Month: March 2011

Buddhist belief says that life is full of endless suffering, happiness is only temporary. I am no Buddhist, but I believe that it is true. My plan of going to Hua hin with the family to reward myself for a hard school year, will be set aside for the moment because of this belief. I believe it is a time of suffering. With a lot earthquakes, floods, tsunamis and freakish weather happening (its summer time but it is still freaking cold), I became quite hesitant to go near a large body of water.

Not only that, some unfortunate events happened to friends and family. My best friend Chip’s home burned down. That included their family business and the many many precious stuff he collected through the years like books, magazines and comic books (which I know means a lot to him), and he also got himself hurt from the panic. I feel terrible. Somehow I wish it was easy for me to go back to the PI so I could somehow console him for his pain and loss. My dad’s younger sister, Aunt Fanny, died from cancer just yesterday. I remember her having some kind of malignant tumor couple of years ago that she had an operation done, I was shocked when my brother told me she was celebrating her birthday in advance last week because her life was already near the path of the clearing. Again I feel terrible for not being there for my dad or my cousins. Life is miserable.

So I declare my summer this year, as a period of suffering. My wife isn’t happy about my sudden change of plans but I somehow convinced her with the reason of trying to save money for her delivery, or some rainy day thing. I just wouldn’t feel like enjoying myself in the beach with all the trouble going on in the world today, and the suffering my friend and my family are having right now. It doesn’t feel right. If I still go, I would have this lingering doubt and repugnant taste in my mouth. So I have decided. Now is not a good time for self-indulgence.

I’d rather keep myself busy with the usual stuff for now. Hua hin won’t go anywhere.

I love this job. My teaching load isn’t heavy, I enjoy doing my work very much and most of all, I get to have a month long PAID summer vacation and 2-week semester break vacation in October, every year. My monthly salary increases 1K yearly plus I have a 3k housing allowance that also increases every 2 years. Sad thing is though, I don’t get to spend all that money by myself. As you know, a married man like me has to hand the money over to my accountant wife so that we spend wisely and set the budget for necessary stuff for our kid and our future. I’m not complaining. I’m not even going over on the details why. Let’s just say it is part of the commitment I made. Sacrifices must be made. I am no longer a bachelor. Sometimes I wish I was, but I should face reality.

Anyway, we initially planned to visit the PI for the summer break, but due to my wife’s pregnancy complications, she is not allowed to go in any form of aviation. So we pushed our plans to that maybe by October in our 2 week break. So what shall we do for our month long vacation? Stay at home? No f**king way! Summer days are too hot here in Mahasarakham and the town gets boring because all the college kids are away. So we plan to go to the beach!

So where to anyway? Pattaya is crowded and full of whores, so a family vacation there is out of the question. Chonburi is someplace we don’t know and not really sure of… Hua hin, been there and it seems really nice, and my wife wants to go there badly. So Huahin we will go.

Checking my directions in Google maps,  it looks like a 9-10 hour drive from this town to that part of Thailand.  672 kilometers from our house to the hotel. Sounds like fun! Sunny will be going out for a long drive again. I just hope I don’t carry a lot of baggage or else gas will be too expensive. I estimate around 5k of gas for the whole trip. Pretty decent. Time for a tan!

Last night, my good friend Alfie posted a lot of photos in Facebook, and all these photos were of my old gang back in my teens. Our faces looked different. Younger, innocent (probably) and full of energy. The photos were memories of days before our bellies start growing bigger, before wrinkles started forming on our faces. Life was less complicated then. “Tromols” was the name of our group. We didn’t come up with it intentionally, a classmate back in DWU high, Wabert Garcia, coined the term as the name of our group. It was derived from the phrase “State of Turmoil” which was the name of a band me and Jeffrey was in. The other guys of Tromols were actually in another band called Feedback. I remember leaving Feedback and joining State of Turmoil because, Jean Paul started learning the guitar and he was getting better than me. Well he eventually did up till now. I got so childishly jealous of being demoted to rhythms so I joined State of Turmoil and we would play Ehead songs as covers. I was so into the band that I even managed to stage a mini-concert for our band in Abuyog with little funds and little help. I made a lot of trips back and forth to Abuyog, and Chip came along a couple times. Even now, I can’t imagine how I was able to put it together.

So our group, the “Tromols,” had lots of fun back then. We would always go to Alfie’s place (cuz he wasn’t permitted to go out sometimes hehe) and hang out, play Playstation, watch movies, play with water bombs, and other silly stuff I can’t remember. There was always food at Alfie’s place. Sometimes, we would be at Jean Paul’s place too when we wanted to jam. I eventually left the State of Turmoil because after the mini-concert stint, the other guys began to have other things to do. So rejoined Feedback and the rest of the Tromols as bassist. We had great fun.