Sunday, December 02, 2007

Long Day, Closures and Some Luck

JLPT Day

I woke up earlier than usual this morning. I usually get up around 9AM on Sundays, just in time for Power Rangers and Inu Yasha. Today is special, because it's JLPT day. I've dedicated the past few days doing some final preparations for the exam and of course, watching a couple of favorite TV shows... :)

The exam is, I should say "manageable". But I'm not so confident with my answers in the listening exam, specially because of the several times that I've spaced out (not because our proctor is pretty) while trying to catch up with the conversations played to us. The effect of the coffee that I've taken this morning had probably worn off.

Well, there is nothing more I could do about it but wait for the results in a few months. At least, now I could finally focus on my new job.

I don't have any progress with my work since Friday and I was worried that I won't be able to give some worthy report tomorrow. Luckily, our boss e-mailed us that the Monday's conference call have been moved to Tuesday instead. That gave me another day to catch up. Whew!!!

Marben's Party

But my day did not end with just the JLPT exam. We went to Glorietta afterwards to meet up with Marben for our Wii + Pictionary + Pizza Party at Helen and Mau's place. Bert and Ate Weng joined as well. It was tiring but we really had a great time. And it was really nice to see Marben again, after being gone for more than a year.

Going home is exciting as ever... the taxi that we took got some battery or alternator problem while we were on our way to Jas' home. To put it simple, the head lights are not working, and we are running along east service road with very few street lights. We got to Jas' place safe, but that's not the end of my "exciting" journey. I still have to go home, remember?

Dance with Death

The taxi driver agreed to drop me off somewhere along EDSA so I could transfer to another taxi. I didn't realized how dangerous it was earlier, because we were on the express way most of the time (traffic in only one direction). Since we took the poorly lighted service road (two-way), the driver was just relying on the hazard lights to warn the cars and trucks from the opposing traffic. Talk about death wish.

The taxi driver took a road which was well lighted at some point. But at a certain curved road, we almost (5-10 meters) hit a parked 8 or 10 wheeler truck. Luckily, he realized it and was able to slow down on time... :S

Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if he really saw the parked truck, because he made some comment on another truck beside the parked truck. That 2nd truck has it's brake lights turned on, the 1st one DIDN'T. Probably, if not for the weak red light of the 2nd truck, he won't be able to notice the 1st truck!!!

We managed to arrive safely somewhere along Pasong Tamo and I transferred to another taxi. I tested some of my social skills and was able to extract some information from the taxi driver. He lives in FTI, Taguig. Stays in front of City Land most of the time, where his most popular customers are staying. And most of them are call center agents working Makati. His daily boundary is P1300. Works from night to morning and spends the rest of the day sleeping and eating.

LPG Dangers

But the most important thing that I've learned from him is that, most taxi drivers nowadays do not prefer the conversion to LPG due to some side effects to their health, probably due to prolonged exposure to some LPG residues. I still have to verify this information though. But for the mean time, I'll be avoiding them.

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Even the dimmest light shines in the darkest dark...

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