Bottled Sky

I was finally able to go on a vacation with my high school barkada this weekend. And it was the best vacation we’ve taken together so far. Here are some photos from the trip. It was shorter than our usual trips (just three days this time), but we were able to do so many things. Not all of us were able to come, though. A couple of the others had internships that they couldn’t get out of

On Friday morning Fatz, Aggie, Liz, Jo-Anne, Jess, and I drove up to Tagaytay. We headed straight to Fatz’s condo at the Highlands, a country club in Tagaytay, where we were going to be staying for all three days. After we had lunch we got a call from Bern, another friend of ours, who was at Punta Fuego with her family. She invited us to spend the afternoon there. So we immediately jumped in the car and drove to Batangas.

The resort they were staying in was beautiful, and there weren’t that many other people. I hadn’t been to the beach in years, so I was pretty psyched. We spent quite a bit of time frolicking in the waves, shrieking and trying our best to hold on to our suits hehe I did get knocked down a couple of times by some strong waves, but I managed not to ingest too much sand and saltwater. We also got messy in the sand, trying to build the cities of Troy and ancient Egypt. As you will see from the photos, we are very far from being competent sandcastle builders. We headed off to the pool afterwards to splash around with Bern’s little brother Cosco. After a late dinner, we kidnapped Bern from her family to spend the night with us in Tagaytay.

On Saturday morning we went on a mini road trip around Tagaytay with Fatz acting as our driver and tour guide. She spends every weekend there, so she knows her way around pretty well. In the afternoon we went back to the Highlands and swam at the sports club, where Fatz lost both her contact lenses in the pool. Jess was miraculously able to find one of her lenses. How she was able to find an itty-bitty contact lens in a swimming pool is beyond me! We then spent a couple of hours relaxing in the locker room, taking advantage of the Jacuzzi, sauna, and steam bath. We got so relaxed that most of us were out cold before midnight, falling asleep right in the middle of a DVD.

On Sunday we just kicked back at the condo, watching more DVDs while chomping through bag after bag of chips. Liz and Jess cooked an excellent lunch of pesto and garlic bread, so we were able to stuff ourselves full for the trip home.

It’s 2 weeks into my summer vacation and I have yet to see a beach or even a pool. My cute, new swimsuit and I really, really want to go swimming. Unfortunately, being that our schedules are wildly mismatched, squeezing in some getaway time with my friends has become next to impossible. Some of them still have exams, while my summer classes begin next week. Oh, well…I just hope we manage to find time to go swimming before June.

On the up side, I finally have my room back! I had to spend the last three weeks crashing at our living room sofa, thanks to the termites that devoured every inch of my bedroom floor. I was finally able to sleep on a real bed again just this week. I am so happy to have walls and a door again.

Last night was one of the best nights of my entire life. I got to see Incubus live in concert… and how! I didn’t even know that I’d be going until my friend Tin won two tickets the day before the concert and decided to take me. (I love Tin!) And I definitely never imagined that I’d somehow end up practically right in front of the stage almost for free. To tell you the truth, I’m still in disbelief and completely on a high until now.

The tickets Tin won were only for the SRO Patron section so we weren’t that happy at first. We were with Nina and Zsha-zsha who happened to have tickets for the same section. We started lamenting about how we were not going to be able to see anything when two guys who were part of the concert’s crew approached us and offered to lend us some IDs and smuggle us into the Premiere section for 200 pesos each. We decided to take the chance, and we did get in. However as soon as the band got on stage, people started standing on their seats, completely blocking our view. I grabbed Tin and dragged her to the front. The bouncers tried to stop people from rushing to the barricade in front of the stage, but they eventually relented. And that’s how we ended up right up front, screaming our lungs out, just meters away from the hotness that is Brandon Boyd.

Incubus gave an amazing performance, and the show lasted for nearly two hours. The area in front of the stage was this close to being a full-on mosh pit—crazy, sweaty, and strangely enough, so much fun! Despite the fact that the little toe on my left foot got jumped on several times by what felt like a stacked-heeled boot (it still hurts when I walk) and the fact that I won’t be able to speak normally for the next couple of days, the experience was definitely worth all the money I didn’t have to pay!

We hung around at the concert venue for a while after the show to meet up with other friends and have our pictures taken. After we’d had enough–well, actually after the bouncers had started asking people to leave–Tin drove Nina and Zsha-zsha home. Then she dropped me off at Chrissa‘s condo, where my other college friends were having an overnight review session. I of course proceeded to disrupt their studying with my giddiness. By 4 a.m. I finally managed to fall asleep. Tin joined us again in the morning for breakfast and straight on till lunch.

I finally got home this afternoon, and right now I’m seriously considering never having the clothes I wore last night washed ever again due to the slimmest of chances that even a molecule of Brandon Boyd’s sweat somehow landed on them. Yeah, call me crazy

Happy holidays, everyone! Right now I’m enjoying my much needed Christmas break. I had to get through a barrage of exams first, though. Two of them I’m pretty sure I passed, one I’m not so sure of, and one I can bet my dog’s life on that I failed. Miserably. I know because of the 3 hours we had for that exam, I spent the first hour thinking of creative ways to answer mathematical questions, the second drawing cats and fish bones on my answer sheets, and the last sleeping while drooling on my questionnaire. I may have managed to get a 10% on that exam, but that still remains to be seen.

It’s actually been a pretty eventful break so far. Last Thursday, Convergence, a techie magazine show on Net-25, came over to do a feature on me for their E-life segment. I was really apprehensive about the whole thing at first, mainly because I didn’t want to embarrass myself on national television, but it turned out to be quite a fun experience. I suppose it was partly because I managed to coerce Aggie and Chrissa to keep me company during the shoot, and be interviewed for a little bit, too. At least we can all look silly together! The people from the show were also really nice. They weren’t at all intimidating, and Jar, one of the show’s hosts, even sounded so much like our favorite high school teacher.

Then on Friday, Chrissa and I hit the malls for some last minute gift shopping. I wasn’t able to finish everything, but I think I did pretty well considering how many other last-minute shoppers I had to compete with that day. I managed to stay more or less on budget, too! I still have to find gifts for a few more people, but I know I won’t be seeing them until after the holidays, so I’m not too worried.

My old high school class also had its annual Christmas reunion party last Saturday, and that’s always loads of fun. It was great seeing the old whackos again. I even made sure not to drink too much so I’d at least remember how much fun I had