The year started as usual, with an indoor New Year’s eve celebration, and later, the Ang/Chua family reunion—this year, at Guevarra’s in San Juan. Earlier, New Year’s day being a Sunday, mhae and I started the year right with the first Mass of the calendar year with free puto bongbong from allen’s mother on the way home. In the evening, the barkada got to have our Christmas party at the Tulays’ place, this year, with a new member—baby Rori. Back to lunch, the buffet was great and filling, mhae and I saved dessert for our next visit that was to be Tito Feds’ 70 birthday. The next day, a holiday, sadly, he left us for Heaven. Needless to say, there was sadness in the Calimon family. There was comfort in the support of family and friends, in fond memories, and in the very comforting words of the priests during the Masses. I enjoyed the last batch of Calimon’s best leche flan until two nights ago, having saved that last lyanera for my birthday. By the end of the first week of January, Tito Feds’ body was buried and many tears have been shed. Moving on has begun.
The first Sunday after New Year this year was the celebration of the Epiphany and the closing of the Christmas season, and it’s more or less, back to normal everyday routine. One addition is the novena for the repose of the soul of Tito Feds. Later during the week was Judith’s birthday but we de decided during Tito Feds’ wake that we’ll have a joint celebration at Circles later in the month. This week marked a combined fail in my professional career. I should have gotten my PRC ID renewed. Unfortunately, I should have paid for it online and spent the additional 40pesos for dragonpay, rather than need to return because I missed my appointment the day before. Well, I missed my appointment because of a meeting for the Park McKinley project. During the meeting, it was announced that the project was terminated. I really thought I’d feel bad about things, but I’m glad I didn’t. I normally wouldn’t but it’s still quite surprising. I did get my bag’s zippers fixed (quite expensively but worth it) and got to claim jollibee treats from bpi (3 more to go). Back to school for mhae also meant more crucial and yet sweeter hatid sessions, a bit more deliveries from me after office Oh, and semp basketball practice was tiring and I think I injured my left shin.
Third week of January, I successfully pushed myself to go to confession, although less than a month since the last time. It was also birthday week so I decided that I’d get the 4 classic Ninja Turtles reissues. Donatello was not available anywhere near, though, so I finally(?) gave up. I did get Encore Optimus Prime from ebay. Haha! i also got a china lego from mhae. It was a really cute and sweet gesture, so much more valuable than the expensive toys I get myself. Office work was more on updating the monitoring for the masinloc project. Choir time was mostly for the novena Mass for San Ildefonso’s fiesta, and thankfully with ryan showing up a couple of times. One fail though is jrock band practice. Yeah, I’m out of shape. And I think my song before, losing skill but having drive left, it isn’t applicable since I think I also lost my drive. Well, I probably grew up/old/out of it. Nonetheless, it’s nice meeting pleasant new friends and getting a chance to play again. the combined birthday lunch at Circles was also awesome and worth it. And I got myself another jollibee coupon.
One funny/sad aspect of the week was the large melted hershey’s kiss delivered to the office on Monday and in hidden in ate’s room by Friday. It was meant for mama and papa’s anniversary. Tuesday, I had 17 papa john’s pizzas delivered to the office for my birthday celebration. It was enjoyable and i’m happy to have another jollibee treat to claim from BPI. Later that day, mhae and I decided to claim the starbucks planner only to fail at getting the big brown variant. A following attempt that was given a good amount of effort only led to the realization that we should have claimed asap. We finally got the small brown variant earlier this evening. Back to the 4th week of the month, I got my braces adjusted (with the recemented bracket detaching again today) and was told by dra beth that the top braces are to be removed in our next meeting. On the choir side of things, I’ve decided to take it upon myself, while commisioning help from the talents around, to teach for at least Ash Wednesday, and probably parts of the Easter Triduum. The lineups are one their way to completion. Ryan has agreed to play the keyboard and henrick has started doing the arrangements of old service songs I’ve selected. I also got to do better in the 2nd band practice somehow pushed by a bandmates’ motivating rant. Pushing to practice kinda pushed me to get my amp back in my room. I also managed to register with Grab. By this time, mhae and I had more meetups after her classes and dinner time around her office before work. Sweet moments, sweeter with candy crush during weekends. Also, these past two weekends, with a little bit more concrete wedding projections for next year, she got me interested in the k-drama Doctor Stranger. I’m also getting pressured (by myself) with my nostalgia-based collection prospective purchases. More like remake. Well, they’re for rebuild of evangelion and transformers. Ack.
The month ends with half a week with a new milo mug, a new prospective project with the rodriguez team, a Mass for the feast of St. John Bosco and Fr. Jonil’s 1 death anniversary.
