^_^ Sweet November Highlights ♫

and just like that, November passed...

Happy Birthday Parties!

• We had two Filipino November celebrants - Marlon (from the current batch) and Erika (from the outgoing batch);
• It was fun watching other international students play the "pinoy henyo" as we urged them (actually bullied them more likely) to do it - we had Samuli of Finland do it, Ellyse of Canada, Madhu of India and Natsuko of Japan;
• Everyone also finally met Jack (Marlon's Dutch bf);
• It's a good thing Marlon is a good cook as we had dishes for both the meat lovers and the vegans;
• Erika's birthday back in Bazarlaan of course highlighted the  now-becoming-traditional-practice "videoke nights" of the pinoy mafia;
• We had Gina's gising-gising! wonderful spicy coconut milk-based corned meat and green beans. the best! the taste reminded me of Mr. Adobo at the Pearl Place in Ortigas. Whew!

Never-ending dinner with friends :)

• Maecel transferred from Gondelstraat dorm here at Dorus and she had a house warming dinner with us filipino-batchmates and Tomo, one of our adopted pinoy family. We also invited Daniel of Bolivia, Maecel's new floor mate;
• We had Japanese sushi night with Tomo, Natsuko, Iren and Taka;
• Some other friends were also invited: Pragya, Andres, Gina and of course myself and Maecel;
• Bally, our batch mate from Thailand also invited us to a very hearty dinner party where he prepared a spicy curry based pork viand which Tomo also topped with beef meat balls! (I feel like I'm going to explode with the never ending eating escapades here!)

Fire Incident...

• Just a couple of days before our International Day celebration, our floor's kitchen was almost on fire when our trash bin started to burn. No one was inside the kitchen and when Marlon was about to go out of our floor, he saw smoke coming out from it so he called me up from my room;
• I went to check the kitchen and saw the trash can on fire so I decided to break the fire alarm glass in the wall in front of my room and went back to the kitchen to try put the fire off by throwing cold water in it;
• Smoke was all over the floor as the fire alarm went off loudly and the ISS team was immediately calling everyone in our floor to get out; 
• Marlon and I was able to put the fire off before we went out of the third floor and we stayed at the Dorus common room as we saw fire fighters coming in;
•  About an hour passed and the floor was already cleared however it took awhile before the fire alarm was turned off and some of the students in the dorm were already irritated;
• Thankfully, everything was okay (except our trash can) which was replaced immediately as well as the glass of the fire alarm button that I broke. Oh, I forgot, the bread toaster was actually almost "toasted" also. We only realized this a day after the fire incident when Hazel tried to use it only to find out that the entire back portion melted;
• No one got hurt in the incident and I was just happy that we discovered it soon enough that it was still manageable

International Day (November 24, 2012)

• The main event for me this month is the International Day;
• It was a time to display different products, places, cultural information and what not about each of the country represented by the students in ISS;
• Philippines' booth showed current tourism tag "It's more fun in the Philippines" and the different posters of eco-tourism spots provided by the embassy - the newly accounted member of the 7 wonders of the world - Palawan Underground River, of course the my own beautiful "8th wonder" Chocolate Hills, Intramuros and the beaches of Camiguin and Boracay;
• Local cuisine was also featured and the famous ADOBO was our choice for everyone to taste! we had chicken and pork adobo placed in colorful mini paper cups for everyone to grab. We also had maja blanca as our desert! Everyone (Filipino contingent) had an important role in the preparation - with some buying the ingredients at the open market, preparing the tin foils for the maja blanca and of course cooking the main dishes;
• For the talent presentation, the filipino delegates danced the famous "Sumayaw, Sumunod" after singing Leah Navarro's "Isang Mundo Isang Awit".