Good Friday

In LB culture, Friday is a non-day. It is that 13th floor that is numerically inevitable but manages to be done away, if it could be possible. See, since those students and faculty who consider LB as their world on weekdays leave on Friday afternoons or, for those fortunate souls who have tailor-made schedules, as early as Friday morning. Therefore, the equivalent of Friday or Saturday night-outs in Manila for LB people would be Thursday night.

Hallmarks of an LB Thursday night: all org-sponsored concerts (which seem to have dwindled through the years), Freshman/Drill Nights, and the dead giveaway Friday Friday on a Thursday given by the Sigma Delta Phi Sorority.

But the ultimate hallmark of an LB Thursday night would be the magical transformation of that portion of Grove (or Lopez Ave) between F.O. Santos and the local hospital into a mini-J. Nakpil, minus the gay/lesbian/bi scene. (Well, there are attempts on Saturday nights, but that's another story.) People spilling into the streets, all sorts of vehicles lining up both sides of the road. Forget about using the sidewalks, if you happen to be passing by. Forget about finding a decent parking spot, should you need to rush yourself to the hospital. This is a scenario totally alien to the LB student/faculty of the 80s and early 90s, whose notion of Thursday/gimmick night is predicated upon the idea of 'improvisation'. Read: bring to your own dorm/apartment/boarding house the liquor, requisite pulutan and what-have-you. No IC's (taas at baba). No Helipad. No Flat Rocks.

Result? Dwindling class sizes, particularly for those unfortunate teachers with 7-9 am classes. Spaced-out students who try their best to get through an hour of what to them is five hours. I once joked to a co-teacher that students' brains (on a Friday) start to function only around 11 am, in which by this time, they've managed to get some sun, have a little brunch, puked the aftermath of the previous night, etc.etc.

Like I told a friend (who, upon learning that I am from LB, remarked 'Wow, LB! Sex, drugs and rock and roll!') I was, in my undergrad years, on the OTHER SIDE of the sex, drugs and rock and roll. I only manage to get an inkling of what is actually going on through friends who are neck-deep into the 'scene'. Therefore, I never got to have a complete depiction of the so-called hedonistic culture of LB until I got to, of all places, UP Diliman.

Now that I come across these students, I manage to be amused by the whole so-called scene that is operating these days. They dress up to be seen, when the whole point to the LB dress code is to look as if you don't care about what you decided (at the last minute, of course) to put on that day. Or, should you decide to play it to the hilt, not make it TOO coordinated, not make it appear as if you agonized the previous weekend on the order and arrangement of your choice shirts and jeans (with, of course the necessary accessories). In a sense, it is California/Hawaii leisure wear, minus the beautiful coastlines.

Worse, this whole act the students come up with these days to get noticed. Stress on the end point of BEING NOTICED. I'll let you in on something: me and my constant drinking companions love to make up conversations that could be transpiring between/among them. Or translate the body language taking place between couples (read: are we having sex tonight or not? or is it going to be merely a friendly peck on the cheek?)

Since there is this so-called scene taking place in the tiny strip that I previously mentioned, they have, over time, already encroached upon the days considered to be strictly for-LB-inhabitants/ex-LB-students: Friday and Saturday nights. My former blockmate A. decided to just ditch LB and go to, well, Santa Rosa which, according to her, is a nice compromise between getting as far away from LB as possible (land of cheap beer), but not going as far as Alabang (land of pricey drinks).

So what does this leave 20-something and 30-something LB denizens with? I propose to bring back the way our 80s and early 90s predecessors used to do it - improv, improv, improv. Hey, times are hard and money is scarce. We have kids to feed and send to school. Insurance bills, water bills, electric bills. The maid's salary. Etcetera, etcetera. If we bring the gimmick back to where they used to be held, we're saving ourselves not only money, but the exasperation generated by withering looks aimed at posers and wannabes, as well as the time and effort wasted by looking for decent parking spots.

I can't believe this post lasted this long. Gutom lang ito.