The Real Thing

>> Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Hmmmm... this is the real thing!

 office mailbox starting to get full
 emails to read..
 emails to reply to..
 document reviews..
 solutions to provide..
 meetings..
 conference calls..

Simply,

 brain draining..
 chaotic..
 nerve wrecking..
 stress level to the maximum..

Nothing more to say.. I hope I could call it a day but need to get to work some more at home. Waaaahhhh...

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Happy Bday Nanay!

>> Monday, December 10, 2007

Last Thursday was my Nanay's (Mom) bday. The day before I already called to greet her and we had our usual chitchats. I terrribly miss her and my tatay. If calling them everyday isn't too expensive, I would do so.

It's been more than a month since we applied for DSL line in PLDT but unfortunately, they have lots of excuses for their very slow service (saying it will take another 2 mos for a line on our place to be available). Grrr...

Anyway, I can also feel that she misses me so much but usually ensures that I won't feel lonely. She usually talks about her weekend visit to our house. How she plans to put some more plants on the garden area and what other things must be improved.

Last night, Mon and I called her again. :) She's happy that we still called her despite of the other night's chitchat. I also talked with my nieces and I am really close to tears talking to all of them. Especially our dear Kiara. Still the ever talkative one (though we don't know what she's saying). Haha.. :)

Oh well.. days when you really miss home.

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Butterflies in my Stomach

>> Friday, November 30, 2007

Now that my first week (4 days actually) of being a newbie is almost over, I'm pretty sure what I feel is very common for those who just shifted jobs. New environment, new set of colleagues, new chapter in my life. I have mixed emotions -- optimistic, pessimistic.

PESSIMISTIC ME: nervous, quite insecure, paranoid, quite overwhelmed

OPTIMISTIC ME: excited, up for manageable challenges

Jittery... Hmmm, come Monday, I will be working on a project (what the?!--sa Pinas, 2wks normally bago ka isalang sa project hahaha). I had a little background already but I hope to catch things up fast (determined to do so) or else! haha...

For now, I'll just try to enjoy the weekend. :)

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Day 3 at the Office...

>> Thursday, November 29, 2007

is a unfortunate/fortunate for me. Just when I arrived at the office, I realized I forgot the key where my laptop is placed. :(

UNFORTUNATE ME: No choice but to go back to our place. I called Mon before coming out the office vicinity, feeling so frustrated and disappointed (how could I forget it?! It's the first thing that I took note of while I was arranging my things for the next day).

FORTUNATE ME: I came early to the office and our flat is near but I have to take the cab (costly mistake).

Anyhoo, I rode the cab and had a relaxing conversation with the cab driver. He immediately told me that he's sure that I left something at home. A fortune teller! haha.. He talked about how my situation normally happens.. that it's one of the things that makes us human. He also talked about SG being a nice place to be but the cost of living is really high. I agreed. haha..

Just when I am near the hawker area, Mon called me and told me he has the key with him! He accidentally picked it up while we are arranging things at our room. Panalo! He was already at Sheng Siong that time. I waited for him at our block and we took the cab again (Lady Driver kewl!). I dropped him off to Commonwealth MRT and I went back to the office.

Now, I am still burning my brows to the numerous product documentations. Quite hard because no hands on yet so I still can't visualize how things work. Oh well, I'll get to that on the coming days. For now, I'll enjoy my coming home early days. I'm sure if I'm already assigned to a project, it'll be OTY for me. :-s

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First Day High!

>> Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Yep! Today’s my first day at work. Finally, I am a working woman again. :) I got up a bit early since I don’t want to be late on my first day. I even had the time to read yesterday’s newspaper as well as sort some things at our room.

