Unwinding

Months after driving myself to the brink of a burn out, I was forced to take four days off work because I got quite sick. It served as a reminder that it’s okay to work hard, but it’s not okay to forget to take care of myself.

So the past week, I decidedly shortened my office hours from the usual 12-14 hours to just 10 hours… which really isn’t too much of a cut, but I gained a few hours free to do whatever I want. The trouble is, with all that time on my hands, I didn’t quite know what to do! I wasn’t used to having so much free time in the evening before I sleep, and I certainly did not want to spend those hours amidst a traffic jam!

The good thing was, a reunion of sorts (of my classmates in college) was hastily organised for August 27, Monday… because it’s a holiday. But despite being a non-working holiday (I think), the microbiologists had to come in from work. I, on the other hand, the perennial crammer, had to be at the lab before the reunion because I was (and still am) writing bits and pieces of my thesis and a paper that is due for submission in the next few weeks.

I thought that there would only be a few people. But around 15 classmates showed up! Just like during the Feb Fair, we met up at McDonald’s at the Vega Centre. The newly-licensed doctors wanted to look around the campus, but the others wanted to stay behind and exchange stories. I went with the docs so I could get a glimpse of the campus again in daylight… I always end up leaving in the middle of the night, so there isn’t so much to see. The walk was good even though it was raining. 

Dinner was at Joe’s, an Italian restaurant inside the Umali Subdivision. The manzo e pepperoni was fantastic! Then, while some had to go back home, the rest of the crowd went to LB square.

I particularly enjoyed that day because it was one of those few times that I could go out and touch base with people I was in college with. And with an almost non-existent social life (someone should have warned me that the path leading to a PhD is quite a desolate road!), I thought it was time to take a few hours off and be with friends.

It was amazing that five years after graduation from UPLB, we all grew up! Everyone had been dealt with quite a few blows in Life that we all looked back in retrospect (thanks to Au) - reality bites, and we had to live with it.

After all that relaxation and recovering, it’s now time for me again to return to the hectic pace at work. I feel like I jumped onboard a moving bus!