The Christmas of Forbidden Questions: Keeping It Casual, Keeping It Real.

- December 29, 2011, Thursday.

- My high school classmate Dwight once again opened his house for our classroom reunion venue. This was the third time that he did, and the only way to thank Dwight for this was for us to help with the food and drinks. Nellie and I were in the beverage committee, non-alcoholic sector.

- Nellie and I arrived at the venue at 7pm, and were welcomed by Dwight, Kim Carmela, and Mark. Not long after, Ian arrived as well; this was the first reunion he ever attended. Hurray for you!!

- I bought my agal, taqiyah (songkok,) and keffiyeh (shemagh) with me, since Mark wanted to know the feeling of wearing them as a combo. I think....he enjoyed wearing them (??.)

- More people soon arrived, and we started to eat. To us who were present in one or both of the previous Christmas reunions, we were presently surprised to see a remodeled/renovated-and-roofed roof deck.

- Nellie went through the CDs available, and chose one with a nice playlist. At least that set a party-but-not-too-wild-party mood for the whole night.

- Just before the main highlight of the night, I amused myself again by playing with Nellie's hair, something I did quite a lot during high school. Because I had several props with me, I was able to do other-worldly looks to Nellie.

- Ian introduced a game to us, which name I had forgotten. Here's the mechanics:

a. A person starts the game by asking another person an opinion question involving the participants. (Ex. "If you were stuck in a deserted island [with any one of the participants], who would you choose?" The question should be asked in secret.

b. The second person goes to the person chosen as the answer, with no explanations, and asks another random question in secret.

c. If the other participants are interested in knowing what the question was, one of the participants should drink a tiny sip of whatever. After one sacrificial person drinks, the question will be revealed. (In this case, before Person 2 asks another person, one should take a sip, and Person 1's question to Person 2 will be revealed.) This of course makes things interesting.

d. The game can go on and on. (We ended the game with the last person answering the question, but not asking a question anymore to the person-of-choice.)

- Ian didn't expect that the questions asked by all of us would be rather....controversial, although not taken personally. Still, I find some of the answers agreeable to some of the questions. Ian jokingly asked us to stop the game and move on, before things may get a little out of hand, but everyone was a good sport I think.

- The game ended around 11pm, and we were all back to chatting, as some people prepared to leave. Other people chose to remain and maybe drink the night away. I was a bit concerned with Dwight since he partially lost his voice (from talking the whole morning, he claimed,) although he was coughing a little bit. I told Dwight to rest.

- At 11:45, I hitched a ride home with Bernadette, together with some others. I arrived home quite earlier, I think, than last year's reunion. I felt happy that this year's reunion seemed better than I expected, and it was more casual and relaxed than last year's reunion. We were only 17 this year, the least of all three reunions so far, and I think people would agree with me that it would've been merrier with more people around. Still, it was nice seeing everyone again. :D:D:D:D To more reunions. :D:D:D:D

"Mom, I'll Be Gone For A While....A LOOOOOOOOOOONG While:" Shopping And Dinner

- December 27, 2011, Tuesday.

- I invited my friend Riezeryl to go to Tutuban with me after lunch, since I wanted to go out again, as always. Riezeryl agreed to go with me, and told me to meet her at 1:30.

- Riezeryl later postponed our meeting to 2pm, a typical occurence when going out with Riezeryl, but I still met her at 1:30 at her house. At around 2pm, we went to Tutuban to look for her much-wanted-and-needed rain boots. Instead of finding rain boots for Riezeryl, I was able to find myself Chinese dance fans. Coincidentally, the store was co-owned by my former high school Chinese teacher. A bit awkward, but a nice encounter. I bought two lotus-petal-colored fans. Yay!!

- Riezeryl and I went the extra mile and tried to hunt for boots at the outside street bargain, to no avail, but surprisingly, we found our way to 168. Since we were already in 168, I showed Riezeryl the Thai store that sold some souvenirs and clothes from Thailand; Riezeryl has a growing interest in Thai cultures. I also showed her the Thai restaurant (Charya I think) at the food court, and urged her to try some Thai food. We had Pad Thai, Thai fried rice, some chicken satay, and a glass of Thai iced tea each. I think she enjoyed her first Thai food encounter (or at least she thought it was her first time.)

- We later tried our luck with the rain boots and an added item to Riezeryl's shopping list, a jacket, but again to no avail. We headed back home at around quarter to five.

- I spent the rest of the afternoon at Riezeryl's house, and soon-to-be house (coincidentally my former house, right across Riezeryl's current apartment unit.) I toured my old house again, slowly being renovated to be Riezeryl's family's new home in a few months. At their current unit, we watched Teen Spirit and A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song while munching on some cookies.