Since my office can only be reached by taking 2 rides (one is via 2 buses and another via MRT-Commonwealth + bus), I have to “experiment” the most convenient route as well as the right time to leave the flat. Today, I tried the first option and the travel time is as follows:


Walk from our block to bus stop 3 mins
Waiting time for Bus #1 to arrive 6 mins
Bus # 1 (6 stops) 5 mins
Waiting time for Bus #2 to arrive 1 min
Bus # 2 (2 stops) 3 mins
TOTAL 18 mins

Just that, the waiting time varies so no certainties on the time I’ll arrive at work. Anyways, I saw my project manager prior to entering the building and he accompanied me to the security area. Security is really tight so I have to leave my passport to them (but I can’t since it will be picked up by courier within the day). I didn’t bring any other ID so my PM left his IC instead. Hahaha..

Work Place

I was introduced to each member of my team (as well as other teams) as they arrive one-by-one. I have a Pinoy teammate and I met another one from the different team. Although, there are lots of Pinoys from another team (RnD) but wasn’t able to meet them for they are in another area.

Morning: My laptop is not yet ready. So what did I do the whole morning???! My PM just told me to wait for it. They cannot give me anything to read since they have no printed training materials. Haaayyy, the agony of waiting made me sleepy. Hehehe.. And then I saw one piece of paper containing vi editor commands. Good timing to fight my sleepiness and boredom (oh! And to refresh my memory since I’m sure I’ll be using it), I reviewed it and wrote everything on my new notebook! Haha.. Oh well, so much for keeping myself busy. And just before lunch, hooray for my laptop arrived already hahaha..

Lunch time:
I ate lunch with my teammates and another one from the other team (pinoy). Despite of me having a baon, I joined for I want to know them a bit better. Seems to me that they always go to lunch together. Anyway, lunch was fun for they are really makwento. We talked about the coming IT show, post-paid line benefits as well as PDA phones and the ever popular IPhone. :)

Afternoon: My teammates are still on a lunch break mode. They are still chatting with just about anything near me. I patiently waited for quite some time until my teammate gives me the resource materials. Just when I’m about to sigh heavily, he gave it to me. Ten sets of powerpoint slides, 5 sets of documents and tons of other reading materials.

I started reading the powerpoint slides and boy! TOTAL INFORMATION OVERLOAD! Hahaha.. I’m sure I will have a full dose of info overload on the next days.
So until tomorrow... Haaayy..

Now that the "first day" is over, I am really hoping that I'll enjoy my new job. *Crossing my fingers that it’ll not be super demanding and pressuring as I have to juggle between career and family life*

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Weekend Updates

>> Monday, November 26, 2007

Saturday Game Night

Morning and afternoon of Saturday is just spent to relax and chill at our place. Come evening, we decided to play monopoly. It was the most fun monopoly game I ever had. Kulitan lang kasi. What made it more fun is that Cel's Monopoly is the Here and Now Electronic Edition. Gameboard is based on London's landmark places and since it is electronic, no more play money. We are using credit/debit cards which is updated using the Banker's unit. Very nice.. really nice.. :D

Players Enjoying


Banker's Unit and Credit/Debit Card


We had two games (quite long time spent per game) and guess who monopolized those games????? MOI! hahaha...

Game 1 and Game 2 Respectively



Oh! and I am sure they did enjoy too since we had our dinner at 12:30 AM Sunday! Hehehe..

Sunday

Weekends really make you just chillax. We again spent the morning and afternoon doing so. :) Late in the afternoon when we decided to go to Vivo City. Cel and her family went there before us since the Monching is still having his afternoon nap. We arrived at Vivo around 630PM and just strolled around. Vivo city set up a 101ft Christmas tree which made us miss our families at home. Haayyy...



After eating at burger king, we decided to stroll some more. Went to Daiso for some kutingtings and saw several Chrsitmas ornaments. Cel and I tried the hats and we looked nice. haha.. of course!



We then decided to call it a night since it's already 1030pm. Upon reaching the flat, we had our dose of the delicious ice cream (midnight snack) before hitting the beds. Hahaha.. Yumyum!


