18 units, yeah!

** crossposted from my Livejournal**

Oh yes, CRS has been very good to me. Not really cos I didn’t get Chinese, so I had to resort to just taking Bahasa Indo/Melayu.

But right now, I’m just so happy with my 18 units. Beat that!

*click to zoom in*

Unpacking and waiting in vain

Today’s my 3rd Day here in Manila, and this is the only time that I managed to sneak in my blog after the helluva activities that my family has planned for me. Yesterday we went swimming with motherside relatives, today we might go dinner, and next week we’re going to a waterspa. This seems like shrinking all the activities that I could have done this summer if I were here, given that i only have a week before enrolment for the First Semester begins (i.e. June 2 since I am already in my 4th Year). Though the activities are all very tiring and requires lots of creativity in answering questions from relatives such as “How was Singapore” (since I can’t just give the same answer for all the times they asked me this question), I really appreciate the fact that my family indeed missed me, and that they see value in giving me the time to catch up on everyone.

Unpacking and settling down back again in my room is hard. Despite the physical constraint that I am too lazy to unpack and clean my room after my brother literally used it when I was away, unpacking becomes even harder because each thing that I see gives me associations to the kind of life I lived in Singapore. Each side of my room reminds me of how my room in PGP looks, and how I lived there for almost five months. Seeing pictures that I uploaded before doesn’t help as well, since all of them makes me think of the fact that I am not going back to Singapore soon. 2009, as I’ve planned, is still far. So many things can happen in a year, so many plans might not push through, and so many things can happen.

I’ve learned so much in my onee sem stay in NUS, and my previous blog entries can attest to that. I am now a more rationale and open person, and I can say that I am more independent now. This goes beyond learning how to do the laundry (LOL); I am now independent now because living for months alone made me appreciate my individualistic effort to get myself out of every shit I’ve found myself in. Most importantly, I valued the very idea of making friends with people from all over the world, and I’ve got myself immersed in a culture very much different from what I used to have here in the Philippines.

***

Carpe Diem, that’s how everything was formed. I still have many questions in mind why all these things have to start at the end. I hope future plans push through, my plans and yours. Thanks for making me realise that I have to start planning long-term goals now. You make me think of the future by instilling the pain of the present in me.

You know who you are. And I am waiting for you.

***

I’m going so incoherent now. Every time I attempt to blog about leaving Singapore, I always end up with tears forming in my eyes, so I just stop. And this time is not an exception.

Packing

Tonight’s my last night in PGP, and one of the very few remaining nights that I’m going to spend in SG. Debate (and all the other things that goes along with it *cough* matterloading) has been eating up my time recently, that I don’t really get to think of the fact that I am already on the verge of going home.

After SMU Hammers (Congrats, NUS!), I saw PGP in a different light. There are only 3 of us in my cluster now, cos the other 12 have already checked out. The canteen’s ambiance was so sad, not because no one was there, but because lots of people were there but many of them have their luggage beside them. And when I look at the other blocks from my window, there are only very few lighted rooms that I see.

I’m not good at saying goodbyes. I even forgot to kiss Mum and Dad when I left for SG. Maybe that’s the reason why a drop of tear suddenly fell from my right eye when I saw my closet empty.

I hate this feeling. It pierces me to the innermost part of my guts.

Photography?

Yes, I’ve been touching my arts side recently.

I’ve been trying lots of new things these past few days, which I have never tried in the past albeit were always expected of me to know, since I am an Arts student. The first one is poetry, which I have regarded before as an unnecessary evil, devoid of utile functions, and a bland syntax of failed attempts of encapsulating emotions. But since that day when I saw the beauty of the PGPR Blocks, the day when everything seemed so perfect, I began to regret all the past years of my life when I intentionally avoided poetry. I’m now doing the second draft of my second poem (Library Love), and is thinking of a good way to start my third (it talks the basic philosophy is: “knows where it is but is still looking for it” which April said is “drama much!”).

I’m really so happy that my Writers’ Club friends (April, Francis, Mel) and some other friends (Rovy, etc) continue to encourage me to write more poems and explore this field.

The second one is photography. Before, I just get intimidated by the different shots that I see from the UPDS People like Sir, Jonats, Levi, and some other people. I thought it was impossible for me to learn photography techniques, since I thought I am too much constrained by my camera (I’m just using a digicam and not a DSLR or whatever professional camera). But my clustermate Ding Ning made me realise that it’s not just about the camera itself— more than the technology, and er, the skills, photography and online posting is about Photoshop. I’ve always known this, but I dunno, maybe I just needed to be reminded of this by someone who takes really good photos. And yes, Ding Ning is a v. good photographer himself (he was a professional photographer before!).

First lesson that I’ve had with him is the proper use of colours and levels in Photoshop. So here are the results:

Grand (Golden?) Palace

One Temple sa Grand Palace

State Tower (or ang Petronas ng Bangkok)

Comments, anyone?

PS: Wayne took the 3rd photo, I just photoshopped it. Thanks, Wayne!

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