Before Friday last week, I only had one purple stamp in my passport.
It was a straight line of curvaceous Arabic wordings. Perhaps the sentence that formed out of those curvatures was a direct translation of that utterly mind-boggling sentence hanging on top of the Arabic words: NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL TO IRAQ.
It has been imprinted on the very second page of my Philippine passport since I got it three years ago, in Davao City, and for three years I have been wondering why in the world would I be banned from traveling to Iraq. But it didn't matter, actually, because I wouldn't want to go to Iraq anyway.

...and because I have a new purple stamp.

It was the first time I rode a bus from one country to another, and it was quite a nice experience, although I did not really get to enjoy the bus ride because number one, Ah Long Pte Ltd was playing on the TV in front, the movie being immaculately annoying, disturbing, and lame, not to mention durian fruits as balls for a soccer game (I wonder how in the world Ricardo and Brother Mike found the movie funny), plunged me into a horrific situation of having to hide my eyes behind my eyelids for two hours;

and because number two, it was at night and the view outside was encapsulated in pitch darkness.

I found Ipoh very clean. It was a nice, small city, a silent town with a busy St. Michael's Institution located at its heart; boys and girls running around in scouts attire, shouting and merry-making in the wee hours of a beautiful Saturday morning, disturbing me from my sleep. I woke up.

Nevertheless, despite all that unfortunate and unprecendented 'natural' alarm clocks, Ipoh gave me a wonderful culinary awakening, which I owe to Ricardo's and Jonas' lack of breakfast-decision-making-power. Paper Thosai rocks.
I'm starting to love Indian food.

Thiara was the only girl student throughout the whole of the Lasallian Encounter. She must've been proud of it.

The sessions were enlightening and spirit-revivifying (I made up this word). I hope to use what I've learned in every moment of my life. The brothers are so inspiring (and persuasive). Talk about having no new, young, fresh brothers for 30 years after Bro. Michael Kum became a brother. It makes you want to raise your hand and say, Brother, do you think I have the qualities of a brother? Do you think it would be nice for me if I join the brotherhood. But of course, with that 40 students in that session room, I'm sure that anyone who thought of the same thing as me at that certain moment in time would soon forget about it anyway. Never mind.

And for the first time, I finally had a proper St. John Baptist de la Salle history lesson from Bro. Mike.

Brother Mike, thank you so much for giving that single last slot for me.

I hope my newfound friends will keep in touch. I'm always online. Just an MSN nudge or an SMS away.