i am now officially a bemedaled athlete. i, along with my partner tweet, won runner-up honors at the 3rd AMCI badminton tournament last sunday. this is a feat for me, since i've always considered myself a klutz and i'm not good at anything requiring a lot of athleticism, focus and coordination. throw me a small ball or object from a distant of more than 15 feet, and i probably will not catch it half of the time. of course, badminton isn't exactly such a precise sport unless you're competing, and my goal is usually just to return the ball to the opponents' side of the court. but well, after months of dormancy, i had two instances to practice the sport, and tadaah! roy and heidi won the top plum even after we swept the elimination with lopsided scores. despite the fact that both of them were already very tired, i was bothered by errors and poor judgment. it was a close, three-set championship, which in the end, was one by the better pair. but runner-up is good enough for me! of course, i bombed out at the 2 previous badminton tournaments we had at AMCI, and i didn't even move up from my level, but hey, this is promising! the downside, of course, is that my shoulder injury returned. it's hurting a lot, and i can't raise my hand over my head without a lot of effort.


so after the hostilities that lasted from 8am till past 6pm, my team won overall champion. our championship appearance, of course, helped contribute to the win. there also was a special game, featuring manny and roy versus mar and don. the former won, but we all benefited: we lunched on lechon. a second one came all the way from iloilo, which birthday girl roan donated. then some of us proceeded to ka ising's in seaside along macapagal to celebrate.

it really was a very athletic weekend for me because last saturday, i ran a 5k at the bonifacio global city fun run which began and ended at the bonifacio high street. at first, i had my eyes set on maybe winning my age category, but lo and behold. all these career runners show up. these guys eke out a living out of running. and they're awfully fast. to be honest, there shouldn't have been any professional runners in a fun run. they already lord over events like the milo marathon, the adidas king of the road, the new balance power race, etc. leave the fun runs to us non-pros for crying out loud.

i registered 19 people from AMCI. more than 5 of them didn't show up. there goes the training! one funny anecdote was that i mistook a complete stranger for someone i knew. i was looking for the AMCI people to arrive so i could give them their race bibs and i saw someone not far away who looked familiar. when he saw me, he appeared to have recognized me and approached me. the first thing on my mind was: "ryan peralta looks different -- a lot geekier!" he said: "buti na lang may kilala ako dito." my reply: "and why are you running the 3k?" he said "hindi naman ako tumatakbo eh." and i said "that's because you quit BMC." i repeated that another time, and he said, "no i'm still with the PSE." then i realized: it's likely i don't know this person. we made more small talk after that and he even said: "text me naman if you know of other runs." i rushed to see the other guys from B2k6 and they all said it was ryan, but ryan's doppelganger didn't even recognize them. i'm still thinking if i actually know this guy. i actually might. but he's a ryan deadringer for sure.

end story: i shaved a whole lot of minutes from my time. finished the course in 24 mins and 50 secs, per my stopwatch. the official time is usually not very accurate, and still, i'm not too sure whether we actually ran 5kms because there was an unintended shortcut somewhere. a good 500 meters might have been taken out of the track, which is about 3 mins.



last friday and saturday, i had some sort of reunion with high school and elementary friends. late friday found me traveling to antipolo to accompany kent, alexis, jay and abraham to a seedy girly bar named "night shot". it still baffles me why these guys would go to places of ill repute for fun. kent and abraham were crushes ng bayan back in high school, and yet they pay good money (lady's drink at P280) to talk to a woman and possibly touch her thigh. alexis wasn't exactly crush ng bayan material, but still, the girly bar culture sounds funny to me.


the following day, alexis, who was also my classmate back in elementary school, invited me to another small get-together at sta. lucia east. met up with 3 other classmates: april rose, aprilyn, and august. the latter two are married and are blessed with a 6-year old child. i don't remember the two ever being close in elementary school. aprilyn was a young beauty, and a lot of guys courted her, but august never was interested in her. i know this because i wrote august's love letters. some changes though: aprilyn has put on a lot of weight. and i mean a lot! august is surprisingly much much taller than i (although he was about my height when we graduated from high school), and is a lot darker too. alexis, on the other hand, has developed an unpretty beer-belly, long hair, and shocked me when he shared his raket: he maintains pornsites. i didn't know a lot of these were made here, locally. haha. so now i know at least one person who can give me passwords. other than maintaining porn, he also does a lot of wholesome web-designing. i remember we would compete against each other with our drawings. we even collaborated on a comic back in high school, which i even colored. that was quite fun. gosh i miss these guys. when i went to UP, i lost contact with much of my high school and elementary friends because everyone else studied somewhere else. i hope we can actually push through with a planned reunion of elementary classmates and tricol boyscouts.

