New School Quickie

Oct. 30, Saturday

Saturday morning, the Priestess volunteered to accompany me on my day’s mission: enrollment. I was off to my new school to officially join the ranks of its studentry (stud entry, Microsoft Word corrects me) but seeing as I had traveled 13 hours the day before and had had only four hours sleep to renew my energies, I ended up with only one hour to make some headway. I set my mind to at least claim my admission slip at the new school.

I was wrong. When we got there, I had all of half an hour.

It took one minute to get my admission slip. In fact, it took longer to sort out all my papeles.

The Priestess and I started laughing. My admission slip came with step-by-step registration instructions, as well as a letter detailing point by point (as in #1, #2, #3, and so on and so forth) my standing and the requirements I needed to accomplish at the new school (such as completion of some prerequisite subjects that I did not take up in my undergrad). We were laughing because at UP, it could take you up to two days just to try and find out exactly what your standing is! Especially if you’re a “complicated” student like we were sometimes ;-). In fact, it could take you several days trying to get up your nerve to ask “the authorities” just what your standing is, and then you need another couple of days to put the pieces together once you start pleading your case. No one person can tell you exactly what it is or if one person can, it appears that that one person is hiding behind several filing cabinets in a locked room in the topmost tower of a decrepit school building, and only he knows the real score! Really! Hehehe! Not even the UP President knows what he-in-a-tower knows!

And get this, that’s just to find out your standing! We’re not saying you’ll have been in possession of your registration materials by then! Hehehe! That could take up to next semester!

We doubled over laughing! At the end of half an hour at New School, not only did I have my admission slip, but I was officially enlisted, checked and assessed. I needed only to pay my tuition, so there!

But the tuition! The amount could stop you laughing for the entire schoolyear, hahahaha! The joke’s on you! Hehehe.

Anyway, at the end of registration, we said that we preferred to have experienced having to survive in the jungle, before undergoing easy-peasy enrollment. Rather than the other way around!

What else? After lunch, we wandered around a home depot in Ortigas, lusting after lamps, ladders and this mirror that just makes you look beautiful! I mean more beautiful! I must go back and claim it!

Then in the middle of browsing undies in the mall, something “challenging” happened! But I think we did quite well. (Well done, gf, promise :-))

Later that night, tired out, three of us (with roomie) fell asleep on three sofas. Hehehe.

P.S. This day too I finally tasted fresh durian!