Away from them all

Not that I’m obliged to explain to anyone my whereabouts during my absence but I feel like sharing my experience “away from them all”. I really needed that time off since I’ve been terribly becoming so stubborn about my work, getting pissed off too with some friends’ indecisiveness and from the dilemma about career options I’m struggling with.

So I took a leave from office last Friday despite the nearing deadlines for some clients. Apologies to all people whom I cause trouble but I just can’t attend to them at the moment. To those doubting the timing of my leave, the vacation leave credits were filed and approved beforehand. Anyway, the main reason for the vacation was really due to the 9th death anniversary (October 30) of my grandmother father-side. It is an important date for the family since according to beliefs, it is on the ninth year that the dead’s soul leave Earth to go to heaven. So my dad, my mom and my youngest sister flew to Leyte to commemorate the anniversary.

This will be the first time I’ll be visiting our place in the province since 2004, I guess, and I’m so excited. Though the province of Leyte is considerably a rural area still, malls, restaurants and food chains have been built there and with that I know I can survive a week stay there. Moreover, the “ancestral” home of my grandfather has been renovated, making it less creepy and way modern than most houses in the neighborhood. Take a peek.

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A house with 5 rooms, 2 toilet and bathrooms, 2 kitchens, 2 living rooms, 3 TV sets, 1 LCD TV (two of which have cable connections), 1 PC, 1 laptop and a car, who wouldn’t want to stay in a place like that. Much better than our home in Cavite (it’s not even 100% completed). Driveways there are full of trees, traffic is only cause by people crossing and the people, though I hardly understand them, are friendly and hospitable (very Filipino like). The food were good too- the dried fish, local dishes (except for goat’s meat) and the delicacies (e.g. muron). I could almost live in there for good.

Yeah… almost. There’s no internet! The PC and laptop there at home are useless! (I have to use the exclamation mark to emphasize my belief that without internet, a computer is close to futility.) The technology is available but there’s no modem (it got broken) to run even a dial-up internet connection.  Bringing my laptop felt useless. I thought I would get sick after a day of being offline. But I did and it went on for four days. I was able to make myself online again on Tuesday when I visited the Town Hall where some of my relatives work. My delight came not from meeting my relatives, but because of the sign that says the building is a Wi-Fi hotspot area. And there it was, for like an hour, despite the sluggish connection, I was able to send email to my officemate, check out my blog, update my Twitter account (ultimately my FB account too) and view my inboxes for my 3 email accounts, showing at least 200 messages. Yup, just view the inbox and never got to read it because of the slow connection. It was an achievement for me not to be active online. Though I’m barely surviving the lack of internet for four days, I think I can manage inactivity for awhile. But I missed some peeps online and those Filipino bloggers I recently knew. Will catch up soon!

My stay there was short enough to gain new friends as I waste my time catching up with TV. It’s like I finished seeing at least 5 documentaries (from NatGeo, Discovery and History Channel), “Bones” series and 2 movies in HBO and Star Movies. Besides, people there seem to be busy while some people of my age are kinda indifferent. But it’s okay. I’m really not in the mood to go out since it’s hot and very humid outside.

While I’m in Leyte, I had a chance to meet Douglas Macarthur and some heroes during the World War II.

Yep, that’s me soaking my feet in the stagnant water. Kinda eww. Mind you, I’m in my rubber shoes that day so I have to bare my feet first out of my socks then dry it after the photo op. I have to do it ‘coz it may take me a long while to go back there or they may put a fence around the monument in the future. It was a good souvenir despite the slight itchiness the water brought to my right foot.

Overall, the trip to Leyte gave me the rest I needed (though I did some work there). It was really a break away from them all- the stress, the negativity, the pressure and the pollution. Our trip even contributed something to the economy. It did not solve, however, the dilemma about my career options but my stay there reminded me to take things one day at a time; that the dilemma is not yet 100% existing, that I should focus on what I have right now and do well; that I should cross the bridge when I get there, not when I caught a glimpse of it (will be blogging about this very soon).

Hopefully I’ll be traveling to Palawan or Bohol in Summer 2010 or even outside the country- like Hong Kong or Singapore. For now, I have to save money for those planned vacations.

~ by johnonline on November 5, 2009.