Part 1: Bio 118 Field Trip

Bio 118 is our code for entomology class. It is an animal taxonomy elective required to be taken during our undergraduate years. I never planned to take this course since I was never into insects. What I had in mind was to take Invertebrate Zoology instead as an animal taxonomy elective. I know Invertebrate Zoology includes helminthology, but it also includes cnidarians, mollusks, and echinoderms. It only means one thing – a field trip to the beach.

The first time we met our professor, I thought he was cool. That was until he started giving us pop quizzes, both in lecture and in laboratory. That’s four and a half hours with him on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In addition to that, I hate insects. But on that particular morning he saw us studying at the lobby, he stopped giving us quizzes. That was cool until I remembered that I had to miss our annual ritual because of a three-night long field work at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. He informed us about this as early as the first day we met, so I had ample time to get over it and accept my misfortune.

I learned to accept my misfortune in those two months. That was until the day of our departure. Afternoon classes were suspended on that day and we were supposed to leave the university at 6PM. That means I have time to say goodbye to my friends who will be present at the ritual. And being good friends as they are, they began convincing me to attend the ritual and go to the work site on the next day instead. I was so close to agreeing with them, but I knew better. I...I...ohmy, I can't say it! IMISSEDTHEPARTY. There.

We stopped by Shell in SLEX to grab dinner. I told my classmates that if I were to climb over the wall of the gasoline station, I'd be home in 5 minutes. I wanted to go home so bad since it was a 3-day long weekend. That was how much I hated going to the field work. I never called it field trip since I didn't consider it a trip. It's work. Work, work, work. Anyway, my classmates and I did this funny thing. There was this photo booth at KFC which flashes the customers' photos on a large screen, we tried that. We had a couple of photos which were sent to my classmate's email address. I'd be happy to upload proof of our vanity, but my classmate has not uploaded it yet.

We arrived at the guesthouse at around 9PM. What irked me even more was that we were staying at the College of Forestry which was really, really, really far away from stores and people. I tell you, they didn't call it College of Forestry for nothing. We had to walk a long way to get to the jeep route and we had to wait a long time before a jeep comes which delay me to see my high school friends. Since our professor is a cool guy (I mean it this time), we convinced him to take us to the lower campus so we could buy stuff. Oh yeah, I met some of my high school classmates down there. They were, like me, members of the school rondalla. I also met Chester that night, another high school classmate. He took me to his dormitory because I was going to borrow a pair of slippers. We had to run across the wet grass to meet the rest of the class who were waiting for me.

We spent the rest of the night playing games and laughing. That was the first time I heard our professor laugh that hard and I thought hey, he really seems to be a cool guy. He stayed up late with us because his duty was to take good care of his students. Oh yeah, one of my classmates was celebrating his birthday on the next day. We sang a nice "Happy Birthday" for him at exactly 12 midnight.

Those are my roommates (except for the guy in yellow) celebrating the safety of our arrival.

And those are my classmates waiting for Dan's (the guy wearing jersey)

birthday. And our professor, the one wearing a coral pink shirt.

I know. I should really get a tripod.