Busy October

How busy have I been in October? Let me count the days.

(This is a rundown of what I have done, accomplished, what kept me busy as hell, and filled my days and nights in the month of October. After finishing this, you’d understand why I wasn’t able to find time to write except for the last day and you might wonder where I got the strength and stamina to do all of this. I tell you, I don’t know either.)

October 1
I attended my Filipino Dance Club (FDC) Graduation Party and acted as the event photographer at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. I used up five rolls of films that night and by the time the party ended, I was more than dead tired.

October 2
After a long day at work, I hurriedly went to Efren “Bata” Reyes and Django Bustamante’s Press Conference at the Taj Palace Hotel to take photographs of the whole event and of course, my billiard idols. I almost arrived late because of the horrendous traffic everywhere that seemed to grow worse everyday. Good thing, the press con started late. It also ended late, making me go to bed quite late.

October 3
In the evening, after eating one piece of beef shawarma, I commuted to Sharjah (the neighboring emirate of Dubai) to meet up with my sister Sheila to get the money from her which we needed to remit to our family back in the Philippines. As usual, by the time I got home, because of the Manila-like traffic here, it was almost midnight. I had no time to do anything else but sleep.

October 4
After surviving almost 2 hours of grueling slow traffic, I arrived at Deira City Centre to remit some money back home. Then again, I had to experience the same traffic going home. Suffice to say, time to write or blog was not on my side again.

October 5
I went to the office of Pinoy News Magazine to give Amor Dagdag -- my Photographer friend and Lightform Filipino Photographers Guild (LFPG) club-mate who works there as the photo editor -- a CD of an artwork I’ve made for the The Filipino Channel’s (TFC) Showdown of the Champions Event that will happen here in December. I stayed awhile, checked my graphic artwork, and chatted with my friend among other things.

October 6
After work, I did a photo shoot for 14-year old Carol Anne Leus, the first TFC Dubai Pop Star Search Champion at the house of Anton Tajanlangit, her vocal coach and a fellow UP Alumnus and friend of mine because I needed her in the poster I am designing for the Showdown of the Champions in Dubai concert. Along with Erik Santos, Christian Bautista, Rachelle Ann Go, and other new Filipino young singers, she will perform a song or two in this event.

October 7
I went to Las Palmas Beach Resort in Um Al Quwain (two emirates away north of Dubai) for the overnight outing activity of LFPG, my photography club. My friends and I played tong-its, pusoy dos, 41, pekwa, and other card games the whole night. In every game, the loser was the one to deal the cards in the next round. Most of the time, I won and dealt the cards only once. I also played my guitar and overworked the videoke until the wee hours of the morning, approximately around 4 am.

October 8
Still at Las Palmas Beach Resort, I woke up at 7 am along with my other club-mates and ate a sumptuous breakfast of different Filipino dishes (Adobo! Sinangag! Fried Egg!). The rest of the morning, we played games like Trip to Jerusalem, Beating the Egg with an Eggplant, The Longest Line, etc. At lunchtime, some members braved the scorching sun in the swimming pool; others went back to singing their hearts out with the videoke; while I headed back to the comforts of the bed and dreamland. We vacated the rented chalet at 2 pm and arrived in Dubai at 3:30 p.m. I slept at 4, woke up at 6, dressed up, and went to cover Porkchop & Carmi Martin event. I took pictures of the comedy show and enjoyed it immensely. It was another night of becoming a midnight owl.

October 9
Leaving the office at 6 pm, braving the Dubai traffic for one and a half hours, and eating dinner in a fastfood restaurant for 20 minutes, I arrived at Janice Ong’s apartment at 7:30 – on time and the first one to arrive for our 1st UPAA-UAE By-Laws Committee Meeting. (I hate being late). UPians being bookish individuals, intelligent people, and highly opinionated bastards, we finished editing, revising, and defining only half of the set of by-laws (5 pages out of 10). It was like a court of law proceeding or a session in congress, with everyone adamantly and passionately fighting for their ideas, comments, and suggestions. There was a lot of debate and discussions on certain points, words, articles, and issues. But it was a lot of fun. Over fellow schoolmates and some bottles of beer and saucers of peanuts, how could it not be?

