Now the fun part, Saturday morning, we woke up early to do the purchasing of the ingredients for the dishes to be served later. Each dish will be cooked by a different person so I joke about it being a cooking competition, where the first dish to be consumed is the winner.

The contestants are Arroz Valenciana by my Lola, Menudo by Uncle Micheal, Pancit Canton by Auntie Minda, Dinakdakan by my Father, Spaghetti by my cousin Alexis and Adobo by my Mother. As for the winner, I’m not biased, this a fully justified analysis, the winner is the Adobo by my mother and the Dinakdakan by my father. Just as they are finishing cooking the dishes, the birthday celebrant and his guests arrived. We all ate lunch, all I can say is wow. The dishes took longer to cook than served on the table. After lunch, Alexis made a concoction, by mixing dark rum, pineapple juice, ice tea powder and a lot of ice. I thought it was only a light punch, like the one served during high school parties. So I finished two glasses, and I have to say it taste very good just like the yakult drink but a little sweeter. After that since, I can’t sing because the guests are hoarding the microphone of the videoke, I opted to go and chat with my relatives. in the middle of our conversation I suddenly felt light headed so I went to my room to rest, I thought I was just tired. When I woke up, my head feel like a drum with someone beating it as hard as he could. When I talk to Alexis he said it’s the effect of the drink. Grabe!!! I didn’t know it was that “effective”. After a while my headache subsided but I can still feel it. Then the guests of Bryan said they are going home, I said to my self “About time! Now it’s my time to sing.” Now I was the one hoarding the microphone. Well I was in the mood to sing or maybe it’s another effect of the punch. But whatever it is I was having a very good time.

We finished very late but I still woke up early. Sunday afternoon I have to go back to the boarding house and read my books. And that concluded my semi week long birthday celebrations.

Sunday morning, one of those lazy days when you want to do nothing but relax, lay in bed reminisce about your past, present and future, but I don’t have time for that. It’s already 9:30 am, I have to make my teammates move faster in order for us to reach my house before lunch. As I said I live in a boarding house in Paranaque with some of my teammates and my house is in Silang, Cavite, two hours away from our boarding house. I was only able to force four of them to come since the others have previous engagements and one has flu.

Since none of us have a car, yet, so we need to commute. Fortunately there’s not too much traffic, maybe because it’s Sunday. When we arrived I was welcomed by one of my babies, her name is KC, no she’s not actually my baby but I am very close to her since I was the one who is always taking care of her when I am at our house in Makati, same with her younger sister Abby and my nephews Boaz and Lestat. Back to the topic, KC pulled me inside the house where I saw my little baby Abby. I was looking for my two nephews, unfortunately, they did not come because their grandma, my Tita (Auntie), is in the hospital, sad but oh well its still my birthday. I was having fun with my babies and talking to my relatives when I heard someone calling my name. When I turned around to look who he is, there stood my four teammates outside our house looking at me saying “Hoy Alvin! May kasama ka.” (“Hey Alvin! How about us?”). Ooops! I forgot my guest, hahaha. I run outside invited them to come in and pointed them to the couch. Then I help my mother to arrange the foods, which are Menudo, Dinakdakan, Pancit Bihon, Bulkachao (Bulalo without the veggies), grilled Tilapia and of course, Rice. For those not familiar to the foods listed, they are on the net. My mom and I always talk about anything. So while we’re arranging the table we are busily chatting too, so it took us almost half an hour to prepare the table. Even if my guest are not complaining I can see on their faces that they are hungry so I called them to eat. At least they didn’t forget to praise the food.

After lunch one of my guest requested for beer, being a good host, as described above, hahaha, I granted his request. So while we are singing with the videoke we are drinking Red Horse, a brand of beer. After a few glasses, they all became, let’s say, a “very passionate” singer. So that you have a good idea what are their status, one of my teammate, a known heavy metal rocker, sang “Prettyboy” by M2M. After a few rounds of singing and more than few rounds of beer, my guests opted to start their journey back to our boarding house, I have to stay because of my other guest, friends and college buddies, plus we haven’t started the real party. So after I lead them to the terminal I returned to the party and sing. I choose not to include the scenes that happened next but there’s one thing I can share, this is what my father told me and it became my inspiration for my career. He said “Now you found where you are destined to be, do your best so that no one could ever take that away from you”. To be continued…

For now my goal is to become a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert. To get that certification I need to be a Cisco Certified Networking Professional. And to get that I need to be a Cisco Certified Networking Associate. Oh man! I really need to work hard. Did I mention we, me and my teammates, will be getting those exams in just a span of one year? Really! I’m not kidding. By August I’ll be a CCNA, I hope. For me working hard should be an understatement.

