Beach Episode 2024 🏖️

And here it was, the day I've been most anxious about. Honestly, I have been anxious about this day for months now, MONTHS. I was anxious about today for several reasons. On the night where I was supposed to sleep, I stayed up. And since I had terrible anxiety (and itchy feet), I decided to go outside and wear that Squid Game outfit on full display.

I went to Starbucks on 32nd Street, my favorite place in BGC, and I ordered a few things. I got the Salted Caramel Soymilk Iced Shaken Espresso along with that banana bread someone has been raving about. It was kinda awkward, to be honest, as I was wearing the full Squid Game tracksuit. But I didn't mind the looks that much. Someone on a bike did shout "red light!" while I was on the way here, but I just found that funny. I went upstairs to eat the stuff I ordered and I was quickly done. I headed outside and walked for quite a bit more. I got a few looks from people here and there, but nothing noteworthy happened. I did notice that my heel was bleeding from wearing these new Vans. I have no idea why, but my heels always hurt or bleed whenever I'm wearing a new pair of these Vans slip-ons. I joked to myself that they needed a "blood sacrifice" every time I got them. I just padded my socks a bit and continued walking.

As I kept walking, I was trying to get to Army Navy to buy some food. I only ate bread and, yesterday I saw a post on Reddit about people's opinion on food from Army Navy. When I got there, I got myself a naked sisig burrito with an egg on the side and a liter of their iced tea. It was good, like really good. I liked the chips that came with them and I finished it all while watching some YT videos on my phone. After that, I walked around for a bit before deciding to just head home. I did some final packing before preparing to leave for my team building. I booked a ride to Festival Mall, Alabang, and started my journey.

When I got there, I ended up on the wrong side of the mall and walked a fair bit to the front of the mall. I met up with a few coworkers while waiting there. I greeted new people that arrived and our group just waited for a bit and joked around. Someone asked what happened to my eye and I didn't notice that it was bloodshot. Like from The Grudge movie. I had stayed up for a long time without sleep but I didn't know that it'd affect my eyes. I was surprised, but I shrugged it off. The van was a bit late in its arrival and they told us that we would have to move some people from our van to another van. When the van finally arrived, we all went in and waited for one more person to join us. They soon got in and our trip to Batangas started.

We had a few hiccups getting there, though. At the start of our journey, we kind of got lost and our driver asked for some directions. We were supposed to intercept/join the north van that's going to go south so we could offload some people from our van to theirs, but we had some positioning issues. We weren't sure where the other van was. But we eventually met up at a gas station/restaurant area along SLEX. It was pretty frightening. This was the same gas station/restaurant area Angela and I went to in our 2022 outing. I can still remember the place where we parked and arriving here brought some scary memories. But whatever, we continued and offloaded a few people to the other van (but I was still in the same van). Our hours-long trip continued and we were still on our way. I played an OPM playlist of famous pop songs and enjoyed the trip. I still couldn't sleep for whatever reason and just zoned out while listening to music and looking outside. When we passed by a store that sold lambanog, someone joked to me about it and referenced my blunder last Work Together. We then stopped to use the restroom for 2 gas stations and we eventually got to Soledad de Laiya.

Trying to park there was the pain, though, because we were trying to get into the resort and find the other van there. It was supposed to be ahead of us, but we couldn't find them. We kept looking for the signs on the road and JP, my coworker to the left and the first coworker I saw, said that he saw a sign that pointed to the resort. But I joked with him and said that he was asleep when we were trying to find parking. Since I woke him up, I was able to make that joke. We eventually did find the resort and one of our coworkers from the prior van complained that they were paid 400 Pesos for paying the "environment fee" or something, even though they weren't supposed to. I quickly dropped my bag and switched out my shoes for my slippers once I found my seat. Eventually, everyone arrived and we got to talk with each other. It was announced that we were supposed to have lunch first, then the company-scheduled activities were to begin at around 3:00 p.m., and everything before that was free time. We just loitered around for a bit then one of our coworkers pulled out their Avalon board game for us to play.

