The CSB Experience 2: REDUX@KAWIT (The Mediamax Adventure 2)

    Last year, I promised myself that I'd write a blog about last year's teambuilding but it never materialized because that time, I was experiencing some sort of depression brought about by the events that occured that time. But in this case, iba na ang usapan 'tol.

1. Preparation

    A week before the teambuilding ah...: 1)My phone's short-circuited, 2)my Nikon digicam is no longer usable, 3)loads of projects still left undone, 4) tiringsome assumption of leader-roles in some group projects, so on and so forth.

    I prayed that nothing out-of-the-ordinary had ever occured on that particular day. I don't want a repetition of last year's nor the past years where I usually left manila for out-of-town field trips. While on the way home prior to Saturday, I bought some necessities at Watson's in Araneta Square: Food, Toiletries, you name it! And before midnight, I took 4 pieces of shirts, 1 sando, several undies, 4 pairs of shorts and a big towel (though I doubted that time if should I bring my own towel, irt'd be all for nothing since the resort had their own set of towels readied in our rooms. I even set my mom's phone which I'm currently using in the meantime at 4 AM IN THE MORNING  just so I could get in school intime before 6.


2. Ring...ring,,,

    I woke up, looked around and took that cell and turned it off and went back to sleep.

4. Tiktilaok....

    I woke up, looked around, took my cellphone to take a look at the time and "WHAT?! 5:30 NA?! !@!$#$%^$&^%*&(....".

    At 5:30, I rose from my bed, went down the stairs and hurriedly took a bath. 3 minutes later, I got out, dressed myself up and went down to eat breakfast. at 5:40, I took a bowl, carton of milk, cereals and devoured what is to devoured. Went upstairs again, packed up my things at the last minute. I wore my shoes (just in case). I borrowed my dad's slippers and placed it inside my dad's "too-heavy-to-call-it-a-bag".

    I brought also my other bag, my usual shoulder bag for my immediate needs like cellphone, wallet, etc. By 5:55, I went out from my house in Valenzuela and took a ride insde the jeep en route to Monumento. I forgot to get my mom's charger and my blue "cool-na-cool na mukhang cool" na cotton jacket. Di puedeng di ko hindi malimot ang mga iilang bagay sa mga ganitong trips.

5. Travel Time
  
    Good thing it's a Saturday: No cars, less traffic, faster travel time. I got to Moneumento sooner thanI expected. I checked my phone's watch and it is already 6:20. I hurriedly walked my way to the LRT Terminal. Got into a train and 30 minutes passed.

6. Finally!

    Finally, exactly 7 hit the dot. I made it to vito Cruz, crossed Taft, and noticed there three buses. Plus vehicles owned by ABS-CBN since it's CPI channel, Myx, is hosting an event inside CSB later that day (too bad for me).

    I saw one of the officers, Topher(?). he saw me, asked for my name and hurriedly left. he camer back, telling me to go insde that bus in front of Starbucks-CSB (yes, we now have our own Starbucks on that side of Taft).

    I got in, greeted carlo. Saw JV making dasal-dasal inside. I got in and ended up sitting in the middle. I saw behind me, ex-DV1 blockmate Niko boi and his bunch of friends of...wait, sophomores?

7. DnD Remembered 

     Yeah, I saw some familiar faces from last year's team building. David, one-half of DnD (Dave-and-David) [tinubuan na pala ng buhok :joke: ), and Jacob, the guy who gave me that palayok lying in some shelf in my room up til now collecting dust. There are also new sophomore faces whom I've met that day. Jacob's friends erickson and.. (In the meantime, having mental block so i can't remember the otehr guy's name), then Justin's blockmate from DV7, Allan. And another guy I cant recall his name. Hahaha! Oh and last year's Jeff was also in the vicinity

8. Freshers

    Sophomore's are heavily outnumbered by the larger majority which are the fresher members composed primarily of froshes. Two of them I already had a feeling since last wednesday that i'm gonna meet them sooner than I could say "WHAT?!".

9. R we Der Yet?

    And yes we are. Not long after we left, at 50 minutes or less, we were already there at the venue: Watercamp Resort formerly known as Josephine. The officers won't let us out but we saw that the guys at the other bus are coming out. I got the biggest surprise that one of the most unexpected people I never imagined is joining this trip "pala". I'm not gonna name this guy though for your sake.

10. Taho
     Guys who are atat to make "yosi" finally got the chance to do their thing, there was a mangtataho yelling taho to what he conceived as potential sources of income. Many were allured to his special attracting factor that he called "taho", a soya-like product mixed with pearls and syrup. A tasty contraption I might say.

11. Roomies
    Okay, I'll skip the part about us trying to know the imposed house rules and the like. JV decided to re-arranged room assignments and had us choose whome we want to be with. I wanna be with Nikko's group since their the only people I know. But I ended up being sent to a room manned by people I don't know. Fresher members.

    I have nothing against froshes but I have this kind of insecurity of some sort, awkwardness much. But what the heck, teambuilding nga eh, so why not take the opportunity. I went in and said hi to them and the rest as they say is history.

12. Visitation

    I decded to check out Niko's room while my roomates were away. It was okay to tghem for me to come in. niko's roommates with as I have mentioned, David, Allan, and the one I can recall the face but not the name (Sorry talaga!).

