the middle car

LRT Katipunan station has two staircases leading to the same platform going to Recto. The first set of stairs leads to the head-end of the train, while the second leads to the tail-end. Most of the people I got to ride the train with often go down the first set of stairs. But I always take the second. I always make sure to take a seat inside the last car.

Tonight, I took a seat in the middle car. And this is a big deal.

...

I just got home actually. After the Amazing Inter-department Race, which was the coolest thing this week, I got to watch Bayan Bayanan. It was a play about OFWs in Switzerland. Org mate Retcher told me they were required to watch it. And, since Ka and I figured there were no movies up in theaters worth watching, I thought it would be a nice filler for Friday night.

The play was initially funny, with boisterous humor and some genuine laughter from the crowd. It eventually gets into each character's story, gathering depth and showing that their notion of "Bayan" is but a respite from the emptiness each one feels beyond it.

Finding a home or sanctuary, that's what I think the play's main theme is about. It's not so much a tedious case for patriotism, like how glorious the country is or what-not. Rather, it's about how one finds a home or family with fellow Pinoys abroad, attributing that feeling to Bayan, that warm feeling of belonging.

That's what the play highlights throughout its duration. The sense of love, familiarity, and family have been developed little by little. The characters either acknowledges, criticizes, escape, or even renounce all together these basic things that everyone really tries to find. The sense of nation or bayan conjures all these feelings.

Near the end of the play, the "prostitute" tries to dismiss the others' melancholy born from their desire to go back to the Philippines - home. She dismisses it as weakness and immaturity. It hit me right away. I was like that. She's the one ironically being immature because she denies herself such belonging by denying her need for it. So she tries on to find it with one night stands to put it plainly, which could be a form of love and belonging for her. She mocks others' desire for belonging by glorifying her own coping mechanism, declaring it to be glorious, wise, practical and mature. I mean I don't sleep around. Haha! But I get that a lot, covering your weaknesses with feigned strength.

...

On other news, Amazing Inter-department Race was fun! Thanks to everyone who helped us. To the volunteers, thank you very much! I want to congratulate Char and Ivan for their hard work!

Participants really enjoyed the race. Myreign even pointed out that the clues were cool! Wahahaha! That really made my day! Comments about the project have been good so far! Anyway, even before our congratulatory moments at Manang's, I already had that insane feeling of happiness after seeing teams running around the campus figuring out my clues. I mean those were my clues! It was extremely rewarding to see people playing your game.

Once again thanks everyone!

...

Thursday aftermath. I was really feeling down after that Project Management midterm. I feel that I really failed. Big time. I think I missed about 4 items in the last part, which weigh some 35 percent of the final score. Group study was useless. Andie poo, I'm really sorry about going to your dorm that Thursday afternoon. It really was a bad idea. And, Come on! In the real corporate world, we will definitely have more time solving Cost and Duration estimates for projects anyway. I bet even the teachers would fail to answer correctly and on time too. So why the hell do we need to do it that fast?! Isn't the point knowing how to do those stuff? Even 4 hours wouldn't suffice for that kind of exam. Damn it. This is when college instructors trivialize exams. If there's a place worse than hell, this would probably be it.

I was prolly cursing those MIS instructors on while Andie were making stupid cartoony sounds on our way out of the exam rooms.