- My neighbor Charmaine dropped by later on since we'd be meeting another friend for dinner, and that Riezeryl insisted that Charmaine visit us/her, since she wanted to see Charmaine. Unfortunately, Charmaine and I had to leave less than 15 minutes after Charmaine arrived.

- Charmaine and I had to cross the street to meet our friend Samuel for dinner. Samuel invited me and Charmaine for dinner last night, and luckily, both of us were available. The three of us had dinner at Shakey's, and talked about all sorts of things. We all wanted dessert after our dinner, but since Shakey's ran out of ice cream (the key ingredient to all their desserts,) we had to leap to the nearest grocery to buy some ice cream.

- The three of us planned to hang out at our building's poolside area, but it was already closed. Instead, we had no choice but to hang out at the elevator-front chairs. It was a desperate move, but a fun one too, since we were able to catch our neighbor-and-friend Bless on the way home with her sister. Bless asked her sister to leave her with us, and so the four of us talked for several hours more, until it was quarter to midnight. I feel that we could've gone on and one if it were earlier, or if time didn't matter that much. Oh well, it was a great afternoon-to-evening. One of the semi-tiring-but-not-so-tiring-and-very-enjoyable days I've had this Christmas break. :D:D:D:D

The Eye of the Chomper: Food Food Food

- December 22, 2011, Thursday.

- As always, I got bored today, and thought of inviting my friend Nellie for an afternoon out - especially after recalling that she was free from today onwards. (YEY.)

- My dad offered to drive Nellie and me to MOA, and passed by Nellie in Chinatown at 2:30pm. Heavy heavy traffic. Gah. We all arrived at MOA at around three, and my dad let Nellie and me go our own way, while he pondered about the deeper meaning of life elsewhere in the mall.

- Nellie and I first looked for gifts for this one-year-old kid's birthday party. We were later met by Sol, Nellie's special person, and after that was settled, we checked out the "MOA Eye," the newly-made ferris wheel overlooking the Manila Bay.

- A 10-minute ride at the MOA Eye was worth 150php. The ride moved so slowly that it was honestly the least-horrifying ferris-wheel ride I've had since forever; I am normally scared of ferris wheels because they make my tummy turn upside down. A nice view of the jolly and colorful bay-side could be seen, as well as the vast Manila Bay. I think the best time to ride the ferris wheel would be when the sunset is halfway through the horizon, and the bay-side restaurants and attractions/rides had just been well-lit. Oh yeah, I grabbed some ice cream on the way to the ferris wheel. Teehee.

- After the relaxing ride inside the giant wheel, we went to Cheesecake Cafe to grabe a slice of cheesecake each. I had a slice with fresh fruits on top of a basic cheesecake. Hmm, not the best cheesecake I've tasted, although not the worst I think.

- The three of us walked around for a while, looking at nice things, especially those in Muji. I never knew Muji was in MOA already until today. Yay for a closer branch. Hahahaha.

- In less than an hour, we were all set for dinner. We decided to eat at Lugang, because of its reputation outside the country. Many people seemed to be eager to try out the restaurant too, so we had to wait for around 10 minutes before we were able to grab a seat.

- We had kung pow chicken, Taiwanese stir-fried noodles, and an order of xiaolongbao. Although this had nothing to do with the quality of the food, I found it funny, interesting, and "appropriate" to the ambiance, after I saw the names of both our servers. Our first server was named Jade, and our second server was named Gold. I told Gold about this, and even asked if there were other servers with such "glittery" and "precious" names.

- The food wasn't exactly, hmm, different, although edible. I'm not sure if we should've ordered something else, just in case the other dishes were better. This being said, our dessert, a giant strawberry yogurt sherbet to share, made us feel better about our evening meal.

- I left Nellie and Sol to wander around after dinner, since I needed to meet my dad across the hallway, and get ready to go home. I'm happy with how the afternoon (to evening) went, although I could've done more with Nellie if we had only went to the mall earlier. Still, yay for the giant not-scary ferris wheel!! :D:D:D:D

Golden Christmas, Fortunate Evening: Where Did Everyone Go??

- December 21, 2011, Wednesday.

- Bless and I had a hard time organizing tonight's dinner because everyone seemed to be busier this year. It was the first Christmas where most people in the group had jobs, me included, while those left in school were still battling with their theses, or for some, we weren't sure what happened to them due to lack of communication.

- We planned to have maybe a casual gathering at a pizza place, but Genevieve wanted us to have a more formal sit-down dinner, although she ended up not showing up tonight at the last minute because of her thesis.

- There were only five of us tonight, and boy, what a banquet we had. We had a platter of noodles, fish, rice, soup, and an oyster cake. We even wanted to have a regular salt-and-chili crocodile meat, just so we'd know how croc meat tasted like, but it wasn't available tonight.

- In the middle of our dinner, my friend Tiffa dropped by to hand me her Christmas present. It was nice seeing her again after 2 weeks (??) I think.

