Monday, October 17, 2005
The Adventures of Dianne and Edlyn
Ahh, the things you do to apply for law school! And we're not even in law school yet!
So, it started out like this. My sister and I picked up Dianne (yes, I'll try to call you Dianne from now on haha) from her dorm at about 10:45 am. She'd told me beforehand that My Lord was still withholding her recommendation letter and was planning to give it to her after lunch (sadistic, I tell you). So, we decided to go to UP first. On the way (we still passed by our store in White Plains...and why the hell do I have to mention this anyway?), Dianne mentioned how she'd mentioned to My Lord that I, too, was going to apply for law school. Oh, way to go, Miss Patawaran! So much for escaping his lectures! Haha. You can guess his reaction to that. If he was against Dianne's applying for law school, he had to be even more against my doing so.
So, we went to UP first. Got postage stamps at the post office there. Almost didn't make it...we were ten minutes late in getting there before their breaktime. Niiiiiiiiccccccccce. But the woman was nice and took pity on us. She agreed to shell out two postage stamps for us pitiful creatures standing there with such desperate looks on our faces.
Then, we went to the Law building. Dianne's information sheet read that we ought to g to room 211. And so we did. We tried to pretend we actually looked like we belonged there, and we climbed up to the second floor and sought out room 211. It was a single door with 211 written above it. It looked more like the door to a bathroom or a private bedroom or something. It didn't look like the door into a place where you drop off your law school application forms. And it was locked. But it said 211, so Dianne knocked. And knocked. And knocked. Finally, we wandered over to the open doorway of room 212 and found a woman sitting behind a desk. And she so nicely informed us that we were at the wrong building, knocking at the wrong room 211. We were supposed to go to Malcolm Hall next door, not the UP Law Center.
And so, still struggling to appear dignified, but with obvious mortification on our faces, we both headed for the building next door and found the right room 211. We turned in our application forms, paid for them at the Philippine National Bank near the UP Shopping Center (the pains of being in a large campus), then went back to Malcolm Hall to claim our exam permits.
And that was that for UP. Exam date is set for November 27.
Since My Lord had said that he would give the recommendation letter after lunch, and since he refused to answer Dianne's constant text messages asking for an earlier meeting time, Dianne, my sister and I decided to have lunch first at Kenny Rogers, where my sister's high school friend, R.E., met us. While we were paying for our food, My Lord's reply came. "Now. I want to meet you both at the dept so I can do my best to try to talk you out of this." Not the exact text message, but that's the gist of it. Note the word "both". I, too, was being summoned to the dept to hear his opinion. Fun. Looked like I was in the hot seat with Dianne after all. And here I believed that I escaped the inevitable lecture by not asking him for a recommendation letter!
We managed to get My Lord to agree to let us meet him twenty minutes later, and we barely chewed our food in our rush to make it. In the end, we decided to leave our food half-unfinished, meet him first, then just go back to finish it. Then, we hightailed it over the overpass, through the tree-lined walkway to Dela Costa Hall, and up the staircase to the Philosophy Department.
So, how was the "lecture"? Depressing. First, he asked both of us why we wanted to go to law school. I made Dianne go first because she was the reason why I was there in that torture chamber anyway (>:D evil). I said all that stuff about how I just want to keep my options open, take the exam first, then decide, blah blah blah. He launched into his old lecture about how we should postpone applying and work for at least a year first before going to law school. He doesn't even want us to take the test (though he did say several times that we were sure to pass...at least the Ateneo exam), because we would never be able to back out if we take the test. Once you open that door and all that.
He advised us against UP, too. Said that if we were so hellbent on going to law school, we ought to go to Ateneo. Dianne and I both argued that we would never fit in with the other people in Ateneo Law. Know what he said? "Oo nga, di nga kayo babagay dun." Ouch. You didn't have to confirm it. You could have lied, you know.
It was a very long lecture...about thirty to forty minutes. Felt a lot like oral exam. There were several moments when no one spoke, when he seemed to be waiting for us to say something, to agree with him, to argue, or something. I couldn't even look straight at him. The sad thing was, much of what he said hit us straight where it hurt. Neither of us aren't sure whether law school is really what we want. But both of us feel this need to pursue law school. Family pressure and other stuff. The whole conversation depressed us so much that I think both of us felt like crying then and there. Everything he said just served to bring out our doubts, our worst fears our greatest frustrations. If I entered that room doubting myself and my decisions, I left it even more confused and afraid.
