Today i met my hero

The great moments of your life won't necessarily be the things you do. They'll also be the things that happen to you. Now I'm not saying you can't take action to affect the outcome of your life, you have to take action, and you will. But never forget that on any day, you can step out the front door, and your whole life could change forever. You see the universe has a plan, and that plan is always in motion. A butterfly flaps its wings... and it starts to rain. It's a scary thought, but it's also kinda wonderful-- All these little parts of the machine, constantly working,,, making sure you end up exactly where you're suppose to be, exactly when you're suppose to be there-- The right place, at the right time. (TedMosby - HIMYM)

I can't really remember if some of the best days of my life happened on a tuesday. As i try to recall, i generalize that some of my happiest birthdays could've fallen on a tuesday. Maybe i got a perfect score in some of my exams on a tuesday, or maybe i ate my first krispy kreme on a tuesday.

But this is one tuesday that I'll have no trouble remembering. The day i had my most memorable conversation with my hero inside the building in campus that i hate the most; The library.

Now morals usually come at the end of blog posts. But this one's so important that i'm gonna write it down now. The cliche "You should never meet your heroes" actually makes sense, coz meeting your heroes means you get to know them more. and as humans, we tend to gravitate towards focusing on our heroes' faults and weaknesses while conversing with them (even as we try to avoid thinking it) making us realize he/she isn't that much of a hero really. However, being critical about our heroes' shortcomings could only happen "if we are totally fine", coz if we aren't fine, we'll be focusing on how cool our hero is and how sucky we are. Which brings me to my realization, "Never meet your heroes unless it's a time when you need to be saved". Hence, the definition of the word hero.

None of it would have happened if my eyes weren't near-sighted and astigmatic. You see, every waking day i have to struggle through seeing a blurred version of the world coz my vision is so far from 20 - 20 (it's 450 - 400). When i was in elementary, i could remember seating at the back of the classroom and being called to read out loud the things written on the board. Since my eyes are that visually challenged, what i did was I stood up, walked to where my teacher was (up front), and read out loud the sentences she was pointing at. At first, my classmates thought i was mocking my teacher, but later on after having explained to them the case of my handicapped eyes, whenever i'm asked to read things and i would exaggeratingly squint my eyes and try to read without leaving my seat saying some of the words incorrectly (i read 'bad luck' as 'bad duck' once, it was written in script so,,,XD), it already came across as funny to them since they already understand that i'm blind.,^^

Today my ojt (on the job training) mate and I decided to meet at school, since internet connection in the ojt office was out, our thoughts agreed that we can't really be that ojt-productive offline so he asked me to meet him in the 3rd floor of the library instead. Since it was the one comparatively more silent than the other floors, maybe we could discuss in depth how we'll attack the task given to us by our boss.

I went in the library and proceeded to the third floor. Again, since I'm not wearing my glasses, I anticipated that finding him there would be difficult, but not that much since as students undergoing ojt we're not required to wear the school uniform anymore, so in trying to find him I was role playing as a soldier who's receiving telepathic messages from my military superior saying " ~private neithan, there is a civilian in casual attire among these students in uniform! you must find him! be careful though he has a laptop and he's not afraid to use it. over! *walkie-talkie static sound**".

I walked around in circles trying to find him on the thirdFloor, but to no avail. After a while i figured he might have grabbed lunch. So i decided to go to the second floor to find a seat. There were available seats on the third floor but going around in circles for quite some time and walking through all the possible aisles kinda made me feel embarrassed to sit on that floor since everyone in that floor like.,., already saw me.,XD

And so, i found a seat on the second floor and started setting up my laptop. I already turned it on when i, out of habit, checked my cellphone and read a message coming from my ojt mate that he is waiting for me at the third floor "on the table by the emergency exit door near the air conditioning unit". I checked the time when it was sent and it was roughly during when i was going around in circles (Oh, maybe i missed a few aisles after all ^^)., I decided to bargain, and wrote in reply "maybe you could just come here to the second floor? i found a seat"... but as i was about to send the message, my attention got focused to the noise around me, convincing me to just pack up and enter once again the land of the third floor library,.,.,. where everyone already saw me.,.,,.,, and thought i was weird coz i'm not in uniform.,XD

I was eyeing the exit door and briskly walking toward it to save myself some of the shame. I was trying to go for the "I know where I'm going" look so as to give the impression that I'm not someone coming from another school. As i was already really near the exit door I was waiting eagerly for someone to call me, since i don't wanna tilt my head right to left. (pulling of the I know-where-I'm-going-look **whip sound -> whut-tsshhh!!**). I was at a considerable distance from the exit door, enough distance to realize he wasn't there. Making me instantly loose my I-know-where-I'm-going look and making me tilt my head to look for someone not in uniform. ~*gives out telepathic reply to military superior* I'm not gonna stop until i find that civilian sir!!! **game face on*~

