Going back to college seemed like a much hoped-for clearing in the forest, after years of trying to "find myself" in the corporate jungle. I feel vast hills and valleys separate me from the same self who wrote for PDI’s Youngblood space more than a year ago that "I personally prefer to work in the great urban jungles of Ayala, Eastwood or Ortigas. There’s an energy in these places that you just feed on. I feel strangely alive, yes, in the frenetic pace of these megacenters of work and commerce..." ("Taking It from Here", 13-Aug-05). There's definitely a time and place for everything. However, the more I reflect on it now and after several recent walking tours of my old alma mater - the Loyola Schools of the Ateneo de Manila University - the more I am convinced I don't "belong" in school anymore.
Oh, I've picked out my art classes and have set the date on my calendar for second semester enrollment. I’m pushing through with those additional classes full throttle, full-steam ahead. Like other Ateneans, I derive pride in external improvements to the campus: our quaint Jesuit Communications “tindahan” of CDs, books and other spiritual materials; our massive student organization house, and our Olympic-size swimming pool. I don’t fret I’d stick out like a sore-thumb in class because spending close to three years in the call center industry has ingrained in me the habit of dressing in my own "casually hip" style (whatever THAT means!).
By saying “I don’t belong in school anymore”, it has crystallized in my head that this is not some “Blast from the Past” (Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser) movie I’m going to live out in my present. I am not going to relive my college “glory” days, nor is it going to be all fun and games recovering my “inner child”. I don’t delude myself that I am part of this generation of seemingly happy-go-lucky, impeccably fashion-forward students playing “tong-its”, solitaire or bluff in their spare time at the cafeteria. It’s not my time anymore to be protected by books and rhetoric and the comforting predictability of class schedules. “I don’t belong in school” means I realize I should be out there in other communities and with other groups, learning and sharing their stories and contributing to solutions for our country’s many challenges. I believe that I AM needed and I have something valuable to share with and give others. The reality of a genuine Atenean education being a privilege and the responsibility of being “sent off” in our commencement exercises has finally dawned on me...after six years!!!
So instead of the same routine (“Then I step out of the house and join the rest of the working world in the mad, mad morning rush to our offices.”), I’m now faced with prospects of work and studies at the same time and THAT is exciting for me. I feel that instead of discovering a plateau from where I can calculatingly survey the lay of the land, I am going back into the woods. I leave those finding their way - like I am - with this funny, philosophical song from the 1987 Broadway musical “Into the Woods” (starring multi-talented Bernadette Peters, with the score written by Steven Sondheim and the book by James Lapine) as food for the journey:
Prologue Into the Woods Lyrics
http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/i/intothewoodslyrics/prologueintothewoodslyrics.html
[LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD]
Into the woods,
It's time to go,
I hate to leave,
I have to, though.
Into the woods-
It's time, and so
I must begin my journey.
Into the woods
And through the trees
To where I am
Expected ma'am,
Into the woods
To Grandmother's house-
Into the woods
To Grandmother's house-
[BAKER'S WIFE]
You're certain of your way?
[LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD]
The way is clear,
The light is good,
I have no fear,
Nor no one should.
The woods are just trees,
The trees are just wood.
I sort of hate to ask it,
But do you have a basket?
Into the woods
And down the dell,
The path is straight,
I know it well.
Into the woods,
And who can tell
What's waiting on the journey?
Into the woods
To bring some bread
To Granny who
Is sick in bed.
Never can tell
What lies ahead.
For all that I know,
She's already dead.
But into the woods,
Into the woods,
Into the woods
To Grandmother's house
And home before dark.
