feels like home

I lived in the Diliman campus for 6 years. Thinking about it, I would’ve survived for six years without going out of the campus without feeling deprived of life’s essentials and simple luxuries. The Diliman Campus Bible Church is of course inside the campus.
The UP shopping center has everything I need, Turon, reading glasses (I have no use for them, just want to emphasize the variety), Tapsilog, paperbacks, major dailies, maasim na mangga, gold fish. Name it, the shopping center has everything.
If I want to watch movies, the Film Center is there (although you would have to wait for several months after the latest movie would be shown). The film center also shows art films (whatever that means). Hospital? There is the UP Health Service, although some say it’s not reliable, still….there are hospital beds and available medical staff. A bleeding hand can’t complain.

The campus has been my home away from home for six years. That’s why every now and then, I find myself longing to visit my second home. That’s why last Saturday, I visited the campus again. My first stop was the shopping center, most of the shops have been converted to internet shops. Before, the center is dominated by photocopiers and “binders”. Now, with the advent of cyber age, the shopping center also evolved with the changing times. But some of the original shops are still there, Rodic’s of course and Miranda Bookstore. And the Coop (UP Cooperative)! It’s still the same even the Ate and Kuya, They’re still there. And they’re still selling the dormer’s essentials, timba, tabo, soap dish, walis, and of course the student’s blue book in the 2nd floor. And the arrangement of their SKU’s is almost unchanged. But I notice that the Coop building is getting old. Somehow I felt like I was visiting my grandmother since I felt very comfortable with the aging look of the Coop.

I didn’t get to go around the campus but a day wouldn’t have been enough to cover all the places that I want to visit.

I didn’t see any familiar face save for the vendors this time. Usually I bump into a former classmate or dorm mate. Maybe I’m really getting old. Like light years older….physically ……and also emotionally I hope.

The first few times I would visit after graduation, a wave of nostalgia would sweep over me. As time went by, a different feeling persisted, although the nostalgia is still there, I felt very comfortable with my surroundings. I felt at home.