annoying

I find it annoying when people ask you something, you've already done it, and then you'd learn later on that they'd ask another one again to do it. I find it either a waste of my time, or even a lack of trust.

Take for instance what happened earlier.

My teammate has been asking me to ask our manager in Manila about the possibility of extending the vacation leave for onshore members. I did this. I sent an email, went online last night to try and catch her in communicator. Unfortunately, she didn't reply to either my emails or even my messages in communicator.

Ok so here's my teammate, asking me about that again. So I told him, I have asked, sent and email, but got no reply. But I assured him that I will followup.

Then the next thing I know, he goes and talks to my other team lead, asking her if she can ask our manager in Manila about the same thing he just asked me to do, and which I did!

The reason why I knew about it because this teammate of mine forwarded that inquiry to me. Asking me to do it.

Isn't that annoying? You do what you're asked to do. And it's not like it's my fault that I haven't gotten any response and yet, for some reason, I feel stupid that this teammate of mine don't have the trust to even consider my reply to him - that I'll followup on it again. Mababaw sa kung mababaw, pero it's definitely annoying.

You know, I don't mind if it's something that really needs to be confirmed or validated by another person. For example, I made a change in the code, we want someone to code review it for validation right? Or for newspapers, magazines, they usually have fact checkers for the articles written.

Maybe I'm just pissed off and stressed today. Perhaps, I wasn't in a good mood earlier that's why I'm pissed off over such a small thing.

Frustrations + Blessings

I've been having some serious work frustrations the past few days ( or weeks even ) but the past week until now just propagated my frustration to a whole new level. And this is to the point that I'm blaming myself already for something that screwed up. I keep on asking myself, was it my fault? Could or should I have done more? What were my missteps? My teammate said that I shouldn't beat myself too much over what happened. Things happen. According to her "hindi ka lang kasi sanay... ako sanay na madalas may sablay". But still, there was a miss! And I don't know why, but for some reason, I keep on blaming myself for it.

And you know what, I've been bothered by this so much since last Friday. And God is truly great because out of the blue, I got an email from a friend who I haven't even talked to for almost 3 months! And the content of the email? See below:

For whenever you feel life is too hard, don't forget God cares.
Hope everything's great over there at Canada!

READ: Isaiah 46:1-9

I will carry you! —Isaiah 46:4

The prophet Isaiah draws a picture for us in Isaiah 46 of the siege of Babylon and the evacuation of its idols. The carts and carriages that carry them creak, and the weary animals groan under the load (v.1).

In contrast, Isaiah says that God carries His children from birth (v.3). “Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you!” God declares (v.4). The contrast is precise and vivid in the Hebrew text: The carts and carriages are “loaded” with the weight of the idols (v.1), but we are loaded upon God (v.3). Idols are a “burden,” a thing carried (v.1), but God has gladly “carried” us from the womb (v.3).

The Lord has made us (v.4). Nothing could be more comforting, for our Father loves and cares for His children. He promises, “I will carry you!” and that includes every care and worry that comes our way throughout our lifetime.

So we may let Him carry us and our every burden. This song by Annie Johnson Flint challenges us to experience God’s care: “Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision, / Our God ever yearns His resources to share; / Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing; / Thy Father both thee and thy load will upbear.” —David Roper

Heavenly Father, I want to unload my
burdens on You today. Help me to leave them with You.
I trust You with my past, present, and future.
Thank You for Your goodness to me. Amen.

Our work is to cast care; God’s work is to take care!

I was feeling so down at that time and then when I got this email, I felt like it was God's way of reaching out to me and telling me to just lift it up to Him. Don't keep it all inside you. Don't worry and everything will be fine. I've been praying a lot more the past few days, praying that things will get better. Please pray for me too.

I just wanted to share this to let everyone know (whoever gets to read this anyway), that God truly works wonders. We should always remind ourselves to trust in Him. That email sent to me, at the right place at the right time, made me feel so much lighter. Thank you Lord.

