#6: Truebrewing

Tea lover or not, you’ll definitely want this!

Here’s a fact: I am not a tea lover. I’ve never been and I don’t think I ever will be. The taste of leaves touching my tongue—I just hate it. It makes me feel like I’m drinking some kind of potion that will change me into something who-knows-what.

As a result, I’m not enjoying the benefits of tea. The body cleansing it does and other marvelous effects on the system.

Thank heavens, I found a new way to drink tea. Well, it’s not actually new because even before, anyone with a curious and experimental side can do it at home. But the advent of tea cafes offering milk and green tea blends and other tea concoctions has helped many get a taste of tea. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement because you’ll absolutely crave for more.

So, when I’m not busy, or when I just want to relax after a stressful day at school, I go to Truebrew and drink a milk tea blend.

Truebrew is a coffee and tea café along A.B. Fernandez Ave. in Dagupan City, just beside the UCPB bank. My friends introduced it to me a month before and I have loved it in an instant. The place is good and relaxing. You may spend your time sitting on the cozy couch while sipping your favorite, or you may use the table and sit on cushioned chairs when you’ve got to tinker on your laptop. Probably to finish some work or browse the Internet. Yes, you can get connected because the place is a WiFi hotspot.

 Talking about their blends, they’ve got a lot of flavors and varieties to choose from. I’ve already tasted five of their milk tea blends—Wintermelon, White Chocolate, Black Caramel, Caffee (caramel and toffee) and Milo Float.

I’m not really good at describing tastes, so I’ll just do it by associating each flavor to a trait or attitude. Wintermelon is for the curious. White Chocolate and Black Caramel are for someone who wants to reak away from the regular. Caffee will be the favourite of someone who has a big sweet tooth. And for the young at heart, Milo Float is just perfect.

More flavors are in store for your palette, so I suggest that you try it out. Tea lover or not, there’s a perfect brew for you. So go on, sip from your own grande or venti of tea blends.

#5: Feasting on films

The splatter s of the raindrops on the roof awoke me made me jump out of bed.

Oh my God. What time is it?

I snatched my phone from the bedside table and checked the time.

10:30 am. What?! I’m already late for school!

Without thinking twice, I immediately grabbed my towel and prepared for a bath. Then, as if waking up from a daydream, I suddenly stopped on my track as a realization hit me hard in the head.

It’s Saturday. No school.

Thank heavens! I got some time to rest after a whole week’s worth of seemingly infinite school works that almost made me a nocturnal being.

I got one hell of a week, so time to reap my reward for the hardwork I poured. Walking back towards the bedroom, I switched my personal computer, browsed through the movies I saved on it and clicked the play button.

***

So, yeah, when I got time to spare, I grab the opportunity to watch good films for of course, entertainment’s sake. I have developed this interest in films a few years back. Watching movies is like reading novels, since both tell a story although in different formats. While novels use mere words that create a new world in your mind, movies use sounds and visuals that take you to the new world projected in your mind as if you were in the scene physically. But just the same, both make your heart race and once you’ve started, you hardly find the reason to stop.

Movies, just like literary works, are a representation of real-life events, exaggerated and carefully arranged in a manner prefect for story telling. Life, however, is not a movie which you can edit, rewind, skip scenes, or pause. You live it now with all its complications without the certainty that the resolution will come.

Life does not follow a script. Scenes do not start at the snap of the clapper and ends when the director shouts, “Cut!” They continuously flow and transpire. You don’t memorize the lines; you speak them spontaneously.

No, that's not me in the picture (winks). I've grown to love the Harry Potter films back in second year college. The series have opened a new world for me. Somewhere I want to be should I have a second life.

#4: Strolling at the beach

Little pleasure in an open space

The first time I went to a beach was in third grade. It was in Subic. That was also the first time I got fascinated with the sun’s beautiful reflection on the sea. The sound of the waves at night was melody to my ears.

Since then, I had always wished I would find myself on the beach again, wherever there might be.

Destiny had its own way of granting my wish—although I didn’t like it entirely at first. In 2005, for some reason, we moved from Antipolo City to Lingayen. I hated the idea of packing my things from the place where I grew up, a place I had grown to love, and unpacking them somewhere unfamiliar and foreign. I imagined that the place would be quite far from civilization. It felt as if I were crossing the boundary of the world I had known and moving on to the great abyss, the point of no return.

Mom said that the house we would move in was near the beach. Perhaps, she thought it would matter a lot to me. On the contrary, it didn’t banish my anxiety. Because of my dislike of transferring to another place, I forgot my wish of seeing the beach again.

I never realized that by near, mom meant less than a kilometer. Until one afternoon after school, I went to Lingayen Gulf. When the beach presented itself to me, it was like ice cream served in front of a child throwing tantrums. At that moment, I realized it was not that bad to live in a new place because new great things were about to unfold before my eyes.

