the 5th Pillar

If there’s one thing I have really, madly, badly wanted for myself out of college – that‘s the 5th Pillar medallion.

I’m not really bookish, not the conventional student I guess. I’m the type that attends class and bother not about how high or low my quizzes are, but rather, I mull over more on how much time I have either wasted with listening to my teacher’s crap talk or on the lessons that I am able to really understand and fully appreciate out of his little lectures. I’m not dumb, that’s obvious, but I just am not really the conventional, quote- unquote, student. I am more than that.

I want to really learn, to really learn the way I know I’d really learn.

And so I took a different path, whilst everyone else is busy trying to understand organizational behavior with Ma’am Howard somewhere in Burns, I am trying to fit in, in an organization known in the university for its competence and for being a home to diverse individuals; whilst everyone else is busy doing a presentation at the classroom, I am presenting to a panel a module that I deem would work better, braving to change long accepted methodology; whilst others try to escape work during a group project, I am having a meeting with volunteers I had to compel to work on something, whilst others are busy on sleepovers and Mudbugs sessions, I am having a different session, am listening to one of the country’s pioneers for social entrep; whilst others are discussing the bill of rights with Ma’am Lek, I am upholding mine in front of an accusing personnel, in front of many other volunteers that I don’t even know but whose faces I would never forget for having seen someone accuse me of something I never ever did. And that’s the way it is, this paragraph would grow bulkier if I state them all, bottom line, while everyone else took the road laid upon, I took a detour, went exploring some country side road and went on an adventure of a life time.

The 5th pillar is my only trophy. The only one thing I have ever desired for myself after braving this chapter in my life. It’s my only trophy that I would always be proud of because it also means tears and laughters, food fight, mind bugling brainstorming(s), feet killing sprints, throat drying speeches and facilitating stints, people met, people touched, lives better understood and modules written, challenges surpassed, free food and drinks, long chit chats and cubicle secrets, late night dinner and interviews, presentations and awards and medals, ORSEM days and goose bumps during my, quote-unquote, movie’s grand launch, duck walk and ampalaya eaten raw, sleeping on banig – while on my uniform, driving late at night looking for a Xerox machine, accomplishment reports and RnR, little Bro’s and Sis, manays and Ates, hidden facebook chats, shouting at the Xavier hall, smiling at corporate representatives, being corrected by father Tabs and crying underneath the counter, wrong words, bad words, new vocabulary, crushes and Darren singing for us for the first time, JaCO and my Apollo, Constantine and blogging, surprises and birthday cakes and blowing candles, loveWall and loveNotes, volunteer attire and free jacket, pictorials (planned and out of the blue), being told he’s older than me and that he’s definitely right and I’m definitely wrong and having him say sorry in the end, being accused of saying something I haven’t said, singing songs and dancing, fashion shows and free bowlers, editing photos and making teasers, collecting movie lines and being told I’m artistically good, screening people and acting like kids, tribute to seniors and being asked why I am such a volunteer. This’ll go even longer if I name all the other meanings that the 5th pillar has.


In the end, when I look back to my graduation day, I would always be proud to say I’m the 5th pillar.
And when asked how college went, I would always say that I spent most of my time having fun, learning, serving (and serving and learning still) and thus living a life.