Vacation Leaves

I still have around 7 days left from my 2010 vacation that I need to use by June this year, thus, I'm hoping I could somehow manage to gather the courage to ask for a one week vacation this coming May. Not that it's hard to ask for vacation time here, it's just that the timing is a mess. I have two upcoming production releases for June and July, and that's pretty much consuming a whole lot of my time these days. May might be a crucial month too. Well, we'll see. It may still be worth a shot to ask. If they allow it, good. If not, better luck next time. I can totally understand if they say no.

But if they do say yes, Quebec City here I come!!! Hi East Coast! I have not seen you in two years!

Work Productivity

I've been very busy at work that I got to thinking that maybe, it's not really just about me having a ton of work, but maybe, I'm just not managing the tasks well enough to still be productive? Is it really too much work? Or is it my approach to work that's driving me mad?

I've been thinking about this for a couple of nights already. Am I over allocated? Or am I just slow when it comes to work? Many "negative" reasons that's causing the dive into my productivity. But as I ponder more, I realized that perhaps it's my approach to work that's really something that needs to be re assessed.

For instance, I pondered on what was recently a crazy Monday. I had a total of a half day spent just juggling back to back meetings (I hate meetings!). What happened was, I worked on this one thing, and then another request comes along and then I go look at it instead. And then while this isn't even finished yet, another discussion needs to be addressed and by then, it's the end of the day and I didn't have anything finished.

In light of this, I've decided to do something different - focus on one task at a time. Let the others wait for a bit until you finish a certain task. I started this last Tuesday night (after another jam packed day). I worked during the wee hours of the morning to finish a couple of things just to catch up on work. How I did it was to just open up one of the task at a time. Finish it off (mind you, I didn't even open gtalk!) and then close those apps, then move to the next. I actually got a lot done in a span of 2 hours. Maybe it was because there were no distractions but nonetheless, at least I finished something!

For example yesterday, I got pretty much the whole afternoon yesterday to code! Finally!

I will observe in the next few days, or even weeks, as to how this approach allows me to get more things done. Maybe multi tasking is not something for me. Trying to do too many things at once won't get you to the finish line. It might just even slow you down further.

random thoughts

Work's been crazy the past few weeks. But more so this week. My team mate was on leave this week, and she happens to be my lead, and so a lot of the tasks were passed on to me temporarily and it is only these days that I'm really getting the experience of being the true blue team lead. I am getting more and more responsibilities. Before, my team lead roles were simply to administrative tasks such as preparing time sheets, etc. But now, they're slowly involving me with these different tasks such as figuring out resource allocations for the different projects. It's good training, for sure, but it's just taking its toll a bit. I'm doing all these work, and that's on top of the actual work I have to do!

But, I'm not complaining. I think I've learned to love this job even if it's really been a crazy past few weeks. Just means I'm still enjoying, which is very good. I realized that I've always liked my job. Maybe I had that moment when I didn't, but at least I'm getting the jive back.

Anyway, on another note, we are going to visit the Vancouver Aquarium tomorrow. This is already my 5th time here in Vancouver and I haven't even gone there yet. Well, I'm still better off I guess. My team mate, who lived for probably 10+ years already in Vancouver has never even visited the place. I think that's usually how it is. The person who lives in the area, has not even visited the tourist spots at all.

And please, let's pray for the people in Japan. 8.9 magnitude. I cannot imagine how that feels.

Two More Weeks

Two weeks remaining before I am off again to the other side of the world. As much as I'm sad to leave the Philippines every now and then, I've realized that having this kind of life is a blessing as well. I've been dreading it so much for the past year that I haven't been looking at the good things that this experience has given me for the past 3 years.

So as a shift of outlook (to a more positive one), I will list the things that I like most about going on these business trips.

1. I get to travel.

I love traveling and seeing new things. I like seeing different places, learning what's unique about them, walking around and exploring. And so far, it's been an awesome experience. I've been to British Columbia, Seattle, Oregon, Arizona, Las Vegas, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Cornwall, Buffalo (well, just by the border).

If it were not for this job, I wouldn't have even been able to get to these places. Now, it's something I look forward to doing every time I go back to Canada - plan a new place to visit and explore. I'm thinking about Quebec this time. The old European charm is something I've been wanting to see.

