Milenyo - Two Days of Darkness

Day 1 Wednesday & Thursday

Everything seemed normal Wednesday afternoon. I decided to use up my half day leave and left work. No, it wasn't because I wanted to goof off, but rather I had a stomachache and was scared to make a mess in school...hehehehe....so I went home after class. I made sure that I attended my classes and then after dismissal, left for work.

As usual, I brought home my papers to check. I had lunch at home. I had it packed and decided to eat at home instead of eating at home. Again, just in case my stomach wouldn't take the to the solids...hehehehe. Watched a bit of tv and then took a nap, a long one. When I woke up, it was already raining pretty hard. I was lucky that I caught a break in between the rain and spared my shoes.

When I watched the evening news, Malacañang had already declared that were wasn't going to be any classes. Well, none for the kids anyways, but I was so sure that it wasn't going to be the case with us.

I finished checking my paperwork and felt good about going back to work the next day. I had finished checking papers and was ready to start the new day with new papers...lol...

The next day, I woke up early ready for work....hey, I'm talking about work, so let's fastforward to me having no work for the day cause of the bad weather condition.

I went back to sleep, and when I woke up, there was still electricity. Through the years, whenever PAG-ASA declares that there's a "supertyphoon," chances are they're wrong. So as usual, I didn't take their warning too seriously. Although, I did put water in the buckets just in case. Made sure that I found the candles and had some food in the fridge.

I went downstairs to turn on the TV and my PC. It was still around 9 am by then but the wind was really strong. I could hear it hitting the roof, like it was about to fly off. Not the roof of the apartment but the neighbor's. And lo and behold, no power!!!!

It was kinda dark outside too. So I decided after eating biscuit for lunch to go back to sleep. Might as well take advantage of the holiday by catching up on sleep. When I woke up, the storm was still brewing. In fact, the rain would change direction. I had no choice but to move some boxes away from the window. Put some towels underneath. Rain would go in, in between and was making puddles on the floor. With that done, I went back to sleep.

I finally got a chance to open the window after awhile. Neighbor's roof were still intact, thank goodness. Trees were uprooted. Branches everywhere.

When it was finally night, I lighted the candles that I could find around the house. Two scented candles and three "normal" ones...hehehehe. Then I got my books from my room and decided to read to pass the time. Then I had dinner, sandwiches for a change and then read some more.

I decided to move upstairs to my room. I was careful with the candles. Making sure they were away from curtains. I've heard so many horror stories of houses catching fire cause of candles that people forgot to put out.

I tried to read but it was just too difficult. I decided to go to sleep. Put out the candles and then just laid in bed. Listening to the neighbors talk, trying to stare out of the window. Couldn't even see the stars. It was cloudy outside.




Day 2 Friday

The second day was basically the same as the first. No power. It felt like the medieval ages. The dark ages, literally. We finally ran out of water. But I had my buckets...two of them just in case. I woke up late and the only sound that woke me up was the phone ringing. Strange huh? We had no power but you can reach me through the phone. It was Mems, asking if we had water. I told her nope.

So I went back to bed and then woke up again as my landlady was knocking on the door. She decided to give me another bucket of water. Of course, I wasn't going to turn that down. I used it to take a shower. Then returned the empty bucket to her. I asked her when would we have power, she said tomorrow. Hmm....tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow, you're only a day away. Oh, another day in the medieval ages.

I had breakfast and then went upstairs to read. It was the only thing I could do under the circumstances. I was starting to worry since I had hotdogs in the fridge. Luckily, I'm too lazy to defrost the fridge so the ice was quite thick. Seriously, penguins could move in there...hehehehe. So the hotdogs were cold and frozen there, with the remaining ice.

I tried to clean up a little. Removed the wet towels under the windows. Checked the boxes to make sure that they were starting to dry. And as usual, was napping and napping like there was tomorrow. Dang, I felt like Rip Van Winkle, except for the beard. But heck, why should I complain right? It was my one chance to catch up on sleep.

I skipped lunch and went right to snacks. I foraged what was left in the cupboard. I had peanuts, biscuits as usual and juice. I made pineapple juice and had some peanuts and some Mentos, leftovers from my review classes. I had cheese but not more bread. Oh well, at least I still had food. Then I realized that I didn't have rice for like almost 2 days. I was lucky I hadn't gone crazy yet...hehehehe....people who know me know that I can't survive the day with at least one meal with rice. Since there was no power, couldn't use the electric stove. I thought about going out but I was too lazy...hehehehe....so I decided to eat the cold rice in the fridge. Let it thaw for a while and then ate I think about two tablespoons of rice with Ma-ling. That pretty much satisfied my craving for rice. Maybe its just psychological after all...hehehehe.

The good news that day was that my landlady had water delivered so we had water. I was contemplating doing my laundry...hehehe...but again, I was too lazy. Plus I was afraid it wouldn't dry up what with the weather and I'd end up washing it again.

So it was back to my favorite past times, sleeping and reading. Reading and sleeping. Hmm...its like a vacation except there's no water. But like my friend says, maybe it did me some good. Vacation away from the PC. Its amazing how people are attached to it, including myself. I don't think I can picture a day that I wouldn't be working at my PC for at least an hour. If I'm not uploading pics, I'm reading the news, or writing my blog. There's always a reason why I'm online. But for the last two days, no nothing. No TV, no PC, no radio (makes me wish I had a transistor radio), no nothing. Almost as if there was a news blackout. I even contemplated taking a pen and a paper and actually writing....not!!!! I've got a horrible penmanship that sometimes I can't even understand.

