So I went to school at 6 AM in the morning for cadet-officers training. A hundred jumping jacks, more than a hundred total push-ups. One time we were commanded to do some knuckle push-ups. Mind you, we were at the driveway. ON hard, rough dirty concrete. I remember myself spitting a couple of times in the driveway since I stepped into the high school, so I’m quite sure I’m not the only one who does that. Argh, disgusting. Oh, and my push-ups were barely push-ups. I found myself kissing the road damp with buckets worth of my sweat most of the time. That’s not all, there were also some other drills, I don’t know what they were called. We also ran the entire university in circles while chanting. All those for a little more than two hours. No breaks, no rest. I’ve never been pushed off my physical limits like that. I’ve never had the strongest urge to quit. It’s miracle I survived without saying that word that day. It was torture! I was sorry though to see two of our comrades quit. Now there are nine of us left.

You know, I understand a lot of seniors hate the CAT. But I wish they would at least respect and follow their flight commanders and all those officers. ‘Di naman sila papatayin eh. Saka, okay lang sana kung yung galit n’yo sa CAT ay idinadahilan n’yo sa rasyonal na pangangatwiran. Pero hinde eh. It’s wrong to backstab people, judge them off from rumors, and insult them and their loved-ones till you’ve degraded them to dust–in the security of mass chorus with your fellow seniors (I doubt you could do that in front of your officers, alone). Kung alam n’yo lang yung gaano kaputang-inang hirap yung training na pinagdaanan nila. Di naman sila ang dahilan kung bakit may CAT tayong lahat eh! Ano magagawa nila, eh trabaho ‘tong nakasaad sa batas natin eh! Ba’t hindi n’yo kaya sisihin yung mga magulang n’yong pulitiko o yung mga kaibigan nilang senador, konggresman, presidente o sinupamang may kapangyarihan naman para buwagin ‘to, hah?! Mas rasyonal pa ‘yun eh!

My body is sore right now from cadet officers training yesterday.

Anyway, first of all, it’s an okay week. A little stressful. Pressures everywhere. But the stress from academics and extra-curriculars are nothing new, so I won’t talk about that. Now, here’s me being a cadet officer. That’s something new.

Last Friday, Mass of the Holy Spirit day in school, one of the two days in school when classes start in the afternoon and end with a school-wide mass and salu-salo at night. Anyway, since we are high school seniors, our schedule starts earlier in the morning, with CAT.

So that day, I was assigned to flight L. Ah, it was silly. I mean, me being their flight commander. They know me as a young guy from section O. So with that prejudice in their minds, who would’ve expected them to take me seriously. I tried.

Hm, there’s this guy in the flight that keeps joking around. Naturally, I couldn’t help but laugh too. So that didn’t help. I mean, when they see me laughing and smiling, how the hell could that make them fear and follow me.

There were no specific orders from the first class officers so I just tried making them do some drills. And of course, since it was my first time, I couldn’t remember all of the commands. There was one time I commanded the flight to march. So we were chanting, wo, wo, wo nan wo. Then we just kept marching and marching in the CAT field under the torrid morning sun because I forgot the command to stop. After about a couple of minutes of mindless marching and keeping my pride, I finally conceded and asked one of my cadets if he remembers what the stop command was. Tsk, tsk. Bad. Our wing commander noticed my clumsiness so he helped me around with handling the flight.

Ah, disappointing.

I never thought. Facial cleaning can be so torturous. I’m never going to accompany my mom to her stupid facials again. To think I barely have any pimples in the first place.

Yesterday night, we visited my grandfather at a hospital in Manila. He was brought back again after being confined last week at another hospital. Apparently that hospital didn’t discover the blood clot in my lolo’s brain and allowed him to go back to Cavite. Now, he’s situation is worse than it could have been had they properly diagnosed him. Now he looks far off from the coffee farmer sabungero he used to be, aside from being chief of police he was once. Ah, tsk tsk. Bad hospital.

In Filipino class, our teacher distributes quizzes while publicly announcing the scores one by one in highest-to-lowest order. The one who gets the lowest score is called the champion.

Yesterday, our teacher distributed our second quiz. By the time only ten people haven’t received their quizzes including me, the scores were already failing marks. By the time eight people have been called, I still haven’t. And behold, I am proclaimed champion. Five over ten. I didn’t want it to be such a big deal among my classmates. But that can’t happen when you’re regarded as one of the smartest in class. Oh well, that’s over. I learn from mistakes and I enjoy taking up challenges. So in a sense, I’m happy this happened to me. It’s giving me a whole lot more motivation than if I wouldn’t have gotten such a score in such a public manner.

If this is true, then the situation is severe and depressing.

