Sunday, December 21, 2014

Christmas Parties 2014

This week is Christmas party week... plus becoming a volunteer again.

Just this Monday, I took a leave to volunteer at a Gawad Kalinga community down south. It was my first time to visit such a community and I was glad to have participated. It was such a brief volunteer stint lasting less than three hours but I hope that the community had fun with what we came up with and with the mural painting we left. I would have loved to stay and interact more with the locals to get to know them better, to listen to their stories, to see how they really live, instead of just organizing a little party where people pack up after everything not even knowing the people's names and stories.

a girl looks at the repainted mural
Then Wednesday night, our team had great bonding time at Red Box. The place is overrated and overpriced but I guess it's still the quality of bonding time that matters. We had fun singing Linkin Park songs, which I think really spiked up the team's spirits. It was just so funny how at the last 10 minutes, we skipped song after song until we finally ended the night with Spice Girls' "Stop". Like, yeah we need to stop and go home already. LOL!

Thursday morning found me still sleepy because of an early morning meeting which ended as just a chat between me and my contact. I was so exhausted the night before because of the horrendous Christmas traffic that going home took me more than an hour when on normal days it's only for 30 minutes! Still I couldn't postpone my date with a friend from elementary days. I was able to contact her via FB after seeing her post in one group.

So feeling slightly feverish and coughing tremendously, I still went ahead to meet her. We pigged out on buffalo wings at Buffalo's Wings n' Things and had loads of fun recollecting about our elementary days. I never really forgot about them and every start of classes in the school I transferred to, I would always remember them, how half the class joined me during recess time to run around the school. It's a bittersweet feeling, knowing you share fond memories and yet to face the reality that we're all grown ups now and we have changed a lot. It's been 18 long years after all, and yet I still feel that I have not moved on. I think this is the reason why I would love to meet with them, to somehow have a sort of closure. It just hurts being friends at one point in time and being total strangers in another.

Friday saw me dressed up as a kid for our stream's Christmas party at a Jollibee branch. I would have wanted to win the cash prize for best in costume but sadly I did not though I do think I had a high chance of winning because I look childlike. Moving on, at least I did win an umbrella. Just a week ago my long umbrella just disintegrated.

Also, I got my third wish on my wishlist, which is a copy each of local comic books Mythspace and Trese volume 1. I always look at those comic books but never purchased them because I always wished somebody would buy them for me.

Finally decided that these will be part of my holiday reading
Scheduled on Saturday is Christmas lunch with former team mates but which I declined because consecutive parties drain me (and my wallet, and contribute to further fattening of this kiddo.) I'd rather rest at home since I was still suffering from a major cough. Also, since 2014 is about to end, I am also planning to end one major project pretty soon and the holidays would be the perfect time to accomplish many things. So the whole day I sat in front of my laptop to work on a volunteer project.

Today I spent the day with the old folks at a home for the aged somewhere in Bulacan. The captain/ originator was a travel buddy and dear friend so without any second thoughts, I signed up as volunteer. I've always admired her guts, and this time her gentle heart. We may not have prepared much for the old ladies but at least we were able to make them smile, to laugh, dance, eat with them.

After that, we hang out at Fairview Terraces and talked about intellectual stuff from economics to the latest research items. It was like a breath of fresh air since I do not get to talk about intelligent ideas that often since most people I am with would only regard me as an annoying know-it-all who never stops talking about crazy stuff nobody gives a shit about anyway. For this, I always treasure those rare moments when I can be with people with whom I can truly converse with without worrying about their ability to keep up with my ideas.

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