October 10
I went to the 2nd anniversary party of S Magazine (one of the best selling Filipino magazines here in the Middle East) along with the rest of my ABS-CBN officemates and other friends. Our friend Giby who is the Sales Head of the company invited us, and since ABS-CBN works closely with them, all the staff had to be there. Even our boss with his beautiful wife in tow came over and partied also. I took some pictures of the event (mostly of the beautiful women dancing and getting drunk). Of course, I drank and danced the night away too just like everyone. That’s the reason why everyone came to work late the next day; but not me.

October 11
Still lacking sleep and tremendously tired, I went to the “Part two” of our UPAA-UAE By-Laws Committee meeting. This time, although we ended way past one a.m. just like the first meeting, we were able to finish the association’s by-laws even if there were only six of us present out of the ten members of the committee. We also managed to finish the beer and Iranian and Arabic nuts that were there at Janice’s table.

October 12
It was one fully-packed working day as I finished some poster and staff ID designs at home, then commuted to the office which is like 40 kms away from where I live, and then in the afternoon returned home to do some work again. In addition, I had to have all of my unprocessed film rolls developed (FDC, Carol Anne, Porkchop Event, etc). Good thing, the Kodak center is just across the building where I live - like fifty steps from my door - so I didn’t need to go far for developing. But I spent the whole night scanning hundreds of pictures and in some cases editing, resizing, and cropping them. By the time I finished scanning, my butt got stuck on my chair, my hands atrophied on the mouse, and I felt like eternity had passed me by twenty times over.

October 13
It was a crazy and busy kind of day for me. I worked at home because the Apple Mac G5 which we ordered a week ago still hadn’t been delivered to the office. So, I had no choice but to use my PC for my heavy graphic artwork files, slowing down my work progress in the process. Then, we had a tremendous problem with our ticket printer-supplier in terms of delivery. I believe a hundred calls happened between me, Andy my boss, and the suppliers on that day, with the cellular airwaves and telephone lines being burned with flaring tempers and harsh words. My boss and I went to the concert venue, had a meeting with the man in charge there, drove back to the office, and went home quite late… again. What’s new?

October 14
We went to Dubai’s Department of Trade and Commerce, and carried boxes of our concert tickets for its approval, quantity control, and DTC stamping. Unfortunately, our ticket was rejected for so many raison d'être (wrong size of perforated portion, no specific price on the main ticket body, no Arabic translation, and a thousand other reasons) so that added to our tension, exhaustion, and bewilderment for we were already time pressured to release the tickets on our announced date, which was October 16.

I would have written something that night if it only weren’t for the fact that my PC was missing at home. Nope, it didn’t get stolen. I brought it to our office the previous day because it was frustrating to have no equipment to use at ne's desk. Everyday, I waited anxiously for the arrival of the Power Mac G5, to have my fingers on its sleek mouse and keyboard and have fun with all those fancy OS X features again. With boredom creeping in, I watched Love Actually for the nth time.

October 15
I was SOOOO tired and lacked sleep the whole two weeks that I woke up late in the day, almost noon, (a rarity because I don’t usually sleep longer than six or seven hours). I cooked lunch, fixed my apartment a bit and by the time I sat in front of my PC to write, fatigue and weariness slowly dragged me back to my bed. It was the start of Ramadan so it was a perfect time to rest since the whole Muslim world is generally inactive during the day. I woke up in the evening, cooked dinner and my “baon” for work, played my guitar and went to bed again. I’ve never been this bushed and lethargic. Well, I’ve never been this busy before. Or have I?

October 16
I had a Board of Directors’ meeting with my fellow LFPG officers. We were supposed to have dinner at Chowking at 7 pm and the meeting at 8 pm but Filipinos being Filipinos, everyone arrived late including me for I almost forgot about it! We ate at quarter to eight then proceeded with the actual meeting at 9 pm. We talked about the financial accounts status of the club, current and annoying problems plaguing the members and officers of the guild, upcoming and proposed projects, and schedule of activities for the remainder of the year. We started late, thus we ended late.

