Mooning in the land of the Moon

I am writing this inside a room full of kids. Eversince I arrived, my nephews & nieces have been tailing me, opting to watch TV inside my room (my old room - used to be my room, now my stuff are all over the house particularly inside my folks room, imagine my old clothes being placed inside a storage box - this is a different story). The TV downstairs is bigger and it is flat while the TV inside my old room is just a tiny 14 inches with a fucked up remote control but with cable. Now I'm stuck with Ed, Edd & Eddy on screen. I grabbed my ipod to isolate myself with the blaring sound of Chris Daughtry. It's not that I don't want to want the company of my pamangkins because I do - I love every minute of it it is just that sometimes they get so rowdy and noisy. I have been playing with them and believe me my left thumb now aches from pressing the arrow keys of their Gameboy DS lite so hard just to let Chun Li kick so high (I'm addicted to Street Fighter, my bad) and beat Cammy out of her wits. My youngest niece won't take a bath if I don't attend to her. She wouldn't allow my Mom or anybody to bathe her but me. We got so crammed up in my bed when it is time to go to sleep - everyone wants to sleep beside their favorite Tita. And my, 3 of them would be very upset the next morning because I didn't wake them up when I went jogging early in the morning (yes I do jog now, thanks to my friend Ses for encouraging me). Kids, I love being around them, makes me forget the fast paced life I left in Manila. I only wish that they grow up responsible, honest and God fearing. Nothing in this world would make this proud Tita even more happy if they are happy and blessed.

Witnessing my 2 nephew marched down the church aisle last Thursday on their elementary graduation made me day dream of their future. They will both be studying high school in Manila and I can't wait to bully them on their studying habits. Both are technology geeks and a new addition was their possession of cellphones (I don't agree with my brother on this, for me 12 is still too young to own a cellphone) - I snooped the other day, hehehe I read their inboxes and sent messages to find out that majority of their text mates are girls asking them "musta?" and them replying "ok lang, san k?" makes me smile but a little sad that my baby boys are now incoming high schoolers. I have been hoping they both do great in school to be able to land the dream college courses that they want and eventually land the best job that they are hoping for. It was just like when I was in their shoes, my most memorable graduation was the one I had in high school.

I have been here for 4 days now and I was able to finish 2 out of 3 books I brought to ease me on my boring days. I wasn't bored however I was able to finish 2 already and the 3rd one I am worried cos it is consisted of but very few pages only. Buti na lang Mama suggested my old books, I'll just rummage through them and just read, again, those that I am really very fond of.

Nothing is really new here in our small town (except that we now have a Jollibee branch downtown). It is election period and I was able to see a lot of familiar faces glued on the walls of the streets all over town. Early this morning while I was doing my morning jog I can't help but stare and comment on majority of the pictures. It was still early but the simple life of the province is at its peak already. I managed to make silip at my Lolo's grave when I passed through the town cemetery. Fields with rice grains swayed gracefully with the wind, I have been jogging a few meters already but I find it hard to sweat when the country winds blows in my face. As it was Palm Sunday, church goers gossiped outside the church with their palaspas in hand waiting for the second mass to finish (my family is an avid third mass goer, it is the 8 am mass that used to be in English now it is being celebrated in Bicol but we still attend the same schedule as it is the time that we have always been attending since I was a kid where priests with brilliant sense of humor address the crowd - the 3rd mass schedule has always been the best slot a priest could wish for in our little big sleepy town). Nothing really changed, it is still the same old Bulan that I love.