Happy new year everybody!

I am back from Gold Coast, I am now at Rooty Hill in Sydney, my Tito Levi is having a kind of new year's party and folks at my back are belting out. galeng! I don't know them but they got my admiration, grabe bigla akong nahiya mag bidyoke!

The whole Gold Coast experience is really an unforgettable one. That celebration is the culmination of my 2004. Man! The past year was a migraine and a half. I can say that it wasn't a good year for me, for some strange reason, 3/4 of last year was kinda biatch but this trip made the big difference, it wasn't bad after all. There is still hope. Hope is when everything feels like the whole world is in conspiracy to make you feel worse than worst and in the end, you make realizations and find refuge.

We spent New Year's eve at the beach along with other aussies waiting for the awesome fireworks being shown every hour. It was sweet. Really. And the people, gosh! They're all elated, probably because of the beer but hey, i've noticed that they're really nice even without the influence of alcohol noh? We got a lot of greetings and we don't even know them, there was this barkada who had mistaken me for japanese, sabi ba naman "konichiwa!", di ko nga sya pinansin. At a different situation, Sheena and I just gone out from our apartment and just coming from the elavator, this guy with his friends said happy new year and gave my sister a big wet kiss! hahaha, that was funny. Then when we were coming home, there's this different guy dressed in his gimik clothes who said the same thing but hugged me, hahaha, it was funny. Another situation, Sheena and I just went in the elevator, these two guys hurriedly went in and greeted us happy new year, then invited us to go to the party at the 7th floor. It wasn't scary at all! I suggest for barkadas who are planning to spend the holidays or even just summer together, go to Gold Coast, it's really worth it, everybody's nice and you can be totally yourself no one will judge you, you can wear anything or nothing ; ) I can go on and on with my Gold Coast experience yet the bottomline is, it was memorable! Very memorable.

Then the family bonding is a different story, this time everyone got to bond with one another. It was emotional at the same time, fun. Each member of the family is assigned to a certain chore, i was the cook, sheena did the dishwashing, my dad the laundry, my mom? uhm, a little bit of everything although i also did the laundry, and some of dishwashing. The very moment when the countdown was happening, I was in tears grabe, imagine group hug kame? haha, it was funny coz it looks like one of those scenes from cheesy drama telenovela or metro manila filmfest movie, i am not kidding! In Gold Coast, a certain problem was opened up, it was discussed, it was solved and hopefully i won't be meeting that same problem next year.

At twenty three, my eyes got opened. I got matured. I cried. (numerously) I realized. I grew.