Thanksgiving

November 30th was an eventful day for me. I woke up earlier than usual because my husband and I need to drive from our home in Quezon City to Makati City to attend my company's thanksgiving party. It's an annual thanksgiving party, and I think this is the company's way to honor the tutors who worked hard for a whole year in teaching various lessons to different types of target groups.

When I got to the venue, I signed in at the entrance to get my name card and bingo card. When I walked in the hall, the leading topic for conversation was about the BIR requirements. I found an available seat on table 5 and started greeting the other tutors there.

Tutor Missy and I decided to have our pictures taken at the photo booth and we were joined by Sir Terence, the training department's head. Later on we were also joined by Keitaro, one of the Japanese customer support staff.

The program started with our MCs Arisa and Ken introducing the company's department followed by the opening speech by our bosses from UnHoop Philippines and UnHoop Japan. Then we had games: the first one was bring me. In that game, the contestant had to pick a piece of folded paper and get the person described in that paper. I was sitting by the aisle, so it was easy for the MC to pick me as one of the participants in round 2. In my paper it read "someone wearing pink" so I dashed to Tutor Cess. Thankfully, she didn't hesitate when I asked her to come with me, so we came back as 2nd place. The winner and the person he/she brought along receives chocolate. One box of chocolates is given for 2nd placers, so I shared my winnings with Tutor Cess. For the 3rd round, I was picked by Tutor Ike: his paper read "someone whose name starts with M". He's lucky that both my tutor name and my real name starts with M.

After the first game, we had lunch. While waiting in line, I had chance to talk to Sir T again and took a picture with him. It was a buffet style: I had one of each of the dishes served. I got cream of mushroom soup, rice and pasta (yes, double the carbs!), cordon blue, fish fillet, and some broccoli from the beef dish. I skipped the dessert. Iced tea was already poured to my glass when I came back to our table. I had a nice conversation with Tutor Cheska and talked about some tips about teaching and how to be more efficient in organizing the lesson texts. I also took this time to have a chat with M.Y.-san, the materials developer and my trainer for TOEFL Writing and Speaking and TOEIC Writing.

When everyone was done with lunch, we had the 2nd game. The MCs asked to clear the tables because it was a drawing from memory game. We were given 20 seconds to memorize the detail of the picture. It was a picture of Nobita and Doraemon. Then we each had to draw one body part that the MC would say until we'd complete the picture. We came in 2nd place and we each got a box of DARS chocolate.

For the 3rd game, it was a quiz and each tutor from every table would answer 3 questions, then the next tutor would come up front. The questions they ask are about the company. Next was the bingo game. We had to complete one line, then the winner drew lots to find out which prize he/she will receive. I got number 7 and won a twin cup coffee maker.

The last part was the awarding ceremony for the top 10 performers (i.e. the tutors who had the most number of lessons taught in a year). There was a bit of confusion when my table and I misheard the MCs calling Tutor Nikka, thinking that they were calling me "Mika". After that was the achievement award for the tutors who reached over 20,000 lessons throughout their teaching career in the company. The first one they called was "Tutor Mika", but I was hesitant to come since I made the blunder earlier. When I was saying "Really? Me?" Ken, the MC, was nodding this time. I went up the stage and received the certificate from the boss.

Finally, a closing speech was prepared by the TMD supervisor, then we lined up to receive our 500-peso gift card.

The party ended sometime after 3 in the afternoon. My husband waited for me outside the venue and we quickly drove from Makati to Apalit, Pampanga to attend our Church's thanksgiving. There was moderate to heavy traffic in some parts since the stop-and-go policy was implemented to allow the convoys for the participants of the SEA Games to pass through first. I'm more bothered by the uneven roads or ones full of potholes that we had to pass throughout the entirety of our journey. There were only a few places having decent roads so my whole body was already in pain from riding our motor scooter even before we reached our destination.

While we were riding along Mc Arthur Highway in Malolos, I started thinking about my 20,000-lesson achievement and it made me realize how I'm truly grateful to God for Him giving me strength to continue teaching in spite of my health condition. That's when I started thinking about our group's song and the Bible verse from John 15:5.

---

"You are my Lord, you are my guiding light,

You are my everything, the reason for my being,

Your grace abounds to me in all my life

I will praise your name because you gave my life a new meaning."

-- from MCGI ASOP "A New Meaning"

---

---

John 15:5 KJV

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

---

We arrived at Church around the time for the Mother's Club to sing their song of praise. We weren't able to find the members of our locale so we found a spot in the oval area and my husband started assembling the rechargeable stand fan we brought with us. The evening wasn't hot that time, but I still needed air blowing to my face otherwise I'd start feeling dizzy. Just like any other time, I wrote down notes on the topic we learned that evening. The Bible study lasted until midnight, but the topic made me wide awake, energized and enlightened from the wisdom given to us.

We left Church around 12:15 A.M. and drove back to Quezon City. We had a slight issue with the spotlight which was installed above the headlight. The welding for the spotlight broke probably from the impact of the numerous bumps and potholes we passed by, so we had to stop on the side of the road and I had to tie properly on the bar it broke from. After checking that it was secured, we continued driving and reached home a little past 2 in the morning.

The entire day gave me a lot of reasons to be thankful for, and I give the honor and the glory to God.

#ThankfulBeyondWords