Things To Do Before I Leave the Philippines
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007It was the first day of 2007 when my dad and I finally had “the Talk”—the long overdue one, the one I managed to dodge since I graduated from college…the “what-the-hell-are you-planning-to-do-with-your-life-you-can’t-be-my-palamunin-forever” talk. One look in my dad’s eyes and I knew he meant business. And so with much dejection, I took the plunge and scheduled my NCLEX on February 26, 2007, 1pm at Koll Lyon Plaza, San Jose, California…detail, details…details that are lost on me as I focused on the one thing that really matters, the date. February 26. Meaning I have to leave by the second week of the same month…meaning I have to leave in six weeks…meaning I have to leave, period.
So what does a girl do when she finds out she will be leaving everything that matters to her in six weeks? The regular girl freaks out. This girl is obsessive-compulsive. She makes a checklist.
Things To Do Before I Leave My Dear Philippines:
o Learn how to cook, clean my own mess, wash my own clothes and take care of myself in general…in freakin six weeks…
o Have one last lechon dinner with my family, because it’s them that I’ll miss the most…
o Get asphyxiated from one last bearhug espesyal from my brothers
o One last all-night dance party with my college friends (forget goddamn Embassy, give me my old Basement anytime)
o One last chikahan session with my bestfriend trina…
o eat odoks
o eat odoks
o eat odoks
o Buy a real Philippine flag (I mean the flag ceremony kind)
o And a barrel man (as a remembrance of the great assets of Filipino men, harhar)
o And lotsa boy chili cheese and bagoong and freakin butong-pakwan!
o Stock up on bob ong classics…so that I will remain deliciously pinoy stupid…and a Filipino dictionary because I swear that I will never ever be one of those supreme asses who forget how to speak Tagalog…
o Clean up my room…lest my mom starts snooping on my high school love letters once I’m gone…eecchh! mom! nightmare!
o One last ultimate inuman session with Tropang UniSeven, because nobody keeps their alcohol down better than these bitches!
o Take a video of my girls, Jez, Uan, Con, Kriza, Maria and Maw laughing their brains out. Because I know that nobody in the world laughs the way we do…lalo na pag lasing na…nobody…
o One last blowjob with Waxky…I mean the cocktail!
o One last motorcycle ride with Marco…and one last endless conversation about virtually anything…and formulate a masterplan to smuggle him in my suitcase…
o One great big hug for Agent Orange…for keeping me company while his asshole of a dad temporarily abandoned me, haha, kidding! mahal kita!
o Buy pasalubong for eyin (oist, comment na kung anong gusto mo, pagkain yan I’m sure)
o Say thank you to the staff nurses of HJH…for making me realize that this is what I love doing…
o One last sorry hug…hug? ok handshake…with the one boy whose heart I broke….
o Treat my favorite cousins Patrick and Adrian to a pizza dinner…for their wonderful pangkokonsenti (if there is such a word) while I’m in Baguio. Nobody understands how it feels to fall in love more than these two! I love you guys…
o Go to Baguio one more time…and try to bottle up all the memories…
o Take pictures of everything and I mean everything…
o Hug my baby one last time…I mean one more time and never ever let go…I wish!
o Take Colin for a spin to Pantabangan…and let the great big dam remind me never to abandon my great big dream…
o Get pregnant and get stuck here forever…kidding, wahahaha. On second thought…