Now, despite turning on my game face, I was rather pretty sad, since i hate having to find someone and not find that someone. and as much as I believe that things that happen in movies/anime_series don't happen in real life, I was pretty sure that at that moment... when i tilted my head to the right and found her sitting there alone in her table staring back at me giving out this amazing aura that somehow says 'Hi, i'm willing to talk', I was thinking of those movies where the kid goes to school to play in their basketball tournament, and tragically loses (like a 50 point deficit loss), and then the kid tries to muster some strength to go back home, then crying hysterically, he opens the door to throw out his tantrums when suddenly, he stops crying, surprised and consoled by the sight of his mom/sister/someone at the kitchen whipping up a nice warm meal for him prepared to tell him, "you may not have won, but i'm sure you fought a good fight, and there's a chance to win next time, you've been doing well this week, we should all be proud of you in some way, you need a 20 minute hug". **is spiraling out of topic*.,XD anyway

I spontaneously thought my ojt mate played a very well planned prank on me, since he knew my high regard for this girl. She was with me in the organizing team for an event in our department. This was where i came to admire her. As someone in the team with the permission to lookOver the whole organizing team, i was observing with preferential attention how she worked to deliver the tasks given to her. She is a very charismatic young lady, with the guts of a senior-student. When i look at her I can just feel that she's one of those people with a 90+% chance of being successful or to extremely state it, predestined to be someone great in a specific field. I admire her so much that she could stab me, and I'm gonna be saying sorry for getting her knife all bloody.

She was studying for an exam when I stood there shocked of the fact that i was standing in front of her. To somehow break the awkwardness, i started talking to her in my usual neithan way., like a boss., - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c **kidding*., i let out stammering sentences asking her if she saw my ojt-mate somewhere near where she was sitting (since she knew my ojt mate from being her groupmate in a particular subject)., she said she hadn't yet seen him today. So that made me think that indeed, my ojt mate wingmanned me into being with her.

I started conversing with her, thinking that it needs to be done in order to give justice to how my ojt mate wingmanned me. Later it became a refreshing encounter with someone who more or less understands the things in college that i've gone through (being in the same course helps)., we talked about our favorite teachers, our not so favorite ones, how hard databases are to understand, how clueless I've been / how clueless she still is about what topic to pursue in her Senior Project. How she falls sick when Exams are just around the corner and how I try to fight the sickness when it attempts to ensare me during my project defenses because I'm too scared to let my adviser and all those who believe in me down.

This is one of those instances where I feel human again. Where I feel not judged. Where I believe that in some way I don't have to be as clever as when I'm trying to defend my proposals to prospective clients. Where sharing vulnerabilities would result to fondness rather than disappointment in the other. Where just saying incomplete phrases already lets the gist of it be understood since both of us know we're pertaining to the same kind of college life experienced.

It was i think around after thirty minutes when I saw my ojt mate come up to the third floor. eyeing me maliciously. As if to somehow show me that facial expression saying that his planned worked perfectly well. I didn't want my conversation with her to end just yet, so I tried to avoid my ojt mate's stare so as for her not to look at her back and see him, since the only excuse i had for me to be sitting there without malice was that I was waiting for my ojt-mate to come back.,

When It was about an hour before her exams i decided to work for a graceful exit. Since my ojt mate already sat on the far opposite end of the third floor thirty minutes ago. I decided to do it this way.

Neithan: hey, isn't that my ojt mate? The one in yellow? o.o **squinting eyes*
Scarlet <- *random pseudo name*: where? o.O
Neithan: over there behind you, at the far end of the room... o.o
Scarlet: I think that's him.
Neithan: Thank God, I better be going now.
Scarlet: good luck with your Senior Project "Kuya"(this is a term we filipinos call others to mean 'older brother', even if not biologically related)
Neithan: yah, and goodluck with your exams as well. Go get a perfect score..

So upon reaching my ojt mate's table. I blurted out all possible words that I could think of which may mean "thank you". He was clueless.

I was ready to work when a funny thing happened. As I was setting up my laptop, looking for an electric outlet to plug it in, I saw, near the post where the outlet was, a red door with a green EXIT sign on top. It took me a split second to notice as well that cool air is blowing at me from some AirConditioning Unit nearby. So without even being able to plug it in yet, i asked my ojt mate., 'you did set me up with scarlet right?'. He said, 'No, but i knew she was sitting there, why?'... and of course I replied, "near where she is sitting, is a red emergency exit door which is beside an AC unit too". My ojt mate gave out his shocked clueless face. I gave him a high five. =]

Meeting your hero will only be constructive when done during a time that you need to be saved. And looking at all the things that has happened to me during the recent weeks, I needed to meet my hero that badly, and I'm grateful that i did.

Of course this needs to end with a reality check. Seeing/Feeling that there's no possible way that she'll be my friend (due to ff: No common time, uncommon likes, I look four years older than her, My personal fright in friendships and the like etc), I think I'll just go for establishing a 'Hi/Hello' relationship where I'll just smile politely when i see her around, and end any conversation that i may have with her immediately. Although i think magically becoming close friends would sound good too, but I know a hopeless cause when I see it.

Plus my present view of life, which says i should work my ass off to have my bachelor's pad in a year's time would prevent me from developing anything social.

Nevertheless, Thank you for touching my life this much Miss Scarlet.





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