My PMA Cadet Years (Yearling) - New Things, Old Things

July 1996

2- Dental problems.  I was not able to take care of an aching tooth when I was a plebe.  There was no time for it or should I say, it was not recognized as something to complain about during those times.  But as an upperclassman, yearling to be exact, you'd be so foolish not to attend to such problem especially for a troublesome tooth.  So, I had my dental appointment with our resident dentist in PMA station hospital (PMASH).  Also a good thing, since it was a not so busy month in the academy.

4- Power interruptions.  We were not exempted from blackouts that hit the city.  This was really a big problem to those who didn't have ironed pants, hanky or uniform, in general.  Here, a yearling's resourcefulness will be tested.  You could borrow stuffs from a mistah, since you'll be tagged as "assuming", if from an upperclassman and "shabby", if from a plebe.  Just be prepared in doing a lot of favors for it and sometimes, bawl out or constructive criticism from your mistah.  Or you could start a rain dance if you know how, since rain was the only time we would wear our raincoat on top of our uniforms which in a way, would cover the lack of preparedness... LOL.

13- New room, new roommates.   Some of our mistahs were not able to survive academics and had to leave PMA, so to even up our class numbers per company, some were transferred to other barracks and re-rooming were implemented.  Transferring my stuffs was a hassle but the real challenge there was getting along with a new set of people and learning to deal with each of them.

with my roommates, Darwin and Frederick

14- Non-academic.    We usually had our meals served inside barracks when the mess hall was prepared and used for another activity or there's a duty that required urgency.  It's actually an advantage to both cadets and mess hall personnel.  We didn't need to prepare for the day's uniform and they had  lesser things to clean.

15- Being in Baguio City, we were also observing their holidays like the Cordillera Day.  Like other universities, we also didn't have classes during those times.  However, we're still not exempted to do other duties and responsibilities, sometimes even more strenuous than having a class.   The good thing was we could do stuffs like laundry, ironing and other preparations in a longer vacant time as this.

20-  It was the start of the intramurals, and same as last year, the opening ceremony was held, and with the cheering competition as the starting event.  Though others had new stunts and chants, still a lot were "vault files" or heard and seen performances.  Relying on the previous learned stuffs passed from class after class and/or introduced stuffs from neophytes cadets, the later being unlikely. LOL.

All smiles for the event...

With some of the cheering participants.

23-31-  Typhoon prone. Storm signals weren't new to us.  It seemed like every storm that passed the country, never failed to visit or affect Baguio City.  I was already thinking if it's just a coincidence that the city's name sounds like "bagyo" (tagalog for storm).  We were hit by 2 typhoons, Gloria and Herb, with just almost a week apart.  Though some of our activities were affected like cancelled corps drill and Saturday inspections, but the guarding and other duties like academics were not affected.  Since even if it floods and unlike other students, cadets' academic building was just a walk away.  Lucky for us, we never stopped learning.  hahaha... Yahweh bless.

Recent Related Post:  Perks Of Being A Cadet