My recent summer experience

My recent summer experience was filled with tiring yet life-changing activities. From my sad farewell to my High-school friends in March to my first job experience in April up to my dramatic days of separation from my family last May, all of these things comprised my vacation which made it indeed a very busy yet memorable summer vacation for me.

My two-month break started with tears as I bade goodbye to the people who I shared my high school years with. I did not expect that I would face a day which put good things to an end. I thought I would never easily get over it as I always am whenever someone leaves or says goodbye, but God was so good then that He never let me just cry all day long while I was reminiscing all those good memories that my classmates and I had.

A new life should embark as others would always say, and fortunately I was able to make it after that sad moment. I was able to hurdle over that great “trauma” and I was able to start my summer just the way it should be. My vacation officially started when I worked as one of the Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES) grantees. For 10 days, I had rendered my service to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. There, I worked in the collection office. My job was easy at the beginning but it got worse everyday. I was assigned to segregate different papers which I did not mind to know. I was also tasked to stamp piles of ITR forms. I considered it as the hardest part of the job because I had to deal with those papers very carefully plus I had to extend my patience considering those heavy and uncooperative stamps drove me crazy every time. Even though I had to work with those circumstances daily still I was happy about it. Through that work, I experienced my first job interview, I had my first work experience, and most importantly, I earned my first worked salary. However, it was just quite pathetic because my job there had to end under time because I had to be in Iligan City to attend the Summer Orientation and Enrichment Program (SOEP) for DOST Scholars.

MAY 4 was the day of my departure, and as I counted down to that day, I had become very busy. There were a lot of things to fix, such packing up my shirts, securing scholarship forms and keeping the contacts in my phone. Even though I would just be away from my family for a couple of days only, I had never forgotten to say good bye to them, and of course, it was inevitable to shed some tears as we said our farewells to each other. The days during those times ran so fast that May 4 came as fast as a blink of an eye and along with that day was an indication of another milestone that was yet for me to discover.

It was dawn of May 4 that I left from home. When I departed I was really very excited because apart from the feeling that I was about to begin my college life, it was also a stepping stone of my independence. In fact, it was first time to travel alone, that was, no parents, no other relatives but my cellular phone for communication. And indeed, it was cool. However, it was just quite frightening especially when I became farther and farther from my family because it was in my thought that I might still have the communication but it never meant that it would last for the whole trip. I was afraid that I might lose the communication between my mother and me; hence, I was very careful in keeping my phone always on the coverage.

It was already 6 in the evening when I first set my step on this marvelous city of waterfalls. When the streetlights and busy roads had welcomed me from the terminal, I saw how this city looks exactly similar with Tagum City (my hometown); I said to myself that it would not be difficult for me to adapt to this new environment especially that I somehow got used to this city-type surrounding.

I stayed with my other classmate who is also a scholar in an apartment in Ceanuri. There were just two of us there. With an experience of house chores back home, we came up to a fair routine of who would prepare our food, who would clean the house and etc. Through that I somehow felt that I was never away from home.

My first few days here were full of happiness. I roamed around the city, I went to different Iligan’s wonderful spots, and I met new faces who become my friends now. However, I unexpectedly noticed that the happiness I felt constantly diminished as I raised myself against those solitary days that ran leisurely. Suddenly, clouds of tears covered the atmosphere of happiness and smeared my days with nothing but loneliness. Since then, I realized that my happy days were over. I began to deal with those sleepless nights as I was remembering my good old days back home. I began to feel the solitude of being far, and I began to feel how hard it was to be away from the family. During those days, I just hoped nothing but to be back again in the arms of the people who truly give me unconditional love, that was, I wanted to be back home again.

Although I was far from my family for less than a month, it seemed I was away from them for years that when I came back to them, I hugged them tightly and kissed them heartfully. I had just found myself crying on their shoulders and saying words that I had never said before to them. Well, it was simply the manifestation of my eagerness to be home again. In the end of dramatic reunion, I had just realized that it was never cool to be independent and above all, it was never easy to start a life away from the family.

Indeed my recent summer vacation was very tiring and very dramatic which only made it very memorable and life-changing experience for me. It was really a total different one!