my mind wanders... on a thought of a green sunset

Sunday, April 16, 2006

To Gamble, Repent, Cook and Take a Break

I’ve been out of the house for Holy Week. For the past 7 days I was in Cavite, and now I’m back home, a little bit nostalgic.

I am officially sleep deprived. Puyat. *yawn* I have been sleeping less and less for the past 3 weeks - since the official start of summer vacation, where slumber hours are becoming lesser by the days. I can’t cope easily with sleep reduction by sleeping whenever I want to do so because it keeps me awake at night. Since I can’t sleep, the whole twilight hours of Easter Sunday I was awake.

*yawn*

It starts with the Gospel of Judas. We watched the two-hour premiere of the lost evangelion written in ancient times. It was very discreet and short, and there were only a few truths that helped us ponder on how faith is constructed.

*yawn*

I slept at my cousins’ house, the house of my closest cousins, and stayed there for Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Without anything packed for me to stay there (clothes and such) I was given a new toothbrush and the permit to use my cousins’ wardrobe.

*yawn*

With the four of us together (me, and my cousins Jerico, Dave, and Reji) we were doing a lot of stuff for the summer.

*yawn*

During the Holy days, we were left in the house and we have to cook for ourselves. We had softened tapa (I learned the softening technique from my mom, which pounded the tapa with the knife blade), mashed potatoes with sautéed corn (which I learned from Emeril Live), pineapple crepes (one of my dessert specialties), smores pie (another thing learned from Emeril Live: Chocolate Festival). I also tasted a specialty dish - chicken in cream and pineapple syrup with carrots, potatoes and pineapple chunks.

I love cooking. I told them that I would prefer cooking everyday as long as I don’t wash the dishes - I hate washing dishes.

*yawn* *eyes are beginning to droop*

*pistachio break*

In Cavite, specific to the part of San Nicholas, Bacoor, the people there visit the Holy Week show Senakulo. It is a large field known as the Ilaya, and there is a stage in which they perform the trials of Jesus, usually sung. In Ilaya one could enjoy the senakulo, the food (composed of the seasonal bibingka, mami noodles and free tea, coupled with some hotdog stands and other food stalls), the rides (there is a small carnival there, with a bit boring cannonade of shooting games, a horror train, a Ferris wheel and a few rides that wouldn’t even raise adrenaline levels to a millimetre), and the main attraction: gambling.

*yawn*

There are two games available for the gamblers. The first is the color game, known as beto-beto. It is a game in which you bet amounts of money (lowest amount is dependent on the bangkero, the one who runs the stall) with a choice of 6 colors: red, blue, green, yellow, white and pink. There are 3 cubes; each cube has one of the colors mentioned. The cubes are placed unto a sloping drop-off. When the cubes are rolled down by a person (usually a bettor) the colors that appear will win. If a color appears once and you bet on that, let’s say P10, you will receive P20 (since they will return your P10 and give you another P10 for the winning color). If you bet on a color and 2 of that color appears, you will receive P30 pesos (P10+[P10x2]). When all cubes show your color, the return would be triple (if you bet P10, it would be P40).

*yawn*

According to my very lucky brother (who won almost P3000 for the Holy Week) it yields a 40% chance. I lost a lot of money. I am a born loser - to gambling, that is.

*yawn*

The next gamble is known as the sakla. It is a game played usually in funerals (a tradition in most Caviteños) and is also played for the Holy Week (since it is played in funerals, my guess is they matched it to the death of Christ).

In sakla, there are a lot of card pairs to choose from. You could bet in a card pair, or in sets of 2 or 4. When you win, your bet would be returned to you 18 times its original amount. If I bet P5 and I won, it would be returned P90. The winning card pair is determined by the deck shuffler or the balasador. When the pair of cards appears, the winning pair is in.

*yawn*

We enjoyed going to Ilaya, mainly for the tasty bibingka and free hot tea (concocted from Lipton tea bags and pandan leaves). We also gambled, and I lost all of my money (as aforementioned, I’m unlucky at this stuff).

*yawn*

I found some interest in reading a 1000+ page book about the Fundamentals of Nursing. I now know the pulse sites, the difference of systolic and diastolic pressures, eye muscles, respiration rates and other basics of nursing.

I finished reading Reader’s Digest for March and am currently reading the one for April. I liked the story on the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in which doctors risk their lives in war zones and disaster sites to help people. I am aspiring for the job, and the topic has been a hot discussion whether I will take a double degree of try to qualify for a 6-year course.

*yawn*

Now I’m done. *drifts off to sleep*

*wakes a little bit*

Happy Easter! Ciao~

*doze off*

my mind fleeted at :5:30 pm ;