A busy beginning to a new decade

Today was my birthday, the beginning of another decade in my life.

I didn't get to enjoy it that much unfortunately with all the meetings, classes and thesis defenses that I had to attend practically all day. Such are the disadvantages of having a birthday in March when the semester is about to end with all the exams to make and grade and thesis advisees to attend to.

Anyway, it began with a birthday greeting via Yahoo! messenger from a friend Joanne so far away in Singapore. It popped up as I logged in. I had a short chat with my sister as well who also greeted me happy birthday.

Then I had my usual 10am-1pm lab class which fortunately ended early around 12:20pm. My students in this class always seem to be in a rush to finish their lab exercises. They obviously want to get their classes for the week over and done with and start the weekend as early as possible.

In my search for lunch, I found myself hopping from one fastfood place to another hoping to find short queues so that I can get some lunch right away but to no avail. There must be a group of students or other tourists visiting the campus today; I've never seen the fastfood restaurants so full on a Friday. Anyway, as much as I don't like their food, I had no choice but to buy a spaghetti-and-pizza meal from the Greenwhich kiosk where the fellow looked forlorn behind a pile of styrofoam containers of the stuff with no customers in sight. I decided then and there that eating sweetish Filipino-style spaghetti and pizza topped with cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella would be one of my sacrifices for the Lenten season.

After stopping by the Mini-stop to buy a bottle of C2 tea and a Gardenia Twiggy--there goes my Lenten sacrifice!--I rushed back to my office to gulp down my lunch before rushing off to my one o'clock meeting at the next building. I was late but I didn't miss much. Fortunately the meeting was brief and I got back to my office with a good ten minutes to spare before attending a long series of thesis defenses for that afternoon.

The thesis defenses turned out to be enjoyable as the student's projects were varied and interesting. It was a long afternoon however and I only managed to escape at 5:45pm--there were still some five students who had yet to present their thesis--to attend to mass.

I was really late for mass. Actually, I completely missed it since I arrived while communion was ending. Sigh. My one consolation though was that I got to go to confession and pray the Stations of the Cross along with the other parishioners who were there. (I got momentarily distracted when one of the readers read a phrase from one of the prayers as "abdominable inflictions" instead of "abominable inflictions".)

Back here at home with my parents, we had ice cream and cake (chocolate cappuccino mousse roll) for dessert.

And now here I am at my laptop dead tired and desperately trying to stay awake to finish typing this entry.

It had been quite a birthday.