Every Step Counts: How to Make A Road Map by Foot.

                Of all the times to make a road map, we have unwittingly selected a scorching-hot afternoon. It was as if the Sun would burst into flames at any minute, but fortunate as we are, the shade given by the good ole Acacia Trees, proved enough to keep us from melting. It was around three in the afternoon when we assembled ourselves near the AS steps. Jayson, armed with the knowledge of his own pace factor, prepared himself for a more or less two kilometer walk along the paseo of the Academic Oval. At first, he had an energetic pace while walking, while the rest of us scurried along. It was apparently a good start, most of us were functioning well, nevertheless, taking note of the road signs that are to be found around the oval. But as we progressed in our journey, our stamina started dwindling down. Good thing that as soon as we see a road sign, we necessarily have to stop to get salient information to document in our road map, like how many steps were made from this sign to that? Significant questions that needed specific answers to assure the accuracy of our work. The first thousandth step, was exciting, since we felt that we were doing something out of the ordinary, feeling like professional cartographers, we took pride in every sign of progress we had like the increasing amount of steps Jayson has made, the number of road signs we had observed, and we were nearing at least a quarter of the whole Academic oval. But the challenged appeared, when Jayson, our runner, took his 1001^st step, in one way or another we had an epiphany that we have a long way to go with thousands of steps waiting to be crossed. It was a test of patience, as to how much you can further bare walking while counting. As tedious as it may seem, we had no choice but to continue our seemingly hundred-mile walk. The moment we had our 2000^th step, was for me, personally, the most draining, since we now were halfway through, and we had a clue as to how many steps more we were supposed to make. But this time, we at least have accomplished around 50% of our task, so it was somehow a motivational thought. One thing we have realized at this point in our journey was the many road signs people and cars alike tend to defy. I don’t know if they intentionally or not do so, like students crossing the streets without any pedestrian lanes around, cars honking repeatedly at close proximity to a “No blowing of horns” sign, funny but in a way disturbing, and I will be explaining later as to why I found it as such. By the time we have reached our 3000^th step, there was a sense of urgency, “Walk, Jayson, Walk!” became our battle cry, as if punishing him further.  Apparently, we all got excited that we were nearing the end of this seriously tedious task, our strengths have been refuelled with the thought of almost completing our journey. And finally, as Jayson took his 4,076^th step, we felt accomplished.

                The reason why I took time, to expressively convey our experience was to show how difficult it is to be a cartographer; it is a profession that needs patience, endurance, and passion. As I was making this reaction paper, I asked my groupmates as to what their reactions were, Ciesca said, that “Inaccuracies are inevitable, because of the inconsistencies of our limited material used for measuring, like the pace factor, the person, could have unknowingly took a wider step than usual while walking, and things like these, would eventually add up to make a bigger room for mistakes.” Jayson, whom I thought had the biggest amount of work done said, “Mahirap pala maglakad na iniisip at binibilang mo pa ang bawat hakbang na tinatahak mo.” Indeed, I think no one said this was a piece of cake, but we never really knew just how difficult was difficult until we experienced it firsthand.  And since, I think, we have somehow established the fact that making maps are difficult, it is just disturbing that some people do not follow these road signs at all, to the point that we were saying, “Gumagawa pa tayo ng road signs map, eh wala naman palang silbi ang mga road signs.” It somehow added further heat to the already scorching afternoon. Well, c’est la vie.

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