Mijho

Mijho's Saturday at 6:00 am

Before sun was rising, birds were chirping as if the time has come for them to hunt for food, cricket sounds were almost fading, and my alarm has started blaring out. It's 6:00 am, and I have to meet up with the B club. B club by the way stands for Badminton Club. It sounds cliché but who cares? And yeah, I love playing badminton since my Aunties are fond of it and the world has given me that situation where I could never resist the inheritance of hobbies. It may sound as if I'm not happy with it, but I actually loved it, which is why I voluntarily joined the B club at school. Well not literally, "voluntarily", I mean, I did try-outs and luckily I was chosen as one of the limited member who will represent the school for inter school competitions.

6:30 am is our call time and I still have to commute for like 20 minutes or less. Doing the math, I only have 10 minutes to fix my bed, eat my breakfast and take a bath. How's that for a 9th grader? And with those thoughts in mind, I finally got myself out of the bed and started fixing it. I don't want my Mom to scan through my room and rant me out about how immature and irresponsible I am. Though that never happened, I just always think more advanced with what could possibly happen. I almost wanted to check up my desktop to see twitter updates but I no longer have extra time and I don't want punishment from the Boss. So, I rushed out of the room and looked for something to eat for breakfast. It's a Filipino thing to eat not only sandwiches for breakfast, rather a full meal with rice. I ended up eating what's leftover last night as quick as I can. Rice topped with Chicken Adobo. Adobo is one of the famous dishes in the Philippines, which I think originated during the Spanish Colonialism.

I grabbed my towel and had my shower for like 3 minutes. You maybe wondering how did I do that but I have that trick of cleaning myself up in a few minutes or so. I also have that green consumerism thinking in my mind, I mean, "Hello water conservation concept". I checked up my phone and it's 6:07. I still have to dress up which is not time-consuming for me. I just grabbed one of my coloured Penshoppe Pumped-up Tees and partnered it with an Under Armour shorts. I also packed up some extra shirt and shorts, and a bottle of water. I finally grabbed my badminton racket and swing by my parents' room to say goodbye. I knocked on the door and called out.

"Mommy, I have to go now." I said.

"I have my badminton training at school." I added.

"Okay son, you take care of yourself, 'kay?" She replied.

"Yes mom, though I need some cash."

Well apparently, I have 100 pesos everyday as my allowance. That goes to my transportation and food, if I have what's left from it, goes to my personal savings. Yes I save money so I could at least buy what I wanted to, like shuttlecock for badminton training. I get to save more when Mom drives us to school. Yes, "US" means I have a sibling. My brother's name is Jodie. We're only two sons and you maybe wonder where our Dad is.

Well, our Dad is out of the country and he has work. It was Mom who financially supported us before, that was when our dark past lives happened. Imagine a kid knowing all his Dad's misbehaviour. Cliché but it happened, and we dealt with it. That part of my life was a door I refuse to open once more. The details were cruel and it breaks me every time I remember every bits of it. I'm just blessed to have my Dad realigned his thoughts to what is more concerning; our family. And so, he worked abroad in my Mom's stead. He said it's his repayment for all his mistakes back then. If only I could ask if what good would that bring?

"How much do you need, son?" She asked.

"100 pesos will do, Mom." I replied right away. Then I rushed to the front door and called out.

"Bye, Mom. Don't forget to take your meds."

I almost wanted to ride my bike but it occurred to me that the Boss would be hijacking our resistance for the training and I did not wanted to over fatigue myself, so I waited for tricycle. We actually call it "trike", so it's not that high fancy taxi that we get to ride at urban places. This one's for rural places kind of transport.

After 1 minute of struggling from the thought of getting late while waiting for the trike, I finally had my lift up to my next stop. Yes, I still have my second ride off to school. After 8 minutes of travelling from our house as point A, I still have to ride a "Jeepney" as we call it. It's like a bus which supports at least 28-30 passenger max. Though, there's no such thing as air conditioning unit for it, because it's for rural public transport. Filipinos have a lot of potential in innovating new schemes of transportation. I'm telling you, there's a lot really.

When I arrived at my point B, I paid 10 pesos for transportation fare with the trike driver. Then, I waited for like a few seconds until I have my next ride. I had to be sensitive with my co-jeepney riders. It's Saturday so there's a few of them, and I saw one old lady whom I assumed had to get up early so she could sell her homemade snacks somewhere around the Town. There's no usual couple passengers that I ran into every school days, nor student passengers who sometimes forgets to even comb their hair. Thankfully, I have this quite responsible kind of Mom who never lets us out without a proper comb.

After 10 minutes of jeepney ride, I still have to walk a few more steps before I enter the school grounds. And, the minute I turned to the entrance gate, I saw my co-B club members sweating as I locked my eyes with the Boss's eyes.

"Get in here! What else are you waiting for?" The Boss sounds growling.

"Oh! Crap. What have I signed up for?" I murmured like the next thing I might do would probably kill me.