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J.I.A.: 8=9/11

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I know that I wrote about this before but still, the thought that it’s been 8 year made me want to make an update on what I wrote more than two years ago about my time in the US when the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11, 2001. Hopefully, this ones more grammtically correct than the first. 😛

I remember my mom waking me up around 7 in the morning. The TV was turned on to Fox 5 Morning News (WTTG-TV) and as usual, I’m the first to take a bath while my little brother is given the privilege of getting a few minutes more to sleep. Ate and Kuya already left for school earlier (attending high school and middle school respectively).

After getting dressed, we ate breakfast and watched some good TV (ABC Family) until the clock strikes 8:20am. That’s the time when my mom would accompany  me and Jorge to the nearest bus stop. There we would meet up with our schoolmates, including two classmates of mine, Andy and Jonathan.

Just turned 11 two weeks before and experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime chance to attend school in a foreign country, I was at the time already overwhelmed with the things going on around me back then. The one thing I only hated during my stay there is the feeling that things become much of a routine.

But on that very day, the 11th of September, things changed not for the better but on the other way around.

Every 9am, we start the day by listening to the daily morning announcements followed by the pledge of allegiance then is concluded by a moment of silence before we could proceed to life in the 5th grade. Everything seems a-okay for a lot of us.

Nothing significant or anything occured except one parent who called in to pick up one of my classmates early. I  thought his/her family must have some personal problems thus the reason he was sent home early. After that, class went on as we normally would.

As the day progressed I started to notice that one by one, my classmates are being pick up from school early. Me and a friend both agreed that something’s really odd but I just can’t put my finger on whatever is going on, completely unaware of what would be known to history as the event that changed the world forever.

By the end of the day there were only 12 or less of us left in class out of about 25 students. And looks like we weren’t the only one: even those from the other classroom, a lot of kids were sent home early that day.

I later learned the shocking truth when Jorge and I came home that day. Kuya and Ate were watching TV, with their eyes glued to horrific images of two tall buildings burning before an airplane crashed onto one of them, leading to their collapse. I thought it was a movie but when the TV started to show images of the Pentagon with one of its wings destroyed on a large scale I was completely speechless.

Thank goodness my mom was okay, having been sent home earluyby the World Bank with the rest of her colleagues after the attacks were committed. Later, the news reported another plane crash in Pennsylvania and reported that no one survived.

Devastating news indeed but I didn’t know how I would react with these shocking events. My mind kept thinking about this field trip we were supposed to go to the next day (which is at the same time, Jorge’s 9th birthday). Kinda cold-hearted but then again, I’m  only 11, how I react?

The next day, the school formally announced the suspension of classes (not through TV but through Mr. McClain’s voice message on the school’s hotline) and while news about the attacks continue to fill our TV screens nonstop (especially WTTG).

I’ve no idea if Bush declared a state of emergency in the DC area or even in the nieghbouring suburbs but I remember that I went with my mom and Jorge to celebrate his birthday anyway by going to Tyson’s Corner, a popular mall a bus ride away from our apartment. That day became like any other day for most people as I noticed there were noticeably many people when we went to the mall.

Eventually, the feeling of fear and loss starts to sink in and I thought there’s going to be a world war (Which it did become months later).

I started to read newspaper articles related to 9/11: about near-death experiences, loved ones making tearful farewells through phone class and text. There was one article about a group of DC-based students and their teachesr who were among those who perished in the Pentagon crash. I also learned of inspiring stories about sacrifice and hope, about teamwork and love for country. It’s these small wonders that made the pain left by the attacks more bearable.

Eight years after the attacks happened, the world became completely different. We don’t know for sure of who’s reallywinning on this endless “war on terror”. But let us see this in another light: why must there be blood, violence and wasted lives for this “war” to win over. Why can’t pople just get alonga nd respect on whatever people are free to believe in. Why must we judge people based on who or what they are? Why can’t there be peace and diplomacy instead of mere tactics and badmouthing?

There are questions that needed to be answered while there are answered gthat needed to be questioned.

In order for us to attain true peace is to remember that to achieve it is to avoid an event like 9/11 to ever happen again.

The CSB Experience 3: Crossed Out

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One by one, the list is getting shorter each day. It seems as if I could finally make it through with finals now that I’m almost done with my plates.

So far I’m done with

1. Cntcpho Finals Plate (Theme: Rape)
2. Webdev1 Finals Website (Just need to submit my term paper with regards to it)
3. Cadvis1 Finals Plate
4. 2DAnim1 Finals Plate (I’m just short one concept art plate but it’s doable)

I have to focus on two more projects:
1. Vidprd1 Mediamorphosis Script (My modern take on “”Daragang Magayon”)
2. 3Danim1 Finals Plate (My most disliked class of all time)

With Monday being a holiday, it gives me more time to do last-minute changes on Cadvis1 while I have more time to finish my script for Vidprod1. I’m hoping my prof in 3d would personally help me with my finals since I’m having a hard time comprehending all the lessons he’s been teaching this term. It seemed so hard for me to catch up.