It has literally been years since I last played Avalon, so my skills were rusty. Plus, I've never tried it on the IRL board game itself, just online. But eventually, a few others and I joined in the game. Our first few rounds were kinda rusty, we had to get a feel of the mechanics at first and the game had many of them. But by the time the 3rd game had come around, we were already proficient at it. I don't remember how the first few games went, but I remember someone acting insanely suspicious and acting extra while playing the game. It was fun to watch and, eventually, there came a round where I was given the role of Merlin. Merlin is supposed to see the bad guys from the good guys, and they are supposed to help their team, the good guys, win the game. Unfortunately, when it was my time to see the evil players, I quickly forgot about them. I didn't see that someone was a good person on my team and judged them for being sus, and other stuff. It was kind of embarrassing because they were asking for Merlin to help them out, and while I knew my card's role, I forgot if they were on my side or not. We eventually lost that game and they got really mad at me. There was some post-game chatter about the round and we all ended the game there, and we were called to have lunch. I kept telling my teammates and others that I forgot the players and someone remarked how I've been playing the game for a long time now, but I still forgot. It really triggered my anxiety and I felt it flare up in that moment. I didn't finish my food, and I quickly headed to a shady spot underneath a tree on the beach. I didn't know what to do. I just sat there for a bit and thought to myself. I assumed an Indian sitting pose and straightened my back, and just looked out at the sea, waves, and everything around me. I was trying to calm myself while trying to fight an ongoing anxiety attack. I gave myself some advice and mentally talked to myself. Also, I didn't really meditate because it was too loud and noisy for me. I also heard a few people say that I was praying or something, but I wasn't sure if they were referring to me or someone else.

So I just sat there, thinking to myself. I saw a rain cloud pouring a big amount of rain on the horizon and talked to myself about that rain cloud. A few of my coworkers and someone eventually came to the beach and saw me sitting on the sand. Someone and a few others asked if I was meditating. I initially said no, then said yes because it'd be weird if I told them the truth (that I just sat on the sad because of my anxiety). Then someone remarked how I was actually meditating, that my sitting position was straight, and they told others that I was attending this Buddhist meditation class. My coworkers were trying to fly a kite on the beach and I looked a bit at them, but continued to look at the beach. I initially didn't mind them until I broke my composure and talked to them for a bit. Den gave me the company shirt I was supposed to wear. Since we had a lot of time before it struck 3, I wore my black Under Armor swimming shirt and swam on the beach by myself. My coworkers seemed surprised that I went alone, but since one of them made a bet that they'd take a dip if I dipped in the sea first, I took them up and just swam. They joined me and the water was pretty fine. It was unbelievably salty, but it was good since I hadn't swam on a beach in a long time. I swam for a bit more, kept talking to myself about life advice, and just swam on my own for a bit. After getting tired of it, and since it was already 2:20 p.m. or so, I got ready for the company activities coming up. I got ready and wore the company event shirt.

It wasn't long until the company event started and we all got seated for the event. I stood up and just leaned on a table for some reason, which made me stand out. It wasn't long until the host called me out and I was asked to explain what the company does. The answer I gave was actually pretty spot-on, honestly. It wasn't the exact answer, but I got the gist of it, which was surprising. Then we were asked to line up by departments, age groups, and so on. Then we were given a numerical group after the host counted. We were also joined by the bubbly CTO. We lined up by the group and first, we were given some warm-up exercises which made me sweat a lot. Even the host remarked on how much it was. We were then tasked to come up with a group name, a group cheer, and a design for the group flag (which we had to draw with crayons). Our CTO provided the group's name, Winners, and it was a tongue-in-cheek joke about how we would be called winners by default, regardless if we lost or won. Then one of our teammates, Troy, came up with a sketch of the flag and drew it out with crayon. I just stood there and watched them do it. By the time we were gonna come up for a group chant, some of our teammates suggested an Indian song-thing from TikTok, while our CTO suggested that we do a spin on "We Will Rock You" as our chant. We went with that, and since I didn't do much for the team, I was the one who was going to be at the center and I'll be the one dancing. We performed ours when it was our turn to present and we saw the others' performances. We eventually had our first game after that, it was a game where we had to form a circle and we were supposed to pick a representative from our group. We were tied up into a human knot by a representative from another group, and our chosen representative would untie us from the knot. Luckily, our chosen representative was quite smart and the person who tied us didn't go too hard on switching us up. So we were the first group to get untied! We saw the others get untied and the host prepared us to move to the beach to continue the other games.

Our next set of games would be held at the beach and it had already started raining. The rain cloud I saw earlier had already made its way here, but thankfully it was only a drizzle of rain. We continued with our games. The next one up was a "hula hoop relay" and we had to line up, then we passed a hula hoop from the start of the line to the last person of the line, then back to the front again. It was fun, we scored 2nd place. We then went on to our next game which was "cross the bridge" or something like that. We had a person at the front of the line who would put pieces of paper on the sand and we would put our foot over them, and if we made a misstep we would have to start again from the beginning. We were on a good pace and were on our way to 1st place, but the person placing the paper (the person in front of me) took a misstep and it was seen by the co-host. So we had to go back to our starting point and re-do the entire game again. We finished dead last in that game, so that was super funny. After that, we had merienda in the form of some sandwiches and stuff. But then we went back to the beach to finish the remaining games.

