Good times
It’s almost closing time for year 2009. I’d love to review my year that was, but I don’t think I have the mental and emotional fortitude for that.Offhand, let me say that is it’s been an extremely tough year for most of us.
Life, however, has ways of balancing things to tolerable levels, especially during the past two months.
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I’ve always associated November with birthdays. There seem to be a lot of cool people celebrating their birthdays this month – including my wife haha.Joan and I celebrated her birthday at Enchanted Kingdom. It was her first time to visit EK, and it was something we’ve been trying to do since our friends Cez and Euge gave us EK tickets as wedding gifts.
That visit was far from ideal, though. At the entrance, we were advised by staffs that there were already an estimated three thousand guests inside the park.
Weeew! (Note to self: when planning an EK outing, check ahead if there are scheduled, massive group tours like the one by the DepEd that day.)
Anyway, good thing Joan’s more of a Grand Carousel, Rialto, Log Jam, Science Fair, and Magic Show type – she’s more than happy to forego the mind-blowing rides like Anchors Away and Flying Fiesta (the Space Shuttle was still out of commission at that time).
Such a fun place. It deserves another visit.
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It's been almost a decade since we last saw couple Cez and Euge. These are old friends that go waaaay back.Their visit was unplanned, and their time to meet up with friends so limited. Thanks to the impeccable planning and gimmick ideas from our former sempai James, we went boating and shot at each other in a paintball showdown at La Mesa Ecopark, played badminton somewhere in Kalayaan Ave., danced to Jill’s 80’s music at The Fort, got together with more old friends over scrumptious seafood feast at Dampa Metrowalk, and bumped cars at Fun Ranch, Libis.
It’s amazing how the fun never changed with old friends, even after all these years.
Scratch that. It did change.
I believe it got better.
I wish I can say the same to my driving and navigation skills. Har har!
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Avatar wasn’t in my list of to-watch movies. It had minimal fanfare with promotions and shared only the barest of details in its trailers.This is going to be just like Surrogates, I thought.
It was, but the idea was taken to a level that captured one of my deepest fascinations – role-playing in a different world.
I was not expecting it, but I enjoyed the entire 166 minutes of it.
***
Speaking of avatars, it was over a year ago when I first mentioned in this blog the clan in Perfect World where my most active and longest-surviving avatar belongs to -- Sanctius.Since then, like any other, Sanctius went through changes typical of a group: new officers get drafted, relationships change, and members come and go.
Life goes on.
There were times, however, when the changes were a tad too big – big enough to make a perennial in-game lurker like myself wonder, “What the heck is happening?”
Lots of goodbyes and letters of resignation were posted in the forum. Members that I’ve come to know as the clan’s brain, heart, muscle, and teeth (oh the last one I love and fear at the same time. *shudder* You know who you are haha!) became more scarce from the clan chat, if not entirely gone from the list of members.
But change is good. It’s what gives us butterflies, sabi nga nila.
And what splendid butterflies the next-gen Sanctius officers turned out to be. While it crushed my heart to see Master Raz, Mama Gem, Maharet, Alamar, and others before them relinquish their posts, the clan is, without a doubt, in good hands.
By October 2009, demands of work prompted me to formally inform the clan of my intention to take my in-game lurker status to the next level – hibernation.
Sometime end of November, however, something wonderful happened.
More than the Territorial Wars and the new Elemental Faeries, something in PW slowly pulled me out of hibernation.
It started when an all-star cast of Sanctius officers and high-level members dragged my sorry ass through the Mahayana and Treasure Grotto quests, and eventually pushing me to level 80 (finally).
That moment reminded me of my old aspiration for playing the game in the first place: I want to be just like them *starry-eyed*. So strong, so cool, and so helpful.
Then suddenly the clan chat had that familiar "sound" again. People who've either left the clan or were inactive for so long are coming back! And along this slew of homecomings, our Marshall and his beloved decided to stay.
Things are looking good -- the familiar voices are back, with new ones that are making the Sanctius clan chat livelier than ever.
Like what Maharet said, "It's just like the old times."
Yup. Good times.
Happy New Year to all!
Labels: Games, Media, Musings, Places
posted by Leo @ 12:53 AM
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