Tags: amci bads, badminton, girly bar, quirino elementary school

i saw "superman returns" last friday at the power plant. kuya mar called me up and said he had extra tickets to a screening sponsored by deutsche bank for their clients. although the movie was scheduled to start at 9, cocktails were being served at mati. so i braved horrendous friday traffic and showed up at power plant. i asked for directions and a guard told me that i should turn left at kenneth cool [sic]. the food was really good at mati, and i don't remember tasting chicken as tender as what was served. i asked about mati's theme, which apparently was greek, and not mediterranean as i had suspected. and then i asked the question: so what's the connection between superman and greece? the waitress shrugged her shoulders. i answered my own question by saying: well, superman is a god. and then i gave myself helpings of all these treats whose names all sounded greek to me. quite surprisingly, lex luthor did actually refer to superman as a god (the part where he said something like gods fly around in a red costume while talking to lois lane onboard the gertrude).

anyway, i was just so happy with "superman returns". more than anything else, it was a magical, nostalgic trip for me. i was immediately reminded of a time when i was a schoolboy, in a public elementary school in quezon city, squat on the floor, watching the first superman on the small screen. i was reminded of how fascinated i was with the idea of flying. i was reminded of a time when i took out blankets from the closet, tied it around my neck, and jumped off tables and chairs. i remembered how i longed to be the last living survivor of a dead planet, endowed by the yellow sun with superpowers. i remembered all those things, and more. of course, my companions said that the movie lacked something. kuya mar just complained that his sleep was interrupted.

after the movie, i successfully convinced kuya mar and mardel to agree to having a round of drinks at the fort. i accidentally left my iPod on my table at the office and had to go back and get it.

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then last saturday, i finally got to test drive my new nike badminton shoes at MSE's gators center. now i won't say my game has improved by leaps and bounds, but i think proper shoes will really have a profound effect on your footwork. if only i can smash stronger, all i have to really focus on is my backhand. then i can start taking badminton seriously. this august will mark my first year of playing the sport. has it all been worth it?

after badminton, the group proceed to som's noodle house and introduced other AMCI folk to its tasty treats. spices exploded in our mouths, and beads of sweat cascaded down our foreheads. and it wasn't because of the heat! then we moved to top grill. we walked to jupiter and i stubbed one of my toes while i was looking at a TV screen inside an "english" bar showing the england v. portugal match. it bled a little. although i had promised to only have 1 bottle, i had 2 more, and got home after 2am. i woke up less than 2 hours later. i still had to pack my deuter backpack as if i were going to climb, and lug it all the way to makati university as part of the lectures at BMC. good thing i got to hitch a ride with jenny. i talked very briefly about personal gear and group equipment, and asked the trainees to identify and distinguish the personal and group equipment down on the floor. after the lectures, we pushed through with my suggestion that we have stations where trainees actually get to pitch tents and operate stoves. my talus 23 was pitched and dismantled at least 7 times that day.

earlier that day, i also took my TNF gulper for a test drive and ran a 5km course around fort bonifacio. it was a good thing i got to experience running while the sun was out, because i'd almost forgotten that it was a lot different from plain running at night. it was so damn hot that day, and if i ran the extra 1km, i might have collapsed! i loaded my bladder with a liter of water, and it was kept cold till after the runs. although i have to admit that the sound of the water sloshing and jumping inside my hydration pack really irritated me. of course, lack of sleep and a slight hangover don't add up as a good prep for a hot run. and then i have to remind myself to bring a towel, goggles and swimming trunks next sunday. i swam 50 meters at the pool of makati park. it was a good workout. maybe next week i can do 2 laps! that is, if i'm not too tired from enduro. which reminds me, i have to get me a bike helmet.

