Holy Week. A time to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and how He saved us all from sin. Massive numbers of Filipinos, especially those from Metro Manila, return to their home provinces to reunite and celebrate with their families--which explains why EDSA, one of Metro Manila's busiest highways, had little traffic on Maundy Thursday.
(Actually, on the day I wrote this, this was posted by Krizette Laureta Chu, a well-known Duterte supporter.)
And what did I do? I was invited to an "extended family get-together" that will run from April 19 to 20, and I accepted, mainly because I knew my electrifying niece was also there.
I also knew that there was pizza and a pool, and I like both of them. (Actually, I like pizza more.)
The resort that we went to accepts visitors at 7 PM, so my group left at 5 PM to meet up with Big Brother and the rest of our relatives.
When my group arrived, my niece, being carried by Big Brother, was so excited and greeted us with a hand waving enthusiastically. When I got down and approached my niece, she gave me a hug as usual.
Big Brother and his wife went on to do preparations inside his house, so everyone else stood outside, with some of us playing with my niece.
Mom told my niece to point to a person with a particular name, like "Where's Uncle Juliann?"...and she still sometimes points at my younger brother. (Many senior citizens think we look very alike, even though I have a more calm face and he has a strict face.) Many of my relatives are unfamiliar to my niece (I think), so she struggled to get the correct answer for those relatives.
I think of my niece as having super strength, so in the past, I often made strongman poses in front of her by flexing my biceps. Now she likes it too; she tells me, "I want to play 'strong!'" She then imitates my flexing poses while growling.
I then asked her, "Do you want to play Krunker?" and she said "Yes!" Rocketeer was still entertaining to her, but Agent slightly lost its appeal.
I also tried to make her say the sentence "Lightning is produced by electrically charged clouds", but she didn't say it. I think I said "K!" in a cartoony old man voice after my niece didn't say anything for about 5 seconds, but she replied in a mimicked voice, "K!" I replied, "You want a weird voice? Okay. (cartoony old man voice) Lightning is produced by electrically charged clouds." and she said it, also in a weird voice.
After some more lifting, my relatives and family got in our cars and followed Big Brother on the way to the resort.
My mom entertained my niece by describing the surroundings. As soon as we left, hundreds (if not thousands) of Christians were still walking on the streets of Big Brother's home village with candles on hand since it was nighttime, and my niece liked looking at them. She also liked looking at the full moon, although it was mostly hidden by trees and buildings during the trip.
I tried asking my niece what her favorite Pokémon is, and her first answer, I think, was (my niece's name; censored for privacy purposes). If I remember correctly, Mom pointed out that my niece is not a Pokémon, and then asked her what the Pokémon looked like? Eventually, Mom asked, "Is it Pikachu?" and my niece said "Yes! Yes!" Then I messed with her by asking, "What is Pikachu's type?" and eventually said, "Electric." I also described Pikachu, saying "Pikachu shoots electricity from its BIG cheeks."
I then asked, "Do you know Charizard?" since I think Charizard is the second most well-known Pokémon--according to Truegreen7's viewers, liking Charizard means "You don't know that many Pokémon", and it's in many Top 10 Overrated Pokémon videos, including Eryizo's. My niece (blindly) answered, "Yes!" and I replied, "Do you know what Charizard is?" She couldn't reply, and then I eventually said, "Charizard is a fire-breathing dragon!" and Mom roared at my niece to illustrate the point.
As soon as we arrived at the resort, we set up the food we brought on the tables provided to us by the resort. There was home-made spaghetti (which I did not dare eat because I only eat my mom's spaghetti and I find other spaghetti generally weird-tasting), four buckets of chicken, and soda. (We had pizza the next day. No pizza on this night.)
I had two chicken parts and a tiny bit of rice. I got lazy to eat.
Try and guess the soda I drank. Hint: I am a hardcore gamer.
My niece was still eating, but I don't care--I still played with her while she was seated... by touching her BIG cheeks while hanging onto the edge of a ledge. She willingly put her BIG cheeks on my fingers, and I intentionally fell off the ledge as I pretended to get zapped. She laughed so hard and I think she begged me to do it again (even though Mom didn't want me to).
