Friday, September 22, 2006

And all the hardwork paid off...

It's graduation day today! :)

"CONGRATULATIONS! We know too well how much you deserve this because you have set your heart and mind to it. We are proud of your achievements and we are with you in your struggles--of the stumbles and try which earned your strength, of the endless nights reviewing and memorizing, of the ear-aching listening to a foreign-sounding english instructions and most of all, the loneliness of being away from home.Our toast to the best FA trainee of Asiana!"
- Nanay and Tatay (they sent me an ecard :P)

"My Incredible Girl: Katrina Naval. You know how surprised was your improvement every day? At first you were not that conspicuous among the trainees, but after having interview you started developing more and more, eventually you became one of the shiniest stars in my class. Always concentrating on the class with good smile, cleaning others' stuff after Ditching class, chasing just after me whenever we move; you were just gorgeous. I appreciate you a lot. Be the best Flight Attendant."
- Miss Lee Dan Hee

So yea, the hardwork reaally paid off. Valedictorian. :P (Cliche as it may seem, I did not expect it.)

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Who's calling upon the door?

Last night, I just had the most terrifying experience ever in my life.

I was another room, at 801, with Jackie, Monica and Sebie, doing a video presentation for our graduation. Around 1am, biglang may kumatok ng malakas sa door. Sinilip ni Monica and saw a big man outside. Tas may sinisigaw in Korean and started counting. Tas pinagsisipa yung door, as if malapit nang bumigay yung door. Immediately we knew na lasing yung tao.

Tapos palakas nang palakas yung sipa sa door nilagay na namin yung upuan sa door tas naghanap na kami ng pangpalo sa ulo nung guy if ever bumigay nga yung door. Jackie naman, tinawagan na yung front desk. Kamusta naman sa language barrier pero basta ilan beses parin sha tumawag. Tinawagan narin nya si Naze, taga lower floor samin to communicate sana sa baba (with somebody with her) if ever di talaga kami naintindihan. It lasted for more than ten minutes.

Si Monica nabuhat yung napakalaking maleta (kasing taas ng waist pag nakatayo!) para mapangharang sa door. Ako naman I started calling our classmates in nearby rooms to tell them about the situation and for them to lock their doors. Some of them were asleep, yung iba naman nagising na sa lakas ng sipa sa pinto.. Tapos sumilip si Sebie tas sinabi samin na umalis kami sa may door kasi may kinukuha sha sa bag nya (who knows if it's a gun or something?) Nung dumating na si "My Friend" (hotel f.O.) sinisilip lang namin sa peephole tas ayaw parin nya sumama kay my friend tas muka ngang natatakot nadin sha kasi malaki talaga yung mama pero buti nalang napersuade ni my friend na sumakay ng elevator..

Bumaba sila Naze to check with My Friend kung ano nangyari. (Andun pa yung mama sa lobby, hinahagis yung mga telepono and everything) It turned out he is a policeman, so tama si Sebie, maaaring may baril nga sha. (And that explains his built and strength) So Naze and Jila asked My Friend, pano nila irereport yun e pulis din pala, pero sabi daw ni My Friend nakatawag na daw sa presinto para maireport at may dadating na para ihandcuff sha at iescort away from the hotel.....

Nung dumating na sila Naze saka lang kami naiyak na apat kasi nanginginig na talaga kami sa takot,, But still nobody actually panicked kaya good. Pero grabe. Parang gusto mo na umuwi now na.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Magjajapayuki na lang po ako

It's past six in the evening and I just got back to the hotel from my OJT flight to (and fro) Sendai, Japan. And I thought it'd be easy. To think that it's just a two and a half hour flight (but working time's actually eight hours), how much more tired will get if I fly sixteen hours straight on Seoul to New York flight?

I wasn't trainee on the flight. As in I did everything that one should do. Even more. Aww inasmuch as I'd like to elaborate more and give details, you'd probably won't be able to relate to it, so there...

Bottom line is, I know I did a good job (Sugo hashutsumnida to me!) and though the Zhang Ziyi lookalike is giving me all her duties, I don't care. I know for a fact that I'm better than her. Imagine, four sunbaenims (seniors) was asking me to teach them passenger briefing--you know, the one where you demonstrate how to wear the seatbelt and life vest and everything else--coz they don't know; depending too much on video system, and now it broke down... Haha. Babo.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Homesick all the more

Lets start with Friday. Woke up at 5am (4am, Manila time) for last minute preparations and then left the hotel by 6. The international airport wasn't near so most fell asleep on the bus. And then we took off at 9 sharp. Perfect. We got off on time so we'd be in Manila on time as well. I was disappointed that Failure to Launch wasn't available on Video on Demand aboard the Airbus 330 that we're on. So I slept all through the flight.

After the plane's door opened, I hurriedly switched my phone on and almost shrieked when signal came on and text messages started coming in. Subscribed myself to Unlimitxt and txt-d away. After waiting so long for the baggage to appear on the baggage carousel, me and Bianca went out to the Arrivals area and searched for our parents. Hehe. I was so surprised to see kuya with my Nanay and Tatay.

