this was the first post for the Stand Alone Complex blog but this was on another site. I'm just moving it here to integrate it into the SAC continuity. ditch

This will be the start of a whole new chapter in my life...gone are the safety and comfort of home...in place of the big house in Bacolod is a room barely enough to fit a double-deck bed with a few square feet to move around...

I console myself with the fact that this sacrifice would all turn out well in the end. Getting an education from a top-notch institution will be no easy task, however. As I am getting a feel of the academic environment here at UP, I often feel helpless and lost in the wide expanse of the campus and in the maze of offices...ah, to be a freshman again...tinanga all over again, hehehe. Good thing I have this map of UP Campus I printed out from my PC before we left and now I have it handy in my backpack just in case. I feel like Dora the Explorer...backpack!...map!

So, arriving about a week before classes start, what does one do? well, aside from the preparations with the boarding house (or in my case, room) there's the pre-registration and the enrollment. This is where most of the tinanga happens but one thing I've learned when in a strange place is that it never hurts to ask (directions, assistance, clarification, etc.). Ignorance is itself the beginning of knowledge, and kung tanga ka at magtatanong ka, mawawala 'yang pagkatanga mo pero kung tanga ka na nga at hindi ka pa nagtatanong, magiging tanga ka forever (uy, tagalog yun ah!)

So this will be the time that all the creature comforts are abandoned and I will be bracing myself for a semester of "blood" (as one upperclassman remarked upon seeing the name of my would-be professor in two courses: "Naku...madugo yan si Prof___________...alam mo yung dugo?"). I just nodded my head without actually getting what the hell she meant with the last remark. (dugo? hello!!!)

So far, how's my "stand alone complex" holding up? To tell you the truth I rather enjoy this time of solitude. I am not really alone mind you, there's my "neighbors" in the boarding house, the books that I have stashed inside my room, the DVDs and VCDs that I purchased, and all my loved ones are just a call or text away. Plus the whole of Manila awaits to be explored, and that is one pasttime that I'm looking forward to...

Stand Alone 1.01