pitter patter

2001. UP Los Banos campus. - 17 year-old girl moves out of the family home to live alone for the first time in an apartment on campus. She walks around campus in wide-eyed fascination. Students flit in and out of classes dressed in varying degrees of pajamas. She meets blockmates who hail from the provinces. Everything is brand new, and the girl struggles to take it all in while finding her bearings. She’s but one of the thousands of new freshmen on capmus, all vying for their own place under the sun.

Recently, it seems that the ghosts of my college past have come back to haunt me. After nearly 4 years of not having heard much from them, my good old college friends from UPLB have suddenly started to resurface one by one. Unfortunately, given my current state of panic/delirium/confusion about the revalida, my lousy version of catching up with them has been to sneak out from duty for at least an hour and meet with them for dinner.

It’s amazing how much time can pass between true friends without it being an issue at all when you do catch up. My hair’s gotten long, a friend has had his head shaved, one has found and lost a boyfriend, and millions of other changes, big and small have happened over the past few years but I was astounded at how easily we understood each other. We were still attuned to each other’s idiosyncrasies and it felt great not having to explain myself (which has been happening to me a lot lately) the whole time.

My college days were, hands down, the best years of my life. I was young, eager, gullible, naive, honest, idealistic, romantic and happy. In those days I could eat like there’e no tomorrow and not gain a pound because i could easily walk the calories off. Our campus had fresh air, open fields, even a forest, for crying out loud. The freedom that i had back then allowed me to immerse myself in books and still live a full life complete with mistakes, headaches and that unavoidable heartache.

Where else could I suddenly just step out of the apartment and take a walk under a canopy of gigantic narra trees? Where else could i spend hours perched on a rock at the foot of a flowing stream with my notebook and just write to my heart’s content? where else can students drink with impunity in an open field for an entire week during Feb fair? Where else can you steal the campus christmas decorations and use them to decorate your own dorm rooms?Where else can you hear the words "Forestry", "Soils" and "IRRI" and have them refer to where you’re having your classes? Being a restless person by nature, I thrived on the openness of the campus. I found comfort in the fact that despite the sense of community I could easily escape and be alone should the need arise.Yes, i do realize this borders on social phobia.

i made new friends, kept some, lost a few. the wonderful thing was that i was naive and stupid enough to charge head-on into things only to fall flat on my face. oh the joy of making mistakes (and the pain of paying for them… that’s the bitch)

For all that it was, college was the eye-opener that i sorely needed in preparation for med school. unfortunately, it seems that i still haven’t learned everything…