Unbounded

This was done by me and my friend Pia, in our world literature class back in junior college.

For the record, I hate poems and I suck at them.

Anyway, it's about the time when we went to Lian, Batangas in the summer of 2004 for our Filipino Psychology class. It was an immersion subject and we were required to make two research papers on traditional medicine.

Needless to say, the experience was a baptism of fire for us undergraduates. It was the first time for all of us to have an immersion subject; away from home, away from our friends, away from our families.

Heck, we were still froshies ('freshmen' in DLSU. They coined it up for its neutrality), and most of us just turned eighteen...

Five sleepless nights.
Five unrelentless days of being scolded by our professor.
Five mornings spent in transcribing.
Five evenings of soul-searching.
Five afternoons of bonding.

Filipino Psychology class for us will forever be unforgettable. Not only because we literally applied what we leared and groped around the subject matter (pakapa-kapa approach), but it was also a rite of passage for us.

In the end, we all came out as more mature individuals who would take on life's values, challenges, and pretty much all the other little things that we will come across in our journey more seriously.

I don't know about the rest but I certainly think of it that way.

...Seriously.

Most resented that summer. Some were indifferent. Me? I wouldn't trade it for a vacation. College wouldn't be the same without it.

Psychology bootcamp. Heh.

So, as much as I hate poems, this one's close to my heart. Not just to me, but to all BS-Psychology graduates.

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You Will Forget Batangas

If you stay in comfort too long
You will not know
The rewarding feeling
Of passing Sir Javier’s Filipino Psychology class.

You will forget
The feeling of getting enough sleep
Because you were awake the whole night,
Transcribing.

You will forget
The gratitude
From the old lady you interviewed.

Sure, if you stay in comfort too long
You will not know the pain
Of getting a negative score in your rural research paper.

You will forget
The thirst and the heat
Of walking from one Sitio to another
Trying to look for more interviewees.

You will forget
The clucking of the roosters
at dawn, waking you up.

You will forget
Being scolded very midnight…