ROCK ON BABY;

Saturday, October 20, 2007

SONG I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW: "Hero" by Mariah Carey

This was like the "theme song" of our retreat last October 15-17 at the Dominican House of Prayer in Tagaytay.

And if I were to choose a favorite retreat, I would pick the last one.

Not only because of the venue or the length of time in which we stayed there, but also because -- well, I don't know, actually. Maybe because of all the fun we had - me and my classmates and friends, I mean.

Anyway, I'm guessing you guys are all dying to hear what happened during our three-day retreat.

Let's start with the assembly time at school:
>>Okay. So nothing worth putting here happened during that time, except maybe the fact that I had to accompany Anaw to her place 'coz she forgot her parental consent letter thingy which was a requirement if you wanted to come along.

>>So after that, we were all on the bus along with Sister Althea and our retreat master, Father Edcel (I'm not sure if I spelled his name correctly. Sorry, Father). We started praying the rosary as soon as the bus (which was the school bus of Dominican School College, Sta. Rosa) left the school grounds. By the time we were in Malasiqui, we were done, and everyone was moving about, making noise.

>>We had to stop over at Luisita Mall so we could buy some snacks and take a leak.

>>After that, our next stop was at the SM Mall of Asia, where we had our lunch. Me, Anaw, Isay, Jamy and Pau went over to Greenwich. We ordered some lasagnas, and Paula ended up eating all our ginger sticks.

>>Then we bought some Dippin' Dotsice cream. Wala lang...

>>I don't know what comes next, since I slept all the way from MOA to Tagaytay.

>>Before I knew it, we were at the retreat house. Like Lui said, it had a wide compound. Everything looked clean. Then this nun ushered us (girls) to our sleeping quarters on the third floor of this building (the boys were placed in a different building, which was the main one, I think).

>>A short orientation was given to us at the conference hall. The usual was said: observe silence, dress properly, don't eat in the rooms, and SURRENDER ALL YOUR PHONES (yes, they still do that).

>>After Ms. Cecille collected all (or what she thought was all) our phones, Sister Althea went on to announce who was to room with whom. She already prepared a list beforehand, it seemed like she forgot about it, because she was writing a new one while this other nun was giving the orientation. I was paired with Emily. Anaw was paired, unfortunately for her, with Jing. You see, they were former bestfriends, but then they suddenly parted ways and things like that.

>>That night we picked our prayer partners, and by 'picked' I mean drew their names from a box. I got Bryan, and Crystal got me (everything was revealed during the mass last Wednesday). Then we formed a circle with the crucifix and two candles at the center and the lights turned off. One by one, we said out loud what we wanted our prayer partners to include in their prayers for us.

>>The next day we watched Remember the Titans. It was a really touching, at the same time funny movie. It centers on the value of friendship.

>>Tensions were really high that night, because we revealed in front of the whole class what we wanted to say to each other: our heartfelt apologies, the grudges we had against each other and all that. The scene was the same as that of the night before, except that Father wasn't there to listen in to what we had to say. Oh yeah, Sister picked me to go first, since no one else wanted pole position. So the first person I turned to was -- well, never mind. I'll just keep it a secret. And I told that person -- well, I'll keep that a secret, too.

>>We also had our confession that night.

>>The following day we had our mass, a group hug, and our final goodbyes to Father Edcel and Sister Althea (they were gonna stay for the SD retreat) and even to the cute boys from the Aquinas School in Manila whom we had our retreat with.

>>We stopped over at Dominican College in Sta. Rosa for some particular reason, and there we saw our school's former directress, Sr. Marietta Badua OP, who is now the directress there. She showed us the school's pool. Wala lang. We also saw look-alikes of Maeinra, Robert, Jujang, Kalyn and Pia Magaoay there. Creepy.

>>We had lunch at SM North Edsa.

>>Then we stopped over at Luisita Mall again.

>>Then we were on our way home...

>>PS I would've enjoyed the whole thing more hadn't I had a fever during it. Total bummer, trust me. I was literally freezing!!! My teeth were even chattering. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..........But I still enjoyed, which is good.

Too bad the whole thing had to end. I mean, I didn't want it to end 'coz it would be the olast retreat I would get to have with my classmates. Haay...

Here are a few photos of the retreat which I "stole" from Paula's Multiply:

Going there...

MOA...

Bad shot si Sister...

Ageh pakyut...

Father Tera - ay Edcel pala...

Dominican College...

Okay ka lang, Raymond?

Uwian na...

ROCK THE HOUSE DOWN AT;
9:37 AM