Brighter Than Sunshine

The last weeks of May have been quite full of happenings on my part. I feel like I’ve explored so much of Cebu that I can’t wait to go out and explore some more. YMA has really opened me up to new perspectives and new sights that I didn’t think I would see or get to witness. Even better is that I get to spend it with a team that I have grown to love and people that I have grown to know better and cherish, also.

DAY 1

Anyways, we all started off at the EADSC building. We all waited for our buses and talked and chit chatted about what went on in our lives in the span of, oh, let’s say, a day? of not seeing each other.

The second day was off to a really early start. Our assembly time was at 7:00 AM and this was because we had to travel way down south to the city of Carcar. When we arrived there, we were brought to their City Museum which was sort of like a house that used to be a police station, clinic and fire station and served many other purposes in previous times.

There we learned about the city’s history and we even got to explore their church which had tombstones on the floor and on its walls. Funny thing: There was a wedding going on while we went in the church and it was so fun because almost all of us were just itching to stand up and say, “ITIGIL ANG KASAL.” (Stop the wedding!). So tempting, I tell you.

This is us walking to the Balay na Tisa in Carcar. Boy was it a creepy house but it was such a great place, actually. I could just imagine the people walking around and feeling right at home in the place. Sad thing is, the foundation of the house is not that strong anymore that’s why we had to go up the stairs twenty at a time only.

I am in such an awkward position in that ^ photo because of the guys behind me, namely, Janssen and Justin. They kept covering my face with their hands and a face towel. Yes, what good friends they are.

Yes, we are quite fond of group pictures.

This is such a paparazzi shot of us. I feel like a ~*celebrity*~. Oops?

Afterwards, I think, we headed to Inayawan and we went to their landfill. I won’t elaborate much because I was just keeping my mouth shut the whole time. You’ll get it, soon enough.

What a lovely place, you think? Ugh /////

To end this post, I leave you with my favorite photo from the Southern set. Wooopie!

Being a scholar of the Young Minds Academy has been eating up most of my time here in the city so I have basically sort of neglected time with friends and cherished whatever time I can spend with my family. But still, I have no regrets of joining this school of sorts because I have learned so much and I have yet to learn more.

Last session, we had our first test and man, was it mentally draining. We were already warned that it was an essay heavy test so I came prepared… Uhm, I still had to ransack my brain though but it was worth it. Such a cheat on our adviser’s part when he only gave us 5 minutes to write down the YMA pledge which was pretty long and very confusing. Good thing, I finished though… But I am not going to be guilty if Sir Mel didn’t understand my handwriting. You asked for it, Sir. Hahaha loljk.

After that, we had the orientation for the Social Discovery Walk that is happening tomorrow.

So that there is Silver Cloud, that is his camp name, by the way. He was the one who gave us the orientation. I have this thing where I look at a person’s face and judge what feature I like the most and damn, he has got a great nose. Hahaha, I mean that in the sincerest and not weirdest way possible. Moving on, we had this sort of surprise tour of Casa Gorordo which is this old house in Cebu that has so much history and stuff. I’m glad that we had the tour because I got to know more things about Cebu and our culture. You have to appreciate what is ours and when you do, go out and travel and appreciate theirs, too.

They flashed what we needed to bring and they told us of the danger that we were putting ourselves in tomorrow so if we were to bring something, we had to make sure we were ready to lose it. Wow, okay. For the sake of putting pictures in a blog (plus, I wouldn’t want to have just his ^ face in this post) I will put the things we need to bring for tomorrow.

That reminds me! I need to pack. Brb.

Yesterday, I got up real early so that I could leave Naga and then make my way to the city to meet up with Ate Dam. It has been quite a while since I hung out with her and I was really stoked. Despite, our age difference she is someone that I really love hanging out with and I trust her with all my heart.

During lunch, which we had with her fiance, she told me that I was going to be a bridesmaid at her wedding and I was so shocked. I felt so honored and I couldn’t wait for the wedding. It’s happening sometime next year. Right then and there, we started surfing the net for dress inspirations for my bridesmaid’s dress. So excited! Can you tell? Hahahaha.

After eating, we started roaming around Ayala, looking at random things in the stores like clothes, swim suits and gadgets. At around 2, they had to leave for SM and I decided to stick around in Ayala. I sort of spent some time with myself just looking at clothes and books and things that I wanted.

Later on, Bella (a friend that I met through Tumblr) told me that she was in Cebu and specifically in Ayala so I started spazzing. Hahaha, sort of. We texted about where we were, what we were wearing and tried finding each other. I saw her in National Bookstore and after that, I kind of lost her. I got distracted by the oxfords in Celine. But still, glad that I finally saw her in person… Now we’re on fair ground because she, too, saw me in person during the Bruno Mars’ concert last year.

Anyways, I was heading home when my Dad called me and asked where I was because he was picking me up. We met up in the Cinemas and had coffee at Starbucks. Afterwards, my brother begged to watch Dark Shadows but it was getting late and we needed to get home so we’re watching it today instead. Yayyy for the fambam!

