Bad News

My classmate and dear friend Henri already gave up from his almost everyday visits to the doctors and tons of medicines to be injected at him and fortunately(spiritually) he died today. It was really a sad thing because I knew he really fought for it and I know that he still wants to live. After all, he is too young to die - he's still 23 years old.

Then I realized that death is unavoidable. If God wants you to be dead right this very minute, he can do that. He can turn your 'style' of death to become horrible and painful or a sweet just-lying-on-the-bed kind. Either way, he still is the one responsible for death to occur. You can't choose when and where to die. You also can't choose what type of 'killing method' will be used upon you so you might as well be ready at all times.

Sometimes, I'm scared of death. Scared in which I don't know what to do if I'm being told by the doctor that I only have 2 days to live. Scared that there's a time limit for me to surpass this cruel world after two days. What will happen to my friends and family after I die? Will a lot of people come to my funeral? Will they cry? Will they remember me even if I'm dead after 10,20,30 years? I don't care. I'm not there anymore to witness.

However, I'm not afraid of talking about death. Some people do. I just don't know why. They say I'm morbid. Morbidly stupid to talk about death and how will I face them and what if I die today and all those thoughts. People hearing those things I say usually punch me and tell me to shut up because it's not a good topic. But why? Death is unavoidable. We all go to that process, except for Rapture when God will take us which is the best thing but why say it's a bad topic? Maybe because, they aren't ready to die yet. They don't want to talk about it because they don't know what to do with themselves when their hour is near.

Well, the thing is, I'm ready to die. And hoping also Henri.

Rest in Peace, Henri.

Paul

Dear Mom,

I miss you so much. I miss you so much that I want you to come here to Doha to see me. To see your son all grown up physically but still acts childishly.

I miss the times when we go to dinner always. May it be a fancy restaurant or a simple fast food chain, I'd still enjoy your company. Nonsense talks and boisterous laughter were always one of our highlights when we were eating together.

I miss the times when you scold me whenever I've done something bad. You scold me whenever I arrived late at home, texting on the wee hours of the morning and you always scold me when I talked back at you and dad. I wish I could be there so that I can still hear your voice even though you're mad at me. I can't hear them anymore as of now because I'm still here.

I miss the times when we go to church together. Serving the Lord with you could never been so good.

I miss you.

Paul

Prayer

Dear Lord,

Teach her to be strong

Teach her to control herself

Teach her not to shout to others especially me

Teach her to not accuse anybody and turns out she made the mistake

Teach her to accept us no matter how grave the situation we were in

Give her strength to endure the hardships of the office work

Give her a soft heart to be sensitive of the feelings for the others

Give her more love for his officemates and her family

I think Lord, she can do this all if you give him a boyfriend. :)

Partly kidding,

Paul.

Alone

No, I'm not singing Celine Dion's song but that's what I am feeling right now. Alone.

By the way, my dad just went back home to the Philippines yesterday leaving me alone here inside the villa. Well, not really alone, I'm with his officemates. Talk about being an opportunistic parasite. He'll stay there for about I think 21 days and that's a good thing since he'll be spending time with my mom who just got back from a minor surgery. I'd be happy for him to be there.

One thing I don't like when my dad won't be here is that no one will cook dinner for us. He normally is scheduled to cook dinner for the gang living inside the villa so since he's not here, I will be the one to cook dinner on behalf of him. Well, if fried and boiled eggs are considered as dinner so I'm good with that. :)

Another thing is that the transportation. Our villa is located outside Doha and there are no transportation going to Doha unless you have your own personal car. That is why I'm being carpooled by my dad's driver. So I need to get up early and should never be late since the car is not ours, it's issued from the company and we're not the only ones who will use it. Since my dad ain't here, I kinda get embarrassed using the carpool. I phoned my dad awhile ago that maybe for a month, i need to stay close to our office which means I have to rent a bedroom with a whopping price of QR 1300 to not disturb the other passengers on the car. But he told me NO. What can I do?

Lastly, I need to save. Since my dad isn't here, I will be the one to take care of the groceries, the bills(maybe not) and all monetary stuff going on around the house. And the worse part is I'm beginning to get broke. So renting a bedroom part will be a failure. :)

I hope he gets here fast. I miss you,dad.

Say hi to mom for me,

Paul

Who?

I miss him.

I really miss him.

I miss the cheerful and loud noises he makes when entering the hospitals' hallway.

I miss how he smiles for every patient he meets and how he interacts with them.

I miss how he handle his friends and co workers and how he cheers them up when they are bored.

I miss him wearing wearing his nursing outfit with dignity and sophistication.

I miss him. So much.

I miss ME being a nurse. :(

Tomorrow

Tomorrow will be back again to normal.

Normal Working hours.

Normal rants of the boss.

Normal rants of the bigger boss.

Normal typing in the computer.

Normal.

When will my day be abnormal?

Maybe I'll consider it abnormal when I'll be going home this May. I've been counting the days for May to come. I'm sure it will be soon. I wanna go home. I miss home. I miss my family and most of all, I miss being a nurse.

Maybe tomorrow will be abnormal. Maybe someone will die. Maybe someone will get stabbed. Maybe that will be me.

Seeking the light,

Paul

Boys Day Out

This was unplanned but it turned out great.

Finally, an all boys outing. Or maybe no girl will ever join us because we didn't go to the luxurious beach resort in one of the beaches here in Qatar. In fact, we were there, but on the outside. Nevertheless, we had fun.

The 4:00 AM meeting was bonkers when they came to our accommodation at 5:30 in the morning. Already late. Plus we have to travel more than half an hour towards the beach. Super late. And by super late Imean the sun is already too freakin' hot and there will be a high chance of encountering sandstorms.

