Mange Readers,
How appropriate that the 1st week of my last month of internship coincided with Ramadan. I'm not Muslim, but according to Student F this holy month involves fasting, which is something I can attempt to do since my personal food budget is also getting smaller ( meaning that my Starbucks et. al. milk tea splurges would be curtailed significantly ). Luckily this week, there was a deluge of delicious and FREE food.
The week started with Aunt G's weekend b-day bash. When we were little, my aunts would organize our parties; on this day, they only did half of the cooking, and the rest were "covered"/prepared by us, the kids; we ate spaghetti, Palabok, pizza, giant multilayered cake ( mangoes, cream, cashews, in between vanilla, mocha, and chocolate spongcake ) Red Ribbon's Tiramisu, Casava pops, Jackfruit ice cream, and more; there are my younger cousins, whom I used to babysit when they were 4/3/2; they sang karaoke and outdrank me ( they're not alcoholics, I just have a poor tolerance dahil I'd rather 'pig out' on tons of Starbucks Frappuccinos and cakes instead ).
Then Cousin P ( same batch with me ) with girlfriend and 4 months old son ( marriage is a different story ); nakakaiba when I saw him carry his son, appease his crying, share stories about tricks to stop his crying, call him an endearing nickname Totoy ( nakaka = in the process, makes one, in the making; iba = different, change, gives perspective, taken aback but not surprised? ).
Even though I had to cancel my meeting with Tutee B, he still treated me to rice, Spanish Omelette ( onions, tomatoes, and bell pepper ), and a mango juice. Runner J's thesis is becoming more concrete/complete. One day he got free tickets to a University basketball game, so we went and then ate Razon's Sizzling Sisig and its prized Halo-Halo before working on his thesis. During our last session of the week, we ate at The Old Spaghetti House, where we ordered: chicken tenders with honey mustard, Thai Bagoong Pasta ( fermented shrimp paste with green mangoes ), California Maki thin-crust pizza ( crab meat, wasabi, cucumber, and yellow mango ), with Matcha Green Tea Blended drink, and a funnel cake with caramelized bananas.
The week ended with Director N's bonga b-day bash. We had pizza for merienda. During the editorial meeting, we had Pancit Malabon, Coca Cola Light, and Cookies and Cream cake. She also invited me to join her family and her former Japanese students for dinner at Causeway Seafood Restaurant. We ate egg-drop soup, Century Egg, jelly fish, crabs ( that you had to crack open still ), shrimp, lemon chicken, fried rice, Pacific clams with vegetables, roasted nuts, sweet bean paste filled gelatinous rice balls, mango sago ( mango puree, fresh mango slices, and tapioca/pearls ), and a whipped cream cheesecake with fresh strawberries. Yummy! What good memories to have if I were to fast [ kahit hindi ako Muslim ], diba?
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