I woke up at a quarter to ten this morning. Today the family and I were to meet up at my Aunt Julie’s house for the Pagaduan’s Christmas celebration. Like my father, I really wasn’t looking forward to it. Not that I didn’t want to spend time with the family … more that we were too broke to really purchase anything of consequence for the rest of our loved ones. Hell, we’re not even buying presents for each other because we can’t afford to. The time spent with the Pagaduans was very nice. As expected, there were presents … I felt horribly guilty that I couldn’t reciprocate, but the family didn’t seem to mind … still, the embarassment lingers.

The Pagaduan’s were curious as to what sort of progress has been made in switching up my MOS. It’s still in the discussion phase, but there are some promising signs. With my credit history fairly clean and my criminal record non-existent, it is fairly probable that I would, in fact, get the job that I want. However, I am still currently slated to head into one of the Quartermaster professions. I spent some time talking with my youngest cousin who went in before I did … it’s nice to know that a lot of my assumptions are well founded. I’m keeping my fingers crossed … I’d rather be in Signals than in Quartermaster … maybe I can ask John for a letter of recommendation.

We left Aunt Julie’s house about a quarter to six to drop of Kandie-Lei at her grandmothers. I’ll be DJing for the Winter’s Solictice party tomorrow evening, the first time in years for CynCity Productions. We went a different way than usual … a way that my friend used to drive when he’d pick me up from Waipahu. Getting to Mona’s mother’s house is getting easier – we didn’t overshoot like we normally do. I used to look forward to dropping the baby off … as horrible as that sounds, I mean that in the most altruistic manner in that it allows Mona some much needed rest and relaxation. After setting everything up, we spent some time there before heading out. On the way home Mona convinced me to stop by Toys R Us so that we could pick up a Mega Blocks wagon for Kandie-Lei. We were lucky in that we found the last one there … it might’ve been gone if we had gone tomorrow as I had originally planned.

All in all, I liked how this day played out. Watched football with my uncles and pops (stupid ‘niners & saints for blowing my vision of a perfect playoff season). Nice to see the family that we so rarely take the time to go and see. I’m beginning to realize what I have in what I’ve taken for granted for so many years …