But, as we told My Lord (and as he said he expected anyway), it was too late already. We'd already passed our UP applications, and gotten our permits. As for the Ateneo applications, we'd both paid for it already, and it would be a waste of 1,200 pesos if we didn't submit our applications. So, with heavy hearts and confused minds, Dianne and I left My Lord looking at us as if we'd disappointed him and went back to Kenny Rogers, where we managed to choke down the rest of our food.
My sister and her friend tried to cheer us up. R.E. is in his fourth year in up law, and he knows My Lord. He disagreed with much of what My Lord had told us, and assured us that law school was great, and that we needn't go to work first before going to law school. I think I became even more confused and conflicted after that.
But, yes, it was too late, so we drove to Rockwell, to the Ateneo Law School. Bangag na kami ni Dianne nun, at nawawala na naman kami. I knew from Raph that we had to go to the third floor. So we did. He'd told me that we had to go to the window beside the "free asian wall". So, when we reached the third floor, we saw the bank of windows. I was trying to find the free asian wall though. I guess I was expecting, I don't know...a mural? A painting? But there was none. There were only bulletin boards. And then I saw it. A rack hold free copies of the Asian Wall Street Journal. Wow. Smart, Edlyn. Really smart.
Ang sungit pa nung babae na kumuha ng application ko. But it was over in a few minutes. And we happened to notice that the other students there were dressed like normal people (by normal, I mean, like us), not like...er...Aquino. Inside joke. Hehe. Bad, Edlyn, bad.
And so that's that. It's set. Dianne and I are taking the Ateneo law exam on November 12 (yep, mom's birthday) and the UP law exam on November 27. It's final. My Lord can't do anything about it anymore. But if we do push through with taking his philo 104 class next sem, he'll be sure to ask us about it again. And if we do get accepted in UP, we can expect to see him there again. Yippee.
Hell, my head hurts. Sumakit ata ulo ko sa sermon ni My Lord.
Oh, but there was one good thing about the meeting with My Lord though. I've discovered that I'm really not the only one who thinks Dr. Tejido's crazy! His students are not the only ones who think he's crazy! Even My Lord said so! I didn't even have to rant first before he said it! Ha!
So, it started out like this. My sister and I picked up Dianne (yes, I'll try to call you Dianne from now on haha) from her dorm at about 10:45 am. She'd told me beforehand that My Lord was still withholding her recommendation letter and was planning to give it to her after lunch (sadistic, I tell you). So, we decided to go to UP first. On the way (we still passed by our store in White Plains...and why the hell do I have to mention this anyway?), Dianne mentioned how she'd mentioned to My Lord that I, too, was going to apply for law school. Oh, way to go, Miss Patawaran! So much for escaping his lectures! Haha. You can guess his reaction to that. If he was against Dianne's applying for law school, he had to be even more against my doing so.
So, we went to UP first. Got postage stamps at the post office there. Almost didn't make it...we were ten minutes late in getting there before their breaktime. Niiiiiiiiccccccccce. But the woman was nice and took pity on us. She agreed to shell out two postage stamps for us pitiful creatures standing there with such desperate looks on our faces.
Then, we went to the Law building. Dianne's information sheet read that we ought to g to room 211. And so we did. We tried to pretend we actually looked like we belonged there, and we climbed up to the second floor and sought out room 211. It was a single door with 211 written above it. It looked more like the door to a bathroom or a private bedroom or something. It didn't look like the door into a place where you drop off your law school application forms. And it was locked. But it said 211, so Dianne knocked. And knocked. And knocked. Finally, we wandered over to the open doorway of room 212 and found a woman sitting behind a desk. And she so nicely informed us that we were at the wrong building, knocking at the wrong room 211. We were supposed to go to Malcolm Hall next door, not the UP Law Center.
And so, still struggling to appear dignified, but with obvious mortification on our faces, we both headed for the building next door and found the right room 211. We turned in our application forms, paid for them at the Philippine National Bank near the UP Shopping Center (the pains of being in a large campus), then went back to Malcolm Hall to claim our exam permits.
And that was that for UP. Exam date is set for November 27.
