J-blogs

Thank God because it’s that time of the year that we can go travel home and leave office for a few days. We always go home to Mati on All Soul’s day to visit the tomb of my father who died in May 27, 1993.What I usually do, I buy the flowers here since they are abundant at this time. They’re expensive kasi one bundle cost ninety pesos. I’m talking about that small bundle like the six peso kangkong i buy from the market..Maliit lang siya pero sige lang.If I had more time, I’d go buy plants and then put if firmly near papa’s grave.I got also two packs of candles, white and blue and four in each pack and bought some munchies in case we feel hungry.

Even if we wanted to leave early during the day, we can’t ‘coz there were something that needs to be prepared, I figured that I could do it hastily the day before our travel so I did prepare on the day of the travel.Of course, we can’t  escape from the traffic in Panacan area, what more the vehicle was acting like there was something wrong.. since I understand our situation, i was very patient, hahaha.

To be continued…..

The plane landed in Manila at exactly 9:00 am. The captain announced that we were 27 minutes early. It didn’t really matter because I was way too early even the malls just opened by that time. I could ride the bus if it weren’t raining but it rained so I went up to the place where the metered taxis are located. OK. It wasn’t raining that hard naman. I competed for the many passengers who were also waiting for the cab so as the cab were being emptied or just approaching, I ran up the the door near the driver’s seat..ako na nag-open para ako maka-una. The first two attempts, the drivers arranged for a price.     P 300.. Kung mabait ako, bumigay sana ako  pero kahit pa naging mabait ako di ako makapayag…hello…Less than  100 lang yata ang pamasahe papunta ng SM Ayala-Makati. Finally, after 5 attempts, nakasakay na ako tamang-tama na bumuhos ang ulan.. I already sensed that the driver was bisaya so I don’t have to pretend that I know the way around. Ayaw ko kasi maloko kaya I have to put up a front–like I know the way or I know where to go. Helpful naman yung driver na taga Bohol, na 20 yrs na dito sa Manila, na me sariling n daw bahay, na bigay ng gobyerno sa isang relocation site….O, di ba– alam ko agad history niya hahahaha…establishing a relationship with the driver hahahahaha.

I arrive at SM Ayala na nasa mabuting namang kalagayan. Thank God! As soon as I arrived, I deposited my baggage at the counter. I then asked if there’s some station or stall where I could recharge my phone. I found one at the MRT station. I could leave it for 1 hour for only 20 pesos. I was going to return at 11:30 to get my battery pack. I wasn’t feeling hungry yet so I walked around to familiarize the place. I also bought B vitamins, the cheap ones (Pharex brand @ 2.75 each). I went inside the mall after about 20 minutes and ended up at Chowking.

My meal was fish and tokwa with steamed kangkong and sauce and an iced tea. I only paid 55 pesos for that.

After my meal, I walked and walked around, hopping from  one mall to the other. Hanggang sa napagod ako, pumunta na ako sa NBS. The result, nakabili ako ng bagong book. The book is in my bag. I think the title was “The Thinking Course”. It’s a BBC series. I found it near sa section ng Harvard books or recommended books. I guess I need it kasi. OK, I know I have the potential but it’s sayang kasi I don’t use it fully. If I’m tamad to think sometimes hanggang doon na lang thinking ko. I don’t seek out other alternatives to defend my views. The book is going to teach me how to use my thinking as a skill. I’m going to scan the pages tonight.

I have to stop at the moment. I’ll update this tomorrow if makalabas ako for internet. Nagutom ako bigla at napagod. Ciao for now…

Hubby and me decided to get a massage this afternoon at NCCC Mall.Before that, we had to dropped by the office to print a presentation. I couldn’t open the file at home because it was in a zip format and my poor home computer “kawawa” talaga. It only has 500 mhz processor. This was purchased, I can’t surely remember pero mga 1998. I’m embarassed to say that it’s still windows 98. The cost of having it upgraded is just the cost of buying a new one..so sacrifice until savings are enough for a new purchase.

When we arrived at the mall, it was already raining. Inside the car, always, we seem to have very lively and fiery discussion. Never fails. Hubby is the male version of Oprah. well, i think so at that moment..His interrogative nature really pisses me off. And sometimes there are situations where you seem to think that you just have to let go and you shut your mouth and really let it go but here comes hubby ready to ride the time machine again..Gosh, starting to get ill….again.

Sometimes,at our age, we shouldn’t anymore sweat the small stuff.small stuff.OK, wait, parang it’s so easy to say that. Yeah. I can’t follow it myself but I don’t have a habit of rewinding things that are over. I choose to move on.Because I know and understand that events are  likely to occur again and we’re not perfect people.