She also instinctively smiled when I pointed my camera at her. Her typical "camera smile" is tilting her head to the left while showing a few of her teeth, which is different from her huge "playful" smile. I tried the 360 no scope, but it didn't do much to entertain her, however.
My younger brother tried to make my niece touch me in the face (which we call a "biff"; getting a biff scores points, and my younger brother is far ahead of me because of his glasses acting as a shield), but this time, my niece angrily said "NO!" and shook her hand off my brother's. Funny thing is, she tried to biff me back in Boracay and another house visit, even though my younger brother wasn't around.
After eating, my niece chased me around while spewing saliva like boiling water in a pot of rice, and I ran away, partially because it's gross and surprisingly long-range, but mostly because of play. big brother and his wife got mad at us, but i don't care. (intentional bad grammar)
Sometimes, we would pass through my dad who is singing on karaoke, and every time, he stopped to let my niece have the microphone, and she sang ABC every time.
When I "steal" the microphone, I get told to sing Baby Shark, and every time, my niece danced. I tried to mimic the voices in the video, with a high-pitched voice for Baby Shark and a deep voice for Daddy Shark. (Yes, I can still do high-pitched voices--I can even mimic my niece's voice accurately.)
I also "plagiarized" the "Say That Word" game show from the Regular Show episode "Expert or Liar", except I wanted my niece to say words I say, rather than showing text since I think she is not so good at reading yet. Here's what I said:
"Did (niece's name) say she wants to play...SAY THAT WORD?"
"Alright, folks, we have some really weird words for (niece's name) to say tonight."
I remember making my niece say "brain" and "zombie".
I felt lazy to swim because I was playing with my niece, but after she got in the pool, I took pictures for a while, then I also got in the pool because people kept telling me to do so.
I didn't want to join Big Brother and my other relatives talking about "school", "work", "life lessons", and memes, so I kept playing with my niece...even though my mom was teaching my niece how to swim and she is now able to swim on her own.
I got bored of playing "electricity", so, since the pool floor was slippery, I tried Krunker's new "driftkill" trick shot which involves killing a player while sliding. My niece got entertained every time I said "DRIFTKILL!". Sometimes I added "BUZZKILL!" (killing a player with a killstreak of 5 or more) even though my niece has no killstreak, and I think she was more entertained by it--every time I say "BUZZKILL!", she would also say in a mimicked deep voice, "Buzzkill!" (I used Detective for most of these Krunker games in the pool.)
My niece was playfully dropping a toy T-rex into the pool and begging for us to give it back to her. I picked it up most of the time, but she playfully dropped it back in every time. I tried encircling her with my long arms so I can catch the T-rex from a wider angle, but she avoided my arms and used the human obstacles to her advantage by dropping the T-rex behind her.
Even though the pool has lights, it was still tough to locate the T-rex on the dark blue tiles in the dark, translucent pool. It was approximately 10 PM when we played this T-rex game.
My niece was told to get out of the pool at about 12 PM, and I got out as well. After showering, Big Brother told us that he, his wife, and his daughter were leaving, and they did. (I forgot why, but I don't think it's because I annoyed them.)
I felt restless and bored to death while staying in my bedroom which had two double-deck beds and firm mattresses (which I don't like, by the way--I prefer soft mattresses), so I played Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade until 3 AM.
Speaking of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, I'm enjoying playing with Hector so far--he's tanky and super strong, both in The Blazing Blade and in Heroes.
I got up at 11 AM like usual in recent days. (I've been consistently binge-playing every night.) I wanted to sleep more, but I got paranoid of an adult calling me over for help or event attendance, and I was used to waking up for store duty.
There was no water in the bedroom's bathroom, so I showed up in the dining area with extremely messy hair. (I didn't want to get a haircut until after this vacation, so my hair was kinda long. I think I look better with somewhat long hair than hair from a recent haircut.) Luckily, only the kitchen area had consistently flowing water (I didn't ask why), so I washed my hair there.
