For The Lack Of A Better Title PART 2

I changed my layout to fit the whole Christmas season. But you could also say that my other layout had problems. I like this one though. It's a bit festive and sad at the same time. My usual Christmas sentiment I guess. I'm up for the holidays as much as the next person but I have my own reasons as to why I feel sad during this season. I wrote in an attempt to continue telling my story on the whole leadership training thing. I probably should begin with that.

After dinner, we headed for the hall where we held our training because we wanted to meet with the youth of LAKAS who met every Friday night to talk about what they did in school. There was this one girl who said that she was disappointed because she got 14 out of 15 in a Math quiz. We Thomasians were dumb founded by her statement. That girl was one hell of an over achiever.

That first night when we returned to our host families I was pretty tired. I did not sleep on the bus that morning and it was a pretty draining ride. I felt guilty because when Zel and I returned on the second night I was also drained. I just slept and I only got to talk to Nanay Isang when we first got to the house to settle in and in the mornings before we headed back to the library.

I headed straight for the bed when we returned. Zel was asking me about my Journalism classes and college life in general (since we’re both taking up the course but I’m a year older) and about other random stuff. I can’t really remember. I do recall that I was in bed by 10:30. I dozed off as she was writing in her notebook.

I woke up from my sleep when I heard Zel's voice. She was outside talking to Tatay Toto and one of his sons. I did not have the energy to get out of bed though. I felt like I was glued on the bed. My eyes felt so heavy like hooks were attached to them just to keep them shut. She told me the next morning that they talked until 12:30 about politics and a lot of other stuff.

But I really didn’t sleep too well. I kept waking up every two hours because namamahay yung katawan ko. It was a whole new place and I needed to get used to it. We set our alarm at 5 in the morning because we were instructed to fetch our own water from the poso so that we wouldn't disrupt the family's routine. We did wake up at 5 but we got up at 5:30. Zel and I are both not morning people. But it was harder for her to get out of bed than me.

When were ready to get water we saw that there were already two pales of water near the bathroom so we got water after we both took a bath. That morning was the first time I got water out of a poso. Call me whatever but it was an awesome experience. A little daunting because a few of the locals were watching us.

After breakfast, we had out first session with the elders and instructors of the leadership training. I remember that we were focusing on ourselves in the first part. The first thing we were asked to do was to get anything around us that we felt represented ourselves. I got a pebble, there were rocks, leaves, grass roots, a bamboo stalk, a plant and even a cell phone (courtesy of our beloved Allan). It was the beginning of us getting to know each other's thoughts and ideas.

I remember that morning we were also told about the Johari window in their own version where the upper left part of the heart was bukas (open), the upper right was sarado (closed), the lower left was bulag (blind) and the lower right was sorpresa (surprise). Our weaknesses were exposed in that activity.

Our instructors had a lot of “ice breakers” as they called them. There were the different types of clap and a bunch of songs. It helped loosen us up in between topics. That morning Ka Puroy (Sir Froilan Alipao) arrived and so did Ate Cords, Ate Renee, Ate Sharon and Kuya Joyeth (the students who couldn’t leave with us that Friday morning). They were the ones who had to introduce themselves that morning.

I’m going to continue this in another entry because I don’t want to jam everything in one entry. I am also trying to recall what happened that morning. Until the third part!