Tags: 2k6, amci, badminton, fitness, nostalgia, superman

i saw the movie "poseidon" with kuya mar last night at glorietta, and i felt the producers sunk $160 million with the action flick. it was pretty bland, and it ended, really, when the road wave smashed into the luxury liner. i felt the movie failed to capture humanity in the face of disaster, and its dramatic moments (when elena died and when chris was asking his bride-to-be to say "i love you") were drowned by bad acting and really cheesy lines. wasn't richard dreyfuss nominated for an oscar? his role was pretty understated.

anyway, the AMCI photo exhibit is in full swing, and i contributed a few photos to the annual activity. even before i became an AMCI member, iton actually exhibited a few of my photographs last year. to anyone interested in mountaineering, check out our photo exhibit at glorietta (which runs till the 14th, and transfers to the greenbelt 3 cinema lobby till the 21st). orientation for our BMC will be on the 31st at the Equitable-PCIB theater.

other than mountaineering, AMCI members are also afficionados of badminton. last sunday, we had our second tournament again at badminton arena. despite a bad shoulder (an injury i sustained at our company outing, and which still hurts to this day), i played. i was in level C with my partner angel, who was very new to the sport. we won 1 game, at least, and lost all the others. towards the end of the first game, i was already feeling a jab of pain on my right shoulder. by the second and third, i could hardly extend my right arm. of course, i have to have an explanation why we lost. haha. but it really is painful. i can't sleep sideways. i can't fully extend it when i'm wearing a shirt. i can't even hold a microphone too long with it. i have to undergo therapy, i think. i ignored it the first time because i thought it was just a muscle pain. now i fear it might be worse, especially after what happened to arlene. i hope it isn't too bad. will have it checked soon.

Tags: amci, badminton, cinema

it sounded like arlene's racket smashed into a wall, making a loud, wooden "thok". but to him, it felt as if someone had kicked his ankle. i was playing with him at the time, against the tandem of james and dennis when it happened. the yellow bird from the other court landed on ours, and at about the same time, arlene was approaching the net to smash our shuttle. he hopped and on his landing, he hesitated a little, possibly to avoid the yellow cock. then, thok! i helped him to a chair, took off his shoe and his sock, inspected his foot, asking him where it hurt, and he replied that he couldn't feel anything. a few days later i found out he had a torn ligament, which had to be operated on. he's now in a cast, and the injury would take as much as 6 months to heal.

for a mountaineer, or even generally for a person with a continuing romance with the outdoors, injuring any part of your lower extremeties would definitely deal a big blow to your itinerant passions. and the odd thing is that these injuries are often sustained outside of mountaineering. dong can't walk without crutches, while ogz's is on a wheelchair. both of them figured in an automobile accident. arlene, on the other hand, suffered his misstep while playing badminton. too bad, really.

i always worry about sustaining an injury that would prevent me from going to places that can't be reached by anything that runs on mechanical wheels. i long, always, to be with nature at its purest, and it is the bane of my generation that in order to escape ugliness and experience beauty, one must first endure hardship -- hardship that usually requires a strong pair of legs.

Tags: accident, badminton

tonight i leave for what will most likely be my last multi-day climb for the year. as i transition from government to private, i might as well bid farewell to the lackadaisical life that i’ve enjoyed this past year. i’m still not totally sold on the idea, really, of moving to B&M. there’s still that chance -- and not a slim chance (a fat chance, perhaps?), i must hasten to add -- that i’d probably decide to stick it out with DENR. although just the other day, i found out that one of the decisions i labored over was trimmed from 18 pages, to 5. worse, the master cutter made very glaring mistakes, and i was very shocked to read the MFR. one of the parties very flatly insulted the office for not doing in-depth research. the 13 pages that were skimmed weren’t surplus at all, but provided the reasoning and basis for the decision, which we here call the “dispositive”. i won’t be surprised if this is flipped over once it’s appealed to the OP. i don’t really mind being edited. as long as i’m edited by someone who’s better than me. and as can be seen from the result, the talent of the ASec’s staff leaves much to be desired.

anyway, this 5-day trek to the summit of pulag is more than enough cause for me to dread what lies ahead. i worry a lot. about having too much weight but at the same time not having enough food. about walking without end for hours and hours. and about freezing to death. yes, i’m worried, and with good reason. i don’t know what else i can remove from my load. my burden is already too much to bear.

and work is piling up as well. i have to dispose of a few things before i all of a sudden disappear from work. i’ve told no one of my intended flight, except a member of my staff. and there are other responsibilities as well. i’m choked!

