Happiness need not be Planned :)

What is happiness? It can be found in simple things. Like helping your friends by proofreading their thesis paper, or having canceled classes, or being able to enter their university (for the Nth time) because the guard is not looking.

It can be found in your best friend's face upon submitting their thesis for approval, even though yours is just getting halfway there. It can be found in making fun of the ugly elitists sitting beside you at Starbucks.

It can be the feeling after finding the place that you want to eat in, after getting lost for almost an hour and asking every policeman and security guard for directions. It can be the weird feeling of tiny frog bones on your mouth, but you don't care and just go on, thinking that it tastes like chicken. Happiness is getting your meal paid for by your friends as a thank-you gesture by helping them out, even though you are not expecting anything.

It is eating on a Chinese Rest(er)o, that seems dirty but you still eat anyway.

It can be found in Binondo, where lots of mooncake abound, and you buy a lot of hopia and haw flakes to take home, like you came from a field trip. It can be the feeling of going home after a happy food trip. It can be the sight of fireworks from afar, and it can be the words: "yan yung pyromusical sa MOA, tara punta tayo!" It can be the act of texting your dad that you won't be able to come home early.

It is parking Chariot by the bay and watching the fireworks when you all thought that it was time to come home.

Happiness is laughing hard at jokes about your friend's helper.

Happiness is finding a new set of friends that you clicked with right away. Happiness can be the way you and your best friend talk about anything under the sun as you sit by the bay, watching the havey na havey fireworks at a distance. Happiness is hearing your best friend say she's just so lucky by having her boyfriend of almost five years. Happiness is wishing that you'll be able to find yours as well. Happiness is knowing that he's out there.

Happiness is laughing at this photo because you look so weird and your best friend seems to be on a raid.

Happiness is getting carried away by the fireworks that your friends decided to drive to the place where it happens, only to find out that the show is already over. Happiness is cutting in on the other lane just to see the contact number of another Mitsubishi Chariot for sale. It is going home at 11PM with your best friend, and realizing that you never came home early when you are with her.

Happiness is forgetting about the truckload of academic requirements for a day and having fun with friends on a food trip that you'll always remember. It is knowing that there's always a next time.