2. I get to earn extra money.

The allowance I get from the trip is kaching kaching in itself. I consider this my extra stash of cash, which I either stash away, or spend! Hopefully my waldas days are over, but it would still be nice to splurge every now and then. After all, these are all hard earned money.

3. I get to be on my own.

No amount of money can pay for experience of being in another country, away from your family. Ok, maybe not really away, I still have my grandparents, aunts around there. But coming from a home where we're pretty much sheltered, this experience is definitely a welcome sight of relief.

I remember my best friend telling me when I got back, that ever since that first trip I took last 2008, I was never the same. Perhaps, I grew up. My views changed, my objectives and goals changed. Maybe I did really change, and that's hopefully for the better.

4. I get to meet new people from different cultures.

This is related to #3. Canada being a diverse country has given me the opportunity to meet a ton of different people from all over the world. I got to talk to Russians, Filipinos, Canadians, Chinese, East Indians, you name it.

The nice thing about being exposed to different cultures is that you learn what they are, how they are, and you'll realize that the world is way bigger than it looks. That these you may actually find a good friend amongst these mixture of different cultures, descents and nationalities. Some times, it takes a big deal of adapting to the environment, but it also builds character, don't you think?

But I have to admit, at times, I'd just like to stick with my Filipino friends. I find that I get tired speaking English all the time. Some times I just want a break. haha

As a conclusion...

Of course, there's also a fair bit of sacrifice that this type of life entails (which I wouldn't want to dwell on anymore - everyone knows what happened). But somehow, I really do believe that God and his magical ways made sure that I go down this path and that he's preparing me for something even bigger. This might just be a training in preparation for something more exciting. Who knows right? But in the mean time, I will start learning to appreciate these blessings more and more. Embrace it to the fullest, and learn to be happy and contented once again.

Gregory in Manila

I've been missing in action for a while because my manager from Canada flew in to Manila last Feb 03, 2011 and we've been very very busy. So many meetings to attend, activities to do and lunches to eat!

EAT!!
For one, we've been doing a lot of eating: Spiral, Sentro, Banana Leaf, Dampa - all these in a span of a week! The spiral and Dampa were just too much. I don't think I ever felt hungry the whole week. I just felt full the whole time. Probably gained a couple of pounds in a span of a week. Here's a picture of us enjoying our lunch at Spiral:

Pasyal!
Aside from the eating and work related meetings, we got to do a lot of extracurricular activities so that Gregory can fully utilize his time here in Manila.

For the first weekend, we went to Tagaytay and then had the Corregidor trip. Fun, but very tiring too. The Corregidor trip costs around 2k per head, but it was very well organized. The 2000 pesos per head fee includes the boat from Manila Bay harbor to Corregidor island, the trolleys, guide, and even lunch. Not bad. It's a pretty good tour. I hope people become more aware of this beautiful island and its rich history. It is nice to know that they preserved what remains of Corregidor.

On the other hand, Tagaytay is still beautiful. And the nice thing about this trip was that, I got my best friend to set me up as a guest in Tagaytay highlands. How I love that place. I could live there. Weather is perfect, place is beautiful, and with its amenities, you can't go wrong. It's a nice quiet place to live and relax.

Gregory wanted to buy his wife a pearl necklace and so we ended up going to Greenhills last Friday to do our shopping. Apparently, South Sea Pearls are mighty expensive. A necklace with a good sized 13-15 mm pearl would cost around 80k pesos! That's way over the budget so we ended up finding these beautiful fresh water pearls (cultured), way cheaper, costs around 9000 pesos. Not bad. Oh and the haggling was awesome. Ngayon may suki na kami. Ang dami namin nabili sa kaniya eh! And she was nice.

Oh and then we also went to Subic and Clark last Saturday. Grabe nakakapagod. Pagod din si Gregory. But I sure hope he had fun. Tiring but fun trip. At least we got to show him how we Filipinos are truly hospitable!

Long PAL Flight

Couple of things that either irked me, or I found funny during my try flight home last December 21.

