October 31st

Ever since I can remember, October 31st has always been an eventful day. Oct. 31 is the birthday of my sister Helen and there is always somekind of a birthday celebration whether it be a merienda, lunch or dinner ; with friends, relatives or just a few of us. Yesterday,she happily celebrated her 57 natal day in Jun's (our brother) place. My sister-law Jean prepared the festive food: my favorite were the very fresh and crunchy vegetable salad, very special light spaghetti, very delicious lamp chop and the very tender peppered tenderloin steak. We had ice cream cake for dessert and coffee after the sweet. All of us brothers and sisters (except Jeannette who was in Cotabato) were there with our children. Tom and Angel did not attend though because Tom was sick with stomach flu.

Emil came from Cebu yesterday evening to be with us. Martha, Marion and I went to the airport to fetch him at 8:30pm. From the airport, we proceeded to the Helen's party at around 9:30 pm.

With the good food and the siblings together, the party hardly ended before midnight as we then prepared to go to the cemetery to visit the graveyards of our dearly departed parents, grandparents, an uncle-in-law and brother-in-law Pipo, the husband of Helen on the early hours of November 1st. .

We went in two vans, lighted candles and josh sticks, we offered flowers and food and prayed the rosary for the holy souls of my parents Francisco and Mary. The other graveyards were hard to find but we took effort to locate them though, we lighted candles and said a prayer of two. We came home around 3:30 AM and went to slumber at 4 this morning.

cancelled flights

I was supposed to go to Manila last Saturday, but it seems Phil. Airlines has abadoned Cotabato flights. It cancelled our one and only pal flight to Manila for 2 days in a row now, for reason that it is changing its fleet and there is a lack of aircraft to serve us. Cotabato City of course has been a third class clientelle. But if this keeps on, I am going to change my patronage to Cebu Pacific. 

The Ang Taichi

I have by now, memorized my taichi steps and sequence. I still need some more polishing. But the good thing is, I can do the exercise by myself now at home. I still need a lot of concentration because the Ang Taichi (from the Ang clan) is quiet long. Doing it with a support group is the best though. But now I am so happy because I can practice it at home anytime I want. I congratulate myself  hahaha!

Dylan Noah Christening

Start:

Nov 4, '06

End of Ramadan

Today is the end of Ramadan. Early this morning I was awaken by gunshots. (as was the common practice of the local muslims here) This year however, the unscrupulous firing was a little bit lessen. Maybe there was less prolificatiion of firearms? or maybe these people now knew where the bullets actually fall? Mostly at the homes of their poorer brothers' shanties. However I heard quite loudly several rounds of automatic fires of armalites. They were long and continous. I hate to say they sounded quite near where we are staying. Why can't these firing practices be out-lawed?

Today, many Muslims practice alms giving and they also eat festively. Sometimes we are happy to get some delicacies like pastil (rice with shreded chicken wrapped and cooked in banana leaves), dudol (sweet sticky violet gulatinous rice cake), tinagtag (rice rolled fries) and the likes..... truly....I say Happy Ramadan to all the true faithfuls.

first term almost over

Tomorrow is last day of final examination. The first term is almost over. After the examination, comes the semestral break. Yehey....but no rejoicing yet, for after the first term,comes enrollment for the second semester. And enrollment is parents' worse nightmare specially when they have more than three kids going to school all at the same time. I had my share of worry when my three boys were in different colleges, way back in the nineties. Thank God, they had all graduated and are working now. But it is not layback time for me yet because I still have twins in the universities. I used to think. "How are we (Lucas and I) going to financially manage educating 5 kids in this country's best universities?" With the help of God, we did and still continuing to do so. I honestly and sincerely thank God for guiding and showing us the right way.

two month old Dylan