The last week of October 2012 marked the very first day of my colleagues and mine’s job search. It was a month to go before our jobs ended. As I made my way to Rockwell Business Center at Ortigas Avenue with my boyfriend, I wasn’t sure I’d have any chances of being chosen at an IT company situated there… True enough, after two rounds of exams, I was given a letter that said I wasn’t able to pass the next process. Already stressed enough, I proceeded to a coffee shop near the building to wait for my boyfriend’s results. Alas, that marked the very first Iced Blended Caramel drink I’ve had. Unfortunately, that was the last we had at Rockwell. You may call it addiction, but I craved for that Iced Blended drink everyday after that. After a very fortunate opportunity, me and my boyfriend were fortunately chosen to train for a programmer position. You can imagine a month’s worth of puffy eyes, stress and tears I shed just because I didn’t like what I did. I was all in it just because I needed to have a job so my parents wouldn’t tell me to go home to Iloilo and to buy time in looking for a job I’d really like (not to mention I was buying time to still be able to work with my boyfriend).
I remember every time during those months of training, we always ended up de-stressing at the CBTL at Robinsons Galleria. It became the only reward we had for ourselves, tirelessly going to training everyday. CBTL became a habit since then; it became our refuge on tiring days after work, hangouts during those days when we couldn’t seem to find a place to go to, meet ups on dates or just plain caffeine fixes when my parents visited Manila. CBTL became a very huge part of our relationship with my boyfriend, and we couldn’t ask for more with regards to the great experiences we had every time we visited a CBTL branch.
After almost 2 years of caffeine fixes, birthdays, anniversaries and celebrations, last valentines, my boyfriend tempted me for a drink at the CBTL in Galleria, to which I never decline. He told me he met an interested buyer of his pre-loved DSLR camera and was hoping that I could come since it may be the last time we would be able to use it. As I arrived in the store, he told me to order what I wanted at the counter and to get a wifi password since he wanted to browse the internet. As unsuspecting as I was, I bought a drink and a cookie and got him the wifi password. It was somehow unorthodox of me to comply to his every request since he knew I was tired and I didn’t really like being told to get things. He told me to tell him the wifi password so, as obedient as I was that time, I read those 4 words out loud without realizing what it meant. “Will you marry me” As tired as I was, I wasn’t able to think straight what that was. The first thought I had was– it was Valentine’s season, maybe it was CBTL’s weeklong wifi password related to the season of love. The thoughts came faster as I began to realize he was smiling, and I was thinking that CBTL never had a wifi that wasn’t computer generated or anything else. I began to feel my knees trembling that time, I didn’t even have the strength to stand anymore, I was completely speechless to what happened next. He dropped to his knees and pulled out a ring and I knew what this all meant. I couldn’t take those kinds of overwhelming feelings so I told him to get up and never said anything. Instead, I let him slip the ring and hugged him.
That moment will always be the most precious memory I have, and I’m glad CBTL was where it all happened. For months of being married now, we still make it a point to hang out at CBTL Galleria and I think, with our baby’s forthcoming, CBTL will also be there to witness as our lives change.