So OK. We had the massage, we were fine, we finished at closing time 9pm..I thought I could still get inside the supermarket. I wanted to buy some travel essentials. Bukas na lang. We ate tuna siomai from the stall that was last to close. And the drink was at home na.

Pagdating ng bahay, hubby realized that  he need to go ride the time machin. AGAIN!

Yeah!

I’m set to travel on October 14-26 for the second part of our workshop last April. The title of the course is Remote sensing and GIS applications for environmental animal health..Happy to be part of it. Sounds technical yeah but i’m not really a technical person. I do data management.I consolidate data from Mindanao regions, put it into a database and then link them to a GIS software. It’s really simple but it’s the most time-consuming part. I work alone and it’s pretty much manageable if this is the only work that I do. Kaya lang di e. Other times, I lose my focus talaga.

Ewan ko. Parang di na ako masyadong sharp mag-isip ngayon. I need a brain exercise.That’s why i blog so mapilitan ako mag-isip..must be the diet or the stress.ewan. I need B vitamins.

I battled with ants in my computer keyboard last week. Yeah, I’m guilty of eating in front of my computer. I thought I could manage not to drop food particles on it, I was wrong.

So everytime I  see them crawling, I turn my keyboard upside down tapos tinataktak ko siya ng malakas…I don’t care how loud the sound was..there were many of them.Everyday I did that and I think lalo pa silang dumadami. Friday, I wanted to give up my keyboard.Binuhusan ko kaya ng alcohol buong keyboard tapos tinaktak ko ulit. As if, di ko pa alam ang mangyayari, I tried to type and the letters that would come out is double. For instance, if I type the letter “m” the letter above it would also come out. So I gave it up..

I have no choice but to borrow the keyboard from the other computer. And if somebody uses it, I don’t have work to do..Not OK because I need to finish something.

Ayun, meron ngang gumamit and again the option was to wait or try the old keyboard and see if it’s still working..

And it worked still. I’m thankful– guess the alcohol killed them all. I’m careless no more..

Aside from being in front of the computer, I like to bake.Last Saturday, I found myself baking again, of course, family’s favorite, peanut butter and oatmeal cookies..Baby wabby devoured on the freshly baked peanut cookies and was telling everyone, to my delight, “cookies, mommy, cookies!” I baked because wabby ran out of goodies for merienda. The all-time favorite “skyflakes” is also her favorite but instead of buying it, I decided na lang to bake. The family also like to eat my oatmeal raisin cookies pero my hubby—it’s always without raisin. I can’t argue more why he doesn’t like the raisin. And he doesn’t like that it’s too sweet..And the baking soda, sometimes it gets bitter kasi I neglected to break it or use the strainer para ma-refine siya. That’s before I haven’t learned the proper way to do it.

The only thing I don’t like about baking is eating…and over-eating what I bake.I remember when halos every weekend I baked because sometimes I like to sell–I gained the money and the pounds. Kaya, I stopped doing it for sometime.

But baking and cooking gives me satisfaction lalo na when I hear “thank you for cooking, mommy!” Masarap pakinggan talaga, feeling ko full time mommy ako na super-galing mag-alaga ng pamilya…!! (i wish!)

This week and the following week, I’ll be busy. I finished testing the new map, that’s the Mindanao barangay map–and I think I only got 29 barangays which are not found on it. That means, the source has to update the maps so the 29 barangays could be linked.

I also downloaded Mindanao coordinates from Tageo dot com, I wasn’t through with it when the site suddenly became unavailable. So I had to google sites that would provide me the data and lucky me, I found falling rain dot com. I’m close to finishing it today despite distractions. I’m happy about it.

This blog thing never entered my mind until later I was in the middle of my work confusion…about how I’m gonna finish this file. I’ve been fixing this file last Monday so I could test it with our new map and see if it can be captured by the system. This was a database of field data gathered from 2002 to 2006. Good old data…. From the start, I never thought this will end up published by an international agency. I’m bit crammed this week, wished to do a lot of things this weekend, probably at the home front.

So, it was just –while I was hook up to internet—and too many windows were open in my computer screen—decided that I need to stop for a while….and see who’s online or who’s not. The internet is pretty much useful to me. I can connect with friends and relatives who are now abroad and the people whom we considered partners at work. I can send free messages thru Chikka Text Messenger and Yahoo SMS and never ending conversations in the chat room.. Nobody is around to tell me, hey, you’ve got work to do!. Because I’m alone in this office room. Well, I am prompt at work. I guess I don’t need somebody to tell me that I need to do this and finish that, etc… I don’t need somebody to bossy-bossy me. I’m a self-starter…ehem!