We had our usual late Chrom class with Sir Garcia last night. I knew I was the last one to report and I thought we can go home early, after all it was only 8:30 pm. But then after my report, there we two girls who told Sir that they still have to report. They didn't sign the attendance sheet so they we not on the list, but Sir allowed them to report anyway.

Five minutes had gone by, I found no interest in what they where saying. Plus of course the fact that I'm all set to go home, I couldn't get my ears to listen to them. Then suddenly it started raining hard. And I mean HARD.

The girls finished their report at around 9 pm, happy because terrible questions were not asked to them. And there I was, worried because it looked like the rain wouldn't stop for the next hour or so.

I walked to Espana with Emar. The rain was still hitting hard on our umbrellas. It was so hard that even with umbrellas we still got wet. When we reached Espana, a horrible site awaited us. The whole street was flooded and it was impossible to pass.

Just to make it clear, the UST campus does not get flooded. It did before, like some 10 years ago. But now, drainage inside the campus is okay, we even have our own waste water treatment. The problem is the drainage system around UST. It is the perimeter of UST that disappears and not the campus itself. But the thing is, even if the campus is not flooded but its surrounding streets are, then you still get stranded.

The real problem is with the drainage system of Manila. In fact, even Taft gets flooded. Even the streets around Manila City Hall get flooded. I think a lot of drainages around Manila will be affected just to fix this problem.

Anyway, back to my adventure.

The water level in Espana was getting high, in fact it started to get inside the campus. You see, the UST campus is a few inches higher than the streets surrounding it. But with such heavy rain, it is impossible to have the campus sides and corners not touched by flood water.

I didn't have my camera (of all the days, I thought), good thing Emar has her phone. Although it was small with low resolution, it captured scenes from our adventure.

We took a picture when we reached one of the Espana gates. Note: all smiles parin. A

All smiles even if my folded pants were dripping. Good thing I was wearing flip-flops, at least it saved me the trouble of washing shoes wet from the rain.


Then we took a picture of the corner right in front of us.


Yep, that's water. It looks more like this minus the water.

But have you seen Espana? (View from inside the campus)

Which looks like this without flood.

We were trying to figure out how to get home but our moms advised us to stay inside the campus. Then suddenly we saw Gordon, who seemed like he was talking to the frogs in the bushes.


We headed to the UST Hospital since it was the only opened building inside, although we were sure that many others were stranded but we were to lazy to walk around. There we other people waiting in the hospital lobby.


We went insde looked for food because we were terribly hungry. We found the hospital canteen nearly closing with just sandwiches left. But who cares? We ate whatever was left.

Then we stayed in the lobby where there was a TV, some chairs, and a coffee store. We stayed there for more than five hours. Then we checked if the streets were clear to let us pass by. We saw vehicles passing and people walking. It was 3:00 am.

So then I decided to go home. I got a taxi inside the campus.

The driver said, "May isang estudyante dun na pumapara, kaya lang niradyo na ng guard dun na may pasahero sa ospital."

I said, "Taga san po ba? Baka pwede na natin isabay, kawawa naman." He said, "Taga Mandaluyong daw."

"Sige po, isabay nalang natin. Tapos sa EDSA nalang tayo dumaan," I told him.

So we let the other student hop in. He was a Science student like me, and he writes for Varsi. He said he usually goes home late because of his org. I asked him, "Bakit hindi ka nag-try sa CSJ? Taga CSJ ako dati. Sana nag Journal ka." He said, "Kasi nung magpa-pass ako ng application tapos na daw eh."

Oh well. At least I had company along the way. I got home after an hour and then made a short post.

Some adventure, eh?!