My Life with Samahang Pilipino

So, I was up on facebook, well, I'm always up on facebook, and I wrote something on a "friend's" wall and told her about my lil convo with my sister who goes to, as she refered to it somewhere before, slack state. we were jib-jabbering away and she told me that the members of a certain group i belonged to can be found on the second floor. *breaks screeching!* wha-wha? did i hear correctly? 2nd floor?

hold up. when I went there back in the early 90's, that's what i did, with the same club. hmmm... of course, i need to confirm it with my two eye jibblets, but when i was there maybe a year or two ago, i remember seeing a lot of similar skinned peeps hanging out in basically the same chairs, that me and the other samahang people did.

back to my facebook friend, so yeah. i told her that they were still hanging out there. and her response was, Cool! They're still going strong! Uh... I guess. But it's just interesting how things have evolved into... well. I guess things haven't.

my life with Samahang Pilipino
i moved 300 miles away from my small village called Marina to experience the big city life! unfortunately, i found myself going to sac o' tomatoes state ew-nivercity. i was alone, and i didn't have any friends... except for the friends i found with the filipino club, samahang pilipino. my cousins were part of it, which went back hecka in the day. now, growing up in marina, i wasn't really exposed to what it was to be "filipino." my high school was primarily made up of a bunch of army and navy brats before ft. ord closed. it was very multicultural. so multicultural that we really didn't have any multicultural club. well, except for the islander club, that celebrated Hawaiian and Tahitian culture which members consisted of about all FILIPINOS. Let's save that gripe for another post :\ back to SP. these cats were some of the first people i felt comfortable with mostly because they knew the difference between an eggroll and a lumpia (it's basically the same thing, but we knew what a lumpia was). because of this connection, i became really involved with them.

it was a pretty good experience in my life. i didn't graduate from that school, aka drop-out, but if anything, i learned a lot about myself from being associated with them:
- how to play quarters
- how to jump over a fence when the cops went to break up a party at a frat house
- sleeping drunk (passed out) in a car can be considered public drunkeness
- developed crushes on far too many pinays in the club, and be constantly teased because of it
- the college body can adapt to going out clubbing tuesday - sunday nights
- how to put on a PCN with nothing more than 20 members and a dare to dream
- that peanuts do stay crunchy when you roll them in a lumpia
- how to negotiate an extra 5 minutes of a dance routine at friendship games
- what it feels like when the people whom you thought was your closest friends talk smack about you behind your back... by watching it on a video
- to be disowned by someone, and his/my friends, because i refused to let him copy a test off of me
- to have a close friend stop talking to me, because her boyfriend was jealous of our friendship.

the last point was the facebook friend i was talking about. for all the great things i learned and experienced from being associated with samahang, i also learned who are the true friends you can have in life. the people who don't just want to go out every night and put down those who don't. admittedly, i was a part of that clique. in high school, i was a band geek, a talented one at that, but i wanted so much to feel like i fit in. i was always trying to be somebody i wasn't even though i didn't know what i was supposed to be. one thing i wasn't though, was me. i didn't have a mind of my own, because to do, would mean that i'd be something i didn't want to be again - alone. i guess that's why i admire ... so much.

When i got involved with another group, everything sorta changed for me for the better. i found a community of people who were artists, performers, dorks... friends of whom after 14 years i consider family. albeit sometimes dysfunctional, but family nonetheless.

it's funny how things happen for a reason. life is funny that way. being a part of SP, in that space in time, makes me realize how much I've gained in the presence of the company i still keep. there are a select few that i do keep in touch with ;) from that era, one of whom got me a job in the city. i guess what i'm trying to say, is that in the end, i am grateful for each person that has come and gone from my life for they made me what i am today. But i am truly Blessed to know that the people I have in my life right now allows me to be whatever i want to be - me.