the weekend that was

much has already been said about the storm we have had late last week. i am not about to give another detailed account of how trees came crashing down roofs of houses or how some households shockingly lost their roofs in a matter of hours due to the storm. no, i'm not gonna do that. what i'm gonna do instead is to account how a long weekend with no electricity and no cellphone reminded me so much of my time spent in the mountains of mindoro in october of 2004.

it was, as i have written before, an experience i could never forget. first is the feeling of urgency, during the day, to do as much as necessary before nightfall. the fact that everything would be pitch black as early as 6 in the evening compels one to be proactive duirng the day. use as much sunlight as possible. there will always be too much work which needed to be done and too short a day and light to do everything. and this is exactly what i felt late last week. the thought that i couldn't count on the wee hours of the morning to do my studying stirs in me a certain sense of panic. that i couldn't delay my work. that i need to finish things NOW.

second is the sadness that envelopes me as darkness falls. it takes too much of my courage and self-restraint to not give in and cry out. take away my TV from me, take away my computer and internet and i'll be a nervous wreck. the lack of communication from the outside world, as it were, and seeing only the four corners of my room weighs down on me to the point of suffocation. psychological? yes. terminable? i hope so. anyway this is how i felt last week. no electricity which meant no TV, no pc, no cp and no connection to anyone outside of my household. sad. on the other side, however, i disovered how fun talking to my family was. how fun playing cards with my mom was. somehow, with electricity around, i never got to do these things with them. it feels like i have been missing out. and that made me sad even more. sad.

if anything good could have come out of what had happened last week, it is me remembering that experience in the mountains of mindoro. it is that experience which taught me urgency and thereby a sense of acitivity, to not delay my work in the future, instead, to do them all NOW as much as possible, as good as possible. modern comforts somehow reduced me into an inactive person. it is amazing how it takes a storm to remind me of how i should be, of how we should be. also, that weekend, more than anything, taught me to enjoy what was within my surrounding. to see the pleasure in just sitting with family members, telling stories, catching up. it's shocking how modern communication devices cut short family interaction in this day and age. and it's even more shocking how it took a natural calamity to make me realize that.

tsk tsk.