HOW to confirm who’s in or out when it comes to political parties?
Here’s one. Pedro will choose to be absent from a major political event if the politician who happens to be there is the enemy of Pedro’s favorite politician. But those two politicians used to be best friends. Why are they enemies now? Hmmm. It’s definitely time to write a book about friends morphing into acquaintances and strangers.
It’s in political events that the presence or absence of politicians can be misconstrued as an expression of support for or a withdrawal of support from the national politicians who are there.
Which reminds me of that day at the gym when the Abs Workout coach was absent. Abs, absent—gets mo? No worries, though, Coach. He was then preparing for a bodybuilding competition.
Last Saturday, he was absent again since he was joining another bodybuilding competition. We could have decided to chill after the Zumba morning class which usually serves as the warmup before group and personal gym workouts, but a gym friend asked the head coach to sub, and he said yes! How lucky could we get, I thought.
But once the group workout began, I started having second thoughts about the luck. Haha. Lucky for me, though, because I’m always allowed to modify, thanks—or no thanks?—to my senior moments. But the rest of the class had to do the squats, including the duck walk. The gym friend, who requested for a sub, described that group workout as “hangak pa more.”
My most reliable gauge for a workout’s intensity is not “hangak” but my kilay which I meticulously apply each morning before leaving for the gym. Once that kilay is gone with the sweat, that means the workout is as intense as it could get.
I always ask my personal trainer on what group workouts I can join for the next day since he can now assess my progress based on, hmmm, my hanging leg raises? Planks? Heaviest weight lifted?
If there’s one thing I learned in this world, it’s this: to focus on my own self, and gauging my progress with the old me as my basis. Which may not be much of a standard. Haha. But as a friend loves to say, What the heck?
A gym friend, whom I now call as the Tom Holland of Cagayan de Oro, advises other gym friends to train to failure which means “pushing yourself to maximum exertion in a lift, so that on the final rep, you either fail or almost fail” (source: Men’s Health). I can use his advice if I’m Hidilyn Diaz. I can dream, can’t I? Libre man daw ang mangarap. Hehe.
Reducing to my current weight was once a dream that I never expected to reach. Practicing the low-carb lifestyle was another impossible dream. Lifting weights was not even in my dreams.
As a friend used to tell me, Trust the process. That was her advice years ago when the process wasn’t even clear yet.
Miracles don’t happen overnight. Miracles always require hard work. One good example of this is TJ Monterde who recently performed at the Pelaez Sports Center on the eve of the city fiesta.
A political candidate also needs a miracle for him to win, a miracle that may take many years of hard work unless he’s a member of a political dynasty.
