I miss those times

A few minutes from now I'll be meeting up with a good friend. We will be dining at the Sisig place at Philcoa, my treat. We had been long distance friends for more than three years already. We were classmates in Physics 71. We got along because we used to compare our scores in the exams and quizzes. Those were the times that I was still overly appreciative of grades. I was driven to strive for my best by the mere thought that we will really compare our accomplishments. It should have been easier on my part since he is a year younger than I am, but that was not the case. He was extra-ordinarily industrious. He is now teaching the very subject I just took a summer ago, Engineering Science 13: Strength of Materials.

We never really got to sit down and talk for more than 10 minutes after we became classmates. We often lost each others contact details, but we bumped a lot inside UP (and we thought UP is big). We got to update each other a lot through 3-minute encounters. And now is the only time that we will meet to actually talk. I am a bit scared of the fact that he will be asking about my thesis. But I am thinking that he will be doing such only to try to determine how he can help.

He gave me a book two years ago entitled Study Smarts. He said it guided him a lot while studying. I never finished the book until now. It is only 85 pages and still I haven't finished even half of it. I promise to do so in the coming days.

Well, he encourages me most of the time. I remember Physics when he was really excited to tell me that my score improved compared to the result of the First Long Quiz. I hope to someday achieve what he has achieved. He is a Civil Engineering graduate of UP Diliman. I am still trying to finish Architecture, but no matter what happens to us in the future, there is a great chance that we might work together. I hope, that in this thesis period I am undergoing now, that I will develop a better sense of responsibility so that by the time I'll be out in the real world I can somehow gain leverage in the field. And after maybe three to five years, we can meet again and compare each other's achievements and hear each other say that we're happy for ourselves.

It was purely healthful competition between us back then. I miss those times when I was still on track. =(