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last sunday’s badminton tournament was quite a blast! i lost all my games, to be honest (made up this excuse that i just met my partner in the men’s doubles that day -- which was true, other than the fact that i really suck at the game), and since i had nothing to do the rest of the afternoon, i just helped to tally the scores, make announcements, and do a short hosting job during the awarding ceremony. i’d give a longer recap, but here’s something i posted at the AMCIchika yahoogroup:

last sunday’s AMCI badminton tournament was a resounding success, and we’re not just inflating our balloons, or lifting our own rackets here. with the support of the board of trustees, and some “anonymous” financial contributions from members, more than 70 badminton aficionados and their friends turned up for the tourney, and hostilities promptly began at 9am. the blue team took an early lead when its women’s doubles teams in both level A and C waxed hot on the court on a string of wins. but the yellow and red teams weren’t too far behind. the level B men’s tandem of the yellow team and the level C men’s doubles of the red team also outclassed the opposition. when it was time to break for lunch, the three teams were neck-and-neck, disputing the overall title with very close scores.

lunch was a feast, and most of the AMCI bads proved that they are, in the first place, mountaineers when they wolfed down two lechons mardel ordered from cebu. kuya mar bankrolled the delivery of the tasty treats, and francis decena picked them up at the airport. after a brief respite, the showdown in badminton arena’s blue courts resumed. after a few more games, the red team started to pull away when its level B mixed doubles and level B women’s doubles refused to share points with their counterparts. the yellow team was still within smashing distance when its level A men’s doubles were thwarting any attempts from their rivals to reach the elusive 21 points.

all along, a small TV set, courtesy of alexis was tuned to the pacquiao-morales bout on ABS-CBN and boxing fans would sneak in a few minutes in between their games to watch the fight. by this time, the delayed telecast had already been preempted by news that manny won by TKO in the tenth round, but how he delivered the winning punch was something everyone was eager to see. so on the tenth round, the courts were temporarily emptied when everyone trooped to the lounge to see the combination punches that sent the mexican flying to the floor. AMCI bads celebrated pacquaio’s victory with cheers and shouts. but it was time to return to the court because there were still a few games to play.

towards the end of the afternoon, eliminations were over and the finals showdown was underway. the front-running yellow team tandem of bitoy and joey squared off with the blue team’s simon and jhun, and the latter bucked the advantage of the other team in winning the cup in the men’s division, level B. it was the first finals win for the day, and it wasn’t the last turnaround. alvin and francis of the red team also swept the eliminations, but gave in to the aggressive yellow team of gilbert and jecan who won the championship in the men’s division level C. the last surprise was pulled off by another yellow team when angie and heidi refused to give the title of level C women’s champion to tintin and mercy of the blue team, who had earlier won all their eliminations games.

the more anticipated games of the day were later played: the killer combination of mon and ver of the yellow team turned back jay and doc to win the trophy in the level A men’s doubles while the blue team’s tatax and jenny crushed their foes in the person of marris and eira of the yellow team for the title in the level A women’s division. the yellow team had a living megaphone and pompoms and yellow hotdog balloons brought in by team captain xenon to support their campaign. other teams who made 4 wins in 4 games were the level C mixed doubles of kuya mar and roan (red team), level B women’s doubles of maimai and melay (red team), level B mixed doubles of maimai and mardel (red team), level A mixed doubles of vanessa and jay (red team). the winningest individuals of the tournament were maimai with 2 championship titles in her belt, and jay who won a championship and runner-up honors.

