Iska

I got the call yesterday. Miya passed the UPKAT but her scored tied with 12 other kids and there were only 6 slots left. As approved by UP's Board of Regents, the tie will be broken by drawing lots. The lady on the other end of the line told me to send a representative. Akala ko naman all the while parang raffle like the one they did sa UP-FLCD, may tambyolo. When we got there it was a different story. But let's backtrack a little bit, when I got the call I was at the pedia's clinic with Nina (she's been sick for a week! ugh!) so I immediately called Joma to tell him about the good news and to tell him as well that he needs to go at 9am the following day (today) to UP for the raffle. I also text brigaded our family and friends to continue praying for Miya for the raffle. When we got home, he told me that I better go with him. May paniniwala syang mas maswerte ako sa raffle and he's not that lucky hehe. He has never won anything in his life. Samantalang ako I win once in a while especially giveaways online hehehe. Also last night, I told Miya to pray the she gets in to UP. She said ayaw daw nya, she likes the other school that she was supposed to transfer to. I asked her why, sabi nya "because it's English there" hahahaha! My gosh 'tong batang to.

We were at UP by 8am, one hour early. When we got inside the room where the raffle will be held, the assistant principal told us how we will go about the raffle. So instead of doing it tambyolo style, there will be 13 papers for each of the candidates with 6 "Congratulation"s and 7 "Sorry"s. We will pick our papers all at the same time as the probability of getting a "congratulations" diminishes when we do it one after the other. Hay naku! Before I continue my story on the raffle, hindi pa tapos yung kwento ni Miya and the other school. Moments before we picked the papers, she whispered to me that she likes the other school better and she was a bit whining why she had to be there. Hay naku! I told her if she's going to be negative about it then it's better if she goes out of the room because I don't want her nagative vibe. I told her that UP will prepare her better to be an astronaut. I told her that this was the best school in the Philippines and she will be one of the best students in the Philippines if she gets in. I told her that she will have boy classmates there, but she told me she likes girl classmates better (haha buti naman). The clincher I think is when I told her that she will have two extra months vacation when she gets in to UP hahaha! I don't know how I convinced her basta before the actual bunutan she was finally okay. I was actually surprised that I was calm while talking to her about it. I just didn't want any negative vibes before the draw-lots. To continue with the story of the draw-lots, there was a small rectangular desk where they put the papers around, and each representative for the child went around the desk to pick.  Buti na lang the kid beside me got the paper I was supposed to get, so I picked another one near us rin. Then I turned and walked towards Joma and Miya, and opened the paper and gave a small shriek and small hop when I read "Congratulations". Eeek! We got in!

Sabi ni Joma, all the stars were aligning in our favor kasi out of all the 6 congratulations, I was the only one on our side of the room. Halos lahat ng nakuha nasa kabilang side. And no one reached out to the other end of the desk to get a paper, talagang almost everyone reached for the paper nearest us. Hay naku talaga! Thank you, Lord! We really asked for prayers from our family and friends. We stormed the heavens with prayers for Miya. Thank you, thank you! I'm still on a high from this morning's events. Imagine, out of hundreds of kids (maybe even thousands?) they only got 100 students, 60 of that are UP dependents while 40 are non-UP dependents. We belong to the 40. Waaaahhh!!!! Thank you, Lord, talaga!