Not Just a Competition : A Journey of Heart and Hustle

A pleasant day to everyone. It's been a week since my last update here in Hive. I'm sorry for being inactive in a week cause there's a lot happened in my whole week. Before I proceed to the topic I am going to share all you my co-hivers is that when you read my last upload I said that we will have upcoming dance competition to be held in Metropolitan Theater Manila. To those who doesn't read my last post yet this is the time you will know the context.

My journey in competing to the big stage isn't that easy. As a group we faced many struggles, trials, circumstances, sacrifices, and challenges before we travel to Manila. Also, individually especially for me, I am not financially stable in my allowances and expenses to be use in Manila. But, despite of that I keep trying myself to a find a solution to minimize and saved more financially.

On April 3, 2025, that was the day we will travel to Manila. We left in the province at 11am since our flight was 8pm in the night. Fast forward, we arrived in the Laguindingan Airport, Cagayan De Oro almost 5pm in the afternoon. After we check-in our tickets for the boarding pass, we noticed that there was changes in the flight time instead of 8pm it become to 5pm. So luckily, we arrived early in the place to prevent the occurrence.

We arrived in Manila 9pm in the evening at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA Terminal 2). After claiming all our baggage we booked a grab taxi from airport to Baclaran Station. And then we take ride in the Manila Rail Transit (MRT) going to Quezon City where we will spend the night in the house of our comrades.

When we arrived in the Quezon City, we thought that the house will occupy all of us but it was small place and also we concerned that it will take a long ride going to the place where the event to be held. So, our team leader decided to check-in a cheap hotel tomorrow near in the event place so that the ride will be short.

In the morning, we take first breakfast before we transfer to the hotel. Later part, we arrived in the Pasay Centrale Hotel located in Pasay City. That day was April 4 and the will be the blocking day for all competing groups. So, after we placed our things we directly went to the place to take a blocking.

The status of our blocking wasn't that satisfying cause we only given 45secs to block in the stage and after that music on. We didn't really managed to understand the stage cause it was very slippery we can't make adjustments. But we believe that our performance in the next day will be good.

Moving forward, it was April 5 a semis-final day. To cut the story short, we did lapses in our performance, we didn't performed our dance well. I was slightly disappointed of what it goes but I still proud of myself and to the team for making this possible, to dance in the big stage that we dreamed off in a very long time. As the results had been announced, we placed 39 out of 47 groups in Adult Division. I'm very thankful despite of the low performance we still managed to placed not badly.

The experience dancing in my dream stage never be forgotten. I will treasure this kind of experience that I dreamed for almost 5 years. Even if we did not make it to the top, we were inspired and motivate to come back next year, to compete again to achieve our goals.

In battles, it's not always winning but also there is losing. We should accept results that makes us stronger and because of that it will serve as weapon to battle again soon.

That's all for today's uploads. Thank you for spending time reading this. See you in my next one.

Note: The leading photo was edited through Canva Pro