AlmØst SØmewhere : Stolen Glances

Monday, April 11, 2005

Nostalgia

Listening to: Electric Fan

I was reading people's blogs, and I think I started the 'Kill your Xanga and move to another Blogging host' movement. O_o

Anyway...

I hope you're ready for a long post.

Subic Trip

Day One

Like I said on my last post, we went to Subic for 2 days. We left at 7 in the morning, and got there at around 11 to noon. The North Luzon Expressway aka the NLEX is way more maintained than it's sister highway. Anyway, we went to our hotel, the Subic International Hotel and unpacked our things. [I brought my turtle stuffed toy. O_o I couldn't help it. Its just so adorable. @_@] We went straight to the beach, and Jeth, being overly excited, wanted to drive. But lo and behold, he got flagged down for going 74kph on a 60kph road. >_> We also found out that his licence has been expired since 3 years ago. O_o So now Jeth has no licence. So anyway, we went on to the beach. We passed Dungaree, the beach we went to the last time we were there, and went to All Hands instead. It was kinda crowded, but it was ok. I was able to collect some shells, but nothing fantastic. I found a starfish, but it turns out it was still alive [so I couldn't take it. n_n;] so I took it out to sea away from the shore. I also managed to get a slight sunburn on my shoulders and on meh nose. D: But they're ok now.

After eating lunch at the beach, we went back to the hotel to rest up a bit. I was so tired, but my family and I managed to pull ourselves out of the hotel yet again to go shopping [wheeeeeee] at Royal Duty Free. We bought a butt load of chocolate. <3 And food that Jeth and I haven't seen in ages. We bought this huge jar of Skippy peanut butter. XD Plus, I was able to get myself another shirt. It suddenly hit me that I was actually starting to look female. O_o The obsurdity of the thought literally made me go "O_o". So after that we went back to the hotel and pigged out on a huge bag of chips and a can of cheese dip. XD We finished both. Jeth kept on talking about how we were like in a dorm, so we had to act like we were dorming. Which we did, actually. We were pigging out, sleeping, leaving stuff all over the place. But of course, we fixed it up afterwards. Since you can't exactly call a bag of chips dinner, we went to a small cafe, because all of the other restaurants there were empty. O_o I guess it's because it wasn't a weekend. Dad ordered a breakfast meal, Mom a salad, Jeth coleslaw[sp?] and me a green mango shake. We drove around again, and found out that there was a concert being held. It was a Praise concert, held by the YFC or CFC, I think. It was exclusive though, so only YFC and CFC members were allowed in. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and slept.

Day Two

On the second day, we went to Ocean Adventure!! Yeah. You're probably thinking that it's a place for kids and stuff, but I honestly don't care. XD I had fun, surprisingly. There was a Sea Lion Show, a Whale Show, an Aquarium, and lots of other things. At one part we were just waiting for the next show, when two mascots came out. I turned around and OMG! HUGE TURTLE!! @_@ Yes, I was very overwhelmed. And I have pictures wif them too. <3 I walked around by myself too, between the shows. The place itself isn't actually that big, so you can cover all of it if you know where you're going. I watched the dolphins. I thought about how dolphins are almost like humans; communication, family, social structure. Even to the points of suicide and sex. Did you know that dolphins are the only animals, besides humans, that have sex for pleasure? XD Yeah, I'm getting off topic now. But seeing them in their pens, even if they are well taken care of, made me feel... sad. Yeah, my Environmentalist side is kicking in. I went to check the Sea Lion pen, and it kinda made me more depressed. The pen was small, dirty, and way out of site. The one Sea Lion taking its turn in the pool just kept on swimming in circles because the space was so small. :( Soon we were to leave. But we got ourselves shirts. Yes, you guessed it, I got myself another shirt. :P It has turtles on it. <3

So after that, we went back to the hotel to rest up again. After a few hours, we went to the other duty free shop there, the Freeport Exchange, and went grocery shopping there. Jeth bought the cheesecake mix that he used to make when we were in Japan. Mmm. Cheesecakes. After that, we went to Pancake House for dinner. We walked around Subic afterwards, through the park, near a beach, by hotels, and ended up in a bar. Dad, Mom and Jeth had alcoholic drinks, while I had a green mango shake. [See a pattern here?] Mom's margarita was... well, unusual. It has thinly shaved ice piled on the glass, and she carved it into a shark with her spoon. O_o After a few drinks, we went back to the hotel. While my family snoozed, I watched Pope John Paul the II's funeral on TV. Did I mention that the TV in our room only had 4 channels? XD But it's not like we cared, we weren't in the hotel room much anyway. Finally, I fell asleep.