In short, my day was well spent. But… my feet hurt from all the walking in Ayala though. Heh.

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Day 3 (Last day huhuhu)

On the morning of the last day we had a really interesting breakfast, we weren’t allowed to communicate at all. There were a lot of things that happened but to make things short, there was a lesson about poverty, having just enough and having too much of our needs.

Moving on, we had the Urban Development challenge all day and it’s safe to say that I really learned a lot. I was glad that they used activities that we had to do and while we did it, there was actually a lesson that we were already learning in the process. We had the trolley activity, the sustainability activity and the Traffic Jam. Btw, still so frustrated that we weren’t given more time to properly solve the Traffic Jam given that it wasn’t that hard- it was just complicated.

The last Urban Dev challenge was for us to make a bridge. The longest and sturdiest bridge that we could create. Of course, applying the set of principles that we had learned, all of the three teams decided to team up together and make the bridge as one. There was a person who was teaching us how to connect the popsicles sticks together with the straws, other people were putting together the bottles and everyone was just helping each other.

Me and my team cleaning up Derpina. Hahaha. She easily gets dirty… If you know what I mean. ;)

Me and Frances with Moymoy the Monkey. Yes, he is a cross eyed monkey and that’s perfectly fine. Hahaha!

Young Blood team making our Sun Analysis of the 9 pillars and wow, we have a lot to go.

Here’s a picture of me explaining my very unfortunate sun analysis. Heh.

Pledging.

The fun-filled and very noisy bus ride going home! Such a fun memory :)

Hulo, bus mate! Yvs hid somewhere behind me. Hahaha!

All in all, I had a blast with the Kool Adventure Camp. I’d love to write down all I’ve learned but I’ve had enough of essays and learnings and stuff because that’s all I’ve been writing down in the outputs and ratings and ugh. But it’s alright because it is worth it! #NOCOMPLAINTS

Camp Orientation

We had the camp orientation days before going into the camp itself. It was just your typical orientation of the know-how’s, what to do’s and what to bring’s; your typical questions asked by really excited campers, rules and a bunch of other stuff.

The waiver we were given for the camp.

Extra funny thing that happened after the orientation:

Aljenne and I were waiting to be fetched. We were waiting by the Parian monument. We were just sitting and talking when, BOOM, we both heard fireworks and we turned around and there they were as bright as always. Immediately, I turned the whole thing into a joke and told her “Sweet kay ka, you had fireworks for our date?” and that just sent us laughing our asses off. Hahahahaha! Oh well, laugh while you can, yeah?

Day 1

So this day was off to a really early start. I woke up at around 5:30 and got picked up my Aljenne and her Dad to head on to Jollibee. I decided to eat my breakfast there and we talked about how excited we were for the camp. Later on, Cessy picked us up and then we were headed to EADSC where we met up with Dax and Marsheila. At first, we got really embarrassed because we were all lugging around big bags and they only brought like backpacks with them. Uhm… We were VERY prepared, okay?! Hahaha.

Moving on, while waiting for the bus and the other campers to arrive, we played around with the cards we bought and started talking-slash-wondering about what activities we were going to have while in camp. Minutes later, Sir Mel said that it was already time to leave for Cordova.

Fast forward to arriving at the place and then having our tour which left us really tempted to jump in the pool and drown ourselves in beach water but of course we couldn’t because it wasn’t allowed (BOOO!!!). I swear, the pool was just beckoning to me. Good lawd. Afterwards, we were just thrown in the activities. We did all sorts of stuff, introduced ourselves, ran around the camp, threw around some balls, talked about life lessons, improved our character, we even had a lunch break wherein we couldn’t communicate, both verbally and non-verbally, plus, we weren’t suppose to get food for ourselves but for another person and we did so many stuff that I was exhausted by the time the day was done. We had dinner and I was so ready to go to sleep when… The facilitators said that we still had one more activity to do. It’s a good thing that it wasn’t really physically challenging and we just watched something and blablabla.

After everything, me and my teammates decided to take a bath so that we wouldn’t have to take one in the morning and avoid all the rushing and cramming in the bathroom with all the others. By this time, I was so sleepy that I didn’t even bother drying my hair and I just went in the tent and slept to my heart’s content. By the way, I was in a tent with 5 other people. It was a great experience, actually. We didn’t bother closing our tent because it was so hot and we just ignored all the flies just for the sake of getting cold air or something. Hahahaha! Sacrifice. Challenge by choice.

This was in the tent and yes, that light was shining directly in my face and I had to face it but it’s alright, I pushed through. Hahaha!

Just three of the five or four tents that was occupied by the girls while the boys were on the other side of the trail and they only had three tents. By the way, I took a peek inside of the boys’ tents and wow, it was so clean. Like the mattresses were all arranged in one stack as opposed to us where all our stuff were out in the open and just all over the tent. Oh well.

I’ll end here and blog more about the other two days of camp when I snatch up some photos :)