It’s a place I have already tied my soul to. It has become my hang out when I have time to spare. Memorable moments were created on that wide space. That’s where I started courting my first girlfriend and that’s also where we marked our relationship official. That’s where my closest high school friends and I used to hang out when we had no classes. That’s where I cry myself out when I am down. And that’s where I go to when I wake up early to greet the sunrise and the morning breeze.

The waves touching my feet are like gentle hands calming me down when tension has risen to an unbearable level. The setting sun reflected on and diffused by the water is my solace. The cool wind touching my face partakes in my happiness. And the open space hugging me around tells me that I am free from screaming unfinished tasks and energy-consuming pressure.

Riding solo on the beach.

Priceless little pleasure.

#2: Reading novels

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must always find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."

-Confucius

If you want to be taken to another world, portraying a different character, one you’ve always wanted, day dreaming won’t be enough. You need descriptive words carefully arranged in a manner artistically fit for narrative and are figuratively jumping out of the paper to really feel that you are in another world. A world inspired by life’s experiences and realities and made more beautiful by imagination.

My love for reading novels started in second year high school. During break times, I would go to the library and skim titles of prospective finds. When a title caught my interest, I would borrow it.

The novel I most recently read.

The first novel I read back then was something about a frightful summer. I just forgot the title and the author. The plot went on with the main character (a girl) meeting another girl who pretended to be her cousin whose parents died when they lost their house to a blaze and who turned out to be a witch (it was found out that she wasn’t appearing in photographs).

The passion grew more when I read such famous titles as “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden and “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons” by controversial author Dan Brown. All of these have movie adaptations which make them more interesting.

I also sank my intellectual curiosity on the world phenomenon Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. I would always snub it before, thinking that the series was just a nonsense children’s magical fantasy, but when I read all seven books in second year college, I realized that the epic tale of Harry Potter was more than just a children’s story book. Since then, I’ve become a Potterhead. I so love the plot I always imagine myself as Harry James Potter, cursing death eaters and counterattacking Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra with Expelliarmus (yeah, I’ve memorized several spells I read in the books).

Great things happen out of the ordinary. Harry Potter sprang to life when J.K. Rowling started writing his story on tissue paper. Making my heart race when the climax comes, reading novels has always been an entry in my “to do” list when I’m not busy. It always ignites my imagination and carries me to different worlds I can only dream of. I will never stop reading. And someday, I will write my own novel and fascinate other bookworms like me.

That beautiful day in Baritao

No matter how many beautiful and high class resorts you may have gone to, you will always go back to nature. What nature offers is a hundred times better than fancy swimming pools filled with chlorine-treated water. I had proven that the first time I swam in the river with my friends.

It was a river in Baritao, Manaoag—where one of my closest friends, Marie Lyn, lives. The barangay is a far flung area of the municipality, so it gives you the feeling of isolation from the industrial world. All you see are fields planted with corn and fruit bearing trees. Farming is the residents’ main source of income.

The first time I went there and slept at my friend’s house was in late March this year, nearly the end of the school year. I was with some of my co-mass communication students to partake in the celebration of Marie Lyn’s 18^th birthday and to finish our final project in a major subject.

The place looks peaceful and unpolluted, so in April, when I needed some time to relax and rest my mind, I went back to Baritao with my friends Anissa, Will, Jane and Al and spent the night there.

The next day was beautiful as we had the chance to swim in the river. It was a one-kilometer walk from Marie Lyn’s house, so we had to endure the searing heat of the sun. It was a long walk, but it didn’t bore us because of our jolly nature. We kept on joking around, laughing our hearts out while walking, and didn’t feel tired at all.

Braving the heat for an afternoon swim.

A few more steps and I found myself captured in awe as I saw the river. It’s not majestic, yet I knew the moment it came into view that I would enjoy my time there.

 

So, without thinking twice, I took my shirt off and jumped into the river. The part we chose was shallow, so we could lie down on the river’s floor. The warm water touching my skin helped me relax and ease the tension I was feeling. The current wasn’t strong, so I was not afraid of getting dragged somewhere dangerous (the mouth of a crocodile perhaps).

The warm water in the river gives a relaxing feel.

The E3D Gang (no, we're not up to something sinister).

As I lied there and looked up at the sky, I realized that I had been missing a lot of good things in life. For so long, I was looking for great things, big things that are almost unrealistic, that would make me happy  without really seeing the good things right under my nose that could give me the same amount of happiness I wanted without having to spend a fortune. At that moment, I had the chance to enjoy a facet of life without worrying about how much I had to spend.

One more realization hit me that day. I missed my friends a lot. I was so busy spending time on something else a few months back that I nearly forgot about them. That was my chance to take advantage and enjoy the time I was with them. The river of happiness flooded my heart that day I spent with my friends in Baritao.