Friday, October 06, 2006
Home Sweet Home
Play New Edition’s “Still In Love” or All-4-One’s “These Arms” and I’m back in my room at
It’s been so long that now, it seems like it was all just a hazy dream. But then I dig into my huge plastic container full of
That's the Cerritos Public Library where I used to spend hours researching and also where I met my second boyfriend, Daniel. The next photo is of Cerritos Towne Center, where we used to hang out. It's similar to the Promenade the Seventh Heaven kids go to. Then there's the track and cross country team, which I used to belong, the gym I used to spend study period in. Study period because I was excused from P.E. since I was an athlete. That's Jason, I think. My former teammate who now coaches the track and cross-country team at CHS.
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Wednesday, October 04, 2006
What did we do to Meralco to deserve this?
Because I live in a third world country, I did not panic. In fact, I took it like an everyday occurence. It would've been a different story if I lived in the U.S of A all my life.Six whole days without power didn't quite drive me crazy. It might've helped that I could rush over to my friend's house to charge my cellphone battery. It's not that I can't live without a cellphone, but it is a pretty essential tool to communicating. The second day without power, my sister, L. and I went to Katipunan to try and get our batteries powered up. Unfortunately, every coffee shop in Katipunan was full, every socket occupied and the restaurants charged P50 per hour. That would've done if I had a single celly to re-charge. I had 5. Two were mine and the rest were my siblings' and cousin's.
Other than that, it was quite refreshing to be in darkness. Everything was so peaceful. Except when nighttime fell. Then it became too quiet. And quite warm. See, the day before the power gave out, some intruder trespassed on our property to steal our water pump. I was doing the laundry out in the garage when the dogs started going berserk. I looked to my right and saw this scrawny, filthy guy in an orange shirt struggling to open our pedestrian's gate. He was carrying a sack of what looked like scraps of metal. I didn't realize right away that he was a magnanakaw because we usually have maintenance men or mechanics over. It wasn't until our help started yelling that I realized the gravity of the situation. So, from that day on, we've been a little tight on security and we've been vigilant for prospective magnanakaws.
It is only during a blackout that my family gets to bond nowadays. Nic, Gerry, Kim, Les and I went to Mister Kebab to get some chow the first night of the brownout. Prior to that, we were lounging around waiting for the storm to pass, unaware of the destruction that Milenyo was wreaking on the rest of the country. See, you could say our house is sort of protected by a fortress of trees. There are so many, so close together that they protect each other from falling over. We were oblivious to the warzone that was the rest of the city. It was only when we drove out to Mister Kebab that we witnessed how badly the storm hit. Electric posts had fallen over and the big rubber tree we had mistaken for a Balete tree at the end of our street tipped over, taking down our power line. Billboards had fallen and the Tomas Morato and Timog area stayed in darkness for approximately 5 to 6 days. We had no electricity to get the TV or even the radio going so we had NO IDEA how bad it was out there. We were completely alienated from the world that first day of darkness.
Today, the power came back on at around 5AM so I am up and about, cleaning the room and doing the laundry. And worrying about work, though I know I shouldn't be. If you guys know any international NGOs out there I can apply at, please do let me know. Yes, I know, some people will say help your country before you help the world, but international NGOs do help our country (World Vision, UNICEF, etc.).
So, I'm off to doing chores.
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