1. My flight got delayed for almost an hour and a half. The flight was scheduled at 9:50 PM. When we got to the airport, we found out it was delayed to 11:00 PM. By 11:00 PM, we were just called to board and we actually left the airport at 11:30 PM.

2. Once you're on board, they don't let you sleep at once and it's because the crew will serve you a midnight dinner soon. Not only was the food not good, it was almost 1:30 AM Pacific when we finished. Too sleepy at this point.

3. You can't really sleep soundly in an airplane anyway. So you make do with what you have and you can. But when you are sitting beside this friendly lady, who constantly bumps you with her left elbow, I don't think you can really have any good sleep at all.

4. PAL Flights to and from Vancouver still uses these old model airbuses - they still don't have the lcd screens per seat. You'd have to watch from the center monitors. I personally think they should upgrade the fleet. Manila-Vancouver-Las Vegas flights are usually full anyway.

5. PAL airport design is not good. After disembarking from the plane, you have to walk towards immigration first. The thing is, you have to go down these two long flight of stairs. And take note, only stairs. No escalator. How about if your hand carry is a small luggage? It just doesn't seem right. The engineer or the architect should have thought of considering passengers with luggages when they were designing this building.

6. Carousels in the airport are poorly designed too. Only a few can actually stand by the carousel to wait for their luggages. I had to stand way back, and then take peeks every now and then to see if my luggage is out.

7. But the good thing about the airport? They have porters to help you out, even when trying to get your luggage from the carousel. I just approach a friendly personnel and they get my luggage for me - without asking for any tip! They even put the heavy luggages into my cart.

8. While waiting for my luggage to come out, I heard these two gentlemen standing beside me talking about the flight. One of the men was ranting and said: "Itong PAL talaga, dapat i upgrade na nila yung mga airplane nila. Napakaluma na itong plane na to! Tapos yung mga stewardess, matanda na, masusungit pa!"

Travelling by air isn't always perfect, but it's still something we have to be grateful for. Even though it was a tough 14 hour flight, I'm still thankful that because of them, I was able to come home and be with my family for Christmas. There's still no place like home.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Work work work!

Work's been super crazy ever since I got here. The reason I'm here in the first place was because of the urgency of the project. And it's actually a good thing because I have to work closely with Harry because we're refactoring a whole bunch of applications for our upgrade project. Lots and lots of changes. He mostly designs the changes, but I learn anyway. Busy from that end. And then, there's the other tasks. When you're here, you're easily approachable - meaning, anyone can ask you to do something, especially urgent ones. Just as an example, during the past two days, there's been a couple of urgent changes that they need to get in before the lockdown (no changes during the holiday season), and they're rushing me to figure out what's wrong, fix it, get it tested, support testing and finish all these request for change documents! I've been going home late at night the past days.

But you know what, for some reason, when I'm here, even though I have too much work, when I get home, I'm not as tired. Maybe that means I'm finally enjoying the work again, the collaboration, and the opportunities they've given me. It actually feels good. Don't you ever get that feeling? I love it. It's nice to finally feel the excitement to work again. Work's something you should love and enjoy. Or maybe it's really just because my life here is totally relaxed compared to back in Manila.

And who wouldn't want to go to work if you have a view like this when you look up from your desk:

How can you not be inspired to work right? Luckily, it was sunny earlier so I was able to capture some nice photos using my ipod. The quality's not the best, but it works :) My desk it facing the north (mountains are in the North of Vancouver) so lucky me I got this spot. It's probably one of the best seats in the house.

On a different note...

In line with my Yes girl persona (Leda.. check this out), I will be attending a Telus gala event this Saturday with a couple of friends. It's a formal event. Though I didn't bring any formal wear, my friend Christine got me a nice short skirt and tube top to wear. She couldn't let me borrow her other stuff daw kasi it's too revealing! Hahaha I'm not sure if it's really a formal attire, but it works for me. Fits me well. But I'm not used to these types of attires! But have to be able to try it out at least once right?

Starbucks Card!

