gotta love globe

verbatim: Globe Advisory: Globe Bangon Pinoy is one with our valued subscribes who were affected by Ondoy and Pepeng. As our way of helping, we are waiving your 1 month subscription fee. Rebate will be posted on your November bill.


thank you, globe!

i just wish it's the entire one month bill and not just the subscription fee... heheh is it too much to ask ?

she

i watched notting hill a couple of weeks back. it reminded me that i used to love this song...

SHE - Elvis Costello

She

May be the face I can't forget

The trace of pleasure or regret

May be my treasure or the price I have to pay

She

May be the song that summer sings

May be the chill that autumn brings

May be a hundred different things

Within the measure of a day

She

May be the beauty or the beast

May be the famine or the feast

May turn each day into a heaven or a hell

She

May be the mirror of my dreams

The smile reflected in a stream

She may not be what she may seem

Inside her shell

She

Who always seems so happy in a crowd

Whose eyes can be so private and so proud

No one's allowed to see them when they cry

She

May be the love that cannot hope to last

May come to me from shadows of the past

That I'll remember till the day I die

She

May be the reason I survive

The why and wherefore I'm alive

The one I'll care for through the rough in ready years

Me

I'll take her laughter and her tears

And make them all my souvenirs

For where she goes I've got to be

The meaning of my life is She

She, oh she

(from http://www.stlyrics.com/)

we are @ shutterfly

i know i'm maintaing way too many sites (i have blogger, fb, flickr and shutterly) than i can manage ... wahahaha...

but i love this site... it houses and will house all of our online pics and videos.

please visit if you have time http://jolen.shutterfly.com/

bilingual kid

i thought i'll be raising a bilingual kid. i used to think he'll be having english as his primary language.

but im wrong.

well, initially, we spoke to him in english. the first words he knew were english. but after i had a yaya and got back to work, he kind of switched to having tagalog as his primary language.

the things he usually say in english are now being said in tagalog. rain is now ulan. water is now tubig. light is now ilaw.. and a whole lot more.

sometimes he's taglish but more often, he speaks in tagalog.

have no problem with that. i'm just worried that it might affect his confidence while interacting with english speaking kids / adults.

i have witnessed a few times when he wasn't able to answer some questions because he doesn't seem to understand it because it was asked in english.

hmmm...


just then, aquim said, awesome!


we can still do it! hehehehe

22

i just spent near 22 hours at the office. hayy... muntik ko ng mabilang ang mga curtain beads na to hehehe

when i got home, pagising na si aquim. i thought aquim wont let me sleep. but luckily i was able to shoo him off hehehe

when i woke up, its way past lunch time. i still thought of reporting back to work today. i was telling aquim, i miss him because we werent able to play last night. told him i only came back this morning. of which he replied, "me meeting ka?"

hehehe

i replied, yeah.....

and decided not to report for work today :)


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kulet ni aquim

ang kulet ni aquim ngayon. ibang level na talaga.

marunong na siyang mang-amba ng palo.. at marunong na ring mamalo. di ko alam kung san nya natutunan. before, i have no worries kung isasama siya sa ibang kids kasi kahit na awayin siya ng ibang kids or me hinde siya magustuhan with his playmates, i know na he wont hurt them. pero ngayon, tsk.

pag naman kinakausap mo, kung makikinig, kasi parang nabibingi na rin siya, hehe.. parang effort talaga to get his attention. so yun nga, pag kinakausap ko siya at sinesermunan, opo naman ng opo at parang ambaet bait. pero wala pang 5 segundo, nakalimutan na nya ang ini-opo nya.

ganon daw talaga ang mga bata....

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pregnancy issues?

eversince i gave birth to aquim, i've never gained my pre-pregnancy figure back. i dont know. in fact, im much heavier and fuller now compared to my immediate post pregnancy weight and figure.

pregnancy really alters one's entire life.

during my pregnancy i had probems with my knee. after sitting or standing a lot, i found it hard to walk. i though it was prolly because my knee can no longer support my weight (i was 154lbs at my heaviest, @ 38 weeks). but two years after giving birth, still have the knee problem.

after giving birth, i had problems with my back. right on the middle of my spine. i still have it now. hayy...

pregnancy? weight gain? (old) age? all of the above?


sigh.

