It's September 26, 4PM and I've been in NLEX Starbucks for hour hours and a half now. I'm about to go crazy. Funny how things turn out.

My day started pretty well. I woke up at 5 to give a talk in Olongapo at 8, to high school kids about becoming active members of the community. The talk went pretty well. The kids were participative and asked really though-provoking questions. I was really proud of them. And to top it all off, the local government and the NGO paid me P3,000 for the 30-minute long talk. That's a thousand bucks for ten minutes of talking. Huzzah!

And then at about 10:30, on the way home from Olongapo to watch Spring Awakening with friends at 1:30, texts started coming in about this feature I participated in for Phil Star Supreme. Obviously, I was pretty psyched to see it. (I'm a closet famewhore, you see) And then at 11:30, the world kind of crashed down on my day. Stratch that. The RAIN crashed down on my day. I got a text from my friend that the play would be moved to October 3. Blue Screen, which was supposed to be tonight, was cancelled. And then, I got a text from my mom that I should just stay in NLEX or risk getting stranded in Manila. Apparently, the rain had evolved to Noah's Ark-like proportions. I was really, really looking forward to Blue Screen and Spring Awakening so this rain could not have come at a more inopportune time.

So here I am, four hours later, stuck in Starbucks with a thousand middle-aged couples all bickering about how they want their coffee NOW NA. I really want to go home and see that feature. It's becoming difficult to be all "Oh thank you" to people (through text since I. AM. STUCK. ON. NLEX.) when I haven't seen it. And I have a feeling that I look like a doofus there since the shoot didn't go very well. (Also, my TNT from OrSem texted me to say I look chubby in it. Haha thanks man)

And the most annoying thing about this whole day? You know the 3K I made earlier today? It's what I'm using for food and shelter in Starbucks NLEX. I wanted to buy my brother a birthday gift but, again the rain craps on my day.

I didn't know the family. All I knew of them was me wanting to live like them, near the bar, near the restaurant they owned in front of Saguijo, where the boy would play piano and the man made me a sandwich even though they were closing. All I know, really, is that time I wanted ice cream and they had pistachio. I'd never tried pistachio and the man said I should try it. Funny thing is, I was craving for the particular pistachio they have at their place the other day. "I should go there again," I thought, "and find out what brand of ice cream that is or, if they make it, if I can buy by the gallon." And then I find out through Facebook that they were murdered. And all I can really think is that they were really nice people and that I really, really want some of that ice cream.

It was a nice place.

To the seatmates who lent you notes and the friends who made you laugh. To the classes you dropped and the teachers who inspired. To the janitor who found your jacket and the librarian who printed your thesis proposal. To the periodical Dela Costa book sale and the SEC Field food bazaars. To the orgs you love and the orgmates you learned everything from.

Yes, masarap maging Atenista. And in the final analysis, it is these people, these places, and these things that made your college life and, ultimately, you--everything you are and however you've grown.

To Gina, I'm using the write-up you made for next year, as a sort of introduction to a batch I'm not part of.