Condensation, part three

August again.

The whole college thing ended, at least for the year, and I was home free. I was put in a situation where I had so little to do and so much time.

Yeah, sure. I updated my work for the graphic design class and e-mailed it to the teacher, but that was it. Nothing else to do. Nyet. Nada. Zilch.

I loved it. After much mental exhaustion caused by the constant worries about delivering works on time, and making sure they were perfect, I would get my much-deserved rest … but I didn’t stop worrying right away. I still had to wait for my grades to be published. I slept the weekend away and was met with the pleasant surprise of having aced all three subjects. The last three college subjects that I would ever have to take.

Speaking of surprises, we gave my mother a surprise birthday party on the 18th. The party was at her workplace. She works at a massage place. Not that kind of massage place, but one where blind people do massage therapy, run by a government board for the visually challenged. I had never been to her workplace before, and had little choice but to go, with her being my mother and all.

She was shocked, for sure, when she saw that friends and family quickly gathered and arranged everything while she had gone away on some errand. I have to admit that I don’t know many blind people, and I felt a bit uneasy at first, sitting across an entire row of them as they laughed and joked around with their friends and co-workers. As always, I was in charge of the camera and, again as always, took me a while to gather the confidence to stand up and randomly aim it at things. The distraction keeps my anxiety down.

The party was just a short-lived gathering and people started leaving shortly after having their appetizers (an odd mix of snack foods with some traditional stuff thrown in) and the cake-cutting part. In the end, I was put in charge of … the cake. There I was, at night, on the front seat of my brother-in-law’s car, with half a cake, still on its big tray. I’m a big fan of seatbelts, but this time I would only count on a few layers of dough covered with icing to break the impact in case of sudden stops.

Thankfully (and to the disappointment of those in the back seat), such a thing never happened. At one point, there was a public transport bus stopped next to us while the usual vehicular chaos gave us a chance. My window was rolled down, and I had a big cake on my lap. Paranoid as I am, I thought one of the passengers looking at me would say something, or spit in my general direction. Then, we started moving again.

That was it … and that’s pretty much it for August. Like I said before, I had little to do and far too much time. Most I did for the rest of the month was grab the camera and make a few shots that, to my eyes, are somewhat interesting.

All right. Run along, now. But, before you go, why not look at that SocialVibe thingy on the right? It’s not a fancy ornament, you know.

Noisy Sunday!

Argh! Too much noise!

I went to bed late last night, thinking that I’d be getting a good night’s sleep as usual, having finally recovered from an annoying sore throat. Not long after 7:00 in the morning, I heard a loud bang! in the distance. A transformer somewhere must’ve exploded, because it caused a power outage. After this disturbance, I made a successful attempt at going back to sleep.

Some time after 11:00, I heard some barking coming from the parking lot, and some scratching on my bedroom door (it was Jade, wanting to get inside). After that, I decided to forget about sleeping this time. I’ve got a whole month for that.

After lunch, I start watching a movie (The Fifth Element, one of my favorites!) only to be interrupted by more noise: the neighbors, the people who live in that house behind our building, were preparing for a birthday party and some guy was testing the microphone and speakers. As usual with their parties, it was at a very high volume. Shortly after the test, they started playing some music, so loud that it practically drowned whatever sound was coming from the TV.

As I type this, they’re still celebrating, with little regard for the surrounding apartment buildings. They should think about those taking a much-needed rest from the week, and those who have to work tomorrow (Monday).

The day is far from over, and I’m sure they’ll be celebrating for a while longer. It’s a bit too early to be celebrating so much and so loud, with not everyone enjoying their holiday just yet (back when I was in high school, our holidays started less than a week before Christmas).

Like Jade here, I should be allowed to sleep. At least I’ve got my blog, where I can unleash my fury slight anger at this noisy situation. The day’s not over yet, so there will likely be more noise (besides the party) that I’ll be getting angry about.

All aboard the failboat! (I’m the captain)

So, after a week of worrying about many a thing, a horrible “team” presentation on Thursday night and a Friday class that just didn’t happen (good thing I didn’t bother doing homework), Saturday finally came. Like I said in the previous post, I was worried about a team presentation for today. But, apparently, timethief’s best wishes worked wonders, as we managed to get the presentation right. I did a small part, even providing some examples that some in the class found funny (like they should!). So, that was that. And that’s when the good part of the day ends, and it’s not even 11:00 in the morning.

When I got home, I was met with a pleasant surprise — power outage. Apparently, it had gone out at 8:30 or so, not long after I had left. So, as always, we had to limit our use of electricity so as to keep some of the backup power for the night, in case it came to that (that includes limiting the use of fans). It didn’t, thankfully. Between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., it came back. The heat prevented me from getting some sleep after lunch, so I decided to sit in the balcony and read for a bit.

Now, here’s the part where you get to make fun of me. A friend of mine from high school was going to celebrate her birthday today, and she informed me of this, inviting me to go. I had last seen her–as well as many others who were also going– two years ago, at her last birthday celebration. So, after being invited by four people (one of them in person, the other I saw walking on the street earlier in the week, so there were signs!), I decided it’d be nice to go. Yep, a good party with old friends is always good. Those who know me and/or have read previous posts should know that I’m not much of a partygoer, but I owed it two my friends after missing many probable reunions in the last two years.

BUT I made mistake that’s worthy of a “OMG NOOB” comment: I didn’t ask for a number. Cell phone, home number or whatever, from any of the people who invited me. So, after making the decision to go in the last minute, and even getting some good fashion advice from my sister, who was also going out (so I hitched a ride with her and the hubby), I was good to go. We got there in a swift drive. Fancy four-star hotel, and I was supposed to get to the bar, but I ended up going into the casino. After walking around it a couple of times and asking three employees (two of them didn’t know where this bar was), I got to the place. Right near the entrance to the casino, and rather hidden from plain sight.

I walked around a couple of times. There were some balloon decorations, indicating that it was someone’s birthday. Finally! I was going to meet my old friends! Well, that didn’t happen. I walked around the place, getting some stares from the people who were sitting there, and not a familiar place in sight. So, I think the party’s been relocated, and, not having done the essential give-me-your-number-ing, I wasn’t gonna do anything in that place. I decide to call my sister, who initially offered to walk with me into the hotel to help me find the bar, and tell her that there’s no one I know in the place.

So, they pick me up (I may have screwed their night out a bit) and offer to take me somewhere else–go for a bite, get drinks, kill some time–, but I didn’t want to be the third wheel and I was disappointed and tired from the week, so, they drove me back home. So, I’m a tad disappointed at both the lousy outcome of the week and my horrible attempt to have a social life. The good thing is, I arrived home to have some nice boiled breadfruit seeds (known here as pan de fruta) and that good old instant chow mein I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I’m home early, I can sleep all I want and all is well with the world.

Could’ve been worse. Could’ve rained or something. But, as you can see in the image, it was quite a nice evening. Regardless of the power outage, it was nice to sit there and read, occasionally raising my eyes to look at the cloudy formations.