Me and my sister prepared to take off on the morning of the 14th. We went out for breakfast with our dad at like 6 or 7 in the morning at McDonalds, and didn't leave for our journey until 8:30.
The first day of our road trip to Chicago was pretty bad. We were both tired from waking up so early, and having to travel through the eastern side of Oregon wasn't making conditions better. That result in us having to make frequent stops just to sleep under the hot sun.
Where am I? Absolutely nowhere!
A shot of my sister flying in the air.
We were expecting to make it to Salt Lake City, Utah. But by the time nightfall came, it was past midnight, pitch-black, we were at least half an hour away from the city. This was probably the worst night, because the low gas light was on, and the nearest gas station was about 20 miles away, which was pretty scary considering how late it was. Fortunately, we made it to the gas
station safe and sound. Too tired to try to proceed any further, we decided to stop at a motel 6 in the nearest city, Ogden.
A praying mantis flew on the wiper blade while we were pumping gas.
This is my final installment of my trip to Calgary.
As I woke up and greeted the Calgary morning with enthusiasm (Far Left), We also did our final session of talks at the Orpheus Theatre (Left). After which we took a few group pics (Right) and started to prepare for our way back (Far Right).
Goodbye to our temporary residence (Left) for the weekend. A final glimpse of the nice architecture of SAIT (Center & Right)
And so we bid farewell to downtown Calgary (Left) and to the vast plains of Alberta (Right)...
For somewhere beyond that horizon lies our home which calls us back...
Of course we stopped along the way (Left), took a few miscellaneous pics (Center), and gave way to our dorkiness (Right)...
But most of the time the general view would be...
A magnificence you cannot fathom...
A question as to how this beauty would come out so naturally...
12 hours of journeying seem long but as the saying goes... There is light at the end of a tunnel... and so we got back home and thus ended my little roadtrip to calgary...
A road trip. Something I never thought I would never partake in until I would be at least 21 years old.
But it seems 18 was the fateful number.
From hometown Beaverton, Oregon all the way to Chicago, Illinois, that's just about at least 2,145 miles (according to the GPS, and that's probably not including the stops for eating and sleeping).
Basically, the whole reason behind this trip is because my sister is moving back to Chicago, where she's enrolled in Optometry school and her classes are starting upcoming Wednesday, and she talked our dad into bringing me along to help her with getting furniture and such at IKEA and setting it all up in her apartment. After all that, I can just chill there, go sightseeing and whatever, then go home on Monday. Pretty much, I won't be home at all from August 14th to the 27th.
I'll talk more about the trip (and show some pictures) in the next post, which I'm not sure when will occur because I can't get an easy opportunity to even checkout AS..so just lookout for my next post!
It's me again and sharing my little roadtrip to Calgary. 2nd Day wasn't much of a spectacular event, no significant nature pics to flaunt but to document the whole trip I must share these as well...
My second day at Calgary started out early, at 6:30 in the morning early. There was a little sportsfest going on in the morning and so we played. There were no pics of the events since I was too busy playing soccer, in which I got injured.
I was the goalie and as I was diving for the ball another player attempted to kick it in. Turns out my hand got kicked instead of the ball. So I went about my day with my sore right ring finger. I wasn't even able to clench my fist at all.
Anyways, once the sportsfest was over it was time to get serious with the talks...
We had four sessions worth of talks, this was one of them. The pic on the right was a very notable quote. There was another one that goes something like People are not lazy. They just have impotent goals. Goals that do not inspire them or give them hope.
Sometime in the afternoon we were separated into groups and did a day trip to downtown Calgary. The purpose of the day trip was to be of service to other people. And so we went to the Drop-In and Rehab Centre in Downtown Calgary to help out the "clients". We also volunteered to help out a clean up group that swept through the town doing some cleaning.
Left: Posing with my group mates, the two ladies from Vancouver and the dude from Montreal. Right: Waiting for the LRT going to downtown.
Left: Inside the LRT Right: 350+ delegates walking the downtown area to the drop-in center... Never had so many Filipinos walked through these streets. You could just imagine the number of stares we got.
Left: Us doing clean up at the riverside Right: After the clean up we were treated to burgers
When all was over, we headed back to SAIT and rested up a bit before talks continued...
Left: The room I am staying at... messy... Right: The dudes hanging out in the common room...
Left: At night, dinner didn't really satisfy us so we met up at the main common room at the guys' dorms and ordered take out. Right: One wasn't able to hold his hunger and sneaked in an apple...
And so ends our 2nd day... It may not be picturesque as some might expect but it was very meaningful to me in a sense that I get to help the community, bond with friends and be thankful for the blessings in my life as compared with the rest of the people that I helped during that day.
