twenty-four

I am officially twenty-four years old. As always, I had a great Friday the 13th last week. :)

Third birthday in the office. What's up with that! Haha! I brought in some food (pad thai & lumpiang shanghai) to share for my teammates and other office friends. I'm glad everyone liked the pad thai -- I thought I'd bring something different since everyone's always eating spaghetti or Filipino pancit when there's a birthday. Haha. (Thanks to Pops for all the cooking, of course!) So yeah. It's just too bad that Friday is the busiest day of the week for me so I didn't really get to spend much time with the others during the snacking. Oh well. Had yummy dessert later that evening, thanks to my lovely teammates, who bought an ice cream cake for me from Dairy Queen. What a sweet treat! :)

Parents and brothers came to pick me up from the office, but we dropped by McCafe for a while and I spent some time with the original/real friends from the office: Janine, Jem, Ethel, TL Maylin, and Mommy Grace. It's always so comforting to be around them. I wish TL Maylin and Mommy Grace would come back to the office though. The work life seems much more bearable with them around. ^_^

Anyway. I had to leave before one in the morning as my parents and brothers were waiting for me. Plus, there was a celebration at home the next day.


THE NEXT DAY, The 14th:
We just had some family over. Janine, Jem and Ethel came as well. We definitely ate a lot (like every hour, as what is usually like at home) and played some cards and mah jong. I ended up driving Jem's car, which resulted in me driving UP a sidewalk somewhere in the village! Hahaha! That was crazy, but thank God we didn't get hurt or anything. No damage on Jem's car either. I think that mainly happened because there was a hood (whereas my car is tall and I can clearly see the road in front of me) and her car isn't power-steering, so it felt a little different to be manuevering her car. Haha! Crazy fun.

Later that evening something crazy happened as well. Unfortunately, there was nothing fun about it. While we were eating dinner outside, it started to rain and all of a sudden there was a sound of a motorcycle crash on the road. We thought someone had just slipped, which happens in a rather frequent manner, but when we didn't hear the motorcycle roaring again, I ran to the street and saw a man laying on the ground with the motorcycle next to him. I was in semi-panic mode and called out to everyone else and pretty soon my dad, cousins and some neighbors were out there on the road, helping out. The guy who crashed turned out to be the son of our family friend; I recognized his face when someone flashed a light on him. His face was trickling with blood from here and there and he had scratches and wounds all over his body. Apparently, he was not wearing his helmet; my cousin had to take it from his arms when they were trying to help him up. My mind was just seriously racing and trying hard not to panic while people carried him onto a bench in our house. I told the others to keep him from falling asleep (as he might fall unconscious -- watching shows like Grey's Anatomy definitely helped, heh) and I took his cell phone from his pocket to search for his parents' (who we definitely know) phone numbers. Called his mom up and informed him what had happened and later on a few people from the village security came and fetched him. My dad followed them to the village hall, where we thought he was being treated for his wounds. When Pops drove back to the house, the guy was on the passenger seat, bloody face and all. Turns out the people from the village hall did NOTHING to help him out; they only took note of the incident so that they'd actually have something to fill their report notebooks up with. Those bastards! UGH. Anyway, we waited for his dad to come around, but even before he arrived at our house, his wife came by and picked him up. WHAT AN EVENING.

And all of this happened on my birthday. Happiness, suspense and the feeling of gratefulness all rolled into one day. Happy with all the love from family and friends. Suspense from all the evening incident (which, thank God, did not turn out to be tragic!). Grateful -- because God never stops pouring out His blessings for me and my family. ^_^

Hello, twenty-fourth year!