RAINY HOLIDAY

The vacation I had to Virac for Christmas turns out to be a big disappointment. Well, really also a mix of a bit of goodness to it. The whole time we were there it was raining almost every single day, and the couple of days it did not it still was gloomy and cloudy. My hopes of visiting at least one beach and soak some sun spiraled into pfft.

We ended up being at home most of the time, either watching TV or playing video games. At night, though, as if to taunt me the weather seemed fine and permitted us to go to the Christmas Cheers, a variety show pioneered by Virac held from the 16th-23rd of December and then again continues to 26th-30th of December. The show is held at the town plaza, and there are no seats provided so you have to stand the whole three to five hours show each night. The venue also is open-air save for the stage, so you also have to brave the elements.

I'm not really an internet person who spends most of the time online, although I have the ability to connect online almost anytime and anywhere with my phones. We also have purchased a Smart Bro prepaid kit, so we can go online with our notebook computer, but then the connection available is nothing but regular GPRS and the almost to a trickle of 3G during the night. It seemed many people from Virac who are now living in big cities, especially Metro Manila, have chosen to come home for the holiday and the massive demand for the 3G network setup by the two telecom networks-- Globe and Smart, couldn't cope up with the demands on peak hours. There still is no HSDPA signal available in the island. The biggest disappointment with connectivity was on Christmas eve when we were trying to have video chat or at least do video calls with some relatives who were not able to come home.

Among other things, we also have hoped to see some old friends we have missed the past couple of years. It's not that we have not been home the past two years, but all those times we have gone home we were too occupied with other things to pay them a visit. This vacation is actually no different than the previous. Well we didn't make an effort this time to contact them at least as our attempts before have been wasted. We then have to be contented only with Friendster.

Before we know it, we again have to be back to the city. I could have stayed for at least two more days, but then again I have given up on the weather ever clearing up.

As I am writing this, I currently am in the office trying to survive the next eleven hours of my shift, and it's only a few hours before the new year comes in. I couldn't possibly aford to be absent from work again as I don't have anymore paid leave allotment. I have used them all up even before the Christmas vacation I took last week.

Anyways, I have to look on the brighter side of things to pull it through today. So, Happy New Year to everyone and hope we all have a prosperous new year.