And so, I made it safely enough to Caliraya, Batangas, after a whole night of cramming to submit on time the requirements for psych ward and additional cramming for the two subjects that needed the most memorizing.

Day one:

We got there by bus, and because we were the unlucky people decked on the last bus, there was still space enough left — I had a whole two-seater to myself. I was a girl packed with an Ipod and a (borrowed) Gaiman book; I fended off for myself quite nicely.

As is with all other school activities I’ve been to, there was an inexplicable, not to mention annoying, amount of delay before all three buses got to leave the university. Thus, explaining our eight-in-the-evening time of arrival. We were all beat, icky not to mention hungry as hell, since our last meal had been the pre-lunch thing we had before taking the exams in the morning. After being yelled at by an irked and possibly very hungry Ma’am Lerma, we trudged to our assigned duplex — right after we got our phones back, of course. They took our phones away before the exams, for fear of a leakage within the student body. Puh-leeze, people. We’re not from the PRC, okay?

We were oriented to the place, and I learned the following, most of which were house rules:

1. That we had to live in duplex-es for our stay. Thank goodness for Tin, my bunkmate, who had been there before and had knowledge enough to pick the beds upstairs, an area very much near the bathroom. Bunks were assigned alphabetically, which meant that we were in the last duplex. There were seventeen of us. Seventeen girls. Need I spell out the difficulties that would arise because of this?
2. That the main hall, the one place in the area that served the food, was situated in such an area of such steepness, that I the first time I clambered above it, it thought my legs would give out. Gastrocnemius – PAIN.
3. Caliraya was a BIG place. Humongous as it was clearly made for sessions such as leadership trainings. There were many things provided for our use, a tennis court, a basketball court, two pools, a wall climbing deck, a mudslide area, a man made lake, lots of cottages and fields. There were a LOT of open fields, very conducive to running around. Indeed, the whole place was big enough that there were two jeepneys that fetch people to-and-fro.
4. It was an eat-all-you-can buffet set up, which was all well and dandy, since the hike up to the main hall was tiring enough as it was. The only catch? You snooze, you lose. They only serve the food for an hour and if you’re not there, you go hungry until the next time they open.
5. We had to wear closed shoes and pants during the talks. Bye-bye slippers and shorts.

After dinner, the dreaded literature professor from last year gave the opening speech. Didn’t get to listen to it that much though; I was too tired. We were given an hour’s worth of free time right after the lecture, and tired as I was, I went with Mela, Trish, Chen, Fred and Gian to the pool to hang out ’til midnight. It was fun, a sound trip if ever there was one.

The whole scene actually reminded me of my high school days; the caste system carried over to the college life. The populars, as I endearingly call them, were all submerged in the pool, making the most noise. Domination was the word, and because they were in the middle, everybody caught site of their antics. The musically inclined (I was part of this group by default because of Mela, Trish and Chen; I can’t carry a tune to save my life) were in one corner, contented in singing to the tune of one guitar and generally unmindful of the noise. The less-popular people (I wouldn’t really call them nerds, they don’t fit the category) were dispersed in small groups of two or three and you can see that they were trying very hard to go unnoticed.

I have only one thing to say: MOO you. Damned caste system, when will you die?

Anyways, we were shooed away from the pool area by the roving professors at midnight and we bid each other goodnight’s.

Day two:

Because we were rudely awakened (at five in the morning..!! Can you say inhuman?!) by the roving professor’s annoying ring tone (really, ‘makulay ang buhay‘ is not an ideal tune to wake up to), we were jolted back to the tasks of the day. One of which was taking a bath. Let me reiterate that there were seventeen girls in our duplex, and only two bathrooms with two shower cubicles each. We’re girls. Who hardly knew each other. It was a miracle that no catfight occurred.

Before breakfast, we were made to do the activities as an official way to kick-off the whole LTS seminar. We were asked to group ourselves into twelve, and then asked to pick a phrase out of a hat. Then we were blindfolded, so we only had our voices to find the others who had picked the same phrase from the different groups. Talk about random sampling.

