Walking Tips for the Would-Be UP Freshie

From http://tagta.ni.guissmo.frih.net/2009/06/up-diliman-map/

Good old Murphy once said anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Who knew he was talking to freshmen—or to me, for that matter, hiding in the restroom at Palma Hall; chin-length hair expanding because of the humidity, face contorted in worry, and back swimming in sweat; as if water were thrown at me, landing on my nape and gluing a clump of hair onto my skin?

No one told me there were shortcuts within the University of the Philippines’ Academic Oval, and I was too enthralled by the fact that this campus was actually big enough to have a 2 km oval to bother.

But please, no matter how amazing you think the huge campus can be: Never walk half the UP Academic Oval and back on a hot June day, wearing thick blue jeans and a heavy back-hugging backpack—no matter how much you think you’ve outgrown your heavy pubescent sweating.

So, freshmen, some words of wisdom: Some professors usually don’t show up on the first day of a 7 a.m. General Education (GE) class at Palma Hall (you should call it AS from now on). Yes, it can get lonely for a freshman who has yet to make friends at Palma Hall, but you can still do a lot under the shade. Get some work done at the air-conditioned Third World Studies library by AS walk behind Palma Hall or at the College of Arts (CAL) and Letters Library next door. Palma Hall also has a computer laboratory that opens at 8 a.m. where you go online to do some research—or maybe just log into Facebook. If you’re lucky, some college orgs based in Palma Hall are already on the prowl for new members. Go check them out; there might be free food!

If you insist on walking that Oval anyway, know the following:

1.       A Philippine day can get hot and humid even by 9 a.m., so bring an extra shirt and wear light clothing. You’re in UP now, shorts are fine.

2.      Don’t be afraid to use your foldable umbrella to beat the heat. Better chill than sweaty and flustered.

3.      Pack light—PLEASE! You won’t need your scientific calculator, scissors, glue, tape, your entire yellow pad paper, or notebooks for every class in one day. Some professors won’t even require you to bring any of these things at all.

4.      You can cut across the Oval and not just walk along it: There is a path near the College of Mass Communication and the University Theater that leads from the Lagoon, the grassy whatnot in the middle of the Oval, to the front of the Faculty Center (FC) near CAL. 

5.       Between the AS Parking lot and the College of Engineering is Beta Way, which you can also use that to get from one side of the Oval to the other.

6.      You can also walk along Roces St. between AS and the FC. That long stretch of road can lead you north to the tennis court, the freshman dorm Kalayaan, and the UP COOP. Walking southward will lead you to the Science Complex, which included the Marine Science Institute, the College of Science, and the National Institute of Geological Sciences to name a few.

Murphy must have had a field day sitting by the shade, wherever he was, watching an easily disoriented girl like me walk the Oval from Palma Hall, past the Colleges of Law and Engineering, past the Carillon bells and the University Theater, to the College of Mass Communication (CMC), turn right on Ylanan then right again to Magsaysay, where the road stretched toward the Bahay ng Alumni and UP Film Center—and not knowing where the heck she was going the whole time…or that the sweat she thought nothing of was slowly seeping out of the back of her brown cotton shirt and soaking her backpack. 

After brisk walking half the Oval and back, I met my friends inside the Palma Hall restroom on the first floor, proud of walking the campus without getting lost. But oh how my well-oriented friends laughed, seeing my disheveled hair and mid-morning walk glow. 

“Why’d you do that, Jess?" asked the explorer of the group, and she began listing the shortcuts on the Oval. “You know, if you had just walked past the Oblation at Quezon Hall, you wouldn’t have sweat so much. No one walks the entire Oval to get here, Jess.”

Sweat? I turned to one of the mirrors lining the restroom sinks and got a good look at myself: I didn’t have a mid-morning glow, but the flustered, sticky look of someone who hadn’t had any exercise over the summer. My forehead was sprinkled with sweat beads, and the long bangs tucked behind my ear now stuck to my skin, “Oh no.” I removed my backpack, as heavy as Pilgrim’s burden, to reveal an entire back—from shoulder to the tailbone—soaked in sweat. I looked half-dipped in water. Only an Ikot ride to the university Shopping Center and a desperate dash to the nearest souvenir shop could save me. Thank God for UP t-shirts.

Opera singer Beverly Sills once said “there are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” But if you plan to walk the Oval at UP Diliman, it pays to know the shortcuts.

Freshmen, you’ve been forewarned.