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pano ba maging manager?

during one of my kpi discussions this week, i was asked by this question. of course, everybody wants to be somebody someday. and so somehow, it crossed his/her mind, that he/she somehow sees her/him self as a manager.

im not sure what made him/her ask that question. im not sure if he/she sees that im having a great time being a manager. or that it seems to be an easy job. or maybe he/she think that im earning big time, yet im doing nothing. or maybe nga naman, syempre, we all have to move on and this is one career he/she wants to pursue. anywya, i dont know the answer cause i didnt ask.

so pano nga ba? i dont know. i didnt plan to be one. haha, that's the irony of it. with regards to how i should run my life, i dont have a plan. oxymoron noh? nasa management line ako, pero wala akong plano sa buhay ko. yup, i live each day as it come. short term planning, meron. pero life's road map. wala.

anyway, going back to that question.

i dont have an answer. i just told her/him the realities of being a manager, in my own honest and humble opinions and based na rin siguro sa aking skills and knowledge and experiences.

and i thought, i can best explain it to her by comparing my experiences as a project manager and as a functional manager...

as a project manager, i can say that i have clear objectives and deliverables. and feeling ko mas in-control ako sa mga pangyayari. i can plan. if there would be adjustments, i can prettily adjust and adapt to it.

i don't have to worry about the career of my team, or their personal and professional development. i dont need to rate them subjectively. i can establish metrics that we can all agree on, in black and white. if there would be gray areas, very minimal na lang.

if there would be someone that doesnt seem to fit in within the team, i can always ask for resource replacement.

but as a functional manager, it's hard to plan for their individual career development. i have to strike a balance between management's objectives and priorities versus my team's necessities and concerns.

i can plan, of course. but the risks/dependencies involved are much broader than managing a project team.

expectations on me as a manager both by the management and my team's end are somewhat undefined and gray. not unlike in project management that the end goal is simply deliver the project, on time, within the budget and with agreed requirements.

in project management, i dont have to please anyone. i just have to deliver. as a functional manager, i have to learn soft skills. i have to see through people. i have to listen. i have to be emphatic. the development of one is different from the other. how one sees things maybe conflicting to the other.

i thought, mas madali maging functional manager. cause there'll be no pressing deadlines. less stressful. i can go home early. i can take a leave anytime i want to.

i dont know if i have to be thankful pero my team pretty knows what they want. they're intelligent. smart. adaptable. i think ako pa nga ang natututo sa kanila. really.

often times, i doubt my capabilities and skills in managing my team. i feel like im not contributing to the team. as much as i can, i try to get their inputs so that i can improve.

all i know is, much like parenting, there is no exact formula in managing a team, functionally. people are different from each other, just like offsprings. so i have to learn in stride. adjust and adapt to each one of them.

i dont know. im still young on this position. siguro masasagot ko rin ng tama ang tanong nya, in-time.


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old photographs

i posted before that i will scan old pics to preserve them. i happen to have some scanned a couple of weeks ago. and here's one of them.

Click here to view the picture larger and to view more

i just wish i still remember each one of them, but sad to say, i dont. come to think of it, i really didnt know each of my classmates back then, atleast from kindergarten to grade 3, i dont really remember them anymore. from grades 4 to 6 till highschool, i know i knew them but i just forgotten their names. maybe because of the anaesthesia... weheheh

btw, old photographs is one song i like. it's by jim capaldi.

"Old photographs and places I remember

Just like a dying ember

That's burned into my soul

Even though we walk the diamond-studded highways

It's the country lanes and byways

That makes us long for home"

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ala korente

hay nako. after ng ulan at baha, brownout naman. ano nga ang SLA ng meralco on power interuptions?

since i was on leave (due to ondoy) for about a week, i often stayed late at office this past week. to catch up on hundreds of email and deliverables.