It's been a while since I've blogged for reasons posted in my blog (redundant, I know). I had a less than stellar experience before I started my so-called work day today. So, I revised an e-mail I sent to my boss proving that I attended and blogged about it. If you're curious about business interaction and have a sarcastic/dry sense of humor, you might want to give that pic above a clicky. Any comments here or there are welcomed...
Some of you might have known of my little roadtrip going to Calgary for the weekend (Aug. 10-12). Now I have returned and have finally uploaded the pics from the trip. The pics I have don't really do justice to how nice the view was along the way, but I would still like to share and give you a glimpse of the awesomeness that is the Canadian Rockies and hope that you might consider driving through the place as well.
And without further ado...
My roadtrip through the lens of my camera... Day 1...
Our group left Surrey, BC about 2 in the morning. Above is pics from our first stop. After which we zipped right on through till sunrise
Our 2nd stop was at Sorrento just beside the highway overlooking a lake with a great view of the sunrise.
3rd stop was at a place called the Enchanted Forest. I think this is a nature trail with a little bit of a fantasy theme. But Calgary beckons us and is even lighting the way
Up next was a lakehouse and heritage ghost town of Three Valley Gap (yep, that is how they call the place)
The views and antics at 3 Valley Gap...
Now here is something interesting...
below is the said tree...
Stopping once again at a town called Golden and catching up on some Zs...
And now finally we catch the first glimpse of the Canadian Rockies...
Taking pics of the view at a town called Field...
LOL!
breathtaking to say the least...
WEEE! ALBERTA!!!
Oh yeah, just an FYI, less than a kilometer before we hit this sign we saw a huge black bear crossing the street. That pretty much made my day.
Anyways, we decided to drop a visit at Banff. And the Banff Springs Hotel is one colossal piece of architecture. For anyone deciding to go to Banff, you must get a tour of the Banff Springs Hotel.
Another little info I would like to share... The tour around the hotel is roughly 35 Canadian dollars. Somehow, we managed to sneak in, tag along the tour group and get a tour of the place for free. Lucky!
And at long last, after roughly 12 hours of driving we finally reached our destination, South(ern) Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), Calgary. Once we arrived there was nearly no time to rest, we shoved our stuff into our rooms and headed for the Orpheus Theatre were the rest of our community was gathered and we basically partied the night away...
Apparently, there was a theme going on... Kinda like a previous decades theme... Nostalgic...
More dancing... and... line dancing... XD
And after all that dancing, we finally retired to bed at 2am and so ends day 1 of my trip...
Yay, it's my birthday. :D.
Too bad my whole family is working today, so I'm stuck here alone until 5:00. Oh well, I can still enjoy it. Plus, I got a new PSP, so I don't really have anything to complain about. I also got these spiffy new shoes:
I'm finally 15...but I'm still really young for a Junior in high school. A year young, to be exact. Oh well.
Anyhoo, since it's my birthday, I'd like to leave you all with a present:
Yeah yeah, lots of you have probably already seen College Saga, but it's so damn funny. Now go watch the other 3 episodes on youtube.
haha, yeah, this may be an emo entry, but discussion of what's been happening this summer's extensively close-to-home romance-drama has really struck a chord with me and many of our members. The anime is School Days TV and it's based off a Japanese Dating-Sim that came out in 2005. This particular game is famous for one of it's path ends in which the losing girl kills herself. It's terribly terribly sad...
here's the scene (the first girl is the sweetest girl on the planet, but her boyfriend is more interested in her friend). You'll see what happens next...
(no need to worry about spoilers for the anime. This scene and discussion is based on the PC Game only!!)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Suicide is not a pretty subject. I'm far from being an expert, but I am someone who has spent many many hours throughout my life contemplating the difficulities and tragedies in life. Shock and the overwhelming emotion that follows it is the worst way to succumb to the temptations of death, as evidenced in the dramatic scene above. Jilted lovers and split romance, especially after being cheated on is never fair to the person who's victimized.
In the case above, I took it even more to heart because the girl who died, Kotonoha Katsura, is the sweetest girl on the planet. Makoto is her first love and she sacrificed a lot for him, and in the end, he had no regard for her feelings whatsoever. To watch her kill herself over this slimeball is one of the greatest injustices in the world. And to even drive the point even deeper, you'll notice she smiles right before she hits the pavement, kinda as she's saying "Look at what I did. I did this just for you"... but not in the selfish "I hope this screws you up for life"-kind-of-way.
It's too sad, really. You have to live your life for yourself, not for others. Pain and happiness will both wax and wane. It's always the darkest before the dawn.
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