It was second year when the class welcomed two new classmates - Ronald and Hope. They both just blended well in the class, and although Hope is not a classmate in every subject, her presence and her guidance (she's actually older than us) was well appreciated.
One of the subjects we had that time was Audio-Video Techniques, and part of the curriculum was for us to come up with a radio drama, which we will present live. Live means, our professor and classmates would sit in the AVR, and just listen to the whole skit - there was a curtain in between, so they could feel the actual radio drama part of it. We presented a story called, "Las Pinturas del Sangre," a suspense type of story Ivy wrote. Each group were also asked to provide a recorded copy of the skit, and I remember we stayed in one of our group mate's house so we can record. Imagine a whole lot of sounds and terrifying moans at 2AM, and we were all using microphones! Hahahaha! Well, it was a great performance, at a little awarding ceremony, we won several awards including "Best Radio Drama," "Best Story," and "Best Actress."
Some memories from the first semester:
- At a time when buses were still not as abundant as it is now, travel using the jeepney. There was a jeep terminal at the parking lot of Automatic Centre (now the lot is occupied by Telus), and one late afternoon, I arrived at the terminal seeing a lot of people. It's normal that sometimes, people have to line up to get their ride, but it was already 8PM and were still stuck in the area. I was able to see my brother and asked him to cut in line (told people he just went to find a public phone), and by 10PM, we saw one of our neighbors (yes we let her cut, too). We already knew there was a problem; we tried to leave the area to find other ways to get home, but all roads were just empty. It was about 4AM when we arrived home - turned out, there was this heavy rainfall that caused floods in different areas. I had an exam the next day, good thing the government declared it a non-working holiday because there were so many people stranded.
- Our barkada Frelyn started working at a fast food chain, and after several clues, she admitted she was pregnant, the father being her current boyfriend, a co-worker. At age 18, it was difficult, but we were her friends and we stuck by her.
In second semester, our barkada was divided entirely. Before, close friends were Ivy, Frelyn, and I; Lhyne, Thess, and Bheng... now, I have been spending more time with Lhyne, and Ivy and Bheng were always together. As a group we tried to tried to understand Frelyn's mood swings, but at times we weren't able to understand her.
Anyway, most subjects were a bit too demanding, and one of the subjects that really ate our time was the Communication Campaigns, which made us work about it the entire Christmas vacation. Our professor said she really chose this subject to be in the second sem, so the students can devote their time entirely to the project. Our campaign that time was about Drug Awareness, and we chose two baranggays in Sampaloc, Manila - near Ivy's house. Being the leader, we would meet there everyday - we would start as early as 7am (we would even eat breakfast there), and end at about 9pm. It really made Ivy's family upset - well, it was like we were living there, too, but of course we had to do what we had to do. It was a very difficult project, but we were all relieved when we submitted the final requirement.
More memories:
- When you're with friends day in day out, trying to finish a whole lot of projects, it was just normal for some of us to have hidden disappointments. Lhyne and I were disliking Ivy's way of leadership, that one time, we decided to be late for the meeting because we went to watch "Titanic." Hahaha.
- As if Comm Campaigns wasn't enough, we also had Developmental Communication subject, and we had to visit the squatters area near the university to do a little campaign. It was through that when I realized some people just don't care about things - they know help will be given to them, so why bother? Part of our campaign was cleanliness and hygiene, and they didn't even help us... they saw us coming with brooms and other materials - and they just let us clean their surroundings. Sigh.
- February, I just got home after a few days of not being home, and my sister told me Frelyn was outside... she needed a place to go to because she ran into some problems with her boyfriend. Our house was way too far from her place - and she could easily come to either Ivy or Thess (all of them live in Sampaloc), but she chose to come to me, and I was really touched by that. My parents were actually sorry about her current state, so we tried our best to make her feel at home.
- In Personality and Development class, we were asked to do a little game - putting a piece of paper on our backs and we would roam around to write down a positive and negative trait about each other... the most common negative thing about me was that I am always with friends and don't mingle as much to others. Actually, I felt bad about the whole exercise because when I wrote in Lhyne's paper, I wrote in "mayabang" as her negative attitude. She later sent me a short note asking if she was really mayabang. I answered with, "who's not anyway?" By the end of the semester, we staged a little program as part of our final exam, and our group made a little intermission to honor Ivy as her birthday was celebrated a few days before. We changed a few lyrics of one particular song, it was a revelation that something was wrong in our barkada, but in a way it was also a closure.
*** Jenn ***