October 17
I did a lingerie photo-shoot at home for a freelance job I got from Agnes, a friend and former company-mate in Splash. As much as this project sounds interesting, this photo-shoot of mine was without any real life models for the pictures were to be used in a brochure for Saudi. I had to come up with new shots for my friend’s Singaporean boss for he didn’t like the first set of pictures I submitted. I shot the bras and panties on a transparent mannequin on several colored textiles as background (I used two of my bed sheets for this, as a photographer you use whatever you have around you). This took up the whole of my evening. Oh, how I wished I was shooting those panties and bras were instead tightly fixed on the sexy, mouth-salivating body of an alluring model? Maybe next time.

October 18
Another LFPG meeting again but this time it was a meeting of the Environmental Awareness Committee. We discussed our upcoming 3rd Environmental Awareness Photo competition and Exhibition this December and everything about it to make it a sure success just like its predecessors. Our venue was Salt and Pepper in Karama, known to other nationalities as Little Manila because of the overflowing population of Filipinos there. Dinner was great and so was the discussion. Wish I could say the same about my sleep.

October 19
Because Mario, our Sales Head backed out in “Managing for Business Success” organized by the UP College of Business Administration and Philippine Business Council-Dubai, I had to take his place to complete the four slots given to ABS-CBN out of 40 participants. Good thing I joined because I got to discover and talk to fellow UP Alumni who were working in Smith and Nephew, which sent 17 of its employees in the seminar. On my right was Jen Mendoza, who I have already met in the UPAA-UAE meeting before; while on my left was Cristina Casiple, who at that time has only been in Dubai for less than a week. Another bonus is that there were a hefty number of beautiful women there, Filipinas and foreigners alike… hehehe. By the way, the topic for that day was all about marketing and subjects related to it… I think. Sorry, my attention, eyes,and thoughts were drawn to the angel-like, beautiful Iraqi woman sitting across the room almost in front of me. The seminar ended at 11:30 pm, I got home at 12:30 am, went to bed at 1:30 am, and tossed and turned on my bed until I fell asleep at 2:30 am.

October 20
I worked from 8:30 to 2:00 pm then with Andrew, our Business Development Manager, and Edgar, our Chief Accountant, went to the seminar at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Sheikh Zayed Road. We listened to the lecture about accounting from 3 to 7 pm, had dinner from 7 to 8, and then finished the remaining topics until 11:00 pm. Correction: They listened to the lecture. I tried listening. And yes my eyes were still on that chubby, mestiza, Muslim Iraqi woman. After the lecture, all of us went to our respective groups to plan and talk about our Marketing Presentation the next day. Suffice to say, I got home way past midnight again.

October 21
Same work and seminar schedule but at least this was the last day of a fun and interesting seminar. We did our marketing presentations and solved problems in the accounting portion of the seminar after dinner. In the informal graduation, our Philippine Labour Attache Atty. Vicente Cabe, UP Professors Ben Paul Gutierrez and Jo Florendo, and some of the officers of the PBC handed out the certificate of participation to us. As usual in any Filipino event, there were so many “Kodakan” or picture-taking moments. All was well for it ended well.
I had to take the video coverage of the event for Andy, my boss, couldn’t go.

October 22
It was a weekend for resting, cleaning the house, washing the laundry, cooking, and watching some pirated DVDs. (Friday is the weekend in the Middle East for this is the holy day for Muslims just like Sunday is to Christians). I did some brisk walking that night and somehow my feet led me to a Gent’s Saloon to give my toenails a much needed clipping and cleaning up.

October 23
We, the officers of my photography club, had another meeting. Same people present, same time of arrival, same problems, same discussions but different venue. This time Continental Restaurant near where I used to live became our “boardroom”. Enough said.

