TF

This semester, there are 7 Filipino "exchange" students under a Temasek Foundation (TF) program. Five are from Ateneo and two are from La Salle. I have been spending quite a lot of time with them in the past five days, much to the chagrin of my mother.

Wednesday: Lunch at Science and Registration at MPSH . Friday: Orientation at LT7A. Saturday: shopping & sight-seeing at Sim Lim Square & Little India, dinner at VivoCity. Sunday: Dinner at PGP. Monday (today): Dinner at PGP.

Last Friday, I decided that morning itself that I would go with the four Ateneans who live in PGP to the orientation. I told them it would take forty minutes to get there and thus they met one hour before the event at the PGP bus stop. We got there in less than twenty minutes, which is forty minutes before time.

It just so happened that the Office of Student Affairs did not have enough volunteers and so being me, I gave a hand and asked the four Ateneans to also help. And it wasn't light work. They helped carry big benches and tables and packed a lot of papers into bags and to distribute them. When the La Salle girl arrived, I also asked her to help with the bags.

And today, I had put into motion a presentation for the International Students Night that will be top-billed by them. This year, the person in-charge of the Filipino presentation quit last minute and no one else is willing to take the buck. Smile (one of the Ateneans) commented that am I manipulating them again the same way I asked them to arrive early last Friday. That was so not intentional and they could always say no.