My Wrists and their Weights

For those of you who met me during my freshman year of college, you might remember my rather large amount of bracelets I'd wear day-in day-out on my right arm. I had to take those off once I joined varsity. Coach didn't like them slowing down my forehand drives and spins. Well, now that I have completed my last season of varsity, I'm bringing my bracelets back. See, I just added a new one today!
... and there you have the extent of productivity my break breeds. Haha!

Down Time

After those more-than-hell-than-need-be stress induced weeks of deadlines and optional finals, I can finally rest.

Sembreak is well on its way for me now. With the mellow tournament-slash-sem-ender inuman with some people from the team last wednesday night, it has been good. Since that last late night, I've been trying to get some z's early on in the evening and sleeping in 'til the late morning. Knowing that this isn't really a healthy lifestyle, with the eat-sleep-gain-weight pattern and all, I plan to get back to running (or jogging, that is). Ever since I joined varsity, I have lost my connection with running. I plan to reconnect with my runner self this sembreak. Hopefully I don't get too lazy to actually push through with it. Haha! Lazy days are good days.

Click the photo below for some senior year first semester success!
*October 27, 2009 edit
Here's my 2nd sem senior sched to boot! Hell~o 7:30am classes every single day!

Lazy Happy Day

I woke up a bit late this morning, hit the snooze button at 9, and got out of bed at around 10:30. Sleeping in has never felt so good. I lazily got myself to the bathroom for a shower and took an easy paced relaxing cold bath. Ate lunch with brothers, a bit faster now, and left the house at 12:15, just five minutes away from my class’ first bell. Scrambled for a tricycle – too hot a day for a bike ride – got my heavy bum to school. Started walking a bit fast, but slowed down a bit midway. I didn’t really care. I made it just on time anyways, right before the second bell.

Class wasn’t a lecture. It was more of a how-are-you-first-day-of-class type of thing. It felt like we had just gotten back from summer vacation or sembreak. One class, dismissed early – break – two class, dismissed on time. Dilly dallied a bit, got home, left home, went and became happy.

Today was a lazy day, no doubt. I haven’t done anything remotely academic except attend class. And yet I feel accomplished, accomplished and greatly happy. I should really do this more often. Less stress, more happiness.

Trying to Understand You

This week has been a sorting of sorts:
from relief goods -- biscuits, noodles, canned goods, water, repeat order,
to the use of my time -- acads, varsity, the country via relief centers,
to my interview data -- see photo.

The Coding Process

So much has happened in the 18 days that I had ceased to write. I don't think I can put all into this one entry, detailed and said with feelings. So I guess I'll leave the more in depth writing for another time and provide you with an update (of sorts).

1) I am swamped with deadlines and academic requirements. I'm so swamped, it's scaring me to death just looking at my planner.

2) Something really sad passed through our country just recently. September 26, 2009 Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana), in just one day of rainfall, left Metro Manila and surrounding areas looking like a river/lake/body of brown murky stinky water. A lot of lives were lost, a lot of homes disappeared. Just watching the news made me so devastated. One good thing that came out of this is the bayanihan of the Filipino people. You should see how we, a country of so little, pooled together so much for the benefit of others.

3) Torn between my academics and my duty as a human being to help others in need, I spent my accidental one week vacation (classes were suspended due to Ondoy's aftermath and the coming of Super Typhoon Pepeng/Parma) trying to get through my academics in the hopes that I'd sum up enough time to help out in the relief centers. The one day that I was able to spend at Ateneo packing relief goods was the one day I decided to forget about all my deadlines. Apparently, I can't just easily throw those deadlines aside as that one day of helping didn't happen again. But oh know so much that I was thinking about it the whole time. It has been so hard concentrating.

4) Thursday: October 1, 2009. The end of my last UAAP season in table tennis. It was a great season, may I say. I finally won some games. We played all heart, and landed 4th place. Almost but not quite. Nevertheless, I leave with no regrets. I'm proud of how our team that is composed of players 1/2 recruited from college P.E., can compete at such a level. I love my team! Check out fabilioh.com for some action shots.

5) Classes resume tomorrow, and although finals are cancelled... I still have requirements to pass since I'd like to up my current class standings a bit. So yeah... it'll pretty much be back to the daily grind.

And though my house and family were hardly affected by the storms, I still don't think I'll ever forget the devastation it brought our country. May God bless us and give us the strength to face our endeavours, no matter how small or big they are.