June in retrospect

It's been a while since I last posted in my blog. I've been really busy at work doing overtime almost everyday and I love it for obvious reason.

It's mid-July again and last month has been really crazy. At work we processed loads of letters a day sometimes twice the normal amount. Thankfully it's summer so even if I stayed longer at work I still got home a couple of hours before sunset. Then add to that the craziness over the world cup.

For the love of football


This football season opened my eyes to another facet of the English culture. At work the bosses were so kind and generous just like how we, (Pinoys) are during Christmas. No pressure even if we didn't hit the target. What's important is to get home early enough to watch the English team against the Germans as it could be their last game. Well, it happens only once in every four years so it's so much bigger than Christmas. Twice we dressed down at work and were actually allowed/encouraged to wear football shirt--but no shorts--in support of the English team.

Cars were flying St George's flag, which is the English flag for those who didn't know and you better not fly yours if it's not English especially in the car as it might get vandalized. Houses were hanging them too from their window. Shops were selling everything football or English football i.e. mugs, teddies, shoes, boots, you name it, all with St George's theme. Even No 10 Downing Street was flying St George's flag instead of the usual Union Jack.

Then I realized how football means so much to the English more than anywhere else in the world probably. It's just sad that being the inventor of the game, they have won the World Cup only once in 1966. When they drew with the US during the group stage they described it as "unbelievable" considering US is not big on football. But when they lost against their "arch-rival" Germany they described it as "the most devastating."

So much from this World Cup taught me about the English people. This is probably the time when Britain is divided as countries--England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Of course, not to forget the longest day of the year which fell almost always on the 21st of June. I wanted to take a photo of the sunset but didn't get a good view from my window in the loft and it got cloudy at around 9 pm.

This is all I can remember for now..I meant to deliver more tidbits but the only thing that lingered in my hippocampus is the b****y football.