Pop Songs, Rain, and Class

The top five of the moment:

5) As the summer ends, there are certain pop radio songs that wish will just...disappear. Here's the list of my top five songs that I NEVER want to listen again for a very long time, and when I mean long time, I mean when it comes back on those Time Life infomercials about CDs of songs from the first decade of the new millennium. Note that the songs don't follow any order.

5) Sean Kingston - Fire Burning (I will admit, the lyrics are addicting to sing to in the car just because, but it's WAY overplayed)
4) Jeremih - Birthday Sex (Real birthday sex is probably great, but this song does no justice. I'm just saying)
3) Keri Hilson - Knock You Down (This song would've been tolerable...if it wasn't played every hour.)
2) BEP - Gotta Feeling (What the hell is this song about?! Black Eyed Peas has seriously hit rock bottom with this song.)
1) Mariah Carey - Obsessed (Why is she still making songs? The early 90s version of her was way better.)

4) I am VERY excited for The Office. I got the 5th season DVD and I can't believe how much has happened. For my Office friends, here's the 100 moments from 100 Office episodes. Even just watching the snippets from the episodes, it still makes me laugh.



It's about to get ALL stupid up in here!

3) I'm still looking for a job. Acutally, I've honestly not quite been on the ball in my job hunt. I need to get back on the ball! Otherwise, I've been occupying my time time studying for the MCAT, which I plan to take by the end of January next year. Also, I'm a TA for anatomy lab, which is also cool. I don't grade papers, but I do everything else from dissecting the cadavers to setting up the practicals. It also feels weird but interesting being a part of the other side for once. The professor that I'm working with also is very chill. She even gave me a $10 gift card for Barnes & Noble for setting up the first practical. I also like helping out the students in the class. Even though it's only community college, it's still a pretty awesome experience.

2) It rained a few days ago. I'm hoping for more rain, seriously. If you haven't noticed, California has been having serious drought conditions. From what I remembered, it hasn't rained as often for a few years, even in NorCal! I blame global warming (Pretty much any environmental issue can be blamed on global warming anyway.).

From my list of other priorities to pray for, I'm praying for a rainy fall and winter. I'm also thankful that we at least have clean water to drink, bathe, and wash our clothes with. Just thinking about the other places in the world that doesn't even have decent water to drink makes our situation even more fortunate.

For some reason this point is also making me thirsty.

1) There's been so much rudeness going on this week. First with Rep. Joe Wilson, then with Serena Williams, then with Kanye West. Is this a start of losing our civility and our manners in the world? I think everyone has concentrated so much on progress and the material things in life that we are losing our ability to be civil in our lives. I hope that this does not become some sort of trend that it's "cool" to be an asshole. In fact, if it ever becomes trendy, which I doubt, I will counter with some sense of politeness and civility. Besides, I don't tend to follow trends in the first place.

That is all.

Padua Family Reunion

1) This Labor Day weekend was the Padua Foundation annual family reunion. This year was camping near San Andreas, CA. I haven't gone camping for quite a while so I was excited.

The funny thing about going to the eastern part of California, regardless of it being NorCal or SoCal is how rural and even secluded it is. All the towns like San Andreas or even Murphys were really small and has a old town feel to it. I always wondered who lives in these kinds of places! Considering that our entire family and myself were the only colored people there, I was thinking what were the locals' perceptions of us. Even getting there was an adventure. The campground was up in the mountains so the only road was this strip of unmarked asphalt that if you made one wrong move or turn, you would've fallen off the mountain. Luckily my dad was comfortable driving there and back, and I was comfortable enough to drive my cousins and Erynn around the area.

When we got to the location, I was surprised that it wasn't a "campground", but rather a house that had a big enough lot to pitch some tents. It had this retreat house feel to it because of the random pictures hanging on the wall that was reflected of the Sierra region of California and also there was a guest book of all the random people that stayed over. However, one of the family members owned the house and just lends the house sparingly to people from time to time. We pitched our tents and just enjoyed the two days we were there.

The big thing that I love about these reunions was of course family. I still can't believe how big our family really is. That the Dumos are actually a small portion of multiple branches of what is known as the Padua family. We even have a foundation to make an attempt to maintain the ties between our massive family. The one thing that's always great is the Filipino gossip and the Filipino jokes. All the talks about the family members that have passed away like my cousin who was accidentally shot in the back by a shop owner during a robbery, and the other family members that are worth mentioning like my grand-aunt from the Philippines that is able to see the dead and heal people or one of my aunties who is also in the Philippines that is coping with multiple sclerosis were also pretty cool. There was one joke that was just ridiculous. My aunties and uncles were making riddles and one of my uncle wrote on a piece of paper:

130 + 0 = ?

We were stumped, thinking that it was obviously 130. He wrote the answer. The math problem resembled the word "Boto" which is Ilocano for a man's privates. It seriously cracked me up. I guess inappropriateness runs in the family.

Also, there was a lot of food. What was great about the food was aside from the Filipino aspect, our family has a Mexican component to it as well so there were some pretty awesome carne asada and chorizo. We also played cards. I didn't lose too bad, but the pot was not that big to begin with. It was just about the thrill of the game and spending time with the family.

There was one thing that was worth posting some pictures about. It was a zip line in Moaning Caverns near Murphys. Let's begin the "slideshow":


The zip line near Moaning Caverns. Length of line was approximately 1700 ft.


My cousin Patrick and Erynn getting their harnesses. I didn't do it because it was $39 per person and we ran out of money (sad).


Erynn getting her harness.


Patrick getting his harness.


They really didn't have to pose next to the frog, but it was cool.


The white jeep to take them to the top of the tower.


The view of the tower from the end point.


The end point and the crew. Before Erynn and Patrick went, there was a boy that was stuck in the last few feet of the zip line. Luckily, one of the crew hooked himself on the line to retrieve the boy. I would've taken a picture of it, but the mom was there and it would've been a tad awkward.


The stopping mechanism.


The few moment before they were ready to go.


If you zoom in and notice the two dots in the foliage, that's them.


Coming in closer.


The breaking mechanism stopping them.


They made it.


Un-attaching themselves from the zip line.


Removing their harnesses.


The red jeep to bring us back to the kiosk. Was it worth the $39? They said YES!

The thing I appreciated was the family. This year it was pretty small, mostly because of personal issues, distance, or the future generations of the family just not interested to stay in contact. However, I still enjoyed the reunion camping trip. It's really hard to keep in track with all of the family members because to be quite honest I have never met them. Even with this reunion, I've only met a small portion of my family that is not connected with the Dumo Padua side. However, I still find it interesting on the size and definitely the stories of how they have found themselves here in the US and how they have flourished. I wonder where the next trip will be? I'm hoping next to a beach.

Till next time.

That is all.