Day Three

I was literally dragged out of bed to go swimming AGAIN. In my mind I was mumbling all sorts of incoherent thoughts, but in the end I really had no choice. We went to the hotel's pool, which I bet used to be the public pool when Subic was still a base. But surprisingly, it was ok. The water turned out to be warm. O_o And it was deep, so it was decent afterall. It made my sunburn a bit worse then. n_n; After swimming, we checked out of the hotel, and decided to look for our old house. After driving for a few minutes, we found it. 13 years. Damn, that is a long time, isn't it? As I stood there I couldn't believe that I once lived there. 13 years makes it seem so distant, yet there you are, right in front of it. The infamous hole in the ground was still there, but now patched up. I saw the small hill where I went speeding down on a trike to slam into a wall. O_o I saw the inside of our small house. I realized that everything seems so big when you're a kid.

After that, we went off to look for Jeth's old school, Kalayaan Elementary School. It looked the same since last time, but it was now a High School, and it was in ruins. It looked abandoned, but it was still operational. Windows were missing, junk was piled everywhere, doors were sealed shut with 'Secured' stickers that had been ripped through. The playground was a sad site. I personally love playgrounds; even if I'm 16, I always enjoy swings, monkey bars and the like. [I'm never going to grow up, I know.] But the playground was totally trashed. Pillars that once stood were on the ground, a new nest for termites. The metal support for the swings was there, but the swings themselves were nowhere to be seen. O_o Jeth went kinda crazy for a while, and I guess I can't blame him. If the same had happened to Sullivans, I'd go ballistic too. It's like, sacrilidge to one's memories.

Finally, we left the school. Had lunch at Pancake house, and went on our way home.

Now that that's over with, let's get back to the title of my post.

nostalgia \nos*tal"gi*a\, n. [NL., fr. Gr. ? a return home + ?
pain.]
-A sentimental yearning to return to an earlier time
remembered as happier or more pleasant, or a former place
evoking happy memories; a longing to experience again a
former happy time

The overall trip made me feel very nostalgic.

Driving through Subic, my dad showed us what used to be what; what this building was before; what used to be standing on this spot. I can't share those memories, because I have a very annoying and selective memory. I can only remember weird tidbits of when I was very young. But looking at Dad, I could see him reliving what used to be. I know that even though he's retired and 'relaxed', he still misses the Navy. I miss the Navy, and I was never in it. O_o

You can't go back. You can't turn back time, even if you submerge yourself in the past. Time moves. Life moves. Even if you don't want it to. I always want to be able to remember. I'll admit it, I'm a sentimental person. As much as possible, I never want to forget anything that happens to me, because that's what makes me who I am. It's one of the main reasons why I keep this blog; to be able to look back. Like I said earlier, one can't go back in time. Things change. But I guess I want to contradict myself by being able to somehow relive memories, like my dad.

Everything moves, and as much as you want to stay in one spot forever, just stay like this in a moment of exhileration, despair, or whatever you may be feeling, you'll move as well. Trying to stay is like standing against a tidal wave, but in reality the movements are small, like the sand that rolls slowly up and down the shore with the water.

It's normal to cry when you think about the past, right? Because that's what I'm doing now, at 5 in the morning. n_n; [Yes, my time stamp lies yet again.] I'm not crying because I'm sad, nor am I crying because I remember the sad things in my life. I guess I'm crying because I feel that I'm letting go of my memories, which I know, isn't true. It's like what I told Jab. The only place left to go is forward. And then, I remember a line from a Linkin Park song, which goes somewhere along the lines of, I don't want to move forward so I don't have a past.

I'm rambling. When I think about these things, I think about how the people I know are doing. So tell me, so I can stop thinking;

How are you doing?

{/11:59 AM} - { 5

5 Reflections

wow, this is a very serious post about you. Very eye-opening, yet serious. And yes, you started the movement on "killing blogs". :) I already killed mine XD Poor Xanga.

By senyora maestra, at 6:20 AM

Such a thought-provoking entry...

I wish I could also gather three days of activities into one long and neat post. Until now I still haven't finished talking about my Laoag trip.

Doing just fine here. Sifting through the last set of photos taken by my now-retired digicam (sniff!), for posting soon on my blog. Ü

By Leo, at 1:30 PM

Memories are forever. But its not use crying over lost memories. The important thing is your happiness. What is the point in remembering things that don't make you happy? Nostalgia is temporary. Memories are forever.

By Anonymous, at 11:35 PM

-and another thing. Time may never turn back for you but remember, it stops for you.

By Anonymous, at 11:37 PM

wow, that anonymous guy/gal is right. It ok, you're going to be fine.

By senyora maestra, at 7:55 AM

Look into the Mirror?

}

I'm almost somewhere.