You’ve known about it before, that I’m a Ateneo de Davao Student again. I took the examinations and did everything needed to do to be part of this instuition that I have kept hanging once back during my secondary education years. But heck, have things changed. Ateneo isn’t the same Ateneo anymore. It has excelled from the excellence that I have witnessed first hand during my High School stay at the Matina Campus of Ateneo de Davao.

Ateneo First Year Orientation Program Day 01 – June 02,

2009

The first day of the Orientation Program known as the Ateneo First Year Orientation Program or AFYOP was the most hassle one, I had difficulty adjusting to the new time schedule when to sleep and went to wake up and arrived late at the Ateneo by around ten minutes and that, even with riding a Taxi. Upon arrival at the gates of the Jacinto Campus of the said academe, I went straight to the covered court where I have seen not just one, two, three but a dozen and more fellow Philippine Women’s College of Davao batchmates of mine who are part of the School of Arts and Sciences, I went like, WOW, there are a lot of Philwomenians who want to show off their PWCian Culture among the Jesuits!

The whole program started with a Mass, just like everything starts with a traditional prayer or with a mass like in our case. The host of the mass was the University President who has warmly welcomed each and everyone to Ateneo and left us some words to think and ponder our thoughts on during our stay. We should great one another, -the next person close to us- said a random voice and the first classmate of mine every to approach me goes by the name Judy who just did that, “Hi.” with a murmuring response from yours truly. After the mass was celebrated and the crowded venue of S.A.S freshmen was crowded, we headed to our classrooms, ours was located at the 5th floor -so says the elevator- while at the covered court it was said that z5 will take up a room on the 4th level of the main building facing corner Roxas and Claveria. Our room was located on the C.M Recto side of things facing the Metro whatever you call that triangle.

We had an activity which was named the Human Bingo, where we had to have our papers signed by respective classmates of ours whose personality and other information suits best to what is being asked for, there’s been only one person in the whole room running with glasses and only one female lady who came from Ilocos, it was tough to approach our fellow classmates at first but once somebody has started, everyone has followed and of course, three of us finished ahead of the crowd and claimed some goodies that have been distributed today. He had other activities too, but the next most significant one for the morning session of that 2nd of July Orientation Program was when we were told to write our name, nickname or whatever calling on a piece of paper and add appropriate adjectives that describe us and our personality starting with each letter of our name, and I ended up with the following.
K ind
E ntertaining
V ersatile
S imple
Personality of which I have emphasized my flexible, or as listed above Versatile asset the most. Accompanying me from the PWC of Davao were Pamela Pascual and Rudolf Matalam of which the latter was my classmate during my Junior Years at the PWC. The girl next to my back was the one I have talked with instead asking her what from the letters of her name she’d emphasize the most and ended up saying the word Simple. And her nick by the way was Sang. The person to her right goes by the nickname Din -which is unfairly short :p- who emphasized on the word diligent while the other girl to Din’s right going by the nick Teza -who was the Senior Classmate of the former girl I mentioned above at the Holy Cross- emphasized at I don’t know what letter that was. haha.

It was just the start of the day, the start of a bond that I and my classmates gonna have for the whole semester ahead and already now, I’ve been able to identify the funny ones and entertaining classmates like one who goes by the name of Neil, who frequently wonders why everyone is laughing at almost anything he does. We sang a song, we ha a little dance, and that was it for the day or maybe not? But before I head to the following day let me rewind back to what happened during the Lunch.

At lunch time, I was accompanied by the three girls Din, Isang and Teza along with their respective friends to lure some food down our mouth, at the canteen I met fellow Student Blogger Patrik from the Bunsoi Magazine -who I believe has quiet an issue right now-. He was kind of mysteriously laughing about me bragging around with my WordPress shirt that day, emphasizing that there aren’t many bloggers out there in the campus who might come to recognize it, but, so what?

I went to the Gazeebo where I wasn’t alone but accompanied with other mates of mine to have a few moments checking out my Plurk account and other online chores I’m frequently taking care of. And then we went up for the sing and dance practices and activities of ours. The day seemed a bit long and endless, and our Ate whose name I forgot who was accompanied by the cousin of my fellow blogger Vincent who goes by the name Ralph had two games in mind which appeared to be funny at first but ended up into another boring streak when no one really outed of the mini game.

We had a small tour around the campus and it was like a suicide attempt for me roaming around the campus with my heavy baggage and half empty stomach but I survived it, somehow. And that was how the first day has ended.

Ateneo First Year Orientation Program Day 02 – June 03, 2009

The second day was the most entertaining one, everyone was still a bit shy on the former date but it was today when most likely everyone was up for the hype and there are truly a few things that I’ll hardly forget as one of the momentous first moments at Ateneo de Davao and before I’ll forget about the funniest part…

Tower Building out of Straw

Before we headed down stairs from the seventh floor -we were relocated to a new classroom because of Airconditioin Malfunction-, he had a little group/team activity and contest. He had to create a tower out of straw and base it on the criteria: Most stable, best design and tallest and guess what, we went all the way to grab only one of the factors and that was the height.

With the accompaniment of a fellow blogger, Ralph of wapolz.blogspot.com we went on with the tedious task and ended up with our tower being blown away by the first attempt to knock it down with a strong wind push coming from a card board. And there it goes, our tower is down the third to be tried and tested, the tallest yet worst when it comes to durability. The last one stood tall and proud and looked nice, but hey, that wasn’t really the name of the game, democracy has messed up a bit about the winner!

The most messy looking tower created by our joker in class and his groupmates who have not really contributed that much was tested by the leader of another tower group and it stood strong, whilst the said joker in class attempted to knock the other tower down and still stood strong. We had three towers up and it was a close draw wherein the favorite was clear to see -or maybe not-

The jury said that it was up to us now to pick a winner and to clap our hands for the one we liked the most. The first one on the role was the most messy one and our group and members of other groups showed their support by clapping for it while none has clapped for the latter two meaning that the messy one has succeeded and won, and I bet the judge was a bit amazed by the despicable result :p

We had a little cheering practice for our one and only cheer that we’d shout during the program that was going to be held at the court at 3PM today, the cheer was courtesy of Bea I don’t know her family name and it goes like “Tik a tik tik a tik tik a tik boo, better watch out ’cause z5 is coming through”. Well, it sounded a bit nasty during practice but it become worse at the actual moment we had to presented it to our fellow batch mates at the program proper.

I could talk about so many beautiful things that have happened to me these past 48 hours but time and my patience won’t allow me to. I was indeed happy and indeed feel like I finally have this sense of belongingness to my class and most especially to the Ateneo community. I would like to thank everyone from my classmates down to our Ate and Kuya who took care of us these 2 days of Orientation and simply everyone else who works behind the scene, the much speculated famous O.S.A head Sir Ricky and simply everyone who has warmly welcomed us to the elites, the Ateneo de Davao University.

FYI: Pictures can be seen at the bottom of this post, click them to view in original size, leave comments if you feel to do so, don’t be shy, I love comments even negative feedback as long as you don’t hit me back personally without having a blog of your own that I might laugh back at