The Geek Brewery

Salinggawi is University of Santo Tomas dance troupe representative to the 2008 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) cheerdance competition while UP Pep Squad is the University of the Philippines’ bet. Sawi is a Tagalog term for ill-fated or more appropriately used in the sentence as unsuccessful — meanwhile wagi means the opposite.

Salinggawi did not win this year’s UAAP cheerdance competition. The said dance troupe lost against this year’s champion, the UP Pep Squad, by 8 points (85.3 against 93.3 points).

I had the chance to watch this year’s cheerdance competition at the Araneta Coliseum. Despite our attempts to buy a ticket a week before the event, we were only blessed by it on the day itself — from a scalper.

I’ll bore you off by narrating our adventure to acquiring a tumataginting na ticket — but I’m giving you the complete freedom to skip this part and proceed to the real fun.

Our first attempt to buy the ticket was a week before the event at the UP College Human of Kinetics (CHK – Gym). We woke up about 6:30am, had our breakfast and did other stuff (minus taking a bath) and by 7:15am, we went straight to CHK. The queue was already a bit long by that time. We had to wait for a long time till the sale of tickets started, 9:45am. We were shocked by the magic note on the door. It said “Tickets for September 6 Game for Sale. UPPER BOX only”. And so, we left since we were there for the September 7 event. Days later, we discovered that September 7 tickets were sold the same day at about 10am. Amf.

As days passed, rumors that the event’s tickets were already sold out. It was sad. It was very sad. (Sige, papatulugin ko kayo sa post ko!!) Gladly, a friend told me that tickets will still be sold on-site. Weeeee.

September 7, the 2008 UAAP Cheerdance Competition date. We rose up from bed from 5:45am and left the dorm by 7:30am. This time, we had our baths (wahehehehe). We rushed to Araneta Coliseum, literally. We were like crazy looking for Katipunan jeepneys, running thru the LRT hallways, etc. We reached Araneta Coliseum at about 9:00am — then found ourselves in line.

The queue was very long, spell LOOOOOOOONNNNGGGG. Same as what happened in CHK, we waited the sale of tickets to start. Gladly, the agony was limited on the 2-hour wait (for the sale of tickets). The line was progressing very fast once the sale started. Toink, toink, toink. I was already three persons away from the magic ticket when the Event Security closed the gates. The general admission tickets were already sold out. Waaaaaa.

So we ran on the red gate to get our Lower Box tickets. Again, we started at the end of a very long queue. That’s when we decided to let our friend San buy a ticket from scalpers. On desperate times, we resort to desperate measures. Fortunately, San was desperate-looking enough that scalpers were approaching him like hell. More scalpers = more choices = more competition. Final price, PhP 150.00 per ticket versus the PhP 50.00 original price. Still a good price as compared to other scalper prices (average of PhP 250.00, as high as 500)..

Weeeeeeeeeee. Some shortcut. I’ll proceed to the real fun.

The first time I watched a game in Araneta was during the UP vs NU basketball game. UP won. Yesterday was my second time, a UP vs OTHERS cheerdance competition. UP won. I think it has something to do with my presence. Wahahahaha.

I’d like to quote of this tarpaulin poster by University of Santo Tomas (UST).

Photo credit: scarereyes.blogspot.com

Photo credit: nocturnalgoddess.multiply.com

That’s a 400 [Pacman <] 100 poster. Sadly, 400 isn’t clear enough. What is 400 years of EXISTENCE to 100 years of EXCELLENCE!

Honestly, I don’t have much to tell you regarding the actual event. Tatapusin ko na ito. Waaaaaaaa.

P.S. Galing talaga ng UP. Grabe!