I had a hard time finding my group mates because the noise of the other people swamped my own voice. I was beginning to get scared but sweet warm relief poured over me when I felt a strong steady hand grab mine. It was Buen, who had been assigned as a facilitator in the LTS; the same Buen whom I had an argument with the night before. He led me to my group mates and I am utterly thankful for it.

The moment I took off my blindfold, I was surprised to see that I was put in a group mostly composed of boys. I may not seem the type, but those who really know me can attest to the fact that I get shy around the opposite sex. I clam up, generally and I can only be coerced to talk if there I am in the presence of at least one other girl in the group. And that girl has to be someone who talks a lot, because the most I can do is laugh at the jokes she’s going to make.

Anyways. The group I had been put in had fourteen members — 4 girls (2 seniors and 2 freshmen) and 10 boys (most of whom came from the populars). Later on Frederick told me that he panicked when he saw me around my group mates, murmuring to himself, ‘naku pano makikisama si Girlie dun?’. My sentiments exactly.

We were made to spend time with our group mates — eat with them, go up to the main hall with them, brainstorm, everything — a drag, because I couldn’t hang out with my friends because they had to hang out with their group mates as well. The only time we got to spend with each other were the measly few seconds before the activities started.

As with all three-day-two-night trips, the bulk of the activities were in the middle day. And we did:

1. The Ping-Pong ball passing game, where in we had to form a circle and we had to throw the bal to the person in front of us for three straight minutes. It was a fun game, an enjoyable one, but because we failed for five times, we had to kick it up a notch. We ended up throwing the ball around for eight minutes and thirty-so seconds.
2. After breakfast we had to do this bridge activity, where we had to assist another person who was blindfolded in crossing an area filled with plastic cups and vice versa.
3. We had the activity with the dean, wherein she addressed all the concerns of the students. We seniors were waiting until she addressed the enrichment issue, but it didn’t come. Hmm.
4. We listened to a very vivacious talk by Dra. Cabral, the adviser of the central student council. It was so lively and energetic that the I didn’t even sleep through it, and neither did my infamous classmate who sleeps through everything *ehem*Tetet*ehem*
5. The Amazing Race. We changed into working clothes after lunch, and we were off into a glorious search for muscle pain. Let us not forget that I was amidst a group of boys. Boys who were competitive. Boys who were sporty. Boys who played basketball for goodness’ sake. The activities included searching for a certain professor and making her laugh, going through an obstacle course (where we ran through tires, crawl through mud military-style and all climb in a swinging piece of log and hold a position for fifteen seconds straight; needless to say all the hugging and the holding on for dear life had been awkward), get one member to climb on the wall climbing deck, getting in the pool to search for coins, eat both wasabe and a sili after losing a memory card match, play Pinoy Henyo at the highest point of Caliraya, go through another obstacle course, touch a live frog, got an egg smashed in my pants, play volleyball with a humungous ball, build a human bridge (yet another round of awkward touching), pick up coins from a plate filled with flour using only our mouths and playing this intricate game invented by our Logics professor.
6. Most of the people enjoyed the whole mudslide experience; I didn’t. Tiredness got to me and by the time my group were supposed to do it, I didn’t feel like it anymore. I just marked one spot on the grass as mine and plumped down unceremoniously. My view alternated between the beautiful sight of the sunset and the people who were having fun with the mudslide.
7. Another round of baths for all of us before dinner.
8. Dinner time was a blast. I got to eat with my friends again, and even though we were tired and our muscles were aching, we still found the energy to laugh over the stupidest things; the stupidest thing being a Sprite.
9. We had to do another bridge activity, a literal one. We had to build a bridge using only materials given to us — newspapers, straws, masking tape, yarns and the like. The catch was that we couldn’t speak a word and the facilitators had to take a member of our team away every five minutes. Ours failed, since really, thirty minutes were hardly enough time to build a bridge to hold up a massive toy car, now is it?
10. There was supposed to be another talk, but the students were all freakishly tired. I couldn’t even hold my eyes open anymore, and the time was only eleven-thirty. And because the student council was very flexible, they agreed to move the schedule to the morning.
11. They held a bonfire at the grounds, and the more energetic students stayed up until three in the morning, but I, for the life of me, couldn’t do it. By midnight, I was already snoozing at my mattress, unmindful of the noise.