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IMM - Nov 16 2007

One of the days where Noreen and I decided right away to meet. :) It really is much okay at times when meet-ups are not super planned (kasi hindi natutuloy) hehehe...

It should be me (with Mon), Noreen, Chello, Gina (with Mark) and Vivi. Vivi and Chello couldn't make it but we opted to go as planned. There's always next time. :D

So off we go to IMM (Jurong East). Met with Mon at Dover station, and met Noreen at Jurong East station. Chikahan right away while waiting for the IMM shuttle to arrive (which took light years hehe..) We had dinner at the food court where we had the sumptuous fried rice plus sweet and sour fish (continuing our chikahan of course :D).

We just strolled afterwards and met with Gina and Mark. Since it is a dinner date, kain ulet. This time, the three of us decided to have the zagu-style drink while the couple ate a heavy dinner. And as usual hindi nauubos ang chika, so tuloy pa din ;) Too bad no pics with them.

Not-so-camera-shy-US




Lapit na Christmas!!!


Kasya! Hehehe...


Really late when we parted ways but it's good that we finally had some catching ups. Looking forward for more :D

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Busy Bee

>> Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Yes, I'm busy. Busy as a bee. Finally landed a job! hahaha.. After weeks of searching, I know I found the right one (as they say, the first one is not always the right one). Actually, I am beginning to feel impatient but later on realized that God is probably still preparing me and my job-to-be. And prayers really do wonders! Days after that, calls poured in and there I get to pick the ONE. ;)

Actually, today should be my first day at work but I just got my EP approval the other day. Then, I still went through medical examinations. I got off really early but still finished just before lunch. Haayyy... Oh well, at least my first day is moved next week. Haha..

Being busy does not mean no time to celebrate our first anniversary. Mon already created the entry on this blog as well as on his blog so no nee to elaborate. :) All I can say that our first year together has its ups but we definitely encountered rough roads along the way. All I can say is that we are committed to working together as well as continuously improve our relationship. We're pretty sure that we still have a long way to go, more lessons to learn and more rough roads to pass through. It won't be easy but as long as we stick together, we can make it.

I just hope despite my new work, I could still regularly post updates. ;)

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First Wedding Anniversary! (NOW with PICS)

>> Tuesday, November 20, 2007

We had our first wedding anniversary here! We haven't realized how much we've grown, how much we've learned, and how much we had accomplished in our first year.

Anyway, since our first anniversary was a Monday, and I can't take any leaves yet, it had to be a dinner and a movie!

We had dinner at Marché Vivocity, as recommended by Cel. (Thanks Cel!) This is the first Swiss restaurant we tried -- and it's great! Let's just wait for Che to put it the pictures here (the new "career woman" is busy today.. :) hint hint). Anyway, the full review of the place is here.

Outside Marche and the guest card

Aliw table availability indicator..

Simply yummy!



After that, we watched a movie at Golden Village VivoCity. Funny story. Earlier at work, I printed out the movies available. When I got home, I showed Che the list and asked her which of the movies she wanted to watch. Jokingly (I guess), she pointed at Stardust - at that time, she had no idea what the movie was about and I had no idea that she had no idea what the movie was about. Knowing her, I knew she'd go for the fantasy flick Stardust over the action-packed Beowulf (which I was also looking forward to watch as well). So when she pointed at Stardust, I had the mindset "After dinner, we'll watch Stardust". On the other hand, she thought that since I was looking forward to Beowulf, she had the mindset "After dinner, we'll watch Beowulf."

After dinner, she called her folks home since they greeted us through text and we were touched that they remembered. While she was talking to them, I had bought the tickets for Stardust at 9:25PM. She was expecting Beowulf at 9:00PM. By 8:50PM, we went up to the cinema but the crew said that they will only admit people 10 minutes before the show. She was surprised that the movie was moved to 9:25PM from 9:00PM. I guess because we were talking and she trusted me, she didn't question it any further and just waited for 9:15PM. Shortly before 9:15PM, I went to the restroom first before going in to the cinema. While waiting for me, she took a picture of the movie tickets using her phone. She saw "STARDUST" and was confused for a while. "Stardust? Why Stardust? What's Stardust??" It only sank in seconds later that I did not buy Beowulf tickets! Hahaha...



