We've lived in 2915 for nearly two months and I don't know what my decision would be at the end of the twelve month lease. It doesn't take much to decorate such a small living space. The room is rarely warm, so wrapping ourselves in the comfort of blankets keeps the warmth inside. The food rations don't really bother much because food is easy to come by around here. The best restaurant for cheese steak is on Divisadero. I don't really know the name of it, only "Philadelphia Cheese Steaks" place. The five items that I touch the most in our place is my playstation 2, tv remote, refrigerator door, bed, and telephone to check if there are any messages. This place is so visitable, come one, come all. It's sad that no one really attempts to visit us. Oh well...
Chapter Four: The Separation of Two Powers
The era was the most confusing because the semester had started with a brand new cabinet. This was the first time I noticed that semesterly cabinets were totally the wrong direction to extending another successful semester. The downfall of Akbayan began and was taking a striking decrease in members, interest, and separate groups. The number of members didn't really make a difference from the usual, but the participation was in different interests. The Spring 1999 semester had its ups and incredible downs. The amount of money was sufficient to do some pretty daring and spontaneous events we could think of. By the way, that semester, we had two advisors, Dr. Navarro and Miss David-Sanchez, which was only available for the next two semesters, including this present one. We had our usual advisor, Dr. Navarro, who was always there and not there. She always wanted to be involved, yet we didn't really ask for her assistance because it seemed she wasn't the type of person we wanted around. Although, Miss David-Sanchez was the young looking advisor whom we went to because she was closer to our age. I didn't mind having two advisors, but why should one be better than the other because of age.
One of the events that was agreed upon from the past cabinet was March's incredible events that took Akbayan's funds straight into the red. I don't know if this information should even be public. Oh well! The two events that were one week away from each other were Kundirana and Showtime. The Kundirana event took all the money, that one can make from three average pcn's, and shoved it down the drain. The hype began in fall semester knowing that we can pull off a show like the one we did. We hardly did any pr'ing for this event, showing that the number of guests would be low, taking the funds from our own pocket. The tickets were as high as $50, proving to us that this event should have been planned more than or equal to showtime. The Kundirana kids are from De La Salle High School in the Philippines. They travelled all the way over to San Jose, California to put on a show for a total of sixty-five people. Don't we know how to grab interest from people in the Bay Area.
The seperation of two great powers had torn the interest of Akbayan apart. We had the strong social side and the bold political side that gained a lot of exposure by doing what they do. Everytime I was in a cabinet meeting that previous semester, there was always some type of conflict that had to do with how money should be spent. I didn't know what to think of the people. Seeing differently was and will always be involved in college filipino organizations. Although, that semester was strong enough to pull off a couple of successful doings.
The week after Kundirana, Akbayan and Platinum Entertainment developed Showtime, an outdoor showcase that involved singing/dancing, volleyball and basketball tournaments. The event collected an amount of two thousand guests on the 7th Street promenade of the campus. I had my fun being backstage for performers and a runner for both the games and performers. If only we knew that nearly one year later the campus collection would be walking up to our table to explain the outstanding debts that we had. Little did I know is that Platinum Entertainment didn't pay off a certain vendor that should have been paid before the show even happened. I'll go into this in Chapter Six.
The saddest part about this semester was the cancellation of pcn. Making this decision brought tears to many people's eyes. We lost a majority of our dancers because of the lack of interest that year. The alumni started to believe that their involvement with Akbayan was overdoing it. They were all taking part in a graduation event that year. That year, I was just getting used to learning so many dances. We were ready to dance up to ten dances, yet we never got to show anything for it. Girlie was the pcn director and all I remember and hear that she was heart-broken. The script was a bit bland, but the writer's put a lot of effort into the development of its creation. The idea of postponing the show until October of the next semester was brought up, yet shot down. The only reason we cancelled the show was the lack of funds, participants, and interests. We had a total of $200 without help with A.S. funding, a cast of thirty-four, and the show being far from ready to perform. The beginning of the end was creeping up on us.
My first experience with Pil-Grad was this semester. There was a total of twenty-five participants, and only five of them were in Akbayan. Ryan and I made a video for the graduates, which wasn't that bad. The event started on time in the last afternoon, in Morris Dailey auditorium. The cool thing was that the valedictorian of the whole SJSU class participated in Pil-Grad. This year, two of my roommates graduated, my brother and Ryan. From that moment, I knew I was going to make sure that Pil-Grad was going to happen when I graduate.
note: My vision started to begin from this point.