Part of our curriculum this year is the TD program. It will be our socio-eco-ethics course. Part of this course is the duty to go and tutor some public school kids in Marikina every week for the whole year.

I don’t really have any qualms about it since I have an inclination to kids and teaching in the first place. And that’s not all, since one guy in class had to tutor a group of eight kids alone both Math and English subjects (since we are 41 in class) and nobody was volunteering, I did. Oh boy. Double load.

Don’t worry. I enjoy working up to challenges. I hope my classmates could at least try that too and stop whining every damn time. Some of them have always sounded like some pampered brats.

One of my friends beat me up in school yesterday. And this is not the first time. I have been patient long enough. I’ve never punched him back, and I never will.

One hirit, that’s all I made. And he started punching me from behind. His anger was irrational at first. Puta! Lahat naman kaming mga kaibigan n’ya tinutukso s’ya ba’t ako na lang palagi binubugbog n’ya! It’s not fair. There must be something else you’re angry at me for. It’s not because I taunted him, which we all do, and not only because I’m the youngest and weakest one among his friends. And you haven’t told me that reason.

I do not need a friend who will hate me when I do my best. Just because I don’t share his depressions of a loser or something like that. I don’t need a friend who won’t be happy for me when I achieve. I do not need a friend who will hate me for what I own. I do not need a friend who will dislike me for who I am. I don’t need a friend who will dislike what I am no matter how sincere my friendship is. I don’t need a friend who will disregard everything I’ve done for him at one instant and eternally brand me as his God-sent depressor…

…when I haven’t done anything with my intention to hurt you.

Oh, don’t comment here. You tell me personally whatever you have to say.

We had a meeting tonight with some college people about a team-Ateneo magazine joint-issue thing with some other organizations in the college. Anyway, since our dismissal was at 1 in the afternoon and the meeting wouldn’t have started till 7:30, I tagged along with my fellow editor and classmate Toff to his house.

I felt very nauseated the entire afternoon. So what Toff did was to let me lie down flat on a pair of bean bags, let me wear these vibrating goggles (I need to get a pair of those!!), covered me in sarong, burned incense, and with his ethnic instruments and some Indian-like music in the background, tried to make me feel better acting like some witch doctor. It was so silly and funny, but I appreciate that a whole lot. It made me feel much better for a short while. Thank you, Toff!!

That relieved my headache for a while but I just had to feel nauseated again when we were in his car so I vomited there. And when we were walking to Fruit Magic to hang out before the meeting, I vomited again. And then, on the way back to the university, I vomited again, and before I entered the conference room, I threw up again!!

Gee, I think I threw up everything I ate the whole day. And right now, I don’t think I can even take a bite of anything.

Okay. I’m not yet sleeping. We were barely home the entire three-day weekend so I have to cram for all the things I need to accomplish by this morning before going to school.

Father’s Day. First, we had mass then we went to the hospital in Manila where my grandfather is confined. Then we went to my godfather’s mother’s internment. Then we had dinner tonight with another pair of godparents. So basically, it was Father’s day indeed, hehe.

I wonder when I’ll have my own kids. I wonder how many I’ll have. I love kids. I want to have my own kids and have my own family! (No, don’t get me wrong, not now now of course).

So now, about the trip. We left home on the evening of June 12 and arrived in Cagayan the next morning. That was a Friday. We had lunch at our hosts’ farm. Beautiful.

Anyway, after that, we went to Piat, Cagayan and visited the Piat Basilica. One of the most beautiful cathedrals I’ve yet seen in the Philippines.

We went to Penablanca, Cagayan after that and visited the Callao Caves National Park. At the riverbank of the Pinakanawan River, we boarded a boat to the other side, where a 200+ stairway leads us up the limestone cliff into the mouth of the caves. It was a huge cave. Dark. It is said that it has about a hundred chambers, only 8 of which have been explored. We, however, only walked to the third one till we decided to return.

After visiting the caves, we boarded the boat again and moved upstream along the river. We docked at some place then my brother and I swam at the lukewarm and shallow river for a couple of minutes while we waited for the thousands of bats which come out of a hole on the limestone cliffs at exactly 6 PM to fly off. Andaming paniki! They all came out of the cave hole like some dark swarm cloud.

The next day, we started off for the half-day drive back to Manila. The landscape of vast, vast green meadows and plains along the highway from Piat, Cagayan to Quezon, Isabela is one of the most unique and scenic views I’ve yet seen in the Philippines. It was like a giant Microsoft Windows XP wallpaper!

Along the way, we stopped by Dalton Pass on the Caraballo Mountains at the border between Nueva Ecija and Nueva Vizcaya to have lunch.