Bisdak Babbles

It’s Christmas Day and it’s a normal working day. Actually, it’s not just normal because at around 1:30PM, we received an email informing us that we’d be having a code review at 3PM.

So much for Christmas mode, huh? We were grilled with questions not only on the portions we did, but on the whole system. Plus, in Nihongo! (Again, I am glad Idel and I are together in this project.) The grilling lasted for 3 hours. In a way, it was helpful because it took my mind off being homesick.

I survived another Christmas day away from home! But then I guess I am still homesick because I’m doing my laundry right now though the weather forecast says that tomorrow’s going to rain.

All I wanted for Christmas is to spend it with my family. But since this is impossible, I’m so grateful that God gave me friends here in Osaka to help me forget about being extremely homesick. ^-^ Yesterday’s small Christmas gathering was warm and fun … it gave me a “taste” of what Christmas is like in the Philippines… thank you Osaka pips.

So today, I just went to the church with some friends. To avoid being homesick, we decided not to go home immediately and went to Mo’s Burger to have our “Noche Buena”.

Me and My Noche Buena

Idel and I were so “engrossed” with our coding tasks when a teammate approached us to immediately participate in a meeting that was never announced. When we entered the conference room, the meeting had already begun and there were four strangers conducting the meeting. I had no idea who those people were. They seem to ask so many questions to our kuya* and I could not understand a thing. All I heard was “blah blah blah te*“.

I decided to be passive again to prevent my brain from crashing. Until one by one, teammates seated on my left were called out. I then started to panic, not only because my Nihongo is very limited but I had no idea what the question was! I believe the question was given before we entered the conference room. And even if I heard the question being asked, I doubt if I could understand it.

When it was my turn to speak, I still hadn’t figured out what the question was. I thought it was very rude to ask them to repeat the question, so I just assumed that they were asking about my task status. So I started mentioning my work schedule for the current week and next week. My assumption turned out to be a thousand miles from what they wanted to know. When I finished talking, everyone had the big question-mark-look on his face. I could feel my cheeks and my ears burning from embarrassment.

Then kuya* came to the rescue and explained that my Nihongo is still not good and he repeated the question. Having been swallowed by embarrassment, I was not able to clear my head and did not understand what he was saying. So Idel translated the question for me but the problem was, I seemed to have lost every Nihongo word I learnt! Then I finally managed to say that what I wanted to say was difficult to express in Nihongo (or so I thought I delivered my message clearly). It was a relief when they finally shifted their attention to Idel.

After the meeting, I could say that I only understood 10% of the meeting (with Idel’s help, of course) and still had no idea who those strangers were.

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kuya = means “big brother”, the code name we gave to our team leader who speaks Nihongo clearly and tries to speak slowly for our sakes
~te = Japanese word which could mean ” ~ and”

It’s December already! The choir at the church started singing Christmas carols last Sunday, making me more homesick. To hold back my tears and since I could strongly feel the Christmas spirit (receiving gifts ^-^), I’ve diverted my mind to enumerating my wishes and dreams:

Impossible Dream:
(1) Be a Lotto winner before December 20, 2006.
This would definitely eliminate the very sticky financial situation my family have been suffering for years!
Also, I must win before December 20 for there’s still a chance (no matter how slim) of getting a plane ticket home. Then I could spend at least the New Year’s day with my family.

It’s too impossible though, considering that I have NOT won any lottery in all 26 years of my life. I don’t even know how to buy lotto entries here in Japan.

More realistic dream that CAN be fulfilled in at least 3 years:
(2) Higher-paying job (of course, without the need to render overtime work)
Necessary step:
Must learn Nihongo! Must learn Nihongo! Or, I could try seeking a job in an English-speaking country.

Things that I have laid my eyes on for a very very long time but can’t afford at present:
(3) Trench Coat and other winter outfits
Every time I go window-shopping, I always drop by boutiques that have those fancy trench coats. If only I have at least 15,000 yen!

Before coming here, I bought a winter jacket in the Philippines and been looking forward to wearing it. However, for the past 2-3 months, I have been trying to get rid these “dangling bells” and was so surprised to find out that the said jacket is now too huge for me. I’m happy because the struggles in fighting off my appetite finally paid off. But I’m sad because I’m left with not one decent jacket to wear!

(4) Multi-purpose Printer
(5) Any MP3 Player (at least 1GB)
(6) DVD writer

Others (but much much more important than the ones listed above):
(7) Good health for all of my loved ones
(8) World peace ^-^

Happy Holidays everyone!