March 2003

Japan Japan with college friends. Woohoo! Haha!

The original caption for this photo is, "Ganda ng phone". I'm not sure if that was sarcastic or the phone in subject is really the best one 2003 had to offer. Hehe

I've been blogging since way back in March 2003 (let's not count the online journal I had in geocities.com because it would reflect how old I am. Hehe). My blog wasn't much - it only included short ramblings or low-res photos from my old phone cam without anything substantial. Eventually, I made it private. It's still in tact, somewhere in cyberspace. I wish, though, that I had blogged more about my last days in college. I loved college. High school held too much insecurity, angst, and awkward moments, and law school was just too painful to remember. And it is with my college friends that I could identify with most, up until now. I did keep a written account of my first few years in college probably stored in some virus-stricken diskette which I can't open anymore, but I didn't write much about my last days, which I really regret. 

If I've been a little more active in posting blog entries then, I would have written about that one particular day in March 2003 that stood out among the rest of the days that month. It was nothing extraordinary, but it represented much of the transition that I was going through at that time. It was a few weeks before graduation, I just went through my first break-up, and the UP law aptitude exam results recently came out. We were almost done with school requirements and we went to school to arrange  graduation matters. I don't remember why I drove our family van to school that day. I just remember rounding up some friends to have lunch and visit the condo unit of our good friend, Vinci, at Robinson's Place in Manila, which is an hour's drive away from Ateneo. Vinci was going to take up Medicine in UP Manila after graduation and he'll be moving in his parents' condo, which was practically just beside UP Manila. My blockmates, Pat, Weki, and Cesar joined me in the van. We picked up Cesar from Cervini hall, the Ateneo boys' dorm, and the first thing he did was congratulate me for passing the UP law aptitude exam. He badly wanted to study in UP and become a lawyer, but unfortunately, he didn't make the cut. While I was thrilled to have passed the written exam, I was quite sure I wouldn't pass the interview. Anyway, my heart was set on going to Ateneo Law because my crush was there.

It was my first time to drive all the way to the Manila area from Ateneo. After eating at Robinson's mall, we all went up to the condo's pool area. It was windy out. Pat brought out her camera and took a photo of Vinci with his future school in the background. I remember wishing I had the same enthusiasm for law school as Vinci had for med school. We later on went to Vinci's unit and watched CNN where the US-Middle East war was featured. Someone made a comment that watching the war on TV was exciting when we were kids, back when we didn't know what it was all about. We stayed at the unit for a little while until late afternoon. I drove back to Ateneo and dropped off the others. It was starting to get dark and I was getting slightly worried since I wasn't used to driving at night. And the day ended just like that.

Looking back at that day, I realized how life had been good to me and my friends for the past nine years. A year after graduation, Cesar took the UP law aptitude exam and this time, he passed. Now he's an in-house lawyer at a shipping company and is enjoying his profession. Pat moved back to the US where she was originally based before high school and took further studies in Psychology at Stanford. She's working there now. Weki is with the family business and sometimes shoots with me on my weekend photography gigs. Vinci did exceptionally well in UP med, passed the boards, and is currently practicing as a doctor. I finished law in UP, not Ateneo as originally planned, and miraculously passed the bar. I'm working at a government office which is coincidentally, very near Robinson's Place, where I park my car everyday. I've bumped into Vinci several times there, once in his white doctor coat (while I was in my crappy collared uniform. Haha). He didn't seem to have lost the level of excitement he had for his profession back in the day. 

It has been nine years since that day, but I can still freshly remember the strong, mixed emotions I had then - mostly of uncertainty, but at the same time, slight excitement for what's to come. I only had a few days to spend with my college friends before we all go on our separate ways in extremely diverse fields. Soon, I will be immersed in a completely different environment with a new set of people altogether. Probably I'm remembering that day in March 2003 because I'm going through a similar phase now, with my employment ending soon and with so many other changes happening in my life. But this time, I'm more excited than dreadful of what's going to happen since I know that I'm going where God wants me to be.