Opening Ceremony at PSU Lingayen Campus!
Magandang hapon!
Today I'm going to tell you about the SEA Teacher and SEA TVET Opening Ceremony at PSU Lingayen campus. Without any further ado, let's go back to the 2nd of September!!
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It was Monday. We've been told that we're going to have an Opening Ceremony for all of the SEA Teacher and SEA TVET a day before. The campus official also told us that we have to wear our own national costume. When they told us that, I was like “Oh so that’s why they asked us to bring our costume long time ago.”
Of course I did bring my costume. It was a traditional Sasak male outfit. It consists of a black colored top that kinda looks like a suit—but certainly not a suit. The front flap of the top is longer than the back. It actually kinda reminded me of the suit that an orchestra conductor worn during the performance. But theirs has a longer back flap—the opposite of Sasak male top. I wore a black trouser with a Sasak traditional songket wrapped around the waist. I tied the songket with another piece of long-woven-cloth on the waist so it doesn’t move around. Also, I wore a sapuq on my head. It’s a sort of headband that tied around the head of a Sasak men. It looks similar as the Balinese headband (pssstt... we share the same culture you know) By the way, I wish I had a full-body picture of my then OOTD, LOL. We were very tight on time so we have to do everything fast. This is how a traditional Sasak male outfit supposed to look like:
You see, that guy in the picture is obviously not me LOL. I found this picture on the internet—to give you a real ‘picture’ of how the outfit supposed to look like.
And this is how I look with the outfit on. I KNOW, only an upper body picture because we’re already seated and the Ceremony was about to begin. You get the idea haha. I am the one in the middle. Tell me I looked cute in that LOL hahaha.
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| Me and my other Indonesian friends at the Opening Ceremony: Mada (left), Katon (right) and obviously me in the middle |
Then, the Ceremony began. They played quite a lot of songs actually, compared to events that I attended back in my country. They played the ASEAN song, which was VERY new to me. That was the first time I heard that song, and I was like “Wait, they have a song?” LOL. Thank God that they displayed the lyrics on the screen so I could follow along the song.
After that they played a series of Philippines song. I forgot the order LOL but they played the Philippines National Anthem “Lupang Hinirang” and the Province of Pangasinan Hymn which titled “Luyag ko tan Yaman”. Both of the songs reeeally stucked in my head LOL, even though it was hard for me to memorize the lyrics, but I got the melodies haha.
Then they played the “Indonesia Raya”, the National Anthem of Indonesia. ALL of us Indonesian students sang the song. The conference hall was loud—grumbling with our spirits. It was such a great moment. I legit got goosebumps, and I bet the others in the hall got that too. After that, they played the Thai National Anthem. I am sorry to my two Thai friends I don’t know the title of the anthem because I can’t read Thai LOL. But the anthem is not less cool than the first two. In my personal opinion, the Thai Anthem sounds very...Thai. I mean, of course it was a Thai song but for me, it sounds very authentic—kinda traditional also. That’s very cool to me. Same with the previous ones, I don’t know the lyrics but I’ve memorized the melody haha.
NOTE:
While writing this post, I read it as a whole then thought “is this post going to be all about the songs that played at the Ceremony?” Haha just hang on okay... The songs are the things that stuck the most on my brain LOL
Then, they played the hymn of Pangasinan State University (PSU). That was the moment I’ve been waiting for—because even before I got to the Philippines, I’ve heard the hymn of PSU on Youtube and it was AWESOME LOL. Apparently every SEA Teacher and SEA TVET students knew the song so they sang along. It was soo cool!
By the way if you’re curious about the hymn, this is the link of the hymn on Youtube >> https://youtu.be/E9FJJHYzQ5c
After all the songs and hymns had been played, the MC asked us to stand to read the PSU Quality Policy together. It was very new to me because we didn’t do that in Indonesia (or at least my university). Then, there were several speechs by the PSU officials, and we were given snacks!!!
I don’t know the name of the food but it was damn good LOL
The main event of this ceremony was the announcement of our schedule of activities for a month in PSU. Starting from September 3rd until 5th, we will be having our class observation. Then, on September 7th there will be some campus activities. I was kinda confused about what are we going to do for the campus activities. Then someone told me, we will be joining the students in their campus activities such as sports and stuff. Fun, I think LOL
When they showed the next slide, everyone got veeeeryy excited LOL. It was said on the next slide, we will be having a cultural exposure (aka vacation LOL) on September 14th. We will be going to either Vigan or Baguio. We got super excited and the girls started screaming in joy LOL (including me even though I’m a boy because I’m excited LOL). They said, Vigan is an old city which has a lot of historical sites. I bet we can get a lot of cool vintage photos there haha. On the other hand, Baguio is a highland. They said that it’s cold there so we have to bring warm clothes. That’s also cool in my opinion because it’s been a long time since I went to highland place like that LOL.
Then, on the next slide, it’s said that WE WILL BE HAVING ANOTHER CULTURAL EXPOSURE on September 21st to Bolinao! The hall went super loud again LOL. Based on the picture on the slide, Bolinao seems to have beautiful beaches. EXCITING!!!
On September 25th will be the submission day for our evaluation form, report, and stuff. There was no cheering when they showed this slide LOL. And on 27th, we will be having our Closing Program. It’s not even near 27th but we kinda felt sad because we’ll be here only for a month. We wish that we could be here longer.
Then there are a couple instructions about what we’re going to do on the next day. After that we danced. It was cool and funny, but I kinda felt embarrassed because I don’t like dancing in front of people LOL
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And that’s basically it! That was my experience in the Opening Ceremony of SEA Teacher and SEA TVET in PSU main campus at Lingayen. I’ll be writing more about the rest of my experiences in Pangasinan.
