Under the (terrible) weather

I hate it when I don't feel well. We've got a game coming up on Saturday and I'd really love to be in good condition for that. I hope we won't have any more harsh rains, it's draining the energy out of me!

Wacky Weekend

The recent three-day weekend was quite awesome coz I didn't spend the whole time slaving away with my tutorials. I actually got to do a lot of fun stuff, stuff that I actually enjoy doing.

We had two elimination games in basketball, one on Saturday and another on Sunday. After playing for Elektrons at the very bottom of the list for six years, our first game proved to be quite a challenge. I've always been used to facing the Skimmers team for the first elimination game and we always claim an easy victory before we succomb to our second and third games to teams who actually know how basketball is played. We finished fourth last year, though, a very impressive feat which we never would've accomplished without our then freshman star player, Duyduy. But advancing on the standings had some pretty tough consequences. Our first game was no walk in the park. We battled head-on the Tycoons, a team with really strong players. Fortunately, we also had quite a number of players who performed pretty well. So after a bleeding lip, two encounters with the dirty pavement we call a basketball court, and two points that came straight from heaven, I joined my teammates in our first victory.

The second game wasn't quite as pretty, because we faced a team who placed second last year. They had tall, stocky, experienced, fast, and skillful players (did I mention they placed second last year?) and we didn't even come close. Nothing very notable happened on that game, except that I scored four out of the nineteen points we had. That's 21% (yes, I'm a math freak)! Not bad from someone who came off the bench and was panting heavily after five minutes of game time. I'm pretty sure they were just a bit cautious about whacking their teacher so they gave me four easy points.

Yesterday, I woke up to a text message from MM, saying she was in the city (she works in Makati) and wanted to hang out. We got to do just that. We spent around four hours at Zuba where she downed four bottles of Red Horse while I sipped (yes, sipped) a short glass (yes, those short glasses that cost five pesos) of SanMig Light and gorged on two servings of french fries.
We talked about a whole lot of things which made me realize there was a lot of things that I didn't know about the person who's supposed to have been my best friend since freshman year in high school. I'm just glad that she's finally come to realize the things she's supposed to realize, and I'm really hopeful that the next time I agonize over a short glass of SML, we'll be sharing happy stories.

Now, I'm back in the place I call my office (our faculty computer lab). And it's time to face my work.

The beauty of Firefox

I just installed a freeware add-on from the Firefox website. It allows me to download videos from YouTube and it's really neat! The videos end up quite small, though and sometimes you can't rewind or fastforward the clip. But then again, I'm able to watch and listen to videos by my fave idol Lea Salonga over and over.

Check it out by clicking here. Oh, and you still have to download a flash player but it's really just quick if you've got dsl.

Washed away

The constant rains and winds for the past week have finally taken its toll on the weak entities of this world. People are now getting sick, trees and electric posts have fallen, mountains and roads are being washed away. Just yesterday, the inevitable happened.

The soft soil behind the UPV New Administration Building in Miag-ao fell on the beautifully engineered and ingenuously positioned New Admin Building, bringing with it trees, rocks and grave danger to the staff and personnel of offices located above what we fondly call Mount Olympus. Fortunately, none of the gods or the mere mortals that were there that time got hurt. Physically, at least. Because on my bus ride this morning, I heard tales of terror and traumatic experiences caused by the incident.

Today, affected offices were relocated in order to clean up the debris.

Maybe when the offices are cleaned up, the staff and personnel will go back there and perform business as usual. But will it be so easy to forget the time when your life was literally at risk because of an incomprehensibly located office building? Will people there continue to work knowing the fact that (God forbid) another rain or perhaps a tremor can possibly cause more damage? Will they be so lucky again next time?

Maybe the gods atop Mount Olympus can do something about the risks that their subjects, and they themselves, face each day. After all, they're not exactly immortal.

Rain, rain go away

It was pouring very hard earlier this morning and it's been this way for a few days now. The winds are also tremendously strong. I swear, if I weren't so overweight, the winds would fly me off to a faraway plaace!

So, as I was saying, the downpour's been quite heavy but classes were only suspended when everything was already back to normal --- no more heavy winds, no more torrential rains, the sun is already shining. I remember when the same thing happened last year, I woke up to news of cancelled classes and work altough the sun was high up in the sky.

I'm not sure which ones are more unpredictable, the weather or admin's minds?

Of cars and houses

On a much lighter note, I spent yesterday tagging along and being tagged along with marichu's landlady. she was a nice lady and she turned out to be a real estate agent. she was convincing me to purchase a house and lot at SAVANNAH. Hmmm... That's something to put some thought to.

I saw three different kinds of automobiles up for sale yesterday. A volkswagen, a nissan patrol, and ... i dont knwo what the other one is. basta, it's the type with four dours and looks similar to the ones used as taxis. the volkswagen was priced at 50k. Hmmm.. too expensive for my taste especially since I'd still have to give the thing a face lift coz I wasn't too excited about the way it looked. Plus, it looked almost like junk to me.

Maybe in the proper place and time...