Our awesome project manager from Canada sent us a wonderful present - starbucks card with $20 CAD initial load. Unfortunately, they won't work here, only works in North America. But, what the heck, a gift is a gift, and it's very much appreciated. This doesn't expire anyway, so I'd still be able to use it some time.

Bev's work area

Since I work from home almost 4x a week, I setup my own "workstation" at home! Not the best picture as I only used my camera phone for it. Anyway, about a year or so ago, I decided to buy a new 19 inch monitor so that I can work dual monitor - Laptop + Monitor. And then recently, I noticed that my brother has not been using his other 19 inch monitor for his desktop computer. That desktop has been out of order for quite a while so I decided to borrow that monitor, plus some other peripherals so that I can set up my new work area! Complete with 2 19-inch monitors, with keyboards, headset and mouse. He even suggested I also borrow is wireless mouse!

This setup is awesome. I can honestly say that I can do more work this time around! This setup is actually the same as how my workstation looks like when I'm working in Burnaby. I guess that's why I decided to set something similar because it really made a difference. Dual screens definitely increases productivity.

However when I'm in Manila office, there's a huge difference. Here, I only use my laptop, plus I have another desktop computer. Helps me with other work processing I need to do. Since these are separate computers, I use a tool called Synergy to sync up both machines. Meaning, I can use one set of mouse and keyboard (the one's in my laptop) to move the mouse and type on the other desktop machine! Helps a lot because you won't need to keep on switching mouse/keyboards all the time between those machines.

What I really want next is to have a better work table, work chair for my mini office at home. I did buy a nice desk around 2 years ago, but that one's stuck in my room. Ever since I started working from home, my brother moved to sleep at my room with my sister, and I ended up using his room as my mini office. Actually, my bro's the one who's making good use of my desk! I on the other hand, ended up with his old huge office desk, not really ideal for computer setup like mine.

That's it! Just wanted to show you, my readers, where I do most of my work!

A lot of things to be thankful for

I've been slowly realizing the extent of blessings I've received the past couple of weeks. God is really good. I have been saying "Hay buhay" a lot of times during those dark days. But I shouldn't have been doing that. What I should have been saying was "Thank you Lord for the blessings". I was blinded by the bad things that happened to me (ok, the one major bad thing that happened), which overshadowed the good things that I actually have. And now I have a clearer view to those things. And I'll list them down as a show of gratitude.

1. Family
I am very blessed to have a family who cares so much for me. My mom, especially who even went to HK with me just to help me unwind. Who texted me "gisingin mo lang ako kapag kailangan mo ng kausap". My sister who told me bluntly to "Move on! ano ka ba!". LOL!

2. Friends
I really don't know how my friends ( you know who you are ) put up with me during the dark days. Kahit paulit ulit na at sirang plaka na sinasabi ko, at sinasabi nila, they're still there! I can't believe how much they cared! The nice thing about all these is that I've rekindled so many friendships over the past weeks. I now have weekly get together with the bruhas, and now I even revived my friendship with my high school buddies and made me feel extra special again. For the past years, my life revolved around work, home, and him. And I've missed out so much! And now, I'm loving this life!

3. Finances
Ok, so I have to admit that one of my outlets was to spend spend spend. And now that I think about it, I've very thankful that God has provided me with so much, if not, I wouldn't have been able to sustain my spending spree! And not just that, I've recently got some nice winnings in the stock market, and not to mention that I have some new investments that's giving me a pretty reasonable return every month. Not bad at all! So let's continue to spend! haha

4. Gym
The gym has been my haven for the past couple of weeks. So maybe my attendance to the gym has slowed down a bit, but definitely the gym has helped me get through a lot of things. When I'm feeling sad, I just go to the gym, workout, and I'm fine after wards. Not only was it a good outlet, but it made me more confident about myself! Hitting two birds with one stone!

5. Work
I hated work so bad. I regretted accepting this job, going to Canada, you name it. Everything about it I hated. I wanted to bring back time if I could. I always thought, things would've been different. But you know what, it may have been different, but I wouldn't have experienced and grown as much had I not experienced what I experienced with this job. Unfortunately, a major part of us got lost somewhere during the process but we're already here now, it happened, and we cannot turn back the time. I was going to change things, I told him that, he knew that, but I guess he didn't want to risk any longer. So here I am, took me a while to love what I'm doing again, but I'm slowly getting there.