Day three:

Once again, we were awoken by that godforsaken tune, and once again there was a flurry of bodies for the bathroom. Some people had sense enough to begin with their packing; it was already our third and last day after all.

It was still activity-filled. We had lots of stuff to do:

1. Eat breakfast, of course. It was such a painful experience trudging up those steps again, and the heat of the early morning sun bearing down our necks was just delightful *wipe sarcasm off the keyboard*. Really, being that sweaty after our morning shower was icky.
2. Practice for the awarding ceremony. It was supposed to be the culminating activity the night before, but it was moved because nobody had the energy left to perform. We had to compose a three-minute long cheer and an additional five-minute long performance. But because our group really didn’t meet about anything the night before, it was crunch time for us. We practiced even while the other groups were already performing.
3. The awarding. It was fun watching the performances each group had crammed. Everybody was tired, everybody had no time to give a fantabulous performance, but everybody still managed to do the most entertaining stuff. Our group opted for the easier choice; because we were mainly composed by guys, the girls let them do their stuff while singing a boy-band song. ^_^ talk about fairness.
4. Hear the mass, since it was a Sunday and we were a Catholic university. I swear, I wanted to listen to the homily very much, but because the priest wasn’t really making sense (Paolo: lasing ata si Father, eh), I opted to just slump and sleep.
5. Lunch time rolled around and once again, I was in the company of my friends. Paolo even ate lunch with us, making the moment even more memorable, since he was a funny person to eat with.
6. Listen to Sir Earl give a talk. I missed that guy; he’s so quirky. It was also the first time I’ve ever seen Frederick snooze during a lecture. Did Mela, who had been seated beside him, had any effect on this? Hmm.

After the whole deal had been sealed, we were made to rush with the packing. The schedule had been moved because of the time delay, and we only had Caliraya to ourselves until four. And then we were off, off into our own respective buses. Frederick had been my bus mate, thank God for that. Tetet was also in our bus, which meant that we had our very own gay stand-up comedian of our own. We were laughing our heads off half the time, when we all got our fill of nappy time in the bus.

My brother was kind enough to fetch me at our usual meeting point at Caltex. He even treated me to a frap in Starbucks, how cool was that? The moment I got home, I made a beeline for the TV, after I screamed and jumped around at the sight of Harry Potter 7, of course. I was dead tired from the trip that I was out by ten. Didn’t even get to say hello to my folks, who had been out that time.

Anyways, the thing that most got to me, was the fact that God had been so effin’ blatant on that lesson that I had to learn. Why the hell did he have to place me in a group filled with the populars? I mean, I had as much chance to be with the other groups, but I just had to pick that one lone effin’ phrase. Damned it. Didn’t help that I knew no one in my group. And the boys. The boys. Any other person would’ve been thrilled to have been in my position, but I’m not any other person, am I? Arg. During my lunch time session with Chen and Nic, they suggested the following lessons that I should have at least learned.

1. To not look down so much on the popular people. Nope, not getting that vibe. The whole experience has not disproved my annoyance at the Paris Hilton-esque personalities in school. You know the type, the ones who’re so popular just because they look good, even if they’re talent-less twits.
2. To be comfortable around boys. No deal. I did the stuff I did without any hint ofkilig of any kind. It wasn’t comfortable, if anything, it was awkward.
3. To learn how to interact more with different people. Well I guess I learned a little bit about this one. I had to act perky and cheerful and so not me for most of the time. Gah. That was tiresome. Probably half the reason why I was exhausted that much.

Actually I’m kind of scared that it might happen again, and soon. I’m such a stubborn headed freak that I feel like God would smite me with these kinds of experiences once again. I just hope that next time it wouldn’t be that overwhelming.