First off, Kong Hei Fat Choi everyone!  Let’s all celebrate this Chinese New Year with tons of tikoy and moon cake.  So for all of you who’re still thinking about their resolutions, this is the perfect time to start carrying them out, as it is still technically a ‘new year’ of sorts.  Only, you have to carry your resolutions out until February 14^th next year, when the Year of the Ox ends, which does kind of suck. 

So even though I’m not Chinese, in any sense at all, I filled my day with fun and leisurely activities.  Last week I made plans with Raydon, to watch a couple of movies today, which had been a direct result of my feeling antsy last week; I still don’t know where that came from, but I just had to go to the theaters for some reason.

It was a very accomplished day, for me at least; it was miles away from my usual routine here at home, anyway.  We met at SM Muntinlupa and caught a bus to Makati where we saw Bride Wars and Yes Man, chatting all the way.  We caught coffee in-between-movies and I finally got to see his pad.  It was so cool, I tell ‘ya;  oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a place of my own a few blocks away from Greenbelt 3.

It’s so cool that we still do this after all these years.  You see, it all started sophomore year in college, when we made a pact of sorts to see a movie each week for the rest of the second semester, as our calendars were freed up by lighter school load.  During the years we tried to revive that pattern but it was never stabilized because of scheduling conflicts.  Still, we still found the time to see a couple of movies once in a while, although unfortunately it was never a steady thing.

God, it’s been so long since we’ve last done this.  So long indeed that I can’t even remember the last time we watched a movie together.  It must’ve been last March, at least.

It’s always an experience whenever I hang out with Raydon.  He has this particular view on things that’s always refreshing, as his opinions on things are always of the peppy sort but still grounded on reality and, ironically enough, sprinkled lightly with cynicism. 

We agree on most things and weirdly enough, whenever we see each other, we’re always experiencing the same type of situations (not this time though: he was on the troughs of graduation blues while I’m here, wallowing in my uselessness).  The topics of our conversations yesterday flew off from television soap series to the sub-culture of the Mac-heads to the designs of cosmic alignment.

Good movies, good company and good conversation.  I may not be Chinese, but what a way to spend their New Year.