I gave kuya the iRiver immediately, to which he said, "Woaaaah!" Haha. Had lunch with maternal grandparents (who waited for me to arrive before going back to Baguio) and then proceeded to get a facial, afterwhich we headed home and I was so moved that Yana still remembers me. She looks more of a little girl now, no longer a baby. By nighttime, highschool friends came over and I gave them my Face Shop pasalubong and lotsa chocolates.

+ + +

Saturday I had my nails done, checked in at the hotel and I got a haircut at Robinson's Place and met up with my college friends. Lyka even brought along our "conversations" to which we laughed at almost every phrase that we've written way back. I had lunch, by the way, at KFC (gaash I missed that so much!) and dinner at Seaside. I ate almost a kilogram of shrimps! Haha.

Unfortunately it rained so hard that kuya decided that we don't push through with the original schedule of watching the last full show of The Devil Wears Prada. So sad! I miss going to the movies, and I heard it costs around four hundred pesos here per movie. Aww. Gotta wait til October til I watch another movie??

+ + +

I dint go on the complimentary breakfast buffet on Sunday for I want to enjoy the superb bed of Diamond. For lunch, however, I was all geared up. Lucky my favorite chocolate cake was on the menu as well. Had a foot scrub session afterwards and picked up my uniform at the laundry shop.

Heard mass at the parish and had dinner at lola's house. She prepared my two most favorite food on earth: sinigang and tocino! Yipee!

+ + +

Monday was of course the worst day. Knowing you'd get up to leave home again. But I had to. The only consolation that I had in mind was that my parents would see me in uniform. :) I honestly do not want to leave them, Yana especially, if only I can. Yana was even tugging my scarf before I left. Before we went to the airport, we had breakfast at Starbucks (I missed that too! It costs so much here, and a lot more unsweet.)

Mom said the people were staring at me, trying to guess where I work or whether I am indeed a flight attendant (I was wearing my UST--ahem cheerdance!--jacket on top of my uniform, we're not supposed to be in uniform in public places). Typical.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

4D/3N

Yey we're going home tomorrow morning, we'll be back here on Sunday night. Wow. This'd be our mid-training off, as well as the after-training off. As we heard, we'd be given flights right after we graduate so there'd be no time to go back home; contract signing would probably take place here sometime around the last week of training.

My dad had sent me (thru email) my sched for 4days and 3nights. Yipee! (Though I heard it's like stormy right now.. tsktsk.)

Friday, September 01, 2006

City Tour

Today was city tour, no classes, just that. Left the hotel at past eight in the morning and proceeded to National Museum of Korea. Three levels of historical, asian and everything in between art of Korea, which has an uncanny resemblance to Chinese art, precisely because they were "Chinese" before they become "Korean". Whatever. Haha. Korea used to speak Chinese before their language was invented and used those characters too before they had their own.

Not a historical art freak, the only thing that amazed me were the PDAs that we rented to serve as our audio guide, map, locator, and everything. It has a sensor somewhere and fixed somethings everywhere are detected so it instantly plays a certain audio clip for you to hear about that certain work of art. Coolness. Me and Mica tried to go to the Children's Museum part but had to buy separate tickets so we went to the ticket booth but unfortunately we could only get in after noon. And we had to leave the museum half past eleven. Sheesh.

Afterwards, we went to have lunch at Sizzlers. We were informed that it's Salad Bar buffet so most were like, nyayks. But when we got there, ooh la la! A fusion restaurant. Salad bar, except for the greens and all the other salads you could think of, had spaghetti, bread, a salmon-sashimi-plus-lettuce-and-some-sauce salad, soup, coffee and the best part: three choices of soft ice cream with different toppings available. Ooh.

Today was also Jacq's birthday so as we were eating, our adviser signaled for the cake to be served and then we surprised Ate Jacq by singing Saeng Il Chuk Ha Habnida (Happy Birthday) to her.


Tablemates in pink plus the birthday girl in white.

After getting full, next stop was the Gyeongbokgung Palace, palace of the early king. (Some parts were reconstructed coz it was burned down during Japanese reign.) Some areas of the palace were used as background for the Koreanovela, Jewel in the Palace. (Most of the scenes were shot at Jeju Island, an island down south of Korea, which they say is comparable to uh, Palawan.)


Under the sun with nothing but a map.

The tour guide's English was hardly understandable and were under the sun's nose (think about that, we were walking at around 1-3 in the afternoon. Anyway, my classmates also tried on the traditional costumes for a fee (ulp, 15,000 won!) and took lotsa photos. I enjoyed the trees and the mountains in the background. :)


Harmony. Land, air and matter. Whuuttt?!

After that we went shopping somewhere nearby where we were able to buy Korean goodies. I was looking for them for so long but only got to buy Korean clothes, not souvenirs. So now I feel accomplished that I had bought myself a keychain already. (I buy a keychain from every place I go to.)
And then, the long drive home.