One Fine Sunday

It was a good time for Indie to go around the UP academic oval in her motorized bike. Sun was setting. The summer heat was just dissipating.

After some time little Indie got bored with her slow moving vehicle. Jogging with her tita was obviously much faster so she abandoned her bike which her papa had no choice but to lug from one bad shoulder to another.
And while all this was going on, I busied myself playing photographer...

Raise the Maroon Lantern

The Lantern Parade two nights ago was the last official event of the UP Centennial Celebration and it was a shame it was the only Centennial festivity I got to attend. As expected, it was the grandest I've ever witnessed. The crowd was at its biggest; the lanterns (and costumes), at their best; and the streets, at their brightest. The avenue fronting Quezon Hall was teeming with people. Students, of course. Children, my daughter Indie among them. Outsiders wanting to watch the spectacle. Vendors taking advantage of the occasion. Alumni like myself, my husband Nubs and my friends Georgia and Uncle, better known as Concon. Everything was fantastic. Except for the pictures we took. Bummer.


We were late. But that was okay since we made it just it time to see the beautiful angels of Babaylan in their sky-high heels and skimpy outfits. Nubs couldn't resist clicking at the most curvaceous in the group. Too bad our conjugal Nikon was at the repair shop and we had to make do with my old one and its frustrating shutter speed. And we shouldn't have switched the poor thing to "night mode" when there was no tripod at hand. Naturally, our pics turned out blurred, grainy, or both which was just great.


The hall of famer that was FA (College of Fine Arts) came in last. No one could have done the Carnival theme better. From the ticket booth to the umbrellas to the upside down people to the grotesque characters, it was all so superb. Dora the Explorer in the mouth of a crocodile was a bit off though as far as little Indie was concerned. Apparently, she didn't like seeing her favorite treated so badly and was in a semi-sour mood thereafter.


The night was capped with a grand fireworks display. A cool hundred grand burned there was Georgia's calculation. Yeah, maybe. It looked anything but cheap, especially the finale shower which my lowly camera just couldn't capture. Arrgh!

UP and down memory lane

The world was still safe and good when I was in UP. My student number was 87-xxxxx, fyi. I remember riding the bus from Quezon Av-Edsa all the way to Paranaque around 11 pm, reeking of the then popular Tia Maria Zombie, maybe even snoring loudly in my drunken slumber. This was a scene that happened many times before and always I got home unscathed. Ours was a UP when cellphones were totally unheard of and there was of course zero probability of getting killed for having one. Ours was a time when climate was still a blessing. Between January and February, the Sunken Garden would be enveloped by mist and a good number of us students would jump at the chance to don those knitted cardigans that were so in fashion at the time.

It is sad that one can no longer take a walk within campus grounds at night without fear of being mugged, a far cry from our UP days when my friends and I would walk from AS to Philcoa way past 9 pm. Trip lang. I even went moon bathing with other friends at the Sunken Garden, slept there and didn't get stabbed or robbed during my sleep.

Once I flunked an activity in production class, thanks to my classmate. Peeved, I walked from Mass Comm to AS to cool down. It was then that I discovered that if I needed a breather, all I had to do was stand somewhere along the length of the Academic Oval and look up and there! a canopy of leaves and branches hanging from the magnificent acacias that lined the whole oval. It was breathtaking.

A couple of weeks ago my husband Nubs and I had this craving for Rodic's silogs so off we went to UP, baby in tow. The trees were still standing proud. But was that smog I saw? Poor acacias. They didn't live up to a hundred just to be smoke-belched to death.

My UP is still there. But not quite.