Dateline: 01 January 2018, Kawit, Cavite, PHL

Young, fruitful, bright

New Year's Eve 2017 was to be my third uneventful welcome to a new year. In 2015, I had to sleep away the festivities because I had to attend the Iwas Paputok campaign's morning-after press conference.

This emerging pattern is not a moping last hurrah for the exiting year. Rather, I seem to have begun a more reflective (and sober) personal tradition. Last night, I dressed up nicely still, went out for a hearty dinner at the nearby Japanese restaurant, then back home indulged in videos of 2017's pop hits.

This was my first pic of the year: a young pomelo tree bearing heavy fruit in my Dad's pride of a potted garden beaming in the cool bright first morning of 2018. The family held a reunion on New Year's Day at our ancestral Casa Abadilla in Kawit, Cavite.