memory lane...

(made last Friday, April 7)

Back at Starbucks again…killing time before I have to do yearbook matters…

Last Monday marked the end of my senior year (to think that it’s enrollment the day after, it goes to show how late our school is in complying with requirements), as soon as I handed over my Econometrics and SocEco papers, I was disappointed to not experience a sense of nostalgia…probably because I’m still thinking I’ll be back next school year for my master’s degree…

So technically it’s hard for me lately to reminisce a whole lot about memories…except for the time when I got to watch a few Nonstop episodes that Carla willingly downloaded for me…that series made me think of the dorm life that I wished that I have experienced, as in dorm life ala US or Europe, where there are a lot of student dorms with the college in its very center. Sadly, there’s no such thing here…It also reminded me of the days when my college barkada always meet up and talk about what happened in the series.

I was looking for some bursts of inspiration that will trigger my memories (in order to make a decent post, hehe)…then I woke up two days ago and turned on the TV…voila! There is my burst of inspiration!

The Anne Experience

Movie Plus channel is showing Anne of Avonlea! For those who do not know, Anne of Avonlea is an adaptation of the successful Anne of Green Gables series penned by Lucy Maud Montgomery. What I saw was the movie sequel (there was also Anne of Green Gables the movie made by the same company). I admittedly am a BIG Anne fan…I have the whole eight books to prove it, hehe. Now this triggered memories, although this unexpectedly made me reflect on my grade school and high school days, hehe.

This series was memorable to me because it was because of this that I met my bestfriend, Kristen (haha ten, I know you’re not an internet person so asa pa ko makita mo to!). We were classmates in grade 7 (first time I had her for a classmate), then in true Mabelle fashion, I was on a corner reading my thick Little Women Apple classic…then she approached me (out of nowhere I might add…) and started chatting with me about the book. She looked at the back of the book (where there is a list of other Apple classics with the corresponding prices), and saw Anne of Green Gables. She recommended it to me and told me that it is a great book (if you think I’m a bookworm, wait till you meet her). I followed her advice, bought the book (which obviously I love, and bought the whole series hehe) and the friendship also followed :D We both got to watch the two Anne movies through Seaneen (uso pa VHS nun) when we were in high school. We even unintentionally formed a book club out of the girls in our section (pilot class kami all throughout high school), talking (mostly) about romance novels, haha.

Grade…High…College

When I was young, I remembered praying in the church (I barely reached the pew while I was kneeling) that I would grow up fast because I think college people are so cool… well, look at me now! Haha, this is evidence that perceptions may deceive people to thinking it’s the absolute reality. I got to be with my highschool barkada last week and we barely changed (I think the most overhaul that I and Kristen had was that we brush our hair more often, hehe). Same hirits, same brand of humor, same people who bag boys (in other words, Ten and I are still the ones lacking love lives), and I’m still attracted to Tamahome-looking men (my dose of anime and asianovelas haven’t subsided for nine years!). Despite my UP friends who address me bakla all the time (gay lingo talaga), it’s still the same camaraderie.

Of course there are still a few changes…we have grown (I would like to think we are more mature now) a lot, I think. Ten and I used to joke a lot about how I’m more cynical about love and she was the hopeless romantic in high school but it reversed in college (um, I don’t think so, I’m still cynical but she’s more cynical, hehe). I now drink a lot (which for me is not bad, haha), we are now more conscious of how we dress (dammit, even I’m contemplating on wearing skirts on a mall day), my friend already has a daughter, and Ten and Donnabelle are off to UP-PGH for their medical profession (Ten was so ecstatic about this, I really felt it when she called me). So if we define coolness in this matter, then I guess I got my wish.

So now I’m longing to go back to CSA…looking at our enormous field (I hope the trees are still there), where we once made impromptu MTVs with our backs on the bark of the trees, the midnight society’s (group of people who are always late in getting fetched from school, to which I am part of) flag pole, where one of the members made a spontaneous dance with the pole (I won’t go into details…), and our super long canteen (do you know that we have the longest canteen in SEA? I forgot who told me. So imagine my mortification when I saw UA&P’s caf, hehe), where we have our countless “discussions”… hmmm…