5th and final entry
Ok this is the final entry on philipines...

The only reason the pictures are so pretty is not because I'm fantastic with apertures, shutters and f-stops. Neither did I bring the bulky slr with me. Anyway, that belongs to Him.
The reason these shots were captured is simply because i met a certain someone who flew across parts of the ocean to meet me.
someone who landed in cebu at 4am and had to spend the night at a dingy motel, just so he could continue his journey the next morning to the resort Im staying.

2 nights before I left, while I was at beautiful cebu resort(where we stayed), having debrief with my fellow groupmates at the poolbar, my eyes gazed past the pool and i saw a shadow of a familiar frame and the features of a guy I know.
My instincts made me jumped out of my seat, ran to him and almost fell over whilst giving him a big hug.
I totally did not expect to see him.
I was caught by surprise.

I would have fallen for him if not for the fact that I have already done that 9 years ago.

He came at the apt time coz my job was officially over, and the last 2 days was for RnR. Of course, I had to 'abandon' my roomate and joined him for the next two nites. the next few days together, we braved the streets of Cebu on our own, took the jeepneys, walked along the streets,mingled with the locals, patroned the night market and pretended we live our lives that way. That's when he took the photos u saw. We tried to speak very little, playing along with the fact that almost everyone seemed to think we are filipinos, till we open our mouths that is.

the other day was spent quietly at the resort. took the jetski, hanged around the beach and shared with him everything that i have experienced over the last week in Phillipines. I poured out to him about how I felt about my group, the pitiful sight of the lil children, how my views had changed and how piffed I was about the education system there. I must say, I really enjoyed that talk we had.
and of course, our conversation drifted to the lil one back home, whom we both sorely missed.

if there's one thing i remember about the resort we stayed at, it would have to be the bright stars that shine in the night. there were plenty of them and all u have to do to enjoy the night is to pull the beach chair right in front of the sea, lie flat and just watch the zillion bright stars above you. we managed to see some fireworks too. apparently they were having sme kind of celebration at some distant corner of cebu.
for me, it's indeed an unexpected bonus to be spending that special moment with someone u had fantasised being with, just a few days ago.

i shall not bore u with the educational aspects and work-related stuffs which I have learnt. There were so many learning points from team management to leadership and passion.

there were also some memorable moments, funny ones and scary ones( the ghost kinda scary). but what I could not escape from, was the usual reaction of how I young I was and friends we made there guessed that I was at the most, 20. Hah! That's like NINE years younger than what Im supposed to be. A principal of one school even joked that I must have graduated when i was ten years old! of course, I didnt find that funny. I'm just tired from telling everyone that i just LOOK young but Im actually not THAT young. But the fact is, I AM the youngest in my group and always seen as the baby in the group. Well, good and bad I suppose.

I came to philippines with a lot of apprehension and left with a greater understanding of a life I almost forgot about. Sometimes, seeing so little, makes one realize about the basic fundamentals, about things which are really important to our lives. it's good to be woken up like this once in a while, coz 'sleeping' too long can make me too self-absorbed, myopic and confused about what really matters most.

ok. so that's about it. Im glad to be back.

back to work, now.