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this was 9pm inside our office. still had a lot to do but had no option but leave. the generator was not available,i think. or used up na.

had to use the stairs from 5th down to the ground. buti na lang medyo matapang ako that night. was able to veer away the stories about mumu from my mind while walking alone. hehehe

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at the ground floor, ang dilim!

buti pa ang jade palace, me kuryente! sus!

sabi ko ke jason, i hotel naman nya kami hehehe to make us comforable at night. ang hirap kayang magpaypay. wag naman sana dito heheheh :)

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ondoy casualty

here's mine. i know this is nothing compared to the losses most of our kababayans had. but this is given to me by jason. wasn't able to water it for 6 days. when i got back, it's already withered.

it's still with me. most of its leaves have fallen, but there are some that still looked fresh. sana mabuhay pa.

street parteyyyy

ondoy cant stop me from celebrating my big day! hah! good thing power was resumed around lunch time that day. jason, aquim and i went to sm taytay to buy foodies: goldilocks cake, max's chicken, pansit canton and shanghai, nestle extreme rocky road ice cream. winner!




celebration amidst chaos. one of the best i had, so far. the celebration is not only because it's my birthday, but also to thank God because we are all okay, and to have some fun. we all need the break, we were all stressed out because of the flood, tired because of everyday house clean up, cooking for everybody...

party people...

even if we were not able to celebrate my birthday in bohol, my birthday was surely a blockbuster! :)


cheers!


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still ondoy

jason had a tan. hehe he got that when he went out to buy aquim's milk. o diba, told you it was like were on bohol. funny, his tan lines were from the sando that he was wearing and the sando was somewhat tabingi hahaha, panget!


when the kid evacuees that we had went home, aquim said, ay wala na ko playmates.


the thing that i asked my yaya to save from my parents house were the pictures! hehehe i painstakinly dried them off on the first night. hah! we can always buy new furnitures and appliances and clothes. but those pictures, priceless. i will definitely scan them every weekend.



when our evacuees first got in our house, i asked them to wash and clean up on the bathroom and afterwards, poured alcohol on them. hehehe i can just imagine the germs that went with them.


it was nice eating meals together. we were all eating and sharing meals togehter during the entire ondoy thing. from sep26 til sep30. sarap kumain, nakakamay at nakatayo.



when i got back to work on october 1, nakakapanibago. i thought tumigil ang mundo dahil kay ondoy. hinde pala. patuloy ang pagikot ng mundo. ang mga sinalanta lang ang tumigil ang mundo... more like bumagal ang ikot ng mundo.


there's still a lot to be thankful for. for one, everybody is safe in our family and friends and neightbors and loved ones. some of my family members got hurt during ondoy and clean up, but still that's okay.


generall, there were casualties, lives and properties lost, of course, but i think, statistically, still minimal.


glad that it happened on a weekend and on day time. even if we had too little time to save our belongings and properties, had we had on any other day, the result could be much worse that it is.


still.... my hearfelt sympathy to those who were greatly affected by ondoy. let's just pray.


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pahabol, notice those disposable plates and utensils, plastic water bottles that were used by the evacuees on evacuation center? they were all over the place.


we all should have learned our lessons by now.

post ondoy

this is our apartment. the tenants on the 1st floor were also flooded even if our building is somewhat elevated from the road.



there goes the garbage, that wasnt everything. that's just one fourth of the total waste from my parents house.

2nd hand brand new motorcycles. would they be on sale?

the garbage that were trapped on mmda's fences. tsk. those concrete barriers went off their line. they flood's current were able to take them off their places.

ondoy day 3

by this time, our food and water supply were almost empty. and since it was no longer flooded on most of the areas, we drove around. hee.. no pictures, i forgot to bring the cam and i was holding aquim.


some areas were still flooded. garbage was everywhere. we saw the markings of how high the flood was to some, about 5 feet, i guess. saw the oil spills, don't know where it came from, but it was all over the road, the bridge, the walls. saw the stranded cars, even saw a truckload of pigs in the middle of the highway, stucked since day 1. broken glass walls of banks and other buildings.

at the groceries, people are panic buying for the basic supplies. water, noodles, candles, and other easy to prepare, no need to cook foods.

here's the basketball court in front of our house. imagine that mud inside your house.

neighbor who has rice-selling business got his 150 sacks of rice wet. there goes his money. his face really looked miserable.

our old trusty wooden sofa (?). ang galing talaga, didn't swell even if it was submerged in water. those were more than 30 years old.

by mid noon, there were relief goods being distributed by dswd. jason and i went in line. we were particulary eyeing the water they they will give. 2 truckloads full of goods parked infront of our baranggay hall. 5 minutes the line was already that long.

apparently, those 2 truckloads of goods were not meant to be solely distributed to our subdivision. only one third of the contents of truck #1. we were not able to get anything. boo hoo!

still no power supply and unstable cellphone signal.

