Catch my breath.

[Long post after so long, while I still have the time]

It has been 8 days.

Here I am breathing air belonging temporarily in a different airspace from home, before being blown away into other continents over other seas. 

We're just a strait and many states apart, but distance remains distance. It's easier not to feel much emotion as of now because of the hustle of everything, and I agree to the known fact that time alone is time allowed for previously hurried, suppressed emotions to creep in.

And while I wait for time to catch up on me and work it's ways of letting me start to feel, I've been enjoying the process of learning things I had no chance of doing before, like going on public transport way early in the morning before the sun actually shows itself; the journey stretching to more than an hour. And coming back with public transport again, changing buses and trains to go back just before midnight from orientation. Only with this do I realize how precious those 10-15 minute car rides from home to school were. 

Anyway, I love how I'm walking a greater deal here. I hope this new-found source of satisfaction stays this way, because I know on long, overstretched days, my sentiments would probably not be the same.

But I guess what I'm enjoying most is the daily accomplishments I've gained, be it big or small, which is what makes looking at how my day has been each night so exciting.

It has been adventure, so far. Moving around. Solving my way through all the technical complications with online portals. Overcoming my laziness/ dread of public transport. Learning to love quiet time on long bus rides. Missing bus stops because I was just too tired from camp to notice. And having to trace the route back and walk the other direction in the dark of night. Meeting people at orientation camp. Pushing away the camp-commandant side of me that I've mostly been, to becoming a participant and team player all over again, hard at the start but humbling all the same.

Picture taken; First few steps on the street after dumping my luggage haul to its temporary home.

Therapy: Working in the kitchen.

Comfort food, home-made and all, in someone else's home away from home

Late nights of browsing through my bulk of letters gotten over the past year.
To everyone who contributed to the stash, the picture may not show it,
but I brought every single letter and am so grateful for each one of them.

Late night rides on empty buses.
Rain and the blazing air-conditioning creeping the cold into my bones.

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It was a crazy month.
The anxiety of waiting for answers while being aware of the immense competition and slim chances, the answers that came to comfort and reassure, the real confirmation that came by mail.
Racing to pack what I took months to settle in and leaving so quick I didn't get the chance to breathe and look back.
The rushed goodbyes with people I never expected and didn't know I could grow so close to in such a short period of time made it harder than it already was. I miss my family. I miss my bunch and something deep down tells me this group of people are irreplaceable. The irony, though, because I conditioned myself before college than I would never find a group like this. The shoulder-resting, the food stealing, the deep, honest talks, lame jokes and hand holding, literally and figuratively.

But I'm here, and I'm still in awe because I was assured that the doors will be opened, to find it confirmed a few days later. I've been carried over one hurdle of getting in, and my assurance is that I will be carried through the hurdles of the next three years (promising to be high and tough and impossible and demoralizing beyond my expectations).

I have a feeling I'll be looking again at this blog post 3 years down the road, graduated and accomplished (I hope). And right now, I can't help feeling curious of what I'll be thinking then. But with how life paces quickly, though the hardship of trials in between never fail to seem like forever, 3 years will come and we'll be different people.
We will grow into the butterflies from these ugly caterpillar skins.
Diamonds, more polished than in the present rough.
Swords sharper and gleaming through the fire.

Strength that has proven to be fully reliable, 

and grace that sees me through.