special

i may sound a braggart, but hear me out... i just want to remember my project manager's parting words to me in our last team dinner. i want to immortalize that moment on my blog. 

"this girl is Special. i know at the very beginning, she's not knowledgeable with the system. but she would always bring it and complete her deliverables. she is very resourceful and has the charisma to achieve her goals."

thank you so much Sir Arun. you have forever changed my life by giving me that chance to prove myself to you and the team. 

alooohhaaa!

i'm back, good thing work nowadays is tolerable *i think* so i can go back to reading my books and blogging of course. presently, i'm finishing the 3rd installment of the dark materials series. (for those of you who's not familiar, it's the northern lights series or as the movie had it, the golden compass.)

before i go on, i'd like to include in my entry the 2nd birthday celebration of my noahby last feb15. yeah yeah, its so late already. it was just a plain and simple celebration with the blowing of the candle in the cake and a quiet dinner at home. nevermind the valentine coz i spent it blowing my brains out in the office. its a leap year as well,some friends and i had a simple dinner at a new restaurant in raffles mall. nothing fancy, food was ok and doesn't really have that wow factor. we met hanipay's sister apple and welcomed her here in sg.

by end of feb to early march, everything just came by like a blurr because overtime work was inevitable and i couldn't even keep track of time properly. anyway, i was still able to squeeze in a little time to go and buy myself my own 1st camera! wiippeee! after 7years of working, i finally got my own digicam hehehe! got it from the IT show in suntec. originally i was eyeing on a new macbook for my own personal use but unfortunately, dadi and i agreed that my camera is much needed in the future events of our plans. we'll be watching maroon5 tomorrow at kallang stadium and of course its difficult to bring dadi's dslr, yehey maroon 5 live in sg!!! my 1st ever concert show to watch after 29years hehehe *oo na sobrang oa na hihi* i'm so excited to finally see the vocalist adam levine.

we also plan to go island hopping in pinas when we go home for our 2week vacation. that too has been booked already yiippee! we're off to pinas on may23 then flyback june7. dadi and i will drop off the kids then transfer to another plane for our cebu-bohol-bora trip. this one i can't wait to experience! as in finally we'll be able to have a vacation by ourselves, the two of us enjoying the sun and the views across visayas hehehe...we haven't arranged on our cebu-bohol-bora trip yet, hopefully the weather will be great and airfare will be cheap. we're also training for a running marathon, the singapore passion run, come june8 so dadi is training me for the 5km run *oo na, fun run lang sya.. keber e first timer po! hehe pagbigyan na!*

btw, i'm now doing a regular hosting job every sunday at the arena in clarke quay for the pinoy sunday entertainment show. it's organized by our friend ulrik and his colleague, ronald. it's like a variety show with bands and live performances. the audience can participate and jam with the bands and join the contest. april will be a busy month as there will be a pinoy amazing star contest coming up. its sort of like american idol style with the elimination and judges and voting thru sms. please do try to come down on sundays if you're in sg and watch great pinoy talent.

eram's sister, debbie, and niece, sam, also came for a week's vacation. we saw them on the eve of their flight back to manila. we had some coffee at citylink after ami and i went to the chinese temple in bugis to seek some 'divine intervention' hehe.. then we celebrated ami's birthday at our pinoy sunday show in the arena last march23. o diva, sosyal!

ayun so that's how life is at the moment. happy easter! =)

I’ve been trying to avoid the inevitable, trying to delay what is supposed to be. I faced it, alas! It carved a mark in my heart and soul. And now I’m so lost and confused. I’m trying my best to be a better person... to be a loving wife, a doting mother, a responsible daughter, a reliable sister, an objective friend, a hardworking employee, a just member of the society. Does one really have to carry the task and burden of such? I’m asking for more patience, guidance and counsel, of love and understanding, of hope that eventually things will get better. Enough of the leaping out of faith, I’ll retire myself for what is to come. Who knows if I can get back the urge to fight back again and conquer the odds, but for now, I’m just tired. I’ve been hiding and fighting too much, and I’m missing a lot.