Well, we had no choice but to watch Stardust of course so we went in. She really didn't have any idea what the movie was about so she was teasing me about our misunderstanding. The dialogue was somewhere along the lines "What made you think I want to watch this? I don't even know this movie." Good thing is, it really is a good movie, and it is the type of movie that she watches. Hehehe. :) Lesson learned: "Clarification, it's a beautiful thing." - Dr. House M.D.

The movie was finished around 11:30PM. We hurried to the MRT to catch the very last train. We got in the NE train in HarbourFront several minutes before departing. At the next stop, Outram Park Interchange, we were worried that we may not catch the EW train, also the last train for the night. When we saw the ticker sayig "Last train to Boon Lay-ARRIVED", we made a run for it. We got it just in time -- the doors closed seconds after we got in. Hehehe.. Phew!

The only time when MRTs are not JAMPACKED...


Great day, great nightout! Not the best or the most expensive celebration I had hoped for, but since we're just in the "build up" phase here in Singapore, I guess it's the best that we could hope for here. Important thing is I'm happy, she's happy, we're happy. :)

HAPPY

FIRST

ANNIVERSARY

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MOS Experience

>> Thursday, November 15, 2007

Last Nov 6, Mon and I went to Tiong Bahru Plaza to open his salary account. Afterwards, I asked if we could eat at MOS Burger. I have been wanting to eat there since I tasted their famous MOS burger in Hong Kong sometime June. I think there are only two branches of MOS burger in HK, but here in Singapore, you'll see it in just about every mall. Hehehe..

As a backgrounder, MOS Burger originated from Japan. MOS stands for "Mountain Ocean Sun". And according to the ever reliable wikipedia, it's the second largest fast-food chain in Japan after McDonald's. :)

Eating in fast-food restos here is expensive, but we tried ordering two of their meals, MOS burger with cheese and Teriyaki chicken burger. Yum yum! What amazed us is the background music inside the resto... MYMP! Hehehe.. We're sure there's a Pinoy staff in MOS and true enough, the one that served us is Pinoy. :) Aliw..


This time, I liked the teriyaki chicken burger more. The chicken used is not in form of patty so I'm sure it was not deep fried. We'll surely come back pero not that frequent kasi nga mahal. Hehe..

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Happy Birthday Ate Carol!

>> Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The day before Ate's birthday, we went to Marina Bay for an eat-all-you-can dinner. 'Twas my second time to eat there. First one was with my ex-ISI officemates (unfortunately, we were not able to take some pics haayyy.. CAMERA!!!! grrr....). Anyways, the pics will say how much we enjoyed the food and of course each other's company. :)

On the way to Marina



Bday Celebrant with David



Daddy, Mommy and Baby David



The girls with the cutey little boy



MonCheri



Yesterday was Ate's actual birthday. We had the usual seafood, spaghetti and nilaga (mejo off for a bday celeb pero niluto ko pa din haha). Cel and Neil surprised Ate with a Strawberry-Chocolate cake. We all sang to her that got her teary-eyed. I'm sure she misses her family so much considering it is her first time to be away from them. But all of us made sure she'll feel special on her birthday. Here are some more pics:

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Missin' Them Terribly

>> Monday, November 5, 2007

Haayyy.... Woke up a while ago and felt a bit of emptiness. I then realized that I miss my family so much. I miss the morning chikahan with my Nanay Malou.. I miss the small chitchats with my Tatay Danny. I miss hugging and kissing my nieces. It's really hard to be away from loved ones. :(

Yun lang...

