Sunday, March 18, 2007

Boracay Pics






























Faith Adventures

This is a continuation of my search for a scholarship. A lot has happened since August. For one, I wasn’t able to find a scholarship to study at the University of Kassel. So I was kind of down for sometime but like a ball I bounced back again. Come October a college friend called me up to ask for contact numbers of our college professors. She was going to apply for a scholarship in Japan. To make the long story short, she convinced (not very hard) me to apply also. First off, I was never keen on studying in Japan, second, I never considered taking up Public Administration, and third, if possible, I don’t want a return of service clause. However, I decided, “why not”? Desperate times called for desperate measures. I had only a little more than two weeks lead-time because it was already early in October when I decided and the deadline was October 25, 2006. So I hurriedly complied with the requirements. It was a miracle that I was able to complete them in a record time considering how the bosses, whose signatures I needed to secure, were always out of the office for meetings. I had a training on October 25 and the venue was near the office where I had to submit the requirements. Sometimes, even if everything falls into place during preparation time, it still does not guarantee the outcome you want. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of my self.

In short, I was able to beat the deadline and just had to wait for feedback. Two days after I submitted, I got a call from JICE, the Japanese contractor for the scholarship. They were asking me to reconsider my first and second choices of universities because there were a lot of applicants for those schools while there were few applicants for the other equally good schools. I asked for the weekend to think and look over the other universities. So on Monday morning, I called them up and changed my second choice of university from Meiji to Keio while maintaining my first choice ICU. A couple of days later they called up to confirm that my first choice was Keio. I laughed and gave in gracefully. In fairness, after I called them on Monday, I was already thinking that I liked Keio but was just too chicken to call back again. Some things seemed to affirm that Keio was indeed a better choice for me. One, Keio was top 129 among 500 universities worldwide while I could not find ICU in the list. Second, after I read their brochure again and looked over their courses carefully, I saw that there were courses on Germany and German as a second language. Since I’m studying the German language now, it seemed that I would still get to pursue my interest in Germany even if I’m in Japan. These just seemed to be good omens. (Can omens be really good? There just seems to be something dark about the word. I guess because of its association to the movie.)

December came and I received a text (December 11) from my friend that she passed the first screening and was scheduled for an interview the following day. I was nervous because I wasn’t called yet. The call finally came late in the afternoon. My interview was scheduled January 9. December was a bad month for me. For three weekends in a row I was able to attend Sunday masses because of bad colds, asthma, and to top it off, I managed to badly sprain my ankle two days before Christmas. These took my mind off my coming interview.

January 9 rolled in and I went to NEDA for the interview. I botched it up. I was stumped when they asked me about my work. I really had a hard time trying to explain the multiple tasks I do at the office that kind of defies description. Fortunately, the interview was more of a formality thing and everybody passed. The next step was the IELTS and math exams. I was able to review a little bit for both IELTS and math. I was quite confident about my English but not so with my math. Exam day came (January 20). I felt that the IELTS was relatively easy but I floundered badly with the math. IT WAS NOT BASIC MATH for me. The Japanese proctor told us that it was junior high school math for the Japanese. The tests were done on a Saturday but the speaking component of my English test was still on Monday so I had the weekend to stew over the speaking exam. My friend had her speaking exam on the same day. After the exams, I decided to drop by Megamall because I had to buy a swimsuit for my four-day vacation in Boracay. While in Mega, I decided to attend the anticipated mass. I had goose bumps when the priest told the homily. He was emphasizing on how God had a great plan for all of us and how we should surrender to His will. I was thinking, “Does this mean I’m not going to get the Japanese scholarship? That God has another plan for me?” I was little teary eyed after that. Even though you know that God’s plan is greater than our plans, it’s still hard to wait for his plan and it’s still disappointing if your plans fall through.

We were told that results would be available two weeks after. JICE would call us either on a Friday or Saturday to inform us if passed or not. So off I went to Boracay, with the two-piece swimsuit I managed to find in Megamall after the mass, to enjoy myself. The two-week wait did not seem so long.

…to be continued