If you know me, you know that I’m not that studious. Yes I read a lot but that doesn’t mean I remember everything I have read. I only remember bits and pieces of the stories, trivia and information, especially those that interest me. I used to read much more a literature book in college. My favorite motto book of all time is the “True Joy of Positive Living” by Norman Vincent Peale, that’s the reason why I always make sure I don’t take anything too seriously, except my work. My favorite brain-squeezer book is, well it’s actually a series by Earl Gardner, the Perry Mason Series. Unfortunately I have only read one, “The Case of the Baited Hook”, since then I have been trying to find other books of the series, if you know where to find one please email me.

Back to the topic, since I started working the only type of books I have are the technical ones, specifically the CCNA study guide, the FreeBSD handbook, user’s guide and administrator’s guide, the Complete FreeBSD, and, the one I’m currently reading and studying, The CCIE Routing TCP/IP volume 1. This was a big change since the type of books I’m used to reading is way too different. At first I find it hard to keep my interest in the book, especially when it too theoretical but after our first laboratory, it is actually fascinating to build a network using different topologies, network devices and protocols. And its challenging too, especially when we encounter bugs in CISCO IOS, which is not an uncommon situation. Now I can say that I’m totally adjusted with my reading.

That’s my career so far, I can’t make this longer since I still have to study. Well good luck to me for the CCNA exam. But I’ confident I can pass it with flying colors.

Back to the topic, my assigned task is cleaning up the backyard, no biggie since our backyard is tiny. I sweep the floor, clean and arrange the laundry, no sweat. I have done my task, back to the computer room to check my e-mail. Then Virgie, a teammate, called me and said my task is still not finished. “What’s that? I’m not done? Are you kidding me? I’ve swept the floor, cleaned the laundry and arranged everything in the laundry room. What’s left to do?” Then she said, “You forgot the trash.” “Ohhh yeah! The trash, I forgot about that. Oh well! Better get it done fast.”

So I went downstairs, straight to the backyard, lift up the lid of the… What the f__k. What’s that smell? Then I look down inside the trash can. Oh man!!! I’m not squeamish or anything but man. There were literally thousands of small, slimy, wiggly and, worst of all, smelly maggots all over the trash. I’m about to throw up any second, good thing I was able to hold it in. I backed out for a moment, but I won’t give-up without a fight. I gather up my weapons, rubber gloves, check, Disinfectant, check, water, che… Oops! I need a pail first, duh! Pail, check, water, check. Finally the scrubs check. First things first, dispose of the trash. Wearing the gloves, I took a deep breath away from the trash. Then, I quickly tie the plastic bag, before I run out of air. I gave the plastic bag to the garbage collector. Step one, DONE.

Now for the most challenging part, cleaning the trash bins. By the way, the trash bins I’m talking about are not the one commonly used, the tiny ones. Ours are two big plastic drums, commonly used for storing water, we used it as trash bin because we have a lot of, well, garbage. Back to the topic, first I have to rinse the bins because there are still a lot of maggots. Since I’m running out of time, the training is starting, I have to move fast. A blessing from above, John, one of my teammates, offers to help me. He took care of one of the trash bin, thank God. We soaked the bins with a mixture of water and disinfectant. But even without the maggots, the rotten smell still overpowers the smell of the disinfectant, Man! We have no choice but to scrub the inside to get rid of the smell. After awhile of scrubbing, more than a pail of sweat and almost numb arms, the smell is gone, about time! We rinse the bins and leave it under the sun to dry. At least I still have time to take a very much needed shower.

After all of that, let’s just say, backyard assignments is the task I least look forward to. Lesson of the day “Maggots Sucks!!!”.