October 10, 2014
The day I grew humility and the day I first saw her.
Way back when i’m still in high school I was elected as the school’s Supreme Student Government (SSG) President ( I don’t know how I deceived them. Somehow.). After all that I quote “Great power comes with great responsibilities”. I can say that Spiderman was right. But power is an illusion. I have no power at that time. Only responsibilities and the pressure of not letting my team down.
Throughout the year, numerous activities in which me and my members organized. I can say that it was all successful events.My pride escalated along with the success of the group.Sometimes, I can’t blame myself to reward myself with credits for all the work. Organizations usually work like this. When things get wrong the leader is who to blame. But when things turned out to be A- okay. “Yehey! It’s because of the whole group.”
Well anyway.
My experiences as a president or the SSG is not the main topic here. (I’ll write another blog about it. Cause it was fun.)
As I’ve mentioned. I grew pride along with my achievements back then.
But I ended up eating it whole. I became humble.
SSG politics works like this.
First, Every school votes their School SSG members.
Second, SSG Presidents of the whole municipality will vote for Municipal SSG members.
and lastly, All municipal SSG President within Cebu province is then gathered to have an election for the Provincial SSG members.
Got it? School – Municipality- Province.
Ha.I accidentally won in both School and Municipal SSG elections as the president. After that all Municipal Presidents and Vice- Presidents were summoned for the Provincial elections.
The convention was held in Golden Valley Hotel in Cebu City. At that time I wasn’t still familiar with the metropolis. Even if I always visited the city because my father live in the city. But as a child, when I ride the jeep I just wander my eyes around and don’t actually remember the places. Sometimes, we just take things for granted. We always do.
So going back. We arrived at the venue late. We barely reached the free lunch but we did (hahaha).
When we entered the hall. There goes intimidating eyes, seems like their judging souls are peeking through those pupils. Just kidding. They weren’t even noticing our arrival.
I can’t really recall much of what happened inside. Because that’s what late comers get. Nothing much really happened after we arrived cause it ended not so long. But the woman from DepEd said something about postponing the elections.
She said non-verbatim, “It is necessary for us to postpone the elections. There is a need for everyone to get to know more before doing elections.”
She made sense.
So it was later decided to hold the team-building/elections through a camp. Specifically Kool Adventure Camp.
Kool Adventure Camp is a camp in Balamban, Cebu ran and supported by Aboitiz Corporation. It advocates on molding better form of us. That’s what their “mission” says so.
It’s a 3-days long camp. It’s quite difficult for me to pack up my things because it was my first time to join things like this. Well of course I’m a boy scout but back where I came from – for me – it wasn’t very effective. So I ended up having 2 bags. 1 large one and 1 small one. And take off.
We arrived. Face haggard. Why?
Our commute on our way to the camp was not as smooth as you think. It was more or less a four hour trip through different terrains. When we crossed the mountain area we passed through rocky paths and dramatically steep roads. We even passed through heaven once. So that explains why.
My memory was blurry for a lot had happened since we entered Camp half-blood. Kidding. But I felt like a demigod though. BLURRY = MEMORY
AGAIN I can’t remember the details so I can’t narrate to you what happened step by step.
Except for one thing. I son of poseidon found the daughter of athena at the camp.Yes.
Thanks to her I can narrate the details of what happened back then.
(psych nerd reference coming)
LONG-TERM POTENTIATION HAPPENED .Because my strong interconnection of neurons’ synapses of HER potentiated all other weak connections that I made with my experiences at the camp. All due to frequent recall.
So back to the story.
When we arrived we were all gathered in a pretty spacious hall. We were all lined up squatting.
Silence wasn’t invited because all were chatters. There are only two types of conversations; conversations from people that knew each other and conversations from one stranger to another. I’m not of them.
I observe. As I always do when I’m in a novel place.
I remember seeing familiar faces. Maybe I saw them from different competitions I accidentally participated.
I can see different types of people. All were so diverse from each other. I didn’t put too much attention to all of them except one.
Let’s speed up a bit.
Small sling bag and pocket bookish thingy was distributed.
We were said to choose a Camp name so that we won’t be seen as who we are outside the camp. I like the idea of it. I wrote mine in my sling bag as instructed.
We are then grouped together based on the color of our small sling bag. The group is then referred as a TRIBE.
I was eyeing for her hoping that we will be in the same tribe.
and …….. Let’s slow down. This is where everything starts to wind up a bit.
Within the tribe we are comprised of about more than 13 members ( I think). Each tribe has 2 teacher advisers ( I forgot to mention that each municipality SSG representative brought their advisers with them). Each tribe has its facilitator from the camp.
We introduced ourselves and explained why we chose our camp names as what it is.
I introduced my self.
“Hi I’m Goofy.” (Yes, I know. It feels like someone inside me chose it so I have no choice really)
“Uhmmm. I chose the camp name goofy because similar to the cartoon character Goofy I like to groove and make everyone happy.”
(Damn. I wished I could say something else)
Everyone didn’t seem to mind it. I think I made a good impression. I think I did.
next to introduce were in no particular order: Water, Wheel, Poster, Fuel, Rain and so on. ( I can’t remember everyone else) and her. She was not the last to introduce. I am not the first to introduce. But I don’t care.
All I know is mine and her introduction was the only introduction I can remember.
I just stared at her. She seems so confident and composed. Im right. I guess she’s the daughter of Athena alright.
She smiled revealing her dimples.
Then started to introduce herself.
“Hi. My camp name is Bermuda.”
“I chose this camp name because like a Bermuda. I want to go to many places while laying low. To stay Humble.”
I just stared at her. Only God knows what’s going on in my mind.
I said to myself. What if. She. Me. What if.
In the camp along with diversity and the coming great challenges I ate my pride.
and started to grow Bermuda.
Her. Bermuda. Humility.
October 10, 2014
The day I grew Humility.
The same day a sprout of Bermuda found its place in the corner of my heart.
Waiting.
Memento Vivere 