New Moon Blues

I feel incredibly sentimental as I look at my computer and printer. I wanted to cry.

I was 17 years old when I started college. Our computer back then was a very old model, with a second hand printer that my parents bought from a colleague. Needless to say, technology gadgets were very expensive before, not to mention my parents' meager income plus they were in the middle of sending two kids into college, perfect recipe for extreme budget cuts ~ the state of our means to acquire good gadgets were extremely low to cannot afford at all. I understood back then that money is really important in education and handling it well needs discipline if we want access to convenience and modern technology.

While in college, there were endless nights of paper works, reports and essays, on top of that I also had to travel from Dasma to QC every single day, I didn't want to remember those crazy days but they were part of my college life. Just imagine, I had 7AM class, how on earth would I strategise to get up early and travel and not be late in my class? I know, I had a choice when I was enlisting to the classes, but I needed that GE with no other available schedule, so I had to sacrifice, and oh boy, did I?!

But months went by and I learned, even mastered the commute from our house to the University. I keenly remember the first time I had to travel alone, without my mom to shadow me because she had to work and I was a mature teenager. I had to bite my tears away as I boarded the bus alone, that ride would be around an hour and a half long ~ it would take me directly to MRT where I had to spend another 30 minutes then upon leaving QAve station, I had to ride UP campus jeep, which was another 15 to 20-minute ride. 

This was just the first half of the commute, I would do the same routine after class of course when it was time to go home.

Crazy commute. I know. But I learned a lot. About travelling. About life. About time. About roads.

Then back to school work. So after around 2 and a half hours of commute going back home, I would be so tired, but I had dinner waiting for me since I still lived with my parents back then. After dinner, I would start doing school work using our very old computer. I remembered later on, I had installed CD/DVD drive writer/reader, it was one of the biggest days of my college life haha! I knew exactly how expensive usb were before so I said to myself, re-write-able CD/DVD would be my tool/weapon of choice. Okay, so back to endless typing of reports, hours after hours of library research, procrastination, imagination and lutang/sabaw moments when I found out I didn't even understand a word out of the readings I was studying, finally I was able to complete an essay or a report. Unfortunately, completing these reports and documents were just the beginning of my trouble, as I had to telepathically communicate with our moody printer. That weird-o printer would not print anything at all. Seriously!

I mean when I needed to print some readings or net searches, yes it would print those pages clearly and correctly but in its very unknown secret deep within hell, it just wouldn't print my papers, my reports and my essays. I tried, oh I am really telling you I tried, I am well known to be a patient person, I employed my divine patience and still waited for the printer to print those needed documents, but apparently, it just wouldn't want to print my homework. 

I spent hours crying and crying for the printer to print my document, but it wouldn't budge. We are talking about me printing my essay for 8:30AM class while I was negotiating with the damned printer to print my homework at 5AM, I still had to prepare for school and of course I still needed to commute.

Around 80% of the time, it wouldn't print anything I typed, so I ended up burning my reports/homework into re-writeable CD/DVD and I had to make time allowance bec I would go to a printshop in UP to have my reports printed, aside from of course dipping into my (travel) allowance for printing cost. I sometimes saved my reports in my email, but I don't want to pay extra for computer rental in UP, so burning documents into CD/DVD had been my norm.

So back to my sentimental mood, after more than 17 years, I have a working printer and a nice computer. Life does change. Life has a funny way of showing us that those big problems a decade or almost two decades ago were gone now. 

Maybe this was what I wanted to say.

We might be sinking into troubles, problems and issues, but remember everything is possible through time. Time makes our dreams come true. Time fulfills our goals. In the right time, things eventually work out right.

It is a stormy new moon for all of us. Stay safe and dry dear readers.

Hugging you tight.