surviving my 1st month

i have survived one month of my probationary period, and now i'm counting to five remaining months. it felt like it was a long period of time for me because i'm not used to being busy most of the time. now, since our company has a deadline for sgx (singapore exchange), i have to live by with their schedule and expectations. i can't say i'm ahead or behind schedule because the truth is, i'm learning their system along the way. and coping up was made easy by people i now consider friends here in sgx. thanks to them, i'm able to get by gradually.

in the past month, i've seen some people leave their post and new ones take over. i got to know more about the inside system and how things work around the place. i saw some old friends during lunch and dinner time at lau pasat (a huge hawker in front of sgx). dadi and i were able to have lunch togethers on fridays. and the best thing of all, we ride the same mrt together in the morning (he comes off at city hall and i come off at raffles place) and at the end of the day, we go home together. sweet! =D

last day

april 25, 2007, at exactly 6pm my computer in the office prompted me to log off from my workstation. i don't have access anymore to the TSO and lotus notes... it was my last day in the office. i had finally finished my 2year leg with HDB and as most of them say, I'm free.

being with HDB was not that awful really considering the fact that my bosses were a bit indifferent unlike the usual office environment back home in pinas. work was ok for a career mom, pay is relatively ok considering there was no overtime. and best of all, it was my first time to be exposed to mainframe programming and i was able to survive it. so leaving behind my desk was not that sad even though i was preparing myself for some few days/weeks at home tending to the kids. it's a relief that i would be able to spend some quality time with my kids and myself.

of course the hardest part was leaving behind my good friends whom i've been with through good and bad in HDB... the chatroom which was a part of our daily routine and our lunch togethers... the bullying, the case 1 case 2 games, the i'm-thinking-of-something game, the name-that-song game, the name-that-movie game... andami! heheheh!!! those were the things we do when boredom kicks in or sleepiness or when we hit deadlock with our programs. ptv4 people made HDB stay bearable and joyful hehe.. i miss you guys, ptv4 rules! =)

PMS team mates

ptv4 ladies and bogs

that signature pose hehehe

more of that signature pose

bring it on

tomorrow is the first day of work for this year and i dreaded this day since last year, dec.29, the last office day for 2006. jan.3 is our implementation date and it's the first oh so major project that i went through without a help from my project leader.

i was supposed to give my reply to our agent about my extension with hdb but due to the fact that i can't face that at that moment, i just asked my agent to get my reply next week after our implementation. and his reply: "ok, will wait for reply on jan.3". *talk about consideration...* so tomorrow night, hopefully, i will be able to draft my reply and send it, if my work permits me to go home early.

tomorrow, also, is nixon's first day in school. imagine how much it breaks my heart not to be able to accompany him on his first day because of my f@&#%$g work! so i just asked niño to bring him to school tomorrow and i'll be with nixon on thursday.

i've been sighing the whole day thinking about things... on what reply i'll give my agent... on how things would turn out for our implementation... on my son's first school day... on noah's upcoming 1st birthday... on saving up for our vacation to pinas this coming march... on moving on to another job... i've been trying to convince myself to do it one day at a time. i know it's pathetic because i usually give this piece of advise to my friends, but when it comes unto you, you just can't help but worry especially being away from your families and friends back home. before, it was easy because you can always turn to them, but this time, when you have your own family, you have to decide for the betterment of all your futures.

on the matter regarding my work, i've been browsing through jobstreet and was relieved to have found some postings on new jobs across sg. the other night, in between niño's snoring, i came to realize that as much as i wanted to stay with hdb, i feel that i can't stay with my work together with my current project leader. sure, he's nice and all but the fact stays that professionally, his working habits are getting into my nerves. imagine the stress and load he's passing on to me when he was suppose to help me out and encourage me. my user stayed with me til late last friday night just so we could be able to cover most of their requirements when it's suppose to be my pl's task. so i just told my husband that i might just find another 'condusive' job. but my options to stay are still open... i just need to hang on.