elbi frenchkissing dementors

"The “gimmick” scene is obviously irksome, but it’s not the worst thing to hit my beloved campus. The worst thing is that under UPLB’s new administration, my school is turning into some sort of sanitized…parochial institution.

UPLB is supposed to be hazy. It’s supposed to be imperfect. There should be cracks where people - anything - can fall through. It’s supposed to be borderline disorganized, slightly anarchic. The point of going to UP, and more so in the boondocks of the NPA-adjacent, secular and supernatural UP Los Baños is to slip through the cracks. It’s the chance to throw away, just for a few years until reality bites back, the mores and conventions of our collective bourgeouise upbringing. And in this slipping and throwing, finding yourself."

read the full entry "lb by katrina ramos atienza" from dear friend moki's blog

this post reminded me of a dream i had last year where uplb is dark place enclosed in hogwarts-like walls. id is a prerequisite to enter the premises. there are guards on armor. streets are paved and the air is quiet. me and my friends from the student council had just left our bus filled with activists and other people who oppose the evident changes. perhaps it was that time when makiling was chained and raped by more aggressive administrative policies of the university. i will never forget that dream because it was one of the weirdest, postmodern that i had so far. we were running, running and running past the newly paved roads. we run non-stop inside the labyrinth of buildings. we were running, running and running to catch the juday-sam milby shooting. but because of the id checking and all the security checking shits, we missed judy ann and sam in farmer clothes. don’t judge me. it’s my subconscious on the works. lol

damn i miss elbi. i miss the good old elbi that is free and proactive. i miss the narnia of the south.

i miss shouting “iskolar ng bayan ngayon ay lumalaban!”