A nice pro that comes with the mountain of a climb up to our classroom is that the signal is better up there. I don’t even need to move to the window to get fast data. Another nice pro, which we discovered at recess, was that we unlocked a new area to eat in: The Rooftop.
It’s been the topic of our discussions for a long time, even since Grade 7, when I (illegally) checked out the view with my friend. It seemed like a waste not to eat there, because there you had a nice view and you could see the open sky, like a glimpse of freedom. In Grade 8, ‘renovations’ eventually went underway, and we waited. In Grade 9, concrete blocks were brought up, and we waited.
And now in Grade 10, after three years of waiting, The Rooftop is finally open. A covered walkway guides you to “the barn” as my classmate dubbed it. The Barn (shaped like a barn) is a big covered rectangle, has long tables on either side, plastic chairs lined up in front of them, and a big open area in the middle where we practiced our field demonstration last year before The Rooftop was officially open. You can enter it through a doorway on each side. Then there are these little covered ‘sheds’: long tables and seats with a roof on top, three on one, and four on the other side of the Barn. Each little shed is separated by little tiled cement rectangles with plants. There’s even a canteen next to the entrance of The Rooftop where we can buy food instead of going down four sets of stairs and up again. Though at the present, there aren’t as much rice meals you can buy compared to downstairs, so I didn’t get to buy last time when the others beat me to it since I didn’t immediately go there in favor of watching the birds for a while first.
The Rooftop has a pretty decent view, if not for the steel bars obstructing the view slightly. I’ve seen at least four different types of birds already at school, two from The Rooftop and two from outside the windows of our classroom (which are yet to be covered up by a curtain). They like to use the branches of the aratilis tree in front of our window as a perch as they eat its berries. From The Rooftop I’ve seen your regular pigeons sitting on the power lines across the school: gray, white, light brown, fat, very fat as I’ve seen once with my friend, or plain regular-sized; and I’ve seen this little green bird that I have yet to identify. The most I’ve seen in one time was four, all sitting on the dead tree in front of the shed we usually sit at. It had a black streak across its eyes, a white stomach, basil green wings and head, and reddish feet.
I bring my binoculars every day to look out for the little green birds and to identify buildings from afar. With them I can spot from the right side of the Barn three Jollibees, one McDo, and NoMo. We see passing cars on the street in front. Sometimes, when we find that our usual shed on the right side of the Barn is occupied, or its table and seats are wet from the rain, we move to the left side.
My friend K wondered if we could see Acacia Hotel from The Rooftop, where our prom was held last March. To answer him, I can identify two buildings that are visible on the left side that are in Alabang: Richville Corporate Tower and BoxPlus Avida Towers Alabang. I haven’t identified the other buildings next to those two yet, but I figure it must be one of them.
The left side has a rather mundane view compared to what you can see on the right side. Below is a street perpendicular to the school, quiet, houses on both sides and a metal wire fence on the far end. A white pickup is usually parked there, and I’m even able to read its license plate with my binoculars. Nothing. Just for fun.
Once we had the misfortune of seeing two dogs multiplying on that same street, which my friend couldn’t stop laughing at.
Now that we always eat there, except for when it’s closed when it rains, it feels as if we’ve moved on from eating in the gym on the ground floor. And I do pass by the second floor to get to the third, and our past teachers Sir J and Ms. M do still, on occasion, grace us with their presence at The Rooftop during recess and lunch, but I’ve grown so accustomed to seeing those sights every school day for the past year that it feels like something’s not quite complete.
