Pinoy Blog Machine (Beta)

It was much more work than I ever expected it to be. For months we had to run around campus getting various things approved and venues reserved. I've never realized the bureaucracy of my university. You have to get permission to do anything - and the permission to as much as put up an innocuous poster on a wall takes days to deliberate on. Christ, it's not like there's any nudity. It's a freaking study abroad fair!

And then there were the calls. I'm not one to be shy, but calling various embassies and speaking with certain hunky-voiced foreigners made me really nervous. And I discovered that the fact that they're embassies and well-known institutions doesn't mean they can't be extremely unprofessional. It's not easy dealing with people, and I don't exactly have a lot of patience.

And then there were the three days of the actual fair. Waiting in that little room for literally the whole day, except for a few minutes of running to National to get balloons or to the caf to show the Canadians where to eat or to the maintenance to get them to bring more chairs. I'm not going to miss all that panicking because so-and-so didn't bring a laptop for their talk or so-and-so hasn't shown up for their presentation yet. I'm not going to miss hearing complaints about how they're hungry (um - if you're hungry and are too lazy to go to the cafeteria that's no longer my problem) or how when they went to another university they were provided laptops, DVD players, and TVs each.

Give us a break. It was the first time we'd ever done this, and I think, despite the fact that we could have done a lot of things better, that we did pretty damn well. I know I enjoyed visiting the booths, Australia's and New Zealand's in particular. The last few years I've been panicking about where I'm going to go, what I'm going to do, and sometime in the last few days all that panic morphed into excitement.

I don't know which country I'm moving to when I graduate. I don't know where I will end up. But isn't it great to be at this point in my life where I can choose? I can be almost anything I want to be, and I've got the resources, the skills, and the support that I need to do what I want. How many people can say that?

Today, after the last person had left, Kat and I looked at each other and shared a sad smile. Our lives for the last two months has revolved around this fair and it was strangely sad to say goodbye to it.



But it didn't stop us from celebrating... albeit tiredly.




We went to Gateway, grabbed dinner, watched The Good Shepherd, and talked about how weird it was that we've been working together for the last few weeks and yet we'd never really gotten a chance to get to know each other. It's funny the things you have in common with people. I didn't like her much when I first met her, and now I think she and I might actually be friends outside of this.

When I got home I couldn't help but take a picture of the money we'd made. It's not much, but it's something. I'm 21 and have never worked in my life - something pretty common in this country. This is the first bunch of money I've ever actually earned.

Unfortunately, we don't even get any share of the money. Everything goes to our student org's funds. Still, looking at it, I knew it was mine. And it doesn't even matter that I can't spend it.

This proud kind of high? I could live on this.