Last Friday, we had our midyear batch party. It wasn’t the usual crowd but dare I say that it was more fun this year. I came home drunk at about 4am. That left me an hour and a half to pack for our Bicol trip and to prepare for the annual APMC summit at PMA. I had enough time… had I not fallen asleep on my couch. The bus left without me. It was too late for the APMC thing but I still needed to get to QC to meet my friend. I’m spending the night at their house before leaving for Bicol the next day.

Before this, the farthest I commuted alone was a bus ride from the tricycle terminal in our subdivision to Southmall. The night before, my phone also decided to die on me. Luckily, one of my friends hasn’t gone home yet. She gave me directions and let me borrow one of her phones. It was also a stroke of luck that the last book I read was ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’. I thought, “Shit, if Christopher can do it then so can I.”

I hauled along three bags as I rode a jeepney, a bus and the entire MRT line. I tried to remember the last time we commuted from Cavite to QC to watch a UAAP game. I even wrote down the directions my friend gave me. I never had to pull out that piece of paper out of my pocket but knowing I had it kept me calm. After three hours, muscles aching, feeling and looking promdi, I reached Trinoma in one piece.

The ordeal was actually kind of fun (I even got to watch my first Chuck Norris film on the bus). And like Christopher, there was this sense of accomplishment and of having overcome a challenge, autism in his case and a sheltered, overprotected upbringing in mine.

I’ve been at a lost as to how I was going to write here again. I needed something compelling…like my batch’s basketball team’s first EVER win. It was three years in the making, their second to the last game as a team. 51-61. It was an awesome game with everyone contributing and Peter unexpectedly making such great plays. He was the embodiment of the team: I think he was good all along but yesterday was his time to shine.

We were all screaming and jumping around and taking pics after the game. One would think we just won the championship. It sure felt that way.

I can’t even begin to imagine how it must be like for her right now. I hope I could go to her tomorrow.

What is it with this school year? All around me, I see my friends being broken, by failures, by new relationships, by lost scholarships, by financial difficulties, by deaths. The lost glints and dulled eyes, the slumped shoulders, the forced smiles..they break my heart.