He’s Alive!
Posted on 06.23.08 10:53PM under General Entries
Woah. It’s been a loooong time since I updated, and it’s even more shameful that my previous post talking about getting back to blogging. I suppose I can be all depressing and say that it’s because my life has nothing worth mentioning, but I’m feeling quite happy today, so I won’t. Maybe tomorrow, lol.
Spring semester came and went, rather painfully. Classes were all right for the most part, except for English. The Professor was a total time waster, who’d stop the class for every little thing, and had a flair for the dramatic, to say the least. And was it bad that he gave my lowest grade? I’m majoring in his subject after all. I suppose I’ll just look at it as a little blip in my academic track, and hope next term will be better. I still need to sign up for one more class, and I was supposed to have my schedule done two months ago. I blame it on laziness.
The day after spring term ended my family and I were on our way to the Philippines. It’s been four years since our last visit, mostly because we needed that time to save up for airfare. Despite the fact that storm season had an early start, the trip was great. Met relatives, saw the sights, the usual vacation ditties. My family didn’t go to all the swanky tourist spots like Boracay’s white sandy beaches, Laguna’s hot springs, or the reefs in Palawan, but we did go to pretty good places. The Ocean Park Aquarium, the Star City amusement park, and several malls. Zomg, Philippines is like the mall capital of the world. For so many people living in poverty, it has some of the biggest malls I’ve ever seen. Several have bowling alleys, ice rinks, and even entire supermarkets. The Mall of Asia, in particular, is made up of several buildings. Craaaazy. I suppose they designed them to be one-stop centers, so people don’t have to travel all over to get what they want. Maybe American malls are different because people like to travel more here? Outlet shops and boutiques seem to be the prevalent thing.
What I really wanted to do though, but didn’t get to, was to spend a day strolling around the marketplace. Mother said I’d get killed by all the tricycles and motorbikes, but w/e. Those places seem more ‘real’ to me than all the fancy places we went to. That was where the people were, living and laughing despite the heat and their standard of living. I don’t think I’ve got the strength to go back and live like that again, but no one really knows for sure, right? Circumstances rule our lives more than we want to admit.
One such circumstance that happened was the tropical storm that blew over several cities, including the place that we were supposed to go to for a church gathering. There were wire poles toppled down, trees ripped apart, the works. Luckily it had passed just before we left to drive there, but the damage was clearly seen all over. The electricity didn’t work, and the place we stayed in was lucky enough to have a generator to power our room. Only ours though, so I count that as a lucky thing. As for the venue for church, we had it at an open plaza, since there was no use paying for the building that was going to be just as hot.
Despite the heat, and the smoke (people were burning down the fallen trees), the church event went well, and we took it as a sign to remember where we came from. None of us had started with air conditioners and arenas. Our church started from the very basics, teaching in people’s huts, out in the streets, even in the mountains. The hardships were intense, but that didn’t matter. But now, one little storm and people complain that there’s no cooling system for them to be comfy. I didn’t mind the heat, but my mother yakked about it constantly. Oh well. At least I didn’t get distracted from the service.
Just a day or so after the event, we were off, though we took a three-day stop in Hong Kong since our flight stopped over there anyway. Our hotel was very quiet, but real nice, and the next day we toured around, with one of mom’s friends guiding us. Hong Kong was amazing. It was really clean, and I loved how they didn’t fight their environment. There were trees everywhere, and hills jutting out right next to the high-rises. They built their city in harmony with the mountains, and it was wonderful to see.
The flight back to the States was uneventful, except for my sister throwing up in her pillow just before we landed. And after that, I started to reclaim all those weeks I was unable to laze about. I slept till the afternoon, I stared at Google for a few hours, slept some more, surfed the web, slept some more, eat, and repeat.
I’ve got a feeling this is going to be one relaxing summer~
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