How can you not be thankful for this job? When I was down in the dumps, I asked for some time off. Talked to my team lead, she told me to go on vacation the following week at once, for two weeks. Then talked to my manager and told me to go, fix up whatever the personal issue was, and then if I need another week or so, let him know. How can you not be thankful for this job?

And after wards, around end of July, they made me team lead. Well it's a admin job, but it's still experience! How can you leave this job now?? Everything tells me to stay put!

So much things to be thankful for... everyday. I learned to appreciate so much in life.

This diagram pretty much simplifies what I felt the past weeks.


I think I'm towards the bottom already. Happy emotions na ako these days eh. :)

vacation!

I had a chance to talk to my team lead here and my manager from Canada about my current situation. Nothing specific, but it's more of just the state of mind I have right now (very distracted). And I asked for a 1-2 week vacation just to clear my mind, relax more. And with no hesitations, they allowed me to go. I was thinking first week of July, but they said better to start next week. Can you believe that? And here my manager asks if I had enough leaves and banked time, to make sure I don't go on vacation unpaid. What a boss! And tells me that we'll touch base a week into my vacation, and if I need another week or so, let him know.

Now how can you even leave if you have people like that who care so much about your personal well being?

day of service

I was able to join this year's TELUS Day of Service and our team volunteered to help out in the Vancouver Food Bank. We were grouped three per station and we did the sorting for all the canned goods. We had to sort the canned goods into five groups - Meat&Fish, Canned Soup, Meals in a Can, Fruits&Veggies and Pasta. I ended up taping up and preparing the boxes as my two co volunteers were really good in sorting. Meals in a Can and soup was tricky, as some soup can be considered meals in a can. When it comes down to it, look at the labels, and check - if proteins is 7 (or was it 9) and above, then that'll be considered meals in a can.

I was surprised how big the warehouse was, and how it was filled up with isles and isles of food. Tiring work too, but was really fun and fulfilling. We were there for only two hours, and after which, a couple of us went to the famous Gelatto place where you'd have to pick from over a hundred different flavors! I ended up getting tiramisu, and my some of my friends got Durian! Of all flavors, ew! They even had chili chocolate and curry flavors. I tried it out... they really taste like chili and curry, but gelato style. Haha

And we're not finished yet, we had lunch in one of these cute little cafes in Commercial drive. And then off we are to go back to work! How can you go back to work mode after a morning like today??

jam packed weekend

It's ironic how I was just writing about my "relax" work days, when in just a few days after that, I ended up having an all-night-all-day work weekend.

We had a huge release last weekend and even during pre deployments, we already ran into a whole lot of different issues. That must've been a premonition because during the actual release night, we encountered this huge issue (something to do with caching). Luckily, we have great teammates who helped us out in figuring out what was wrong - we woke them up around 4 am in the morning :). And business gave us time to get it fixed before doing a rollback. Good thing we got that extra time as we finally got it to work!

I was awake friday to saturday morning (in Pacific time), and then had to support another release happening saturday night to sunday morning (in Pacific time too).

Crazy weekend, but in the end, we pulled thru. We have some production issues, but no showstoppers, which is a good thing. So in order for me to go back to relax mode, I had all my fixes fixed and deployed yesterday so that QA and UAT may test it and eventually we could get it redeploy and promoted to Production by next week.

What a weekend. I think it was only yesterday I caught up with sleep - I slept for 10 hours. :) I'm taking the day off this coming friday. I need to make some time for Chase this weekend. I haven't seen him for almost a week and half!

some free time

I've had little development task over the past two weeks, which is a good thing because I haven't really had this much free time compared to last quarter of 2009. The free time has allowed me to watch tv, eat, sleep, etc. Just kidding! The free time has actually gotten me to work on my other random tasks at work, like improving our alarming system, fixing up some shell scripts I've had hanging around, etc. It's always nice to get something done that's been pending for quite a while because you've been prioritizing the projects before these "subtasks" but which may also be equally as important.