Day 3 Saturday

I woke up early Saturday. There was supposed to be an event at work and I didn't know if it was cancelled or not. Well, considering most parts of the metro didn't have power, I figured there was none, but you never can be sure about stuff like that. I turned on my mobile phone and sent a message to Ms. Jenneth. She said she couldn't go to work. I still didn't get anything by 7 am so I thought I'd better go back to sleep.

When I woke up, there was no network coverage from my phone. Wow, weird huh? Finally, I went back to sleep. When I woke up again around 8 am, lo and behold!!! The light was on at the landing. Woo hoo!!!!

Got up as fast as I could. Had breakfast. Cleaned up the fridge, the house as best as I could. I texted some people and it felt good to have things back to "normal."

I know that I'm lucky to have power back. I read in the paper that there's this only certain percentage with their power back. I'm sure they'll get their power back again....(as long as those foolish people don't steal power cables...)

A Year....

Its exactly a year since I valiantly (hehehe) defended my thesis and oh what a day that was.

It's still so vivid in my mind, the food I had, Chowking, boneless bangus. Then staying in the library reading up on my notes and PowerPoint Presentation. The worse part was, waiting for the time. It was like waiting for a bomb to drop. I pretty much thought I would be in trouble since I couldn't memorize the abstract of my thesis. I tried but I just can't. I'm not the type of person to memorize stuff, telephone numbers, names, addresses, etc. I can only remember certain pieces of information if they're meaningful to me. But remembering them, I can't. I don't even remember my mobile phone number. My only excuse is that, I don't call myself? Hehehe.

Well, I was able to pass my thesis defense and it was sweeeeeeeet!!!!!

But on the other hand, my mom's dog, Evita passed away. It seemed like something was given and then something was taken.

We will really miss her. Among the family photographs that we have, her picture is there and it will stay there. She's a member of the family.

At the mall (and something scary)

Today, I finally dragged myself out of the house. And that was because of necessity. If there is something that I look forward to during the weekend, its staying at home and relaxing.

However, I had to go out today to one, have some lesson plans photocopied (I plan to drop them off tomorrow at Mrs. Mems' house) and buy food. Yep, the cupboards are rattling...hehehe...they're empty. If you look at the freezer, there's only ice everywhere.

So after much soul-searching and convincing myself of the merits of going out, I finally did. I almost did not because of the torrential rain but luckily, it finally stopped. After enjoying the replay of the Ateneo vs. Adamson game (where Ateneo won and they're going to play against UST), I went to my room and slowly like a turtle, started to dress up.

Traffic was heavy as expected. After all, it was past 5 and people were going to the mall. When I got there, there was a concert going (I dunno who was singing, a band, that much I can say) and I headed straight to Copylandia (?) or Copy something...hehehe to have some papers photocopied.

Then I went to the basement to SM Appliance to see if the VCD that got stuck in the DVD player that I got a few weeks back was finally free....hehehe... There were a lot of people but there was a salesperson who attended to me immediately and I was told that it would be another week before I'd get it back. They'll just text me as soon as it was available. That was fine with me as long as I get it back. It isn't mine but a friend's.

Then I headed to the Supplies to buy some envelopes that I would use for files at work. I'm trying to be organized when it comes to papers at work, but sadly, it seems to be losing fight. But that's another story, that you won't get to hear cause I dont' like talking about work. Wouldn't want to be fired.

With my supplies, I went to the Food Court to think about what to have for dinner. I was thinking fish. But I also missed having my usual Burger Steak meal. Although other fastfoods have that, they couldn't possibly compare to Jollibee. So I headed to the first floor hoping that there wouldn't be a lot of people around.

I lined up (the guy before me took like a bazillion years) and I gave my order. I had my K1 plus Chicken Sotanghon soup. I finished rather quickly and relaxed for a little bit before heading for the grocery, when this girl, wearing a yellow shirt and denim skirt with her hair tied in a pony tail, came up to my table, sat down and asked if she could ask something. I was slow to react and thought it strange so I didn't stop her. She started to say something and then for the life of me, I couldn't understand what she was saying!!! I'm an average person, not entirely stupid but I really couldn't understand what she said. Then it just dawned on me, I remembered some stories that I've heard over the news of people being hypnotized or something so they'd give their money or worse, bring these people to their houses and then give them practically everything. So I hurriedly stood up, and ran away as fast as I could. I just had a really bad feeling about her. I felt light-headed and my head felt like it was aching. Really scared the heck out of me.

I didn't look at anyone after that, I was scared she had an accomplice waiting outside the fastfood and I bet she did. But I suppose she hadn't done that much damage yet since I walked away right away and tried to block out what she was saying.

I went to the grocery, did my grocery and then tried to put everything behind me. But that was really a close call. A very scary one. I just realized that I pity the people who do genuinely ask for help because then they become suspect too. I know that anyone who comes up to me, I'd think they were "bad people" even though they haven't done anything.

Certainly, I'm going to make sure that next time I go malling, I will steer clear of people who are trying to strike up a conversation with me or even sit at my table. In this day and age, it always pays to be cautious, just to be on the safe side.

August

I suppose the month of August can be summarized in these words:

• study
• review
• read
• learn
• remember
• memorize
• fun
• hang out
• carry
• junk food
• new friend
• new places
• cram
• class
• attend
• PNU
  
• boring
• sleepy
• sunday
• saturday
• scary
• nervous
• exciting
• overwhelming
• nerve-wracking
• relief
• UE
  
• the end
• a beginning
• waiting
  

And that is the month of August