at the end of the day, when the scores were tallied, the red team emerged overall champion of the first AMCI badminton tournament, with more than enough cushion from their closest rival, the yellow team. kuya mar was the red team’s captain. all that’s lacking now is a celebration befitting the triumph. hong kong disneyland sounds nice. :D

there have been suggestions to make the AMCI bads tournament a quarterly affair, while others suggest that the next one be held in june. what do you guys think? kudos to marris and nats for putting this all together.

text by alman
photos by alman and reyferbs

Tags: amci bads, b&m, badminton, career, denr

saturday, i woke to find myself, shirtless, plastered on the cold, tiled floor, armed with vague, unclear and incomplete recollections of what took place before i passed out a few hours after midnight, and asking no one in particular: “ano’ng ginagawa ko dito?” i had spit on my chest and red stuff -- which i later learned was chili sauce -- on my belly button. i stood up, found my balance, proceeded to the toilet, wet my handkerchief, and wiped the disgusting stuff out of my body. i slipped into my shirt and discovered that the goo on my chest was of my own doing, but the chili sauce was not.

i find it a little ironic that such bacchanalian rituals took place immediately after my batchmates heard mass to thank the Lord for the dramatic albeit uneventful climb to mariveles, but then again not only did we have reason to be thankful, we also had good reason to celebrate. not being a catholic, and not being religious to begin with, i decided to skip the homily and talked to jay about not being good examples of the faith. everyone seemed to agree that the homily was worth listening to, but as much as possible, i try to avoid taking part in religious traditions different from what i profess to practice. anyway, the party went on after we feasted on janet’s cooking. there was beef lasagna and tuna spaghetti. both winners. we had only a few beers but about 3 bottles of hard drinks. i had little to drink even as we played this love dice game and taboo (we lost to the girls!). but there i was again asking people these silly theoretical questions about who they find good-looking in the batch and among the members. a few heartthrobs are starting to surface. haha. they will never recover from all the teasing.

still very embarrassed, maida and i left JC’s house in guadalupe to head home. i felt absolutely sick and wanted to sleep till 5pm. but i was awakened by malvin’s call. he asked me if i was avoiding him, and if i was going to play badminton. the first question was preposterous, of course, but to the second question i was unsure what to say. i remember that “pagdadalaga” would be screened in UP film center so i was conflicted. i thought about my condition. worst hangover in the last year (since i started drinking beyond my threshold), and i needed to purge the alcohol out of my body. so off i went to west drive, with hands trembling, with my intestines forcing themselves out of my mouth, and with my entire disposition in peril.

after my first game, i break out in cold sweat. despite having taken a bath, i am still reeking of alcohol, which was a putrid mix of strong ice, london dry, ginebra san miguel premium, and tres cepas. i was supposed to head home when at around 5pm, alexis and ver suddenly show up. so i stay behind to play with them. the hangover was affecting my game. i hadn’t purged the alcohol in the bloodstream despite the exercise and the trips to the john. i wanted to puke, but it’s something that’s never happened to me ever before. i would’ve felt better, actually, if i had one huge vomit to clean the system of all that poison.

sunday morning and i was still feeling the ill effects of the alcohol. couldn’t sleep. was feeling bad that rock climbing in montalban had been called off because of the weather, and that we’d have a 12km run instead. i was steady for the first part of the run, but slowed down on the return. left ankle was starting to hurt a bit, but tried my best to think beyond pain, and finished fourth, at 76 minutes. if i keep this pace, and barring a side stitch, i should finish the 15k induction run in under an hour and a half.

since nothing else was planned for the rest of the day, i decided to join a few batchmates for lunch, which was followed by a few beers. being low-maintenance mountaineers, we just placed ground sheets on the floor of the sky gazebo, and downed a case of sanmig light. there was plenty of banter and teasing going, and we were developing another B2K5 badge: the batch scream, popularized and perfected by janet. the sound one should make ought to be hoarse and guttural, produced by the undulation of the throat. i can’t say i’ve aced it yet. oh well, there’s time to practice. frankly, i haven’t memorized the origins of “rectify”, “alam na”, and “enyeeaah”. i’ve joined a batch of monsters, i swear.

Tags: 2k5, amci, badminton, booze