Checking-in!

Just less than a week after I took a Cebu Pacific flight to Manila from Zamboanga, I'm taking the same carrier tomorrow, January 7, this time, to Vietnam! It's going to be my first in Vietnam! I don't know what to expect, really. I'm just happy that I'm adding a stamp to my colorless passport. hehe. I dread the expenses, though. The holidays have just ended, and holidays usually render me penniless. Sigh. I should have prepared more for this. Depending on the kindness of strangers and non-strangers does not exactly appeal to me. I could hope, though, that Vietnam is not as expensive as Singapore. Nevertheless, money should not be a deterrent in having fun wherever one is! Who am I kidding? hehe.

I haven't even stepped inside the airport, yet I am already faced with a minor problem. Cebu Pacific has this online check-in thing and my friend is supposed to do that for us. Guess who left his passport at home? The passport number is important for the online check-in. No one is home and I can't leave work! Bummer! I know that online check-ins are supposed to make traveling more convenient. This part of any airplane experience poses to be problematic to some travelers; I am not spared. I remember last year during the presidential elections, I went to Zamboanga to vote. Yes, I wanted to be a part of the historic automated elections! I checked-in a little late at the Philippine Airlines counter. I pleaded to let me in, but they weren't very friendly. Since it was long weekend, flights were all fully-booked. I resorted to transferring to the Mabuhay class! I had to shell out three thousand pesos to upgrade my Fiesta class ticket! I did that all for the love of Noynoy Aquino!

Anyway, it was a thrill to be in first class of a flight. I was separated from the common folks! hehe. I was offered a complete meal by the ever-friendly flight attendant who kept on asking if I wanted anything else. I did want one thing, though, but I couldn't tell her. How do you tell an attendant that a foreign-looking passenger across my seat had a smelly feet because his feet were exposed? I didn't pay P6,000 for a stench like that. But my Asian sensibility told me to keep mum about it. Besides, what could be done about it? Can they tell a person to put on his shoes because his feet stink? I really wouldn't know what they would do. So, I endured an hour and a half of first class foot aroma!

Oh well, I have digressed. As of presstime, no one is home to give me my passport number. I'll have to personally check-in tomorrow, and enter Vietnam airspace seated away from my friends. I shall learn from this.

Will I see these sights in Vietnam also? These are photos taken in Zamboanga.

Holidays and plane rides

Common early morning airport scene

 I have lost count as to the number of times I boarded a domestic flight. In my younger and poorer years, taking the plane was an event reserved for the privileged few. Cebu Pacific came and every Juan started flying. My recollection of my early flight experiences was filled with eagerness. A plane ride for me now is still met with excitement, but it has also evolved into one introspective journey. You see, I fly home to Zamboanga, my hometown , usually alone. I can’t seem to get tired watching my city’s landscape from that small airplane window as we land. How I love it when the flight attendant announces “Kakalapag lang natin sa paliparang pandaigdig ng Zamboanga. Manatiling nakaupo hanggang ang babalang sinturong pangkaligtasan ay naiangat na” or something like that. Then, I’d hear a Nokia message alert tone immediately after. Welcome to Zamboanga! The moment the plane touches ground, I can't wait to get my bag from the airport's single baggage carousel.

I go home during long breaks, special occasions and holidays. Every homecoming is wonderful. Every member of my family is there. Of the brood of five, I seem to be the only one determined to live away from my folks. The result is enthusiasm every time I take a plane ride home. However, the same cannot be said as I board the plane back to Manila. Every visit back home means play while Manila always means work.

Every December is faced with anticipation since I book my holiday tickets months in advance making sure of a seat and a cheaper fare. I see Zamboanga as my home still despite having lived in Manila for more than ten years. I have been living in my own unit for close to three years now, yet I cannot claim it as home. Although I complain about my lack of privacy when my relatives are around, it's only when they are with me that I get to feel a semblance of home in my small abode. I'll have to start making my 30-square meter palace my home, with or without family. I am not supposed to subject myself to melancholia and nostalgia every time I am away from my family.

My mom was suggesting that they spend next Christmas with me in Manila. I think that's a good idea.



Pre-departure scene



My nieces

Happy New !

Christmas Day Mass at Fort Pilar, Zamboanga

Something great happened towards the end of 2010. I received the good news about my three-year attempt at a job I had been eyeing. 

I will finally be changing my work address in a few months’ time, thus, new route and more new stories.

But the road to this job has been nothing but difficult. Three years is not exactly a short time. The wait, however, is worth everything. 

A merry Christmas indeed!

I started taking the Foreign Service Officer Examination in 2007,  the year I became a regular employee at the school I was teaching in. My father introduced me to a possible career in foreign service; he had a brief stint at the Philippine Consulate in Manado, Indonesia. He supplied me with stories of diplomatic life. I was attracted to the perks! Initially that was what got me interested; I was thinking of formal dinners and meeting important people. I’d fit in there, I told myself. I took the exam only to fail it. The exam confirmed my academic capacity. It was ambitious of me to have taken it. My failing the University of the Philippines College Admission Test in high school should have reminded me.   The next year, I took the test again. I got nothing to lose. The exam then was free. More prepared this time, I successfully made it to the pre-qualifying exam, which was the first in a four-step examination. That year I  went on to passing the next step which was the three-day written exam, qualifying me to take the oral exam, another three-day ordeal. I failed that oral exam. My answers were probably  wrong or the examiners did not see in me the makings of a diplomat. Yes, it was painful and frustrating, but it was a short-lived frustration. The good Lord had always armed me with optimism and an accepting mind. He had better plans for me. 

I think the better plan came the next year when I was invited to re-take the oral part of the exam in 2009. It’s in the exam rules that an examinee can re-take an exam within the period of the pre-qualifying exam’s three-year validity. I read like crazy and started seeing the importance of diplomacy. Weeks after I sat for the orals, I received the news that I was eligible to take the last part of the process – the psychological exam in the summer of 2010.  This was not an ordinary test; in fact, I think this is the most difficult test of all. It was like taking the three earlier tests all in one day, and many examinees failed this last stretch.

To make the long story short, on December 22, 2010, I received the good news at the time when my mother lost her twin sister. My Tita Lilang cannot be replaced, but the news of my acceptance in the department surely cheered my mother up.


Now, I shall wait for President Noynoy's signature to officially start my career in the foreign service.

I'm just happy. I really am.