Aside from that, I've gotten better long and uninterrupted sleep this week compared to the past two weeks.

I feel quite good. Maybe since last weekend's release is done, and there's only one more release left for this month (this coming weekend), I'm very much looking forward to relaxing more.

I've also started listing down the things I'll be needing for my travel this coming Feb. Better be ready now than last minute (I experienced that the first time)!

pig out at dampa

Our team has been recognized in our department for one of the projects that was successfully implemented to Production (it was a 2 year project). As a reward, the big boss went to treat the whole team out for lunch. However, since some of us are back here in Manila and we can't join them over there in Canada, our manager gave us a budget of around 50$ per head so we can go out and enjoy ourselves here. :) 50$ per head... pretty big... that's around 2000 per person and there were four of us, bringing the total of 8000 pesos budget.

So we were deciding where to eat and stuff ourselves... we had a ton of choices but we ended up going to Dampa. This way, not only do we enjoy seafood fest, but we got to order probably one of the most expensive dishes there is - 1.5kg Lobster. Holy crap it was so big! That cost us 2700 (just for the lobster). We had it separated, lobster soup and the lobster itself. We also had huge lapu-lapu fish (costs us around 1000+ just for the fish), crab, shrimp, mussels, beef and broccoli and liempo. This was probably one of the best meals I've ever had!!! And you know what, we almost finished all of it. The liempo wasn't that good, but the rest were awesome.

Here's before it was cooked:


Here's after it was cooked:


Here's the team: The huge lapu-lapu hasn't come out yet at this point!

3rd time travel to canada

So after a long long wait, my travel request has been finally approved. There were some problems because the company didn't want me to renew my work permit over at Canada, so they wanted me to go there, and then go back before my work permit expires. But my manager in Canada wanted me to stay the whole 4 months there as this was the original plan for the whole team - we rotate 4 months each going to Canada. Anyway, so they finally approved, and my flight will either be January 30 or Feb 06 and will be returning either May/June, depending on my departure date. The original date was Jan 30 but I requested to move it to Feb 06 so I'd have company going there (my teammate's departure is Feb 06 too).

This will only mean that I have to prepare! Not that I need a lot of stuff, but I just realized, I don't have much work clothes anymore. We just wear casual clothes here in Manila so I may need to revamp my wardrobe a bit. We're going there winter time (and right in time for Vancouver Winter Olympics) so hopefully, the jacket I left behind there will suffice (but I'm guessing not!).

I am excited, but sad again. I'm just thinking and hoping this will just be like a short vacation again. And we're going to Vegas in April, so that's something to look forward to!

work rant

I got so pissed off at one of my teammates at work. I was trying to help him out (and I was multitasking at the same time because it just so happened that we have another project my BSA and I were talking about), and then for some reason, he tells me that I was being sarcastic blah blah blah. For some reason, that's annoying. Here you are trying to help, and you get a reply like that. I don't know, did I come across like that? Personally I didn't think so. But according to him I did. Pissed me off. I'd rather not help then if that's the case. Bahala na siya.

Maybe tomorrow my I'll feel less pissed off at him.

too much work

The past three weeks have been one of the most hectic weeks I've had for quite a while. For some reason, everything just came together like the perfect storm, as they say it. I have two projects, both on the same timeline. Aside from being a developer for both, I'm also doing the Assembly Testing for one of them. This should've been ok, except that the requirements for project #1 keep changing, plus the scope of the modules that I was supposed to assembly test is just increasing!! Holy crap!

Deadlines are coming up and I have no idea how I will be able to finish everything.

I was also stupid to take 2 days off (it was already scheduled beforehand) to celebrate my birthday. I really didn't do anything last Nov 5 and 6, but I just didn't want to work night shift for those two days which is why I decided to push through with my leaves. :) Now I have to scramble next week to finish up the things I need to do.

But hopefully, in a few weeks time, things will be better. Things will be much less hectic.