- We ended dinner at around 10 in the evening, after noticing many customers finishing their dinner too. Bless and I walked home to burn some of the food we ate, and we really did feel the Christmas spirit after passing by some carolers, bibingka sellers, and teenagers inside the nearby church practicing their dance for a Christmas party (at least that's how it seemed like to me.)

Bob Becomes Ben: Coffee And Burgers

- December 20, 2011, Tuesday.

- After a rather tiring afternoon of errands and shopping with my mom, I rushed to Starbucks to meet my friend Audrey, and supposedly another friend who didn't show up. I bought along a box of pizza with me since I was really craving for pizza recently.

- I arrived at Starbucks at 5:30, and had an iced "hot" chocolate. I told the barista that my name was "Bob" - just because I felt like a "Bob" that time.

- I had a nice light chat with Audrey the whole late afternoon. Part of what made it interesting was talking about an unusually-aura-ed group of people seated behind us. (They didn't seem to come from around the area, and according to Audrey, they had this "filmmaker" aura.)

- My friend Clarisse texted me that I needed to hurry up, since I'd be meeting her, and our post-birthday-girl Margarette for a dinner out. I gave Audrey the last 5 slices of my large pizza (I bought it for us to share, until she told me she was allergic to flour, among all the other things she's allergic to.)

- I dashed off to ride a jeep to Clarisse' store, and changed my shirt to a sort-of-Ben-10-ish long-sleeved black-and-white shirt. Not long after, Clarisse and I rode off to Cajun in what-was-formerly-known-as-Retiro (Amoranto Street.)

- Margarette arrived minutes later, and ordered typical American food to eat, which I think was unlikely for us to do; we're used to being served other....uhm, non-American dishes. It's nice to go back to the "stereotypical American" dishes though. Marga and I had a burger each, and Clarisse had spaghetti and (little cute) meatballs.

- As always, I had my sudden hyper attacks, and wiggled and jiggled as we ate and talked. Clarisse was always the reserved and calm one, while Marga was the "gigil" one (as "gigil" has no direct English translation.) I just hope the restaurant crew didn't see us doing our, um, thing. Haha. I also think my green iced tea matched my "Ben 10" theme. Haha.

- Our brief get together ended at around 10pm, and Marga was kind enough to drive us back home. It wasn't long before we arrived in our familiar area, thanks to handy shortcuts Marga knew. At least the traffic, despite being a big hassle, gave Marga and me more time to talk inside her car. Teehee.

- I am so round I can roll on the floor involuntarily.

Christmas Rehearsal Chaos 2: Strings and Bows Will Break Your Bones

- December 19, 2011, Monday.

- For the past few days/weeks, I had been keeping in touch with the musicians for this year's production. I arranged for us to have an initial rehearsal today, so the musicians would be able to practice by themselves during the Christmas break.

- My pianist, flautist, 5 (out ouf 7) violinists, met each other this morning at school, together with me, and headed back home at around 9:20. Before starting our rehearsal, I let them introduce each other first, so they'd get to know each other. I introduced myself too (accompanied with a powerpoint presentation teehee,) since some of them have just met me for the first time.

- I taught them how to play their parts, and tried once in a while to join them together as an ensemble. Since it was the first day of rehearsals, obviously there were some parts gone wrong and what not, but it was honestly really really great for a first rehearsal. Too bad the other two violinists weren't able to come today. It would've been more fun. :) :) :) :)

Curly Birthday: Rolling On the Floor Laughing

- December 18, 2011, Sunday.

- The other day, Melissa invited me and a few friends to her house today to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. She asked us (or is it just me??) to come at 2pm, and we'd spend the whole afternoon hanging out at her house aside from the obvious tummy-stuffing ritual.

- I arrived today at 1pm, surprised to realize that I was the only guest there. Melissa was out too, because she needed to pick up something from elsewhere. Melissa's sister Kim was at home, and gave me their dog Barrack, so I'd have something to play with while waiting for Melissa.

- Melissa arrived 20 minutes later, together with our batchmate Siennalee. Siennalee left not sooner than 10 minutes after she came, because she needed to attend to some matters; she promised to drop by at around 6pm.

- We all soon settled down to eat, and Melissa's other guests, some college classmates, and cousins like my friend Simon and his brother, EJ.

- The bulk of the afternoon was spent by eating once more, and watching various Korean music videos, courtesy of Melissa. The ever-enthusiastic Melissa kept on laughing and laughing until her hair became curlier, and she almost rolled on the floor. Ah, typical Melissa, just the way we like her. Haha.

- I left Melissa's house at 6, not being able to meet Siennalee again, since I had to do something at home. Still, I enjoyed my afternoon with all of them, especially the wonderful food - Melissa's aunt cooked most of the food. :>:>:>:>