"it's sometimes better to be lucky than good."

i decided to start my entry with that quote simply because i have been riding on luck for the past couple of days. with the strongest typhoon to have a direct hit in metropolitan manila in 11 years still reeling from everyone's minds, my family and i have been fortunate enough (read: lucky) to recover from it faster than most people. i don't know how else to recount what actually went down, so here's a day-by-day recollection of events during the storm and its aftermath:

wednesday night, septmber 27th: coming off a three-day respite from work, i was scheduled to resume my duties on my usual schedule at 2:00 AM (technically thursday). i already had an idea that the typhoon will hit the metropolis on thursday morning, but i had no second thoughts of not reporting to work that night so i reported to work as any other day.

thursday morning, september 28th, 6:30AM: it's my lunch break. ever since arriving at the office, i had updates on the storm on my PC and learned that metro manila will be in the direct path of the storm, with the eye passing by the southern areas (las pinas and paranaque, specifically the bicutan area) at around noontime. i accompanied a colleague outside and surveyed the skies. the clouds were moving fast on an eastward direction. no rain was falling and the wind was blowing like on a normal windy day. my shift ends in a couple of hours and i was anticipating (at that time, since no storm had hit the capital in recent memory) just some gustiness while driving home. i was still relaxed and did not think much about it.

thursday morning, september 28th, 10:30AM: the storm was far stronger than i anticipated. i was finishing writing a blog entry (my previous one) and looked outside from time to time. trees were bending from the fierce winds and rain was falling sideways. my boss called in (she had gone home for the day hours earlier since she had an earlier shift) and reminded us of the safety concerns for the people ending their shift at that time. my concern at that time was that my car was parked a good 100 feet from the side entrance of the building with trees and a construction area around it, and with the strength of the storm, it could be a sitting duck for flying debris. still i just shrugged the danger off and continued to finish my shift.

thursday morning, september 28th, 11:00AM: end of my shift. it never, ever crossed my mind to stay at the office and wait for the storm to pass. i headed down to the lobby as i would in any normal day and stepped out. there was a company shuttle in the driveway waiting for employees who use public transport to be brought safely to the nearest terminal which was about a kilometer and a half away. amidst the rain and winds, i looked for my car in the area where it was parked. it was still there, unscathed. without hesitation, i ran towards it. i remember seeing leaves scatter around the air as the wind blew and several trees already brought down by it. i got to my car, and off i went. i decided to take the service road since the risk of taking the expressway was that i was inclined to go at a faster rate of speed, thus have little time to react if anything flying came right in front of me, compared to going at a much slower pace. now, i don't know why, but for some strange reason, at that time that i was driving, i was actually enjoying it. maybe i was more alert and more aware of the things going on around the car that i spent almost half of the entire time driving, if not more, looking at the surrounding areas. i even counted seven billboards that were already down as i passed by and marveled at how the strength of the storm managed to topple those giant marketing structures. yet there were other billboards that remain standing. better construction perhaps? branches of trees and trees themselves lined up the road, yet it did not cause any traffic jam. my mom actually called me up on my mobile phone asking where i was. she kind of freaked out when i told her that i was driving and asked why i didn't stay at the office. i said that i just wanted to go home, period and was reminded to take extra care. i arrived home safely and to no electricity (which was expected) and that's when the storm had reached its peak and was blowing like crazy. with nothing else to do, i just went straight to bed, thankful for arriving home safe.

thursday night, september 28th: woke up in the midst of darkness as i prepared for another shift. normally, businesses would be closed but for the call center industry, it's business as usual. driving to work was also quite an experience as i saw the damage up close and personal. electric posts toppled, old trees destroyed, garbage littered, and miles and miles of darkness. it was like driving around a ghost town with no people in sight. except for a few who had generators, all i saw was my headlights pointing to the road and the debris. this time, i took the expressway, thinking that there might be more storm debris scattered at the service road. i arrived at the office and learned that two employees from our department weren't as lucky driving home as i was, with the windshields of their vehicles being hit by flying sheets of metal. fortunately, they were not hurt. stories upon stories of how people were affected by the storm filled the floor. there was a "charging station" set up for mobile phones since homes were without power. news of homes enduring blackouts throughout the weekend floated around and some of my colleagues even thought of checking in to a hotel or motel just to sleep comfortably. i thought that it was a crazy idea since it would entail spending a significant amount of money, not to mention the fact that other people already thought of it, thus making the establishments fully booked. though work was still normal, all of us had a story or two to tell on how we weathered the storm.

friday morning, september 29th: i went home after my shift and there was still no electricity. good thing i charged my phone at the office, but signal was still difficult to establish. i learned from my mom that the three-day sale at the mall nearby was still on and that my sister and my cousin went there to pass the time. since it was already my day off, i was looking forward to a dull weekend with no electricity. again, with nothing else to do, i dozed off to sleep.

friday afternoon, september 29th, 2:50PM: i was awakened with my mom entering the room and turning the electric fan on. there's electricity!! wow, how lucky can we get!! with relief setting in, i still continued to sleep. i woke up in the early evening, thinking that having electricity was just a dream, when in fact, was real. that changed my outlook for the weekend in a good way.

and to sum up the weekend, i went out to have the car cleaned up at a nearby car wash on saturday morning. luckily for them as well, they also have electricity. but not for the rest of the subdivision. ATMs were down, restaurants outside of the mall who don't have generators were closed, people were lining up in grocery stores, stocking up on food, water and candles, gas stations operating slowly therefore lines of cars were seen. i even saw people lining up behind an ice truck parked in front of a wet market buying ice! i then thought to myself how lucky we really were for having power restored earlier than expected. and i thank the powers that be for such a fate. whether it be divine intervention or the meralco people hard at work, again, it's sometimes better to be lucky than good.

that's enough for now. i'll be posting another entry tomorrow (hopefully) ranting about a couple of things that happened during the storm that just made me say, WTF? not in a funny way, but in a serious, ticked off way. i'll probably get some heat about it, but hey, i just want to air it out. until then, happy start-of-fourth-quarter day! =)