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My First Month in Singapore

>> Tuesday, October 30, 2007

It's almost a month since Mon and I arrived here in Singapore. Time flies so fast! I was not able to blog for a while either.


Our flight is super duper delayed! Mon, Kiomi and I killed time by eating and chatting. Bonding time na din with Kiomi since we rarely talk before. We were supposed to leave 8+PM but left the next day already (past 12 midnight). Grrr... The only consolation was Cebu Pacific providing 2-pc chicken meal from Jollibee.

We arrived at Changi Budget Terminal around 4am! Tin patiently waited for us eventhough she has work the same day. We stayed at her place on our first week in Singapore. She lives in Aljunied together with two other Filipinos. First agenda after arriving SG? Gumala ng gumala the entire week! We went to usual puntahan places like Suntec, Funan, Sim Lim, Orchard (malls like Lucky Plaza, Takashimaya and Paragon), Bugis, Tampines (Ikea, Courts, Giant) and a lot more. What made it a lot enjoyable is having friends accompany us to the mentioned places (at nilibre nila kami hahaha! Thanks guys!) We even stayed for a night at Weng and Cinds' place in Changi. :) Enjoy!

Weekend came and Tin accompanied us to Cel's place at Commonwealth. Until now, we are staying here. :) First day, we were greeted by a sumptuous lunch made by Ate Carol. Nilaga! Yum yum.. hehehe.. The following day, Mon and I became more of a serious job hunters. I resent all of my emails to the contacts given by our friends. In no time, they are calling both Mon and I regarding our skills profile. Imagine, I emailed them weeks before going to SG and they ignored it. True that agencies here would want applicants already in Singapore. We even had interviews while walking (See Mon's blog entry).

Within the span of two weeks, we attended several interviews and then came the job offers. Mon accepted the job offered at SG Polytech (whew!) and I preferred to decline the job offered to me. Just that the compensation offered doesn't seem to match the enormouse amount of job that I will be doing. Mon even told me that I just try on other opportunities. After all, he already has a job and can immediately support both of us.

Week after that, I am still a bum. Preferring not to look for potential jobs on the first two days, probably enjoying cooking for Mon (and sometimes to everyone at the house), staying at home and playing with my inaanak. Then, each one inside the house started to get sick (except Ate Carol hehehe..). I was the last one to get sick. :( Another excuse for me to put off job hunting. Hehehe...

I started looking again just middle of this week. There were agents already calling and scheduling interviews. I had attended one at DSTA and oh! an adventure for me. Hahaha... I got to the place on the right bus stop. Unfortunately, entrance for that area are for staffs only. And there started my long walk. Haaayyy... Reaching the right entrance (with armed military men in fatigue at the entrance), I headed for the registration area. Btw, DSTA is under Ministry of Defence, Singapore so you can just imagine the very tight security within the premises. Each visitor must submit their passports (or NRIC for PRs and with EP). All image-capturing devices must be deposited to their lockers. The exam is really hard and you have to discuss your answers to the interviewer. I will know the result probably after a few more days since they are gathering candidates and will finally shortlist based on results. I'm not sure if I get in, but I would probably have second thoughts (again!) if ever qualified. Hahaha.. Oh well, I would still want to try other companies. Let's see in the coming days. As Mon said, I have to choose the one that I feel I'm comfortable working with. And I agree.. :)

Here are some pics. :) Konti lang kasi pathetic! We have no digicam with us (pinamana ko na sa mga pamangkin ko hehehe). Actually, ang dami naming place na napuntahan na walang pics.. Huhuhers... As soon as magkaron kami (lapit na IT Show!), I'll post some more.

At the Plane



At Tin's Place



At Fountain of Weath and Koi Garden (Suntec)



At Merlion plus eating of Stingray near Esplanade



At Shuttle to City Hall MRT Station (Going to Funan)



At Weng and Cinds' place



Eating ice cream outside Sim Lim





At Toys R Us, Paragon

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