Farewell, Arian

How do you say goodbye to an officemate/friend? You can’t really do that for in one way or another, the line won’t be burned. Facebook will always be there. And so is Multiply. To celebrate, or better yet, “ceremonize” Arian’s leap to a new phase in her life in Qatar, we came up with the following:

1. Video Presentation. Jaejay and Topeng took charge of this. Our goal, of course, was to make Arian cry (yes, we’re bullies). We just have to ensure that ice cream shoul come in handy. To prepare, we emailed some of the company alumni plus Abdel, Arian’s hubby, who is already in Qatar. We got a response from Sajo and Rina and we just incorporated those in the video/scrapbook. Same went with Abdel’s. “Through the Years” was used (as I personally believe that Arian would easily relate to it) and Topeng (of his Gnepot Productions) did a good job with the editing (hindi lang pang stills, pang-movie pa!).

2. PPT Presentation. This wasn’t really planned but Daena helped us arrange this one with a little help from her little neighbor. It’s a medley of pictures from way back when, something that Arian would comment like “Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaena!” Running time is around 20 minutes so we just played this while peeps were having their snack. It was also a hit.

3. Song Number. I took charge of this. No, I didn’t volunteer to sing but I scouted for the (Videoke) Dream Team to do this. This was easy. I just considered those who sang at the Idols session during the summer outing last April (though not all of them made it because of planned vacation leave or just plain shy to perform live in a new set of audience). Dream Team is now composed of Arnold, Daena, Alou, Tess, She, Eric, Marc, Roan with John as our instrumentalist (I was informed that he can do the guitar or keyboards). Coming up with a song was another story. You see, we only had less than a week to prepare for this and we cannot just go crazy with the choice of song. In the pipeline were “Through the Years”, “Farewell”, “Count on Me” and even the Rivermaya song “Bye-bye Na”. We decided to use a back-to-back rendition of Greenday’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” and Steven Curtis Chapman’s “I Will Be Here”. It worked. For proof, just check this link out.

We kept the planning underground for obvious reasons. There was a myth before that our previous company was cursed that everytime a surprise event like a farewell party was organized, it was always spoiled. It’s by either spilling accidentally to the involved person or by plainly poor acting skills. We wanted to avoid that so we just informed the gang at 2pm on the date of the surprise attack (which was followed up at 4:30pm). Jubs was on leave that week but he made it just in time. We also connived Sherlie to YM Arian about a decoy party on the same floor. Everything went well and most importantly, the goodbye girl cried a bucket. She said that she had an idea about a farewell gift but but she didn’t expect a farewell party (which, by the way, was hosted by Neo).

To Arian, it won’t be convenient to not see your reminder emails anymore. But of course, you’re more than that and we know that. How could I forget the toothpick puzzle that you shared to us with Peng, Pao and Sacha? That was a genius (but please, don’t try to do it in Qatar for your safety, hahaha). For now, goodbye and see you soon. As the song goes, “there’s something unpredictable but in the end it’s right. I hope you had the time of your life….”