Fifteen of us were there. All co Filipinos with different job positions and salary wages. With only 2 pick ups that could only accommodate 5 people each, one truck must go back to fetch the others. Good thing I don't own a car. hehe. I think we arrived there at 6:30 in the morning and there were still a lot of people who were having their overnight stay on the beach. Plastic bottles, can litters and cellophanes were scattered throughout the beach. But it doesn't stop us from taking a dip in the crystal clear beach welcoming us.

Unfortunately, the beach was also crowded. Not with people. But with jellyfishes.

I then remember the Spongebob Squarepants Series where he and Patrick Starfish would get and net and try to catch them - Jelly Fishing. Weird. Because they are very dangerous creatures. They sting and it would really hurt once it touches you. Nevertheless, we still hit the beach with excitement and it's now getting hot so dipping the cold waters could replenish our skin.

Not.

The water was still hot. Boiling. Melting. I may be too exaggerated on the second and third verbs but it's not really refreshing. Oh, what the heck, this is what we came for, anyway. We were splashing water to everyone like stupid people. We also tease people there which could be a little dangerous since we pry on the other races. haha. And for the record, I was the only who didn't get sting by them jellyfishes.

It was 12:32 at noon when we decided to leave the premises since we now experienced hunger so we ate again on a restaurant going back to Doha. Fun times.

Eid Mubarak,

Paul

Eid Mubarak

It's now the end of Ramadan and I have some good stuffs and some bad stuffs.

The good ones:

1. We have a straight 4-day paid vacation. How cool is that. Well, the government has 10 days of vacation but as far as I know, our private company is the only office which has 4 days of vacation. Because tomorrow will be the start of Eid, and it falls on a Friday, what my Boss did was not to include the friday as one of the 3-day holidays stated on our contract since Friday is a normal holiday here. Work will resume on Tuesday.

2. My Filipino officemates and I are going to go to a beach near our house so it's like just getting out of the house and then the beach is just around the corner. It will be really fun hanging out with them and relaxing up a bit until we will resume work on Tuesday.

The bad stuff:

1. The normal office time will return. Meaning, our office hours will be 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM (which will probably extend until 6:00 PM).

2. More work will have to be done but you can do it in your own pace due to the fact that it's 8 hours. If you finish your job early, then your boss will let you do more and more work. Tip: Slow things down a bit. :)

So I'll be sleeping straight for 4 hours until Tuesday because I know when we come back in the office, it'll be hell again.

Eid Mubarak,

Sheik Paul :)

Funny Experience 1

Today at 10:45PM, my body really wanted me to go to the gym to run and lift weights. Tired, I lifted myself up from bed and get dressed to go to the gym. I went there at 10:55PM and went straight away to the treadmill.

Then, the lights were turned off. I ignored it thinking it was much nicer to have dim lights like the ones we had during our Iftar Dinner celebration. I was on my iPod when one security guard poked and told me that they're already closed.

I laughed with embarrassment since I just got here but I don't have a choice. I picked up my bottled water and turned off the treadmill.

I went back home with a little sweat on my forehead but before going out of the gym, I read a little sign there saying, 'Gym hours: 8am - 11pm.' :)

Eyes on the board,

Paul

Iftar

Iftar and Sahur. I never knew these words could be so tasty.

Iftar in arabic means breakfast. No, not our usual breakfast that we do in the morning but breaking the fast. It means after their last prayer they do after 6 in the evening. On the other hand, Sahur is a feast before taking the fast. They usually celebrate it before 3 am. That's what I eavesdropped from my officemates. I don't really ask them because I don't understand their explanations. :)

Anyway, awhile ago, my officemates and I celebrated Iftar in one Hotel here in Doha. I believe it was called Doha Seef Hotel. Please don't tell me what Seef means. Our manager, by the way, treated us for dinner today. Cool,huh? The meeting place was in the office at 5 o' clock in the afternoon so I was already there at 4:55 PM. I'm not Filipino so I'm really not into Filipino Time. Unfortunately, they were still not there. Moreover, our President was still there working even though our office hours ends at 2:30 pm. Running up the stairs, he caught a glimpse on me and asked why am I still here. I then told him I forgot something. Good thing he already went out. I was just there on my workplace waiting for them...

...for an hour. It was now 6 o' clock and still there was no sign of them even one. Finally, my boss appeared. Thank you because I'm already starving. It turns out that we still have to wait for one officemate. Darn! I am so hungry I could eat mutton which I really hate. A group of 4 were now already 6 since her son went tagging along plus one officemate. We went there and took pictures and went upstairs. Oh, I wasn't with them on the same elevator because I was too heavy and the lift beeped. So i had to ride another one. going to the...

...eleventh floor. Whoa. Dimmed yellow lights, folded napkins, waitresses and a buffet table met me when the doors of the elevator opened. Until now, I am really fascinated on how they fold their napkins into beautiful shapes and other sizes. So I took out my camera and went clicking away. The location and the architecture of the place left me breathless that by looking at it, my hunger was already satisfied. After that, the waitress then led us to the buffet table. We got our plates and they went to the main course while I went straight to desserts. Hello, diabetes.

We ate, talked, ate again, talked again but I still admired how they did with the napkins. My favorite meal was the sauteed potatoes which was really a good substitute for rice and the beef stew which was really very hard to bite but it was quite good. Over all, the the food was so-so but the location and the preparations were aesthetically beautiful...especially the folded napkins. :)

This will be my first and last Iftar. Thanks, Boss.

Paul