three cheers to the holidays! today is the official start of the University's two-week layoff, just in time for the yuletide season. recently i was informed that our family will be staying at my grandparents' place for the 24th and 25th of december, so my next update will either be on the 22nd or the 26th.

how depressing.

anyway. last thursday our chem 16 lab professor made us take our first and last exam for the 2nd semester, year 2006, in the form of a 6-item, 70 point problem set. beforehand we tried pleading to him to save it for next year, and even sang him a christmas carol, but the guy plainly refused. so much for maintaining my US status.

friday was a chaotic day of sorts; first there was the oblation run, followed by the controversial board of regents meeting about the tuition and other fee increase for the next academic year, and capped by the annual lantern parade.

to sum things up:

i was not able to witness the "ritual run of the brave" - heck, who would be able to? when you just came from your cancelled 11:30 class, only to find a humungous crowd standing between you and the runners' path, where humungous is approximately 100 people per square meter, covering the whole AS steps, the road directly in front of it, AS lobby, AS walk, AS building; and with all those red-shirted activists directing the path up at front, at the same time getting automatic front-seat tickets to the "show." but so much for that; i realized after their "procession" that the event is not really that special for UP student - protests like that would come and go.

the lantern parade was actually cancelled by the UP administration because of ghost "security threats" that would allegedly come with it. i could keep on ranting about my speculations about why they decided upon that (i.e. the University, lantern parade or nil, is always open to security threats, knowing that anyone can enter it) - however the UP community proceeded with the annual tradition, regardless of the admin's decision, led by the UP college of fine arts. funny thing is, i was forced to go participate in the parade because 1) i was with jemuel and ronnie and raphael, the latter two both taking up FA 28 courses, 2) i had nothing else to do. so off we went, walking past half the academic oval, ronnie carrying his sprite-bottle-made-jackstone, rap and jem and me donning strange headgear and taking turns with ronnie in carrying his jackstone. after spotting our batchmates in the crowd we broke away from the entourage. hopefully i can follow up this post with some pictures.

exhausted from the long walk, we cooled off at the sunken garden (where seemingly there were more outsiders than UP students) starting 5 pm until about 7 in the evening. during that time gap i witnessed the largest diliman commune rally since i entered the University. students who had been "barricading" in quezon hall, trying to prevent the board of regents from approving the controversial fee increase proposal, marched to malcolm hall after being informed that the meeting was actually moved there and that the proposal had been unanimously approved by the 7 regents who were present. from thereon the protesters gained in number, to a point that they almost stopped the flow of traffic because they occupied about a quarter of the oval. there were even groups from UP los baños trodding along.

with this in mind, i borrow rap fulgar's remark, while we were still at the parade - "bakit pag sa batch natin laging pumapangit yung admin ng school?" which mirrored my father's sentiments quite well. hmmmm.

after all these events, we (jason, ronnie, ronald, mg, jem) walked through the dark UP lagoon on our way to commonwealth highway. near the alumni center we met a good-hearted jeepney driver who offered us a ride on his PXW.384 to the jeepney stops, sparing us from the dangers of walking in the dark. as we said our thanks and went down, ronnie took note of the plate number, and on this site i remember the good old chap through it.

ho-ho-ho. forgive me for being so plain this time around. i'm off to finish my homework early in the season. happy holidays!

[and by the way, all i want for christmas is you. wala lang. asa pa kasi eh. wheeee! (",)]