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ondoy day 2

we all thougth that the flood will subside the next day. i was still hoping that we would be able to make it to our flight to bohol. huh! talk about wishful thinking..

woke up still flooded, same level, same current.

one thing that bothered me most when we lost power was soon we will be going to have water shortage. we lost power on day 1, early in the afternoon. after that, we had unstable cellphone signal. grabe, we really felt deserted and totally disconnected. the apartment depends on the water pump for water, since there was no power, and a lot of people on the building using the water, gosh... we'll all soon stink.

and we also have no more potable water to drink. the water delivery failed to make it to our house yesterday. for our evacuees (and for me and daddy), we boiled the tap water and have it as our drinking water. aquim still have 3 gallons of distilled water. but his formula is now down to 3 preparations already.

here are some of the evacuees.

and some more... (that's my tatay! heee)

3 of our family members were not able to come home yesterday. one of my cousins, together with his classmates checked in to a hotel/motel. chipped in to be able to pay the motel, they didnt had dinner. one went with her officemates. the other one was stuck in robinsons galleria. they were able to come home safe sunday afternoon, after the flood has subsided.

parent's house's compound.

everything is either floating or under the water.

we and our evacuees had noodles, some bread, coffee for breakfast. for lunch, i think it was corned beef again.


this is a mini subdivision inside our subdivision. they were safe from flood!!! the rest of the subdivision was flooded and covered with mud, while inside this village. it was still all green. makabili nga dito ng lote heee this is where we parked our cars. actually, it was also flooded here, about kneedeep when the flood was neck deep on the road.

after lunch, jason decided to brave the flood to buy aquim's milk. here he is on a big basin, 20 pesos fare.

later that day, the water eventually subsided and our evacuees went off one by one to clean up their own houses. however, they still left most of their belongings to our house.

even my parents started to clean up their house. still no power, no cellphone signal.

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bohol major bummer - ondoy day 1

huh!

the bohol bummer i posted days ago is nothing compared to ondoy. a day before our trip, there goes ondoy. kenes!

we were not able to go to bohol, swim and see the chocolate hills, instead, bohol went to us! water and mud! hayyy....

woke up last saturday thinking it would be just an ordinary rainy day. though there was already an ankle deep flood on our street, still thought that it'll go down in a few hours. with that, i decided to take the morning off.

hala, a few hours ago, the flood rose to knee deep. we still thought it was okay. no one was panicking or thinking about putting up the appliances. even me, my husband and kid, were still having fun looking at the flood, enjoying the splashy-splishy of raindrops on our face.

and then the flood changed it color to somewhat muddy-like. we witnessed how the mudlike water slowly entered our road.

in less than an hour, the water rose. and rose and continued to rose.

next thing we knew, everybody's busy on salvaging the appliances, clothes, anything that can be saved.

told you bohol went to us. banana boat, ondoy version.

we asked our yaya to help out our parents on putting their things up and/or bring their things up to our house.

that's the last pic i was able to took. because after this, we saw our neighbors, a mom and her two kid braving the flood. mind you it was no ordinary flood because it has a strong current. hubby saw them clinging to the grills on the sidewalk opposite our apartment unit.

jason went down and let them in the compound. we let the kids clean up and changed their clothers. the kids were crying. their parents went down again to save some of their belongings.


we live in a 3-storey, 12-door-apartment building. 4 units per floor. the ones on the 1st floor also evacuated. the units on the 2nd and 3rd have their own evacuees (except for 3 units, they didnt budge to open their doors).

my parents and aunt's family stayed with my sister's on the 3rd floor. my lola on the 2nd floor of my other aunt's house.


ours had 3 kids and 5 adults. aquim was delighted to have playmates.

that night, we all shared sardines, corned beef, salted egg and leftover tocino and fried bangus. ayos.

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i belong!

wahahaha.. me facebook na ko! heee....

can't believe it. naku, SEO ang me kasalanan neto! heee

see you there!

1 pa lang friend ko wahahaha..

how pathetic!

wahahahaha!!!



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