...retreat memories, day 1

Friday, October 17, 2008

Five hours away from Metro Manila, I have to wake up as early as 4:30 am to prepare for the long travel ahead of me. Little did I know that there's so much ahead of me more than what I expected. I slept during half of the travel time going to Manila. Whenever I wake up, I tried finishing Memoirs or munch on some snacks I brought along with me. We arrived earlier than expected so we dropped by at Trinoma and ate lunch before they dropped me at Pisay.

And woah! There were already a lot of people at the front lob. I spotted some of my classmates busy placing their pretty Palanca letters in individual envelopes while talking about how fun and boring our sembreak was. It took about half an hour (?) before they announced our bus assignments and boarded the bus. And on my estimate, it took another half an hour before we finally left Pisay. The bus ride was not too loud. Maybe we were either busy talking quietly with our seatmate, taking naps, reading, eating, or watching Don't Mess with the Zohan and Mama Mia. Oh, did I mention that Mama Mia is like the oldies version of High School Musical, although I think it's better than the kiddies craze nowadays. And Zohan was funny.

If I remember correctly, we arrived at Angel's Hills at around 3:30 pm. And the place is really pretty. It reminds me of my childhood when we go to Baguio every summer vacation. Anyway, since we were lagging off with our schedule, we were hurriedly led to the Conference Room for the Orientation and Room Assigning. And while the management was speaking of the House Rules, we were "noisy and not listening" to him so he just walked out. Talking about oversensitivity. Well actually, we were listening. If we weren't, then how would we make all those side comments on what he was talking about. Umbrella. And dude, haven't you realized that despite being tagged as the 'Iskolar ng Bayan', we are all kids teens getting excited and all. Uh, never mind. So we were just assigned with our room. I'm with LC, Hanna, and Oona -- Room 19A. We were given an hour or so for fixing our stuffs and roaming around the grounds.

Then there was a talk at around 6 pm. I thought it was one of those walkout-dudes again who's going to talk about not being good boys and girls inside their grounds. So I was quite relieved when I saw Fr. Mon standing with microphone. And he taught us this Latin song. I think it was Ho Bosigno di Te. I'm not pretty sure with the title, but anyway. It was fun!

Then we had dinner. Then we had a batch unity thing. Gosh. The human bingo. Some people actually it too seriously. But some, (like me!) did it just for fun! Oh, and I almost forgot to mention Mark Doronila's love letter Palanca letter for Estelle. Then there was a huge boardgame with a huge fragile(?) dice! The Surpanakha remake scene. The gummy snakes. The dance numbers (especially Mam Docto's and Sir Chuckie's). And Franco. It was quite disturbing, but totally fun!

Then we set our alarms at 5 am. And just when we where about to sleep, we received a call from Ralph, then from Roger, then from a random number, then from someone not talking, then from another one. Finally, they put as to rest.