I had very little appetite, so I asked for something that can be quickly eaten, and I was given donuts.
About 30 minutes later, Big Brother's group came back, and my niece excitedly said hi to everyone. I playfully hid under a table where I remained unseen for about 1 minute while she was very close to me, until she turned 180 degrees and saw me, saying "Found you!" I raged like the Rage Guy meme.
They also brought three big pizzas, one of which was my favorite. The pizzas tasted old, though--I think Big Brother bought the pizzas several hours ago. (It's unlikely that he got stuck in traffic, considering that our trip going to the resort had light traffic.)
After all of us ate pizzas for lunch, Mom and Dad hosted "Pinoy Henyo": a word-guessing game where a word is stuck on one's forehead and that person has to guess the word by guessing categories while another person says "oo" (yes), "hindi" (no), or "Pwede" (possible). For example, the guess "Tao?" (Person?) would result in an "oo" if the word is "Duterte". The time limit was 2 minutes.
My younger brother got his word right in just 17.64 seconds.
I didn't get my word right in time, which was "cellphone". My closest guess was "smartphone", which I guessed on a whim after asking if the word has something to do with electricity.
I took a photo of my youngest uncle making a "My Brain is Full of Fuck" face while struggling to guess his word, but I can't show it, again, for privacy purposes.
All I remember next is, I saw my niece swimming again, so I dived into the pool, even if the shower wasn't working. (i don't know how to dive...or flip) This time, it was only me, my niece, and her mom. My niece threw her toy T-rex around again, but this time, she wasn't throwing behind her where I would have difficulty reaching. Instead, she would sometimes throw a long distance, and I acted like a goalkeeper to catch it before it hits the water. I caught it about three times, but I mostly failed. I even got hit on the forehead and it hurt--that plastic toy is hard with pointy edges.
I then thought of the movies I saw where characters are able to keep their eyes open underwater, and I tried it myself. It's not as painful as I thought it would be, but it didn't really help me look for the T-rex because I can only go for up to 3 seconds with my eyes open underwater. (I used to be scared of dipping my face underwater as a kid because of the fear of water getting in and hurting my eyes badly.)
I think she was a bit more entertained with Krunker this time, where I still used Detective and said "DRIFTKILL!" and "BUZZKILL!" Sliding was easier in the daytime since I could see the slope where the water gets deeper.
At around 3 PM, Big Brother called us out of the pool to prepare to leave--we're supposed to leave the resort at 5 PM. My niece and I didn't want to leave; she cried and her mom comforted her by saying they can stay longer, while I felt lazy to get out of the pool and move around doing "important things"; my sleep was terrible.
At around 4:30 PM, we finally got out of the pool, took showers, and prepared to pack our things. I didn't bring a lot of stuff with me, so packing my stuff was easy, but one of my older uncles pointed out that I forgot my pajamas that were hung on the side of my bed. Lifting everything else was a big chore, considering that my sleep was terrible and the sun hit me directly while carrying heavy loads downstairs.
In the car trip going home, I fell asleep around 60% of the way. However, due to the light traffic, when I opened my eyes to check our location and determine if I can sleep longer, we were already on our home street--just in time for waking up.
I felt super groggy and refused to do chores other than lifting one load and helping Dad park the car. After that, I just stayed in the store on a voluntary late-night shift that Mom didn't know about until the next day.
I got 4 customers, which was unusual yet amazing since I almost never get customers during late-night shifts.
(After working on my team for Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee! during a late-night shift, I fell asleep at 6 AM. I got NO customers, despite my prediction that early-bird customers would come on their way to work or school. All I got was a flashlight-holding barangay tanod (village guard) asking me why I'm still outside the house.)
Oh, by the way, on the day I wrote this, I slept at 4 AM after working on my Warcraft III map and binge-watching Paul Joseph Watson.
yeah, my lack of sleep shows in the horrible quality of this post (intentional bad grammar)
Update: My Hytale play style PART 2 is coming this Saturday.
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