More sad news

i missed my classes yesterday to attend the burial of marichu's mother. the church was packed even though it was a work day. of course it probably had to do with the fact that marichu's father is the vice mayor of their municipality but i'd like to think it's more because marichu's mom was truly loved by a lot of people. she spent 31 years of her life as a teacher, she was only 53 when she passed on. she had cardiac arrest and never made it more than two days. it was all too swift and i can just imagine how devastating it must have been for marichu and her family. i admire the way marichu handled the ceremonies yesterday. she's tougher than most of us think she is. i hope she knows she isn't alone in her pain even if she hid it well, too well even.

Just on Monday, I also heard news on one of my friends' father passing away. This friend is actually my younger sister's classmate in high school but I've always been close to my siblings' classmates and even family. In Danielle's case, I got to spend a day in their house when I came over to tutor her on her math subject. That was only two years ago. Her father was quite a figure, so full of life, able to contort his face in the funniest ways. That time, he kept on teasing Danielle and telling me stories which only made me think how proud he was of his daughters.

I'm very emotional when it comes to these news because they really hit home. I was only seven when my father passed away due to a vehicular "accident." It crushes my heart right now to think of how my friends must be feeling the pain that I felt then. But I was only seven and a seven year old was too young to really feel the pain that my friends now feel. But still the news hit too close to home.

And I hate being sad.

(In) Passing

The mother of one of my classmates in high school passed away due to cardiac arrest last week and will be interred tomorrow, at 9am at Lambunao. Some of us found out about it only last night despite the fact that another one of our classmates was an intern at the hospital where Maret's mother expired. Two things made me extremely sad about this incident.

First, when we were still in high school, we spent an overnight stay at Maret's place where we were all accepted with warm hearts and such hospitable ways that can only come from a Filipino family who live in the countryside. Yes, Filipino families are hospitable in general, even the ones who live in highly urbanized places, but none as hospitable as those you's find in the province. I clearly remember how we were treated to the best food, how Maret's siblings indulged us in playing basketball and in mountain climbing, leading us to swim in the only waterfalls I've ever swum in my whole life. Not the resort kind where water was directed by mechanical schemes, no. It was real, honest-to-goodness waterfalls. And though I honestly don't remember Maret's mother in our visit, I'm pretty damn sure she was one of those in the family who welcomed us with open arms. I only remember Tita from the very few times we've seen each other at school. One at a party, another at a PTA meeting and I think the last one was during graduation. She was kind, much like her daughter. And Maret (her real name's Marichu, we call her a variety of names--- we were all called a variety of names back in high school --- March, Kuba, Nanay Marichu), ah, how do I even begin to describe this wonderful person? Marichu was undoubtedly the kindest person in class. A lot of us had evil hearts, not just evil in our hearts but EVIL hearts, but Marichu was not one of those. She was always there ready to help someone out, ready to listen, ready to be the butt of any joke thrown at her. And believe me, we were pretty harsh in high school. She was President of our class three times out of four, and we were led well in all her terms as class president. In elementary, the smartest or most popular was almost always voted class president. But in high school, we become a bit more mature, a bit more conscious in choosing the person who would lead the class to High School Week championships, Palabas awards, and religious direction. And Maret fit the role perfectly. All these make me feel really sad for the loss that she encountered. I just hope I can make her feel even a bit comforted when we see each other tomorrow and not make a complete ass of myself as I always do in awkward situations.

The second thing that's made me sad about this incident is the fact that one of us who belonged in what I thought was a closely-knit group could've informed us earlier about what happened and maybe we would've been able to visit Maret earlier instead of just attend the burial. Only eight of us from UPHSI Class '99 managed to be in the star section from the First Year to the Fourth Year (yes, it's a big freaking deal!) Marichu was one of us. Our intern classmate was the other one. But in this incident, none of the six of us knew until last night. So much for being closely knit. If my intern classmate sees this, I'm pretty sure he'll be angry as hell with me. But for the moment, I really don't care. A Close-Up commercial comes to mind, about how people all over the worldwere kept busy by texting all day long, how the world was made smaller but not necessarily closer. Yes, it's a sad fact. While it takes only a fraction of a second for news (as trivial as Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's breakup) to travel from the other side of the world to where you're sitting at, it took almost a week for this crushing news to travel a few measly kilometers. I know how busy our intern classmate is, he's doing nothing less than saving people's lives every day. But if he could show compassion for these strangers, was it too much to ask for the same compassion to the mother of a person who went the distance to make each one of her classmate's life a bit more comfortable. Again, I know how busy he is, but sending a text message to one of us wouldn't have taken more than a minute of his precious time. He said that he also only knew about it two days after Maret's mother passed away and MOST knew about it already. MOST? Who were these people who were too many to be considered MOST? If this didn't concern death, I'd be close to infuriated!

Of course, some of us have to be more mature about the situation and concentrate on the more important matter at hand. I just wish that the internet, mobile phones, landlines... I hope all these did make the world smaller AND closer. And I just wish we still cared for each other now even if we don't hear much from one another the way we did back when we met each other every single day...