Summer’s (come and) gone

In my last entry, I said that I’d been pretty busy. Well, I really felt this statement to be true when the rainshowers began, signalling the end of summer. I wasn’t even aware that summer had already come and gone. I can’t believe I’d been too busy to spend some serious time at the beach.

Sure, I went diving, but because I’d been doing it as part of my training to become a dive master, those weekends spent at Batangas didn’t really qualify as summer trips- they felt more like work. I didn’t get to lounge by the beach, lay on the sand and soak up the sun as one should when summer rolls around. And now it looks like I won’t get a chance to do so.

I always mourn the passing of this season. Sure, I am relieved that temperatures have now gone down, that my skin is no longer baked whenever I walk to work, and that the humidity is not quite as oppressive. But those are small inconveniences to suffer in exchange for the constant feel of the sun on your face and the sense of freedom that the season seems to bring… the feeling that school’s out, that it’s time to go on a road trip, and that work is a world away.

Busy, busy, busy

As you can guess from the title of this post, I’m about to tell you just how busy I have been. It’s been a rather hectic schedule which began on the last day of March. My brother Jerick, his wife Liz, and their son Aidan came over for a (too-short) two-week visit then. Since they were here for such a short time, we had to cram in as much hanging out, chatting, and eating together as we could during that period.

After they left, I began assisting dives as part of the course to become a dive master. My weekends have been occupied with that since then, so I have been rather tired. Apart from many things, it’s a physically demanding job. I am learning many things in this course, but it is taking a lot out of me.

I’ve also been trying to get back to playing badminton regularly. My sister-in-law Tintin is now back in fighting form after giving birth to Raffy in November, so I now have someone to go and play with. I have a running joke with my badminton-mates, that I only play badminton quarterly. Well, I hope to up that frequency, though with work and all, it’s still been a struggle to do so.

Hopefully, my time management skills will kick in even just a little bit so I will be able to do what I want to do, what I have to do, and even what I don’t want to do (but have to, anyway.)