THE first thing they said to us was: ?Don?t touch the horse.?

They meant the life-sized bronze statue on the First Court of Jesus College at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom where I attended the Oxbridge Summer Program in July.

Cambridge University has 31 independent colleges. The top five and most well-known are King?s, Queen?s, Trinity, St. John?s and Jesus College (my father joked that I would become a Jesuit after a month in Jesus College).

For the program, we had major and minor subjects. Major sessions are held every day except Sundays, and minors, three times a week.

I was a little apprehensive at first to be on my own, not knowing anyone or my surroundings. Using up a big chunk of my summer break was also not a very inviting prospect. But I was to be proved wrong.

I arrived early on the first day, hoping to grab a good room in my dormitory. I was placed in the North Court. The rooms, I was delighted to find, could rival a hotel?s, with a sofa bed, an armchair, a desk, and a bathroom with soap, shampoo and conditioner.

After checking in, all students assembled to be briefed by deans?our supervisors?on rules and regulations.

So, yes, ?Don?t touch the horse? was among the first rules. Violators could be dragged by the ?porters??the security people?off the lawn and fined ?1,000.

Certain parts of the lawns were also off-limits to students. Only Fellows or professors could step on the grass. But absolutely no one was allowed to step on the grass in the Cloisters, as this was where a group of nuns was buried centuries ago. Jesus College was the nunnery of St. Radegunda in the 12th century, and its chapel is today the oldest building in Cambridge.

Every night, between 10 and 11 p.m., we would have to come down from our rooms to sign in with a dean. Anybody who was late, even just for a minute, would have to stay in the study hall the following day as punishment.

After the brief orientation, we went to dinner in a room that, with its high ceiling and long tables, resembled the dining hall in Hogwarts, minus the floating candles.

The deans failed to tell us, though, how to get around the college. Jesus College had several courts, each quadrangle with at least five different archways going in different directions. It took us quite a while to get our bearings.

Major

I soon learned that my major class, Creative Writing, was at the Library Court, about a 5- to 10-minute walk from my dorm, depending on the speed of my power walk.

My teacher, Michael Sofranko, insisted we should be on a first-name basis with him. A friendly and articulate fellow, he was apparently one of the most experienced teachers around, having handled this particular program for 11 years.

I found out later that his class was also one of the most rigorous. We had to write a piece almost every day, ranging from short poems to short stories. To top it all, the morning class lasted three and a half hours.

We would then be free from 12:30 to 2 p.m. so, after we had familiarized ourselves with our surroundings, my friends and I would usually go to town for a quick lunch in one of the many cafes and restaurants with student-friendly prices.

We often bought paninis at Cafe Munch, then toured the Market Place, virtually the center of town, where stalls sold all sorts of things. Noon was often the time when mobs of tourists arrived, congesting the narrow streets.

Cambridge had over 30,000 bicycles, with little bells to tell us to get out of the way.

Minor

Minor classes only lasted two hours in the afternoon. I chose photojournalism for my minor. Our teacher, Jamie, was a bright and cheerful young man. After looking at the other students? cameras, I discovered that only two of us brought a point-and-shoot equipment. Everyone had an intimidating SLR (single lens reflex) unit.

The class, however, was not as demanding as Creative Writing. Most of the time Jamie would take us to the town to explore numerous parks, museums and historic sites, including Cambridge?s only hill and the King?s College chapel with its magnificent fan-vaulted ceiling.

On King?s Parade there was also a 24-carat gold clock with a large, intricate, moving, sinister-looking metal locust on top. It apparently signified the Chronophage, the ?time eater? in Greek. It was supposedly telling us ?time is short.?

Every day new activities were posted on the boards below the hall to keep us busy. These ranged from talks by Nobel laureates, Shakespearean plays and a night tour of haunted places to a Canadian fellow rapping Geoffrey Chaucer. Once we were brought to the River Cam for punting. A person stood on the platform at the end of a boat, the punt, propelling it forward by pushing against the river bank with a long pole.

The highlight of our excursions was the Canterbury and London day trips on the first two Fridays of the month.

Canterbury, of course, had everyone thinking of Chaucer?s classic ?Canterbury Tales,? a very old copy of which my father got me from
G. Davids, a bookseller in Cambridge since 1896.

On our first trip, the main attraction was a visit to the Canterbury Cathedral, a historical landmark since the Middle Ages, with pilgrims coming from miles away to visit the shrine of Thomas Beckett, the former bishop of Canterbury who was murdered allegedly by knights of Henry II. Beckett?s bones are interred in an altar in the cathedral.

The next Friday we took a London tour designed by our major teachers. We went on a five-mile walk (apparently ours was the most challenging tour), including a stroll along the river Thames for a spectacular view of the London Eye, Big Ben and the Parliament building. We crossed the bridge to Westminster Abbey. The church was packed with tourists and our class had to squeeze through them to see the ornate tombs of numerous monarchs and the memorials to distinguished authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, T.S Eliot, and John Keats.

At Trafalgar Square afterwards, we met up with the other major classes and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the city on our own.

All too soon, it was July 31, the last day of the Oxbridge program. We attended our major class in the morning, as usual, but were free the rest of the day. My friends and I set off for the Market Place and the Rock Shop for some shopping.

Dinner that evening would not be cafeteria-style. We had a formal banquet, with appetizer, main course and dessert presented on special gold-leaf platters engraved with Jesus College in Latin.

After dinner, the awarding ceremony was held at Wesley Church across the street. The top student in each major class was presented before students and faculty.

When Mr. Sofranko went up the stage, he said in the past 11 years it was always a student from the United States or Europe who topped his class. I was quite surprised when, pointing at me, he said for the first time a student from the Philippines had been chosen.

I was stunned. I thought there were others in my class worthy of the honor. But I was also proud to have given honor to my school and my country.

Goodbyes needed to be quick as my parents had arrived to take me to their hotel because the next morning we were heading for Bayreuth, Germany, to watch the Wagner opera ?Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? before returning to Manila.

My friends tried to make me stay for the last formal dance at the Forum, hiding my key and keeping me pinned underneath their bodies.

As I sadly walked through First Court, waving back to my friends standing at the archway, I could see the faint outline of the bronze horse in the darkness. Oh how I regretted not having touched it, not even once, during my stay at Jesus College. But who says I won?t be back?