It’s going to be over real soon 🙂

Reality and Dreams: Answered Back

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Last Tuesday, I stayed an hour past midnight while waiting for my mom and my sister to come home. Ate just came from her recent trip from the Visayas with Mom at the airport to pick her up.

So as I wait the while away, I thought of sending a shout-out through YM  on a station I was listening to keep me company. He replied back on air thanking me for the shout-out before going back to playing more music.

It was almost 1am and the people I’ve been waiting for finally arrived. Afterwards, I headed straight to bed.

I don’t know what happened but I had this dream that night that seemed so real. In it, I was in the same place that I was hours ago, right on that very moment when I just sent that private message to the DJ. Instead of just saying “thanks” on the air, he replied back through YM, telling me more than just thank you’s. He told me that he was grateful for the kindness and loyalty given to him from listeners like me despite him having been through up’s and down’s. Well, obviously he’s getting emotional bt you can’t tell that he is on air.

In reality, however, that never happened as it was all but a dream. Surely they won’t tell you that on a very personal note. They need to keep it professional after all.

As for me, I can’t decide if I’m going to continue with this trip I’ve ben doing every now and then. Could this dream be a sign or is it that my head is playing tricks on me again?

😛

That Rhythmic Love Affair

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     Following August 31 is September the First. The start of the -ber months as well as the beginning of a countdown before Christmas. But September 1 is also something else, it is the brith, or I must say, the rebirth of a sorely missed friend on this side of the FM band: 99.5RT.


RT has survived the ravages of time, the reformats that took place in different FM stations and the 2 rebrandings it underwent before going back to what has been tried and tested successfully for the past three decades. After it was buried in the graveyard of past beloved stations for almost 2 years, its owners finally decided to bring back the old 99.5RT that every one knew and loved.

Back in 2007, RT was rebranded into 99.5 Hit FM, which according to some was essentially similar to RT but geared towards a younger and seemingly profitable listening demo. Eventually, the venture failed after being on the air for one year, signing off on March 2008.

That same month, it was replaced by another youth-oriented brand, a sort of “imported” format brought by the guys of the former Campus Radio 97.1. The station became Campus 99.5 which was, as some would say, a replica of the station many grew up listening when it was still on WLS-FM. Unfortunately, the Campus experiment didn’t work either on the side of the owners thus the decision to discontinue it in the middle of August 2008.

After 2 weeks of transition, on 9/1/08 Real Radio Network brought back 99.5 RT.

Before, I never was a listener to RT or any other stations while growing up save for a few. I do however knew of its existence through occasional mentioning from time to time, as well as one of its programs back in the day, Sunday Sessions. My faintest memory of ever having listened to it  as a kid was the way they say the station’s name and that’s all I knew before.

Curious, I decided to get my ears adjust to the returning station, at first struggling to get my ears hooked on a station playing not-so-mainstream music. Their choice of songs is clearly different compared to its predescessors (Hit plays mainstream pop while Campus leans toward alternative music), playing songs often heard in clubs or tracks that seem to be “high-end”.

On its very first day back on air, it just so happened that there’s not much for me to do in school so I tok the opportunity to go the station myself, having to take a train ride to Boni so I could visit a radio station for the very first time. In total, I made 4 visits and I personally met while there several RT jocks: Robi, MigZ, Lellie, Da Kid, Sam Oh, and Slyde (three days before, I met Ramon Bautista). I saw Angel Rivero in the station but I never got the chance to meet her.

Sooner than I could realize, RT became a regular staple of my radio listening habit. It kinda helped me fill the void left by Campus as I got the hang on RT.

That rhythmic love affair didn’t stop from there. In one bizarre and hugely unexplainable turn of events, I had an RT disc jockey for a professor, Joshua Z! He was actually a replacement personally chosen by earlier professor for Sondesn, Sir Henry Bolo who was leaving for Singapore.

A week before Sir Henry made the announcement, someone eerily familiar walked inside the sound lab. Sir mentioned his name and somehow I could recall that name from somewhere until I realize that it was after-all THE Joshua Z! Cutting the long story short, Sir Zahn (his real name) and I became good friends and still would often see each other at school.

As the months passed, I began to love RT more and more. My favorite would have to be their oldies program, 24k Weekend. There’s something about it that is uncomparable to any other oldies program around, at least from such that I know off (like Magic 89.9’s Friday Madness). You could say that I was converted into an RT addict.

For one whole year, it definetly defied the odds, having been resurrected. The return of the Rhythm came at the time when people would prefer to listen through their i-Pods instead of the usual chatter and music redundancy that has become common staple on FM.

As RT celebrate a year of its return, I bid congratulations to the Rhythm of the City and more power!