I heard about the jamboree through Brother Bong who, under the influence of a certain Mr. Alex Goking, invited me to sing for the Verbum Dei slash Hijas de Jesus booth. I instinctively agreed although I knew I wasn’t going to end up singing - it’s always like that because I have a certain phobia for microphones. Thank God, Ate Gelai came into the group and sang. Tee hee! So I was saved the task of singing.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I absolutely love to sing. Modesty aside, I can actually sing - except for the high notes and the RnB waves. I’m the acoustics type of person, singing stuff like Torete and songs by the Corrs. Basically just simple, not so squeamish stuff.
But like I’ve said in the first paragraph, I have a certain fear of microphones… when it comes to singing.
Anyway, I’m straying away from the topic.
Even though I wasn’t going to sing, I still joined the jamboree anyway. Although I had other choices of activities - like watching Happy Feet with my pals - I still went. Not because it would look good in my extra-curricular sheet - well, honestly speaking, it will - but because it was a once in a lifetime experience and it seemed to be worth giving a shot.
Only problem was it turned out to be an overnight thing. It started at three pm yesterday (Saturday) and ended at six this morning. Let me just clarify that I am quite incapable of handling overnight activities, like senior retreats and training seminars, because I have a weak tolerance for sleep. I highly value my seven hours of rest a night, thank you very much.
So while the youth in St. Mary’s gym were dancing to the beat of Christian hymns and such, I slipped out and went home. It was quite a pity since the talks were very interesting and I actually, seriously enjoyed dancing and singing with the rest of the congregation.
I went home at about nine pm and and came back at four am. The story about how I got there is actually quite interesting. I woke up at three and bang on the room next door to wake Manang Em and Ate Tani up. Then we all got dressed and after drinking lukewarm choco we were ready to go. The problem was, when we called a certain taxi service to hail a cab (like duh, it was three in the morning) no one answered. There was always the option of going up to our subdivision’s main street to look for any taxis that might be in the Taxi Alley, but we’d have to pass a lot of dogs on the way. Let me assure you that a dark street with a lot of barking dogs isn’t really something you’d like to think about at three in the morning…
But then we had no choice. My father was feeling quite sick and that was actually the first time he declined from driving me to wherever I wanted to go. So, picking up rocks along the way, we braved the dark street with the neighborhood dogs in the hopes of finding a taxi.
Surprisingly, the dogs didn’t even move when we passed by.
After staring at the sleeping drivers of the two taxis we found in the taxi alley, we decided to knock on one of the taxi windows - thus, waking the snoozing driver. And we were off.
I’m quite ashamed of admitting the fact that I fell asleep through the first reading, the responsorial psalm and the second reading of the mass. I barely understood what the gospel reading was about although I did my best to listen to the homily. Given all those lapses, you might think there was no use in waking up so early just to hear mass, but actually, I had a lot of fun. Seriously. So much fun that, while waiting for a jeepney to take us home, I was dancing and singing the tune of SHOUT TO THE LORD - with quite a raspy voice. Croak, croak.
Out of all the discussions I’ve heard during the jamboree, the one that struck me most was the one by our very own Brother Bong. Because his audience was composed mostly of teens, he talked about insecurities. Given the fact that I have a large issue when it comes to insecurities, I was very touched by all the stuff he said.
As I keep saying: In the end, it’s still your life.
Poof!
