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| My beloved Alma Matter: to whom I am thankful for so many things :) |
True-blue CLSUan
CLSUan: [noun]
(1)
a student of Central Luzon State University; (2) breed of intelligent and
talented students coming from different cultural settings and political
leanings, and religious upbringings who are raised and nurtured in the
658-hectare CLSU campus—capable of surviving in the wild and during extreme
conditions; (3) a daring, critically minded individual noted for great defiance
to deteriorating system; (4) a rebel to apathy and societal indifference
committed in changing the status quo—mild yet tolerant; (5) an absolute synonym
to the Filipino proverb, “Pag-asa ng
bayan.” (Marvin’s Personal Dictionary)
I have many stories
to tell. But journalists, as they say, are not always given the right to begin
their news stories with “once upon a time in a kingdom far away”, and end it
with “and they live happily ever after…” But since this is not a news story;
and I seldom consider myself as a serious journalist (perhaps in the future
when I finally decide to pursue journalism instead), maybe this space could
bear something like…
Once upon a time in a kingdom called CLSU…
C.L.S.U.
Five long, happy, and turbulent years in this
university has given me the chance to ponder at the immensity of those letters;
too great to even describe how those four letters, when put together, can
change someone else’s life—or destiny if you may. It changed mine. CLSU, for
me, is not only a chain of letters which mean Central Luzon State University.
Well, some people would agree with me that it goes further than that. It means
more than that.
This is CLSU: you
enter its gates the first time and see that it overwhelms you. The imposing
environment reminds you that your carefree high school life has ended. You remember
the first time you walk around the campus, marveling at the green surroundings
and think for a second whether it was actually a park (a forest perhaps) or a
school you’re in. Then you take a place at the dormitory because your uncle
tells you that it is the best place to stay in the campus. You find out that your
roommates were very different from you—from different places, with different
upbringings, and with different attitudes.
Then on your first night at the dorm,
when you are on your bed alone—away from the comfort of your own home and
family—you can’t help but feel distressed on what lies ahead. You feel restless
throughout the night. You wake up agitated, and realize that it was still dawn,
terrified at the coming of a new day.
Then on the first
day of the class, you stand up and introduce yourself: “Hi! My name is….blah blah blah” Then you tell your story,
hoping to get an audience. You begin to have friends from “the other world”. You
smile at the person beside you and say, “Kamusta?
Tiga-saan ka nga ulet?” as if you really mean it because in reality you are
just trying to make an impression. Then you identify with the ones whom you
feel more comfortable with, you begin to laugh with them.
At the end of the
day, you realize that these people are not really that much different from you—that
you and “them” are just the same, somewhat interconnected. And you finally
realize that you have that incomprehensible yet tangible thing in common,
something which you can share together.
Then on the
following night at the dorm, when you are there lying on your bed, away from
the comfort of your own home and family, that you can not wait to greet another
dawn, and welcome the start of a new day…. And by then you know that in every
waking dawn in this kingdom far away called CLSU, that everyday can be as
beautiful as you want it to be.
Welcome to college,
boy, you murmur to yourself with a smile…
Not
another fairytale story
That story above is
something that I am familiar with. It’s my story after all. Years come and go,
and I knew I can’t make a fairytale story out of life. Only because the plot
was not always pleasant, the characters—the protagonists and the antagonists—are
not always knitted together to help the hero “find himself”, like Sinbad who
explored the Seven Seas come hell or high waters.
Truth is, we want a
perfect story for our lives. But, to use a cliché, life is not a fairytale. I
wonder how it feels to be a kid again. Free. Sincere. Hakuna matata, as Pumbaa the warthog in the Lion King exclaimed. It
means no worry. But then you always need to wake up and see the real thing: gone
are the days when the world was still young and was less perilous to live in.
Now, the world has so much changed—or at least mine have never been the same
way again.
You need to wake up,
like the boy in the Alchemist who wakes up every morning to find his purpose
for existence. You need to grow, as people so love to tell you. You need to buy some doze of maturity at the
next hardware shop if need be, my high school teacher once screamed in my
face, much to my shame. I have never forgotten that since. When I entered
college, I realized how much doze of maturity I actually needed to buy in order
to survive. Or how much sanity I should muster so that I would not breakdown at
the end of the day.
Life is like a box
of chocolate, said Forrest Gump. You get what you pick. But man, did I learn
otherwise. My father once told me that I
must be responsible for the decisions I made. He said it to me one time when I
admitted to them that their first child—and the first grandchild in both of my
maternal and paternal grandparents—will not be a biologist after all. You need to stand on your ground, take hold
of it…you surrender now; you surrender everything, my father wanted to
imply. I learn a lot from him, and he’s not even a philosopher.
I tried to not
surrender in all things as much as possible. I only did so in a few things:
one, to let go of the things not mine; and two, to surrender to God and believe
that amidst the disenchanted philosophy of this world—God is real, and His
righteousness always endures. People and circumstances may be challenging, but everything
is wonderful only because God is: semper
fidelis—always and will always be faithful.
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