear,

which I put on my right ear because

if I put it on my left I get a headache.

There must be some explanation to that

but I don’t really have the means to search for it.

It is ten minutes to nine. I will sleep at 10PM and wake up at 6AM to get the exact sleeping time of 8 hours. Any more or any less, and that would increase my risk of getting a heart disease. Sigh…

So yeah, tomorrow is the Prep Course. Prior to an hour ago, I was pretty nervous about not being able to get in because I may have left something back in Pampanga, and that would suck because no one could bring it to me in case I did forget something. So at dinner, I contacted my facilitator, Aldrich Alcantara, and asked if all we needed were really the money and a water jug.

I did not bring a water jug because my flat doesn’t have a refrigerator yet. So I’ll just buy a bottle of 100 Plus at 7-11 downstairs. Speaking of downstairs, the elevator in this place is freaking annoying. The door closes after a few seconds so if you’re carrying a lot of stuff, be prepared to get your shoulders squeezed by the cold, metal doors.

I just moved something on my aircon. I thought it was the thermostat but apparently it was the timer. Now I don’t know what will happen. I can’t really think of anything else to say, so it’s probably best that I save this document and start reading. I brought a bunch of books… The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Hamlet, Oliver Twist (Paolo said that was a sign of desperation haha), and I have Sherlock Holmes on my iPod. My eyes are getting scratchy now.

See you in the next post! There might be pictures. Of course, by the time I actually upload these blogs, I would know whether or not there would be pictures, so disregard the “might” and let’s just say “will”. That is, if I would be able to take pictures. EDIT: The only pictures I could get were from the Group page on Facebook.

Good Night, Travel Well.

P.S. ^ That is a song by The Killers and if I could, I would have it played during my funeral. Good night.

[Photo by Getty Images]