Two days ago I caught up with a friend from college on my way to the office from an "official" business in UP. It's been two years since we last saw each other, and neither of us appeared surprised of the changes in ourselves. He still looked the way he was in college, though with longer hair, while I, still in my tattered pants and five-year-old shirts. Neither of us looked corporate-y, we looked as if we just bumped into each other on our way to our Sociological Theory class. In short, pretty much nothing changed. Appearance-wise, at least.

We decided to grab some snack to catch up, not so much with each other, but more to trade chismis on how our other blockmates are doing. Apparently, there's not much to hear; almost everyone's been complaining about work, about the corporate environment (where they mostly work), and how our major failed to prepare us for the outside world. I come to think of it and I realize, how the world is right now is precisely what we Sociology majors are trained to change, to analyze from a critical point of view, so I guess the sentiments are expected. We are not supposed to go with the flow and blend into the money-making crowd. We were raised to look like messiahs but we aren't, of course . Not yet.

My friend still bums around, and still relies on his parents' sustenance to make the day. He says he's quite happy with it, he gets all the time to do things he'll otherwise not be able to do. He gets to read books that interests him, blog his thoughts whenever he feels like it, go to some place he's never been whenever he wants to. He refuses to be slaved around by any "need-to-be" which, he argues, is the real reason for my blockmates' whining. I tell him I now live separately from my parents, and has to live entirely by my bi-monthly wage. I am starting to get bored at work, which does not really pay well to liven me up even during paydays. But I'm sticking with it, I tell him, because I believe will learn from it. At first I thought I sounded more mature than him but now, two days later, I'm having second thoughts.
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Photo shows the common kitchen in our boarding house. Dainty.