Badminton Friends

The competing teams of the first Lae Filipino Badminton Association tournament.

Boring, boring, bored! This has been my sister's regular chanting. That is why she is dead bored staying in this place. It is actually true if you will not find ways to make yourself busy and entertained. I have been living in PNG for over 16 years and I realized that getting bored is an attitude, it is not a situation. I found ways to make myself active and I fought boredom which is so easy to do. One of the ways I found to beat boredom is trying to become athletic.

Although I am not a sports-minded person, I tried to make myself fit and busy by learning badminton. Monday, Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons are fully occupied with my badminton training and practices. I met new friends in joining in and made my stay here in Lae a more active one.

Our president, Noel dela Cruz has become a very close friend. He is a very patient person (to me because I am not a sporty person so I do not learn sports that easy). Other officers of the Lae Filipino Badminton Association are Wen Dizon(vice), Joel Julongbayan(secretary), Jun Tolosa(treasurer), Adenie Bautista and John Reyes (Buss Mgrs). Other members like Edna Massingham, Denden, Zeny, Sally and Nilo Virtudazo, Dante Garcia, Pol, Japheth, Riches Christian are few of them that I could name.

Things are getting better for the badminton group. We will be having a Badminton Clinic soon. This is an area where Gopal, a badminton mentor will teach kids and adults how to play badminton properly. Gopal is a Malaysian-Indian who has 3 kids that are state players of Badminton in Malaysia. He trained them all and now he is very generous to train us, too. Who knows, maybe after extensive training with him, I can at last win a game. Dreaming and hoping I can be an athletic person soon.

Sunday Group

Sunday is my restday. I usually just stay at home, do a bit of chores in the morning and attend to my regular activities in the afternoon. I play badminton for at least two hours in the afternoon then proceed to church at 4pm to attend Sunday Mass. After church, I join my friends to a dinner at any restaurant they'd feel like going. We have only 3 choices - The Melanesian Hotel, Lae International Hotel or the Bunga Raya Restaurant. Yesterday (May 3), I followed them to the Lae Int'l Hotel.

As usual, we updated each other with what happened the whole week. While dining they'd always wait for me to tell jokes. Sometimes even though I am telling stories that are very serious, they'd laugh at it (or me?). My delivery of my stories always seemed very funny for them. This has helped a lot in overcoming boredom in this place. Although a lot of people are saying there is just nothing you can do to entertain yourself in Lae, I realized there are lots of ways to make yourself fully occupied and entertained. It's just a matter of choosing whether to do it or not. My Sunday group is composed of different families - The Sanchezes (Doy, Cynia, Bea and David), the Felipes (Joel, Girlie, Patricia and Iggie), Velazcos (Joan, Shirley and Joshua), the Posadas (Nilo, Janet, Jeff, Koji and Isa) and of course AJ and myself. Bonding with my son, my friends and my son's friends keep us all eager to stay here in Lae. No boring moments, full of laughters, healthy and "unhealthy" jokes, these make us look forward to the next Sunday's dinner.