“YOU’RE A BLESSING TO US”

Waking up to horn sound of those vehicles and this city vibe is never really my thing, but start from now I’ll be living here for a month, in Manila the capital city of the Philippines. I am staying with Ria and Kandi and the rest of our friends paired up with the other friends with the same major. We woke up early to make sure that we're not late in our first day. Around 7 the ten of us already well dressed with our alma mater and those two from Thailand wearing their uniform that I’ve only seen in a Thailand movies, the white shirt and the black shirt. A girl and a boy student named Hani and JR picked us up at our dorm, they took care of us since this is our first day to go to UST, even though UST is just across our dormitory it was hard for us to cross the street since it’s morning there are many cars, jeepney passing by so we have to be extra careful.

The view from our dorm

JR helped us to cross the street

We're going to Education Building

4th floor of educ building

We had a little chat with the dean and our supervisor

We went to Education building for our orientation, we welcomed by the security guard, they are really nice then we went upstairs to the 4^th floor, there’s actually lift for us to get there but the lift is only for the disability and art student because they bring heavy instrument. So we got to 4^th with stairway.

We went inside to the room, but there were no people besides us, until 15 minutes the dean, supervisor came and we had a little chat before the orientation program started and I met my supervisor there actually the elementary teacher education we talked before on email regarding our topic before my departure, she’s really beautiful and have sense of humor I could say.

ID card and the rund down program

Training by Mr. Vincent

Met Torchy the symbol of educ

Had lunch with the dean, the supervisor, and the buddies

A little while, the orientation program started, we introduced ourselves one by one infront of them.

The orientation was well prepared, we have the run down, so we don’t get little lost, since people here have a really long name but we only know their nick name. We have trained session for brain-based teaching and learning by Mr. Vincent, he is a very well speaker he made he training really fun and make us participate. After the training, there’s a thomasian buddy session where we’re going to meet our buddies here, they weren’t here at the start of orientation program because they have their practicum in the morning we played some games with the dean to make us and the buddies got closer.

There’s a speech form the dean, Ma’am Pilar says “ You’re a blessing to us” it somehow make it's like a spirit word to keep me going and like a cheer word for me start the days here, in a country faraway from my home, I feel really welcomed here, in UST to meet such amazing professors, and to feel the hospitability and we officially become the Thomasian: that’s how the UST student called themselves, A Thomasian. We took some pictures, and have our lunch prepared by university. They have some ritual like praying God for a blessing, and the food. While we’re eating, they told us that we shouldn’t talk while our mouth is full with food cause that's the manner here. Then we got our break time to pray, we pray in that room cause we still have afternoon schedule for campus tour, some of has finished praying until those pink uniform came through our room with their awkward smiles, I told them that some of us still praying some of them tried to be quiet and respected us, they introduce themselves as social student studies major that will be our tour guide for tour campus. It was a little raining outside I was thinking that we had to wait for the rain to stop, but each of them have their umbrella so we started our tour campus room and our buddies come along as we went to Arch of the centuries, one of the social studies major come up and explain they take turn to explain each places we visited since UST is a really big university the age is 400 years since Spanish colonial, I was amazed by the building just like the history the building has adapted with Spanish architecture which somehow looked classic, and it was great seeing the main building as one of national cultural treasure of the Philippines cause honestly I did some research about it and the main building is the first thing that pops up and it does a great building with amazing architecture.

Main building at evening ft Keng and that cute kid

Main building at night

Talking about the Arch of The Centuries they have this one tradition for every freshman, they would pass through it at the orientation day, and they will pass through on their graduation day they believe that if a student who tried to pass the Arch of Centuries before they graduate it means they couldn't graduate from UST. Our campus tour ended around 5.30 pm, and our buddies taking us to our dorm to make sure we don't get lost to be honest it was confusing at first, but I am sure I can remember the street after a few days.