*boy or girl?

Michael graduated salutatorian yesterday. Instead of delivering a salutatory address of some sort, he just led the pledge. I won’t lie that I had this illusion of writing him another speech. But then again, the school decided to do something else this year. So, fail. I have to be okay with that.

As expected, I had no value all throughout the ceremony. I didn’t even have a reserved seat. Both of our parents were going up and down the stage for different awards. Mariel was with Michael’s girlfriend. Good thing Kath and Lean came to watch with me. We had fun “constructively criticizing” the graduates (makeup, hairdo, and valedictory address included), the parents, the ceremony itself, and our former schoolmates who came.

The whole ceremony started at 4 pm with a Baccalaureate Mass and ended at 10 pm. No exaggerations. So after the whole thing, our next problem was where to eat.

My suggestion was to go home, sleep, and celebrate tomorrow. Their’s was to scout for an open restaurant and celebrate ASAP. We found one, Max’s. But my brother has this thing of not eating in restaurants where there’s another graduate celebrating. We had to find another one. It was around 11 pm.

We ended up in the most prestigious place where a graduate can eat and celebrate – Burby’s/Tapa King.

Michael’s girlfriend was supposed to come. Later on my brother explained why she can’t. I’d rather not share why, because he’ll hate me again for not taking it/her reason seriously. I tagged Lean and Kath with me. They’re family, my parents should know that.

I could have chosen to spend the rest of the night with Kath and Lean – drink and party somewhere, get wasted, and celebrate. But we all needed to go home. One, I don’t want Kath to go home drunk. She just asked her parents to watch my brother’s graduation with me. Two, I just snatched Lean from a “meeting” he had with a classmate. I think his parents didn’t even know that I was with him. Three, I still had school requirements waiting to be finished. How unfortunate.

Back to my brother: I’m not sure if he already has a definite plan on where to go to college. From the last time I wrote an entry about him, he had a 360 decision spin on what he wants to do with the rest of his life. From taking premed and continuing medicine, to engineering. He’s definitely not going to UP. He failed to get into a program. It was all premed, that’s why. Talk about, first choice: Nursing, UP Manila; second choice was, I think, Physical Therapy, UP Manila; then BS Psychology, UP Diliman; and finally, some premed quota course, UP Diliman. Great. A sure ball fail.

Last time I heard, he’s going to MIT. Not where Noam Chomsky is to be found, but in Mapua. They brag to have pioneered the quarter system/term in the country. Meaning, a five-year course can be finished in four, a four-year course in three to three and a half. But let’s extend the analysis.

A quarter term program would only mean paying tuition fee four times in one academic year. You can now deduce reasons why I don’t want this to happen. But in one word: MAHAL. It’s a financial hurdle for me, inasmuch as it is my family’s. The global recession is far from over.

We all still have roughly two months to plan and strategize. My initial suggestion is for Michael to enter MIT and shift to UP after a year. My parents doubt the idea.

Like most of my entries, I don’t know how to end this one. So, I’ll just show you our parking lot shots instead.

*sometimes, titles, like labels, are irrelevant.