Enjoying the moment

clip_image002“I am not excited,” I told my partner, Rina, who was going with me to Subic, Zambales for a seminar on Formative Assessment.

It was pretty plain for me, ordinary. When I learned that we will just travel by bus on our way to the Phoenix’s main office in Quezon City, I felt burdened. Well, it must be the fact that I dislike riding on public vehicles if my destination has something to do with the school.

Anyway, so after two hours of travel, we arrived safely at our destination and headed straight to Travelers Hotel and Event Center. The hotel seemed so refreshing and alluring, I thought. After getting our room key, we unpacked right away and decided to have a walk. What are we supposed to expect there? Nothing much really, so we ended shopping in Duty Free.

Any significant thing following that? Pictorial! The boredom and lack of enthusiasm slowly diminished. One pose after the other. Capture! Dinner followed, and rest…rest….rest. What about me? I grabbed a book of Paulo Coelho titled “Veronika Decides to Die”, went down to the hotel’s lobby, and read. It lulled me to sleep.

A fresh new day greeted us. After breakfast, the tedious task of sitting in a cold room, listening to the speaker, and taking down notes had started. As usual, I would enter into a sleepy mode (Note: I was in front, middle isle). It happened again after lunch, but this time I really closed my eyes, and had to be awakened by Rina. Ugh! The rest of the seminar was engaging, fun, and highly educational; so, I still learned more than what I expected.

Come evening. Oh! I was overly excited. We all could feel the party atmosphere. Delaying gratification was what we did, and exploded right then when the party had started.

A band was there to entertain us (such lovely voices and gorgeous faces!). We had a raffle, and unfortunately, I won an umbrella. Hahaha! Let’s go back to the band. Cool! Highly entertaining! That summed up to one – fun. And we had a long night of merry-making, dancing, and drinking (wine).

It was freedom for me. I got to dance without inhibitions with the other educators. I drank wine! (I’m not a drinker, so I landed up dizzy.) I sang, I swayed my head, moved my body to the beat of the music, and shouted with the rest. The sudden release of energy bent up with too much work was relieving. I felt my body relax; it was overwhelmed. My heart was happy too. The dancing, jumping, and shouting part was therapeutic. Gee! How I missed that feeling. That continued until midnight, and I slept with such a glowing face, not minding the bobbing in my head.

More pictorial the next day. More shopping in Duty Free. But with my partner and I? We were just grinning. Such an enjoyable treat from one of the country’s giant publishing companies.

What have I learned from that? Pretty simple – it was to enjoy the moment, to seize the day, and to savor life’s joys even if this means I have to set aside (sometimes) the norms set by the society. After all, I was with right-minded people.

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