I was one of the more fortunate people, having a fairly sturdy house
and strong windows. Electricity came back at 11:30-something p.m. on
Sept. 29.
DAY 1.
I
woke up at 9AM, and immediately noticed I wasn't freezing. No lights,
and I think I saw a tree fly past in the distance. Nothing else to do
but go back to sleep.
12PM. House is deserted. I eat lunch and assume the electricity will come back in a couple of hours. It didn't.
3PM.
Parents come home. Their office got flooded out... on the 25th floor of
a high rise. Unfortunately, the 25th floor had a balcony, and a
conveniently-placed hole underneath a cabinet ended work early.
My
dad received a text that was along the lines of, "THE ROOF BLEW OFF THE
FACTORY IN SITIO GITNA." He left again. Mom settles down on the bed as
I play guitar.
5PM. I take a picture of Mom sleeping with a
guitar next to her. She got pissed. While mindlessly bouncing a ball
around the room, I make up a spur-of-the-moment semi-poem, previously
posted. JV Estrada announces no Friday classes on the radio for San
Juan. As the first whoops of excitement go up, he then details how an
elderly woman was crushed to death beneath a wall. Premature celebration,
people; you have no school for a day, while others have no more days for school.
7PM.
House becomes dark.. which is when everybody notices that we forgot to
recharge our rechargeable lights, which then refused to light despite
pleas. After the sixth minor collision, Dad returned with a colleague,
and we ate out. We planned Kimpura, but the geniuses at the Greenhills
Shopping Center closed the parking lot. Then we planned Promenade, but
the genius planners forgot to include a generator. Then we planned
Chilli's, but everyone else in the neighborhood thought of that before
we did. Then we planned a buffet dinner (naturally, since there were visitors and
all), but that was full too. So we retreated to a Chinese restaurant in
a hotel, where the waitresses completely messed up our order and gave
us free chicken. Incidentally, I saw Aileen, who had been there since
6PM... it was already nine. They had a LAPTOP, which they brought into
the restaurant. Probably had Internet access too.
11PM. Still no
lights. My room is situated in the hottest part of the house. I almost
hoped for more rain so I could open the windows and take a shower or
something. Sleep.
DAY 2.
9AM: I woke up
again, and looked at my speakers, which have a blue light if the
electricity was back on. Nope. I then realized that the blackout forced
me out of my bed three hours earlier than usual. House was deserted
again. Out of utter boredom, I read a novel. Halfway through it, I had
to go, and nonchalantly entered the bathroom and flicked the light
switch on. Dang, I felt stupid. I then remembered Sir Perez's friendly
reminder that reading in the bathroom causes hemorrhoids. I leave the
bathroom smelling like an armpit because we didn't have water either.
12
PM. After lunch, I venture out into the townhouse street to find a
mini-community of househelp, with all manner of pets frolicking. Chow
knocked over a rack of clothes and then attempted to lift her leg over
them. Frenzy. After that, nothing else happened, so I read another
novel (Lord of the Flies). I then noticed that this was required
reading in High 1 seven years ago. What happened, the adminstration got
scared by the fact that deaths are depicted in the book?
3PM. I read yet another novel after that. At least I don't have to worry about my English reading log. I read this one outside.
6PM.
After my brother comes home from work, I go to the office on the off
chance that I might be able to get some work done on my mother's
computer. No dice: it's primitive as (#!)#$. The IE was so retarded I
couldn't even access the site to download an updated version. I
actually ended up spending two hours messing around with PAINT.
10PM:
Dinner at North Park, the white in a sea of black. Apparently something
happened to my uncle somewhere in Canada, but it "wasn't for a kid to
hear". So they spoke in Fookien. I hate that.
11:30PM. I resign myself to another blackout day. I go to take a leak. Lights come on.
