Bored in the City

Three days in Manila and I am getting bored. My body clock is still going cuckoo. I sleep at 6:00 AM and wake up only at mid-afternoon. It may just be a prolonged form of jet lag . As I’ve always been slow to react to things, maybe it would take me a couple more days to adjust to Filipino time.

But the thing is I’m getting a bit bored despite having gone out for most of the day (or at least from late afternoon to evenings) the past two days. Perhaps it’s because I am not really a mall person and going to MoA or any other malls in the metropolis is not something I’d want to do every day. For the past two days that’s what I’ve been doing, accompanying my mother to the grocery and to the doctor and getting myself a much-needed haircut at the neighborhood salon. All I can think of now is that surely there must be something else more substantial that can be done with my time than go malling or doing DVD marathons, no? Earlier today, in the thick of my boredom, I wrote a list of things to do in the city:
1. Join a short (say two to five days) cooking course –- though I am still searching for schedules and prices
2.Attend seminars on entrepreneurship and investing —found a free one, still waiting for the confirmed sched for this month.
3. Serve as a volunteer—Though I think the orientation date for HandsOn Manila for April is yet to be set. I wonder if there are other volunteer programs that I can join aside from HOM?
4. Join a learn-to-swim program.---The swim program nearest to me does not start till the second week of April and is a bit expensive for a 1 hour, 12 session program.
5. A boring one, yes, and something I have often broken in the past—establish a schedule for writing or at least an attempt at writing.
6. Meet up with bestfriend T on her rest day and perhaps explore Divisoria , Binondo and that part of Manila. The meetup part’s already confirmed but I have yet to convince her to spend an entire day traipsing around the old Manila areas.

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The past few nights, or more precisely, early mornings, I’ve kept myself busy reading up on some business start-up articles, and thinking up of possible business ventures. But I still think I really need to attend some sort of seminar for this. Social interaction and a talk from someone who’s been there (blah blah) might just make me more open and less scared at the undiscovered path that is entrepreneurship.

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At least this week I’d have two chances to escape from the city. On Wednesday we’re off to LB to haul back some of my brother’s school stuffs. And then I’ll be off commuting to Pampanga on Thursday to stay and have the much needed girltalks/bonding moments with S for three days. It’s been a ritual for us, that every time I come home we go on a few days girl’s adventure. We’ve been to Pagudpud, Bangkok, Thailand, and some other times we just roamed around Angeles city and Clark. This time we have not set any itinerary. Perhaps we’ll stay in Angeles for a day or climb to Baguio or sana we can visit Bolinao for the Hundred Islands. It’s always been these mini-vacations, a respite from the concrete city and a chance to be close to some greenery and fresh air that I look forward to when in Pinas. We all need a sort of balance between being stuck in the city, doing city stuff—seminars and writing and malling, and going for the serenity and idyllic promises of the countryside.