Of Graduation Rehearsals, Mexican Dining, and Live Music

Yesterday was probably the busiest day I’ve had yet as far as my pre-graduation streak of procrastinating around is concerned. I had school in the morning up until early afternoon for graduation practices. Later that afternoon, I met with a friend (brought along our mutual friend with us) and went to the Mall of Asia to try out this Mexican restaurant my friend and I were talking about a week ago. Last but not the last, we went to this groovy bar somewhere in Malate, Manila to watch one of my friend’s favorite bands.

Tiring but it was satisfying in a way that I was busy all day. Hey, at least I got out of the house after all the weeks of rotting like a vegetable.

Here’s a teaser from my busy Saturday. The rest of the photos are under the cut!

Boys will be boys, hahaha.

Um, most of my photos are of them because since I graduated late (my friends, “barkada” if you will, graduated last July) I didn’t know most of the people I’m graduating with in this batch ‘cept for these people. Hm, no, wait, I do know most of the people as familiar faces. As for acquaintances, I didn’t get a proper photo with them though because we were in a hurry to get our photos shot, my cap kept falling off and that annoyed me, tldr, mopey Anna had difficulty asking people to take photos w/ other people lol. K.

 

PART I: GRADUATION REHEARSALS

Early morning, we all had to gather round at the PICC to rehearse our graduation which will be next Saturday. I arrived late because of the traffic along Buendia just after you get down from SkyWay. I thought they were going to punish latecomers (lol), so I really forced the driver to drive fast. Fortunately I arrived like 10 minutes before 8AM. When I got there, I heard that they’re starting the rehearsals for the 2nd time cause there weren’t many people during the first run.

The usual, a dry run of the graduation happened, spent mostly the next 3 hours glued to my seat and looking at all sides from time to time. Trying to ease boredom. Usual announcements, instructions, and reminders were brought up too.

Around 12 noon, we were dismissed and told to go back to the school’s main building and there will be a class pictorial after lunch. Hurriedly went back there w/ my friend and had ‘brunch’. Went upstairs to the auditorium at 1:30PM for that photoshoot. Apparently, the auditorium was flippin empty and only a couple of people were inside. One of them is my friend’s friend who’s in a different course.

This is probably my only decent photo from that graduation rehearsal! It’s a photo of me and Kylle. She’s a friend of my HS classmate who happens to study in CSB too. Her course is different from mine tho, I’m in MMA and she’s in HRIM. She insisted we sit in their area, too, hahaha. Anyway. I think I’ve overdone my makeup here, I just realized. I don’t even wanna know how I looked like in the class picture now. 😞

I was wearing a casual corporate outfit here. I liked how I looked despite how uncomfortable it was for me to move around. I changed my top to a graphic tshirt right after lol.

More photos of the boys.. Hrr, I just shot photos away just to say I took something. I kinda wanted the class photoshoot to be done already cuz I wanted to leave and get the school part of this day over with.

After this class pictorial, we had to go a couple of floors down to have our photo taken (wearing the graduation toga) for our transcript. Holybejeesus, we were greeted by a growing queue of students waiting for their turn to have their photo taken. We lined up but gave up after 30 minutes because that line was just ridiculous. Ironically, as soon as we left our spot in that snake of a line, it started moving up until they were able to entertain everyone who patiently lined up. Ugh.

Whatever. There’s always the week when we return the togas to have our photo taken. So Andrew and I headed to Clarizze’s house so we can finally hangout and eat at this Mexican resto we’ve been talking about for weeks.

 

PART II: CONDO TIEMZ

Stayed a little bit longer in Clarizze’s loft because there’s so much to do in there! Play with her dog, look at trailers of upcoming films and TV series on her awesome computer, gossip =)), and make fun of this guy. HAHAHA JUST KIDDING DREW LOLZ. Each time spent in her room is koality, I tell ya. 😛

I left most of my stuff in her condo because there’s no way in hell I’m bringing my graduation toga to the bar tonight.

 

PART III: AN UNEXPECTED MEXICAN DINNER

Finally we arrive at MOA after pulling ourselves out from the condo. Before we had early dinner, we went around the Cyber area of the mall to check out their gadgets on sale. I was hoping I’d see the camera I’ve been eyeing for many months now in person but they didn’t have it on stock. Ah well.

Mexicali is where we had our dinner. I was excited to eat something Mexican after 3 days of just having Taco Bell. I was excited that it wasn’t Taco Bell for a change!

Our orders finally arrived while we were busy taking photos and laughing from inside jokes inside the resto. It felt like we were the only noisy customers there. Lol, as always. What else is new?

I don’t really remember the name of our orders and just rely on what I see from my google search. If the photo is similar, I just assume that’s the same thing too.

I realized that I forgot to take a photo of my order when my plate was nearly empty. I didn’t like what I ordered, tbh lol. It smelled funky and tasted really different. Far from my expectations. Ah well, it’s a good thing I didnt’ get to take a photo of it. But it was a Arroz Ala Cubana that I got. Solved my problem by trading food with my friends. I traded the beef part for Drew’s tacos and took half of Clarizze’s burrito. We couldn’t really finish our orders by ourselves so it was a good deal. I kept the bananas, they didn’t want it eh.

For my first time in Mexicali I would give it a 2.5/5 rating. I probably just ordered the wrong dish. I was expecting the burrito to be, hmm, tasty at least. But it was drowned in onion and tomato. Lol. It was a BEEF and CHEESE burrito. I liked the white dip tho. Their prices are alright, too. Not too expensive nor cheap. Just right in the middle. Maybe I will come back, but for now, I better stick with a “Mexican” (inspired) resto I know best.. Taco Bell. 😛

Moving on… after our Mexican dinner, we roamed around the mall until we had to go our separate ways. Few hours later we’ll be heading to the bar to watch Fuseboxx!

 

PART IV: FUSEBOXX @ 1951

It’s my first time to go to this music bar in Manila called 1951. In a nutshell, it’s the old Penguin bar in a new name. I like how cozy it is for me and not too crowded and mainstream, hahaha. Got pulled in by Clarizze to watch Fuseboxx with her. They’re the only band I seem to be watching a lot live nowadays because I only go to gigs when she invites me to. On my own I really don’t feel that active in the scene anymore to attend that many shows of bands I like unlike 5 years ago when I used to follow Pupil on their every gig as much as possible. 😛

Ah well, I guess I’ve outgrown it, but once in a while I definitely want to relive those moments, hence coming with her to every Fuseboxx gig she wants me to, or shows of other musicians are okay too!

1951 music bar is awesome. They have a cozy atmosphere, a happy and humbling crowd, yummy (looking, because I didn’t order anything aside from the usual cheese sticks) food and guhreat must-listen-to bands! The place is also located in the part of Manila that seems to be somehow nostalgic, and it’s close to school, too! Hope to be back there soon.. I’d like to try their pizza and perhaps order some cheese sticks to-go. Lol.

Back to the band, if you love prog then you gotta try listening to some of Fuseboxx songs. I’ve yet to memorize most of their songs but I already have a couple of favorites.

Notice that there are artworks posted on the walls in the photos above? The bar also doubles as a place where you can setup art exhibits and sell artworks! I took a photo of some that I like but I have absolutely no idea who the artists behind these works are. So sorry. 😞

All photos in this post were shot using a Leca D-Lux 3. Don’t really like this camera but it’s the only light camera I can find around the house, and this belongs to my dad. My Canon A640 is not really in the best working shape anymore. 😞 I wanna upgrade my digicam soon, hehe.