I was never really the student who would take much interest in the UAAP festivities – even the all too famous Cheerdance competition. I had only one UAAP experience – the cheerdance in 2005 where UP, unfortunately lost to UST yet again.
I never watched any basketball game or bothered to know if UP was winning or not. I did not like going to extreme lengths of buying UAAP Cheerdance tickets only to end up being squeezed with a multitude of people or paying erroneuous sums of money for a good seat.
In short, I am not a UAAP fan. I don’t even bother watching the cheerdance competitions in the tv.
But when GRF (Gerry Roxas Foundation) announced that it was giving away free tickets I jumped at the chance to get one. After all, I’m a sucker for anything free and I relish the chance of bonding with fellow awardees (for an all to honest ulterior motive which I shall reveal in the near future).
So there I was in Aranate Coliseum at a little past 10am, looking lost as I navigated in search of Club Serve through the throngs of people. You see, there was still the bonding activities and FREE lunch to attend to before the competition itself.
The games were fun and I met a lot of people – and must I add a lot of cute, young (way younger than me) guys. But what really caught me by surprise was when I won over a game of HepHep Hooray! (a Wowwowee game) an upgrade from Upper Box A to Patron!
Me, who is not a fan, got a Patron seat!
But I must say being there in Araneta, watching how beloved UP triumphed over its competitors, was really thrilling. It was blood curling as I watched and cheered and lost voice for my Alma Matter. And the best part was seeing how jampacked at all levels was the place assigned to UP.
It was so cool!
But IF I would watch next year’s competition again, I would gladly choose some higher venue – much higher than Patron, but not as high as GenAdd. It was hard being so small and being at the level of the dancers – apart from not being able to watch the formations, the media persons were all over the place obscurring my view. It was horrible in the sense I could not watch everything properly. But it felt wonderful – parang importanteng tao din ako kasama ng mga importanteng tao – mga kamag-anak ng Pep at media people.
Overall, this was fun. Plus panalo pa ang UP!
GO GO UP!