Since My Lord had said that he would give the recommendation letter after lunch, and since he refused to answer Dianne's constant text messages asking for an earlier meeting time, Dianne, my sister and I decided to have lunch first at Kenny Rogers, where my sister's high school friend, R.E., met us. While we were paying for our food, My Lord's reply came. "Now. I want to meet you both at the dept so I can do my best to try to talk you out of this." Not the exact text message, but that's the gist of it. Note the word "both". I, too, was being summoned to the dept to hear his opinion. Fun. Looked like I was in the hot seat with Dianne after all. And here I believed that I escaped the inevitable lecture by not asking him for a recommendation letter!
We managed to get My Lord to agree to let us meet him twenty minutes later, and we barely chewed our food in our rush to make it. In the end, we decided to leave our food half-unfinished, meet him first, then just go back to finish it. Then, we hightailed it over the overpass, through the tree-lined walkway to Dela Costa Hall, and up the staircase to the Philosophy Department.
So, how was the "lecture"? Depressing. First, he asked both of us why we wanted to go to law school. I made Dianne go first because she was the reason why I was there in that torture chamber anyway (>:D evil). I said all that stuff about how I just want to keep my options open, take the exam first, then decide, blah blah blah. He launched into his old lecture about how we should postpone applying and work for at least a year first before going to law school. He doesn't even want us to take the test (though he did say several times that we were sure to pass...at least the Ateneo exam), because we would never be able to back out if we take the test. Once you open that door and all that.
He advised us against UP, too. Said that if we were so hellbent on going to law school, we ought to go to Ateneo. Dianne and I both argued that we would never fit in with the other people in Ateneo Law. Know what he said? "Oo nga, di nga kayo babagay dun." Ouch. You didn't have to confirm it. You could have lied, you know.
It was a very long lecture...about thirty to forty minutes. Felt a lot like oral exam. There were several moments when no one spoke, when he seemed to be waiting for us to say something, to agree with him, to argue, or something. I couldn't even look straight at him. The sad thing was, much of what he said hit us straight where it hurt. Neither of us aren't sure whether law school is really what we want. But both of us feel this need to pursue law school. Family pressure and other stuff. The whole conversation depressed us so much that I think both of us felt like crying then and there. Everything he said just served to bring out our doubts, our worst fears our greatest frustrations. If I entered that room doubting myself and my decisions, I left it even more confused and afraid.
But, as we told My Lord (and as he said he expected anyway), it was too late already. We'd already passed our UP applications, and gotten our permits. As for the Ateneo applications, we'd both paid for it already, and it would be a waste of 1,200 pesos if we didn't submit our applications. So, with heavy hearts and confused minds, Dianne and I left My Lord looking at us as if we'd disappointed him and went back to Kenny Rogers, where we managed to choke down the rest of our food.
My sister and her friend tried to cheer us up. R.E. is in his fourth year in up law, and he knows My Lord. He disagreed with much of what My Lord had told us, and assured us that law school was great, and that we needn't go to work first before going to law school. I think I became even more confused and conflicted after that.
But, yes, it was too late, so we drove to Rockwell, to the Ateneo Law School. Bangag na kami ni Dianne nun, at nawawala na naman kami. I knew from Raph that we had to go to the third floor. So we did. He'd told me that we had to go to the window beside the "free asian wall". So, when we reached the third floor, we saw the bank of windows. I was trying to find the free asian wall though. I guess I was expecting, I don't know...a mural? A painting? But there was none. There were only bulletin boards. And then I saw it. A rack hold free copies of the Asian Wall Street Journal. Wow. Smart, Edlyn. Really smart.
Ang sungit pa nung babae na kumuha ng application ko. But it was over in a few minutes. And we happened to notice that the other students there were dressed like normal people (by normal, I mean, like us), not like...er...Aquino. Inside joke. Hehe. Bad, Edlyn, bad.
And so that's that. It's set. Dianne and I are taking the Ateneo law exam on November 12 (yep, mom's birthday) and the UP law exam on November 27. It's final. My Lord can't do anything about it anymore. But if we do push through with taking his philo 104 class next sem, he'll be sure to ask us about it again. And if we do get accepted in UP, we can expect to see him there again. Yippee.
Hell, my head hurts. Sumakit ata ulo ko sa sermon ni My Lord.
Oh, but there was one good thing about the meeting with My Lord though. I've discovered that I'm really not the only one who thinks Dr. Tejido's crazy! His students are not the only ones who think he's crazy! Even My Lord said so! I didn't even have to rant first before he said it! Ha!
# Lyn found a missing piece @ 6:00 PM 