October 24
On this day, I went to church. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve read it right: “I went to church.” So, put down your eyebrows and control your disbelief. I do go to church sometimes, once in a blue moon, or when my heart tells me to. I may not be a devout Catholic like my fiancée, but I do hold on to my faith and everyday try to be the best human being I can be, in the service of man and Whoever Is Up There. Yes, I listened to the priest. Yes, I prayed.

October 25
I met up with Anton – one of our volunteer ABS-CBN correspondents here and a fellow UP Alumni – in McDonalds, Al Ghurair Centre to hand over to him our company’s video camera, which he needed to cover an event with our Embassy Officials here. After, seeing the unbelievable traffic, I decided to walk home. It took me about 20 minutes. Of course upon reaching home, I had to cook my dinner and prepare my things for work the next day and did some laundry and fixed my bathroom and defrosted the refrigerator and…

October 26
I went to the office of my friend Amor Dagdag and gave him the CD of the Showdown of the Champions Dubai Concert print ad with the sponsors’ logos which they will include in the next issue of Pinoy News.

October 27
I was a bit pissed-off with my flat-mate and his girlfriend for leaving their used dirty spoons, forks, and plates on the sink unwashed, so I decided to walk around the area where I live to cool down. It was a wonderful evening walk given that the weather was friendlier and colder now. Since I was already in a sporty get-up, I ended up jogging around Deira, Dubai and approximately covered perhaps 3 to 4 kilometers. It was a nice work-out for a night that didn’t start out too well.

October 28
We had our actual “Night Photography” for LFPG Batch 13 members, who are in their Advance Photography Sessions right now. Our meeting place was at Creek Side where the Dubai Cruise and some beautiful yachts can be found at 8 pm. Kuya Ferdie, our club’s Vice-President handled the lecture, while I, as the Director for Basic and Advanced Photography assisted him and our students. All night, our students took shots of Dubai at night, specifically the sparkling and well-lit buildings adorning the creek-side of Deira. We finished at around 11 after everyone had enjoyed the nice cold nightwind and company of friends.

October 29
Christian Gueco, an old college friend of mine and my teammate in our Special Forces group in the UP-ROTC and who I accidentally met a week ago in the bus on our way to work, came over and had lunch at my flat. We haven’t seen each other for about five years now so imagine our surprise to see each other in another country! All the people who were sleeping in the bus that morning was rudely awakened by us as we shouted each other’s name and chatted jubilantly the whole trip. I invited him to my flat to catch up on each other’s lives and renew our friendship. We are also connected in our own six degrees of separation for his wife is the bestfriend of Hazel who is the wife of my friend and former co-teacher in the Ateneo High School. Nice huh? We watched Aliens DVD and then at 5 pm he invited me to come with him to his friends and roommate’s picnic at Creek Park. His friend turned out to be my friend too and Dubai being small and all, I was surprised to see so many of my friends there. Christian was amazed at the many people who know me there. I reminded him that I have been here three years and that’s a pretty looong time. It was a great picnic, with great food, great music, and great people. I became a citizen of the midnight hour again.

October 30
About midday, I got a call from Rajesh, my former Indian officemate from Splash who resigned a month after I left that company and who has started his own business here in Dubai. He told me he had a freelance job for me: to design a mall kiosk. We met up after work in his cousin and his office near Al Sabkha Bus Station in Naif and discussed the artwork that I needed to make.
Then, for the umpteenth time this month, we had our LFPG Officers’ Meeting at the same place, same time, almost same everything. I don’t need to elaborate on this one.

October 31
Finally, I had time to write… the only day and time in the whole month of October I was able to gather my thoughts, pound on the keyboards, and start writing and blogging again. Whew! What a month it has been!!! Everyday made me grasp for my breath.

I don’t know what November will bring but I sure hope it will be far from the madness and frenzied schedule of October.

Now to conclude this entry (these are reworked lines from Elizabeth Browning’s Sonnet #43 poem):

“I have been busy in a month I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I have been busy with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---but, if I may choose,
I shall be busy no more after October’s death.”