Campus jungle

Yesterday's building might have been a disappointment, but its location is something that the Ateneo de Manila University can be proud of. Despite the growth of the student population and the increase in facilities, the school has still managed to keep several relatively large stands of woods in the campus. The Biological Research House is within one of them, which has been left alone to grow wild. This is what the mini-forest looks like from the street. The bridge is off the frame to the right.




Our little office building sits at one edge of the woods, and this is part of what I see from the fire exit just outside my room. The green is soothing to eyes tired of staring at a computer monitor, but there is one particular disadvantage: you won't believe the bugs and other creatures that sometimes get inside our building. The worst we've had so far is a baby python sleeping just outside 'my' fire exit (I'm proud to say that I didn't freak out when I saw it). Thank goodness it was still young—it was less than two feet long and a maintenance staff just picked it up with one hand. Seven-foot pythons have been caught in the campus several times. When they're that big, the school turns them over to the Ninoy Aquino Parks & Wildlife Center.