The last two games were the sack race and the human caterpillar. The sack race was fairly easy. I thought it would be people jumping up and down while inside a sack, but thankfully the hosts thought about it and instead made the sack wrap around 3 people inside the large sack. Kind of like how the sack is the wheel and there are people inside of it acting as the rim/inner part that turns the sack around. We only needed 6 people (our team had 9) and we finished it with relative ease. The last game involved us going to the beach and was called the "human caterpillar." The hosts pointed to the chairs that were in the sea/shoreline itself and I joked that we would do the same sack race but towards the sea. It was our last game so all of us participated and you were supposed to hold the feet of the person behind you and hold them by the ankles. I still had that pain in my heel from earlier. Remember? Earlier in the day, my Vans were scaping on my heel and making it bleed, and when the person in front of me held my foot, it hurt like hell. So I asked to be the person at the front and then the game started. It didn't take long before we had to stop our attempt because the person at the back had their leg pulled horribly and it gave them a cramp. Needless to say, we didn't finish our attempt. I still got up and swam to the sea to join the other people who crawled straight to the sea, and we had some fun playing in the water before we were called to shore.

After all the games, the host gave us a talk about team building, delivering good results, being kind to one another, and so on. But it didn't stick to me because I was feeling something else. But we all did the team building activity which is to put our palms on a printed tarpaulin and write our dedication, or something. After that, our lead HR announced that all the company-sanctioned events were over and that it was our free time. We swam on the beach for a bit more. One of our coworkers taught us how to "float" on water by inhaling a deep breath and just lying down. Some of my coworkers found it cool that I had my glowing Ben 10 Galaxy Watch in the water and they joked that I would transform into an alien. But I just found it cool that my watch still worked in the sea and even recorded my swimming. I walked on a weird patch of the beach that had a lot of moss/algae, and boy was that a weird sensation. While swimming, I tried to swim in a specific direction and accidentally bumped into someone mid-swim, which caused my leg to cramp really hard. The pain just shot up my thigh and it hurt, but I still kept swimming. I also lifted another coworker on my shoulders and challenged people to a chicken fight, but none of them wanted to play that. We kept swimming until the beach area was closed off, funny enough, at around 7:00 p.m. Since it was dark, I picked up someone else's slippers and went back to pick up my pair after using my watch as a flashlight, which was pretty cool.

The others weren't done swimming, so they used the public pool that the resort had. After having a quick rinse on a nearby showerhead, I dove into the public pool which some of my coworkers were in, and someone was also there. I swam a bit and then the guys were asked to remove their shirts. I didn't want to remove mine because I was conscious about my figure, so I kept it on. An HR associate looked at my shirt and gave me the OK since I was wearing a swim shirt. I still felt conscious because someone called me out for it, and it only got worse when a senior employee played a prank on me by hitching a ride on me from behind. I tried to lift them, but another senior employee shouted that we get a room. I saw my coworkers laugh so hard and they kept on laughing and laughing. I don't often feel shame, I usually never do, but this one was the most shameful moment I've had in any team building. I was immediately flustered and I didn't feel like talking to anyone after that. I just swam for a bit more and kept to myself. I tried diving alone as I watched my coworkers join a group of others and they just told stories and stuff. I just felt horrible, dove in the pool to hold my breath, and then got tired of swimming then went to my room. I just dried off and changed clothes.

I felt pretty bad so I just tried to lie down for a bit when I saw that I had 2 messages from someone asking me where I was and then they sent a cute/funny video from IG. I eventually got dressed in my evening outfit and went outside to continue enjoying the day. Some people were playing Avalon again so I joined them. 10 people were playing it and it was fun once everyone got a sense of how the game went. Someone didn't participate, as they were more focused on solving a Rubik's cube, but they eventually joined in after 1 member swapped out with them. We then played a few rounds of Avalon, and it was funny because they were always on the evil team. I got Merlin a few times and I acted pretty obvious, so I was sussed out pretty quickly. I even made a mistake as Merlin because I included a bad guy in the pick which set us up to fail that round. We kept playing for a few rounds more, with things getting heated now and then. One funny remark that was made by the CTO to me was that I looked like a bad guy because the buttons on my shirt were set way low, which got a laugh out of me. Our gamemaster was also careful of the cards because the cards had been getting wet from the table, and the table was wet because we kept putting our ice-cold drinks on top. Eventually, we played the last game of Avalon and dispersed after that.

For a while, I sat at a table along with a few other coworkers. Eventually, our coworker to the side of us started dealing cards. We played In-Between for a few rounds, and every time we lost, we had to take a shot of Emperador every time we lost. I lost a few times, I remember winning only 1 round and called it at that. I went back into my room where my other roommates were. I went outside to get water, then I loitered around the people who were drinking, and then I went back to my room. I decided to call the night off and go to sleep.