13. Too Long

    Later that day, I felt the need to eat so I went out to buy lunch at the Canteen. There was too long a line and it seems like it's not going to move for a long while so I went back to Niko's room (my own roommates are still gone with our room key so I can't get in). I caught David sleeping, and Niko and company about to leave the room. I stayed there to let time passed off for a little while longer before I left the area. I left David still in his utmost slumber so I left their key attached to their doorknob.

14. They call me James, That's My name, That'smy name, that's My name!

    Tagal ng service. I was thinking of buying something chicken but they ran out so I went with the lechong kawali. Behind my back, someone was calling my name. Turns out it was Sir Dan, the MMx moderator. Good thing he remembered me from last year (I don't wanna remember!).

    Sooner, David went down and he was kinda complaining why he was left alone in their room. He thought of buying food so he wnet back to get his wallet, leaving me next to Sir Dan to my right and a loving couple at my right. He came back and saw me where at exactly where he elft me off. Ganon katagal ang serbis nila.

15. Del Monte  
    He ordered lechong kawali too and both of us seated at the nearest table. With us is a tall guy wearing glasses. I noticed that he had ketchup instead of sarsa.

16. "james H."
    Okay, We were given name tags earlier and I wrote mine as "James H." since there's someone in the party who is also goes by "James".

    The officers took our tags and scattered them to the ground. The initial actvity was for each of us to take one of them and look for the person with that kind of name. That one I picked up is a girl's name and turns out it's my ex-classmate in Philoma. The one who found me is a freshman girl whom I met again earlier today (August 14, 3:30 pm).

17. BOT.E

    We were grouped into 5 and I ended up with Jeff, and 2 other fresheman, Nikki (?) and Apaya. The next actvity was for us to introduced ourselves in a creative way. So we thought of several names to introduce ourselves and came up with "BOT.E".

What caught the attention of the members are those from Gilbert's, and Joey's (the guy in curls I mentioned in my other blog post). it took us approxinately 2 hours for it to finish,

18. London Bridge

    The most gruesome and tiresome of all the actvities would be this one. I don't wanna mention it anymore since it took us too long to finish this. Just to cut it short, me and my pals of 19 were one of the first to finish (this include tough-looking Ava, sof-spoken Eva the sophomore, and the tall guy with glasses).

19. Merienda
    We finally ahd our merienda at long last. I was sittted along with Niko and his roomies. We chatted and talked and that's just it. Oh yeah, Carlo came in and came out. Pati rin si JV at si Gilbert.

20. Sushi Rules

    As was Mediamax tradition, we did the sushi roll on the pool but given that we were one too many, medyo nahirapan kami. kumulot. Napagod kami doon!

21. 20 blind guys, 20 blind guys, see how they run, see how they run

    Gruesome rin ito, Blind Man's Walk. Ang mas gruesome ay ang series of mind tricks at wordplay na kagaguhan na ibinato sa utak ko mula sa mga kagaya nina Gilbert at allan (them at the very least. SKIP!!

    Okay, back to the blind man's trail, we completely had no idea where we are going since we were wearing blindfolds. May nabangga dito, may nasugatan doon. We ended up somehwere near the playground.

22. Cafe ni Alfonso

    Turns out, this is the name of one of the members. Astig. We ate dinner there and I ended up sitting in a table with Jacob and friends.

23. Pool Party

    Okay, naantok na ako habang sinusulat ko tong blog na to. All i can say is solo ng mediamax ang buong resort sa nagpoool party na kami. Enjoy naman. May mga naglaro nga ng touch ball eh. Ahehehehe.

    Umayaw na ako pass 11 so I went back in my room at naligo amidst bthe baho of the water coming out of the faucet. Good thing there's a bucket already filled by water thanks to room service. Sira na pala dat time my nikon digicam, tsk, tsk...

24. Bumpy sleep

    I slept at the ever-reliable bunk-bed common to 5-man rooms in Watercamp. It screeches and stuffy and it's not meant to be used by people with back problems. The pillow with it is stuffy and is as hard as stone. I tried my best to sleep using this but I can't, hirap! Oh yeah, aircon's too darn cold.

25. The REDUX

    No alcohol meams hang-over so it means i had woked up on the right side of the bed. I rose up around 6 and walked around the resort. Some were also out and just walking around the place including Rapha who knew me since June. We had breakfast at 8 with me, Jacob and co. back where we ate dinner.

26. Miting de avance

    JV overslept because he's tired from inspecting the rooms the whole night so Nico-not-the-107 took over to oversee what happened the day before. we were released and gave the time for us to swim some more at the pool. I took the remaing hours of our stay to fix my things, took a shower and make a conversation with Eva the sophomore.

27. The Final Countdown
     We had our final meal inside the canteen. Enjoyed some conversations with Jacob and Allan. And listen via my portable radio on 99.9 The Bomb FM (between Campus and RJ). Nagpasalamat nga pala si Sir Dan sa successful turn-out ng team building.

28. Pa-Picture

    Despite the intensity of the sun, naggroup picture na kami. Init kung init, maaliwalas kung maaliwalas, ilang beses kaming kinunan nina Gilbert and JV.

29. The Early Returns

    We arrived around past 4 pm (Tunog Kalye Sunday) on CSB's side of Taft. And without further delay, I left to ride on the LRT and was on my home.

30. Aftermath

    I bought Sagu on Araneta Square, took a jeepney ride home, my mom's phone ran out of batteries and I alreayd feel sleepy as early as 5 past the hour in the afternoon.

    I got home, ate dinner, washed dishes, took a bath, changed clothes and finally laid myself to sleep to face A Brand New Day!

So iyun na yon. Pictures will come out very shortly...