Tatak 2013 at It's 2012-est

“The keys of success are concealed everywhere. Be sure to have a bird’s eye view. For they are like opportunities. Once you see them, never hesitate to grab them.”

- Ridge Ross L. De Veyra

Today was quite an adventure. I really had fun!

Before I went to the training/seminar a while ago, I was hesitating on whether I should go or not. But, I’m glad I attended. I’d probably regret it for the whole day if I didn’t come.

I was almost late this morning. But I’m glad I still made it. They were registering a while ago when I got to school. The first that I saw as I entered the gates and stepped at our Plaza Maria was Kennard’s Harem pants. I was astonished. I’m glad she was able to find those pants that she have been craving for some time. She looked nice! Very dancer-like. Unfortunately, some of the people from school thought she was wearing pajamas. How ignorant! Then again, I can’t blame them.When you’re not familiar with something, you make think of it as something which is very different to what it really is. It’s not ignorance. Come to think of it, it’s mere innocence.

Then, I came to notice Kezia Calderon’s footwear. They were gorgeous and badazzled. They reminded me of the footwear of the ancient Greeks. Although, the ones that Kezia is wearing, are very fashionable. I don’t know why, but I seem to be attracted to anything related to Fashion this day, which is weird, because I’m not a Fashion person.

So, the program started with an action song as a prayer. To be honest, it was very awkward at the beginning. I mean, can you imagine people you don’t know teach you a dance which you are going to perform afterwards? As in, ASAP?! Although, we’re Catherineans! We’re good at adapting to changes and we are easily thought… well, at least that’s what I think. After some speeches and some introductions, we started our first activity. They called it Cinderella’s Shoe. In this activity, you are supposed to take off one of your shoes. The facilitators are going to swap the shoes into others and you are supposed to find your shoes, and at the same time, return the shoes that are given to you. Not to mention, we need to know things about the people who gave our shoes, and the people who we return the shoes. It was disturbing because I’m not comfortable taking my shoes off in public. However, I had fun! It really was quite an experience.

The next activity was fun too, although, I forgot what’s it called. The game was like “Open the Basket” game. We were supposed to look for two people whom we can shelter with our arms. On the very first round/call of the facilitator, we initially got eliminated. LOL. By the way, my partner was Aira Trinidad. It was funny and embarrassing. We had to go up the stage and wait for others to get eliminated. When they were done eliminating people, we had to show the ones remaining that we deserve to be with them. We needed to dance in front of lots of people, who were even younger than us- the ones who were present. Usually, I have stage fright- whenever I’m in front of people, I instantly get tongue tied or immobilized or what not. But today, I didn’t. I guess it was the spirit of fun enveloping me that I forgot about being shy. The only barrel of bad news a while ago was, I didn’t know what to dance- we didn’t know what to dance! Some of our classmates know some, but we don’t. So, all I did was, imitate whatever they were doing. Looking graceful or not, one of my primary goals were to get out of that stage. Luckily, I did. Although, some of my friends were still left. They weren’t allowed to go down yet and join the next activity.

The next activity was about finding our groupmates with specific animal sounds. Our sound was the sound of the turkey. It was hard because we had to be blindfolded. When I was blindfolded, it was frustrating. It was hard living in reality with darkness as the only thing that I am seeing. When we were allowed to take our blindfolds off and some of our stage friends were allowed to join us, we proceeded to another activity. It was about catching paper balls. It was the most difficult thing ever because: I’m not good at catching! I suck at sports. That’s the very reason I study hard. If I can’t contribute to society physically, at least I’ll be legendary in terms of wisdom and knowledge. And so, we were catching balls. I had a lots of faults. During the first throws, I wasn’t able to catch the balls. And my friend Christine Jewel Supan was blaming me for being physically incompetent. I didn’t mind her annoyance. It was actually true! And that’s something I’m not shy about. I’m not good at sports, I don’t care! I won’t die unhappy just because I can’t shoot, bat, hit, dribble, throw or catch balls. That activity was hard because we had to catch and throw multiple balls at the same time. We had to finish a routine with five balls. In the end, we succeeded. I am happy for my understanding groupmates and for our sheer focus on winning. After that tense activity, we took our recess break, which is provided by the facilitators. Thanks guys! I was full!

For our last activity, we had Amazing Race. To be honest, it wasn’t amazing because we didn’t won. However, it was fun. It taught us how great our team is on being sports. That tied-foot-thing game was extremely painful. However, it obviously was to teach how good do we coordinate with each of our teammates. I hope the other students grasped the lesson concealed. Afterwards, we had to use the sticks to transport paper balls on where the facilitators told where they were supposed to be. Once again, it was a psychological and mental test which measures how good are we in making in strategies and how well do we work with people we barely know. For the last part of the race, we had to look for scattered papers that concealed a message that we needed to tell to one of the facilitators. I think it was a test of honesty. Some groups crumpled other group’s paper and put it on the trash can. Obviously, that wasn’t being sport and honest at all! We were the sixth placer for the whole game. It didn’t matter what our rank was, as long as we all had fun!

There were other things that happened too in which I haven’t told yet. I think those are for me to keep private. Those facts/scenarios were about my friends and schoolmates whom secretly obscures pain and other emotions with the toothed laughs that exhibit on their everyday lives. I guess I don’t know them well yet.

Sometimes, it’s more fun to hang out with the people you barely know. They don’t judge you, and you don’t judge them. I guess that’s the beauty of having friends-you-haven’t-met-yet.