Hmm Christmas

Two weeks before Christmas and I was already relaxing and just counting the days til Christmas. J and I have finished our Christmas shopping list, wrapped all the gifts, decorated our humble condo unit with decors... We're so ready for Christmas!

Anyway, I still have yet to find out how Christmas is here at Taguig since it's my first holiday season here in up and coming city, as compared to all my Christmases and New Years in our hometown in Navotas. But anyhow we don't really know when we'll Christmas together since we're pretty booked!

Christmas eve: We're closing the gasoline stations and heading to NAIA Terminal 3 to pick up J's sister who's coming home from Singapore.
Christmas day: We'll go home to Navotas to help out at home. At night we'll be at Terminal 1 to pick up Peggy.
26th: Bulacan for my maternal side's Christmas celebrations

See, the days before and after are booked!

Inventions I'm Grateful For

There are a couple of things off the top of my head that I could say I'm thankful to have been invented. Not the kind of thing wherein Twilight fanatics would gush, "thank God for Edward Cullen."

First off, the Internet. Oh yes, the world wide web. Everything seems to be at hand if you've got internet connection. From the days you spend hours trying to connect through dial-ups, to easy-breezy wifi connections, I still am grateful that some brainy people got to create the cyberworld. Without it, my mom would still tell me to browse through that unabridged Webster's dictionary whenever I don't know a word; or the yellow pages when you need to call some place: or wait through snail mail to get in correspondence with someone miles away; and of course the need to have a complete set of encyclopedias that always get outdated after sometime. Luckily enough for my generation, I could simply Google everything and even get translations online, find restaurants nearby and so on and so forth. Through the web, you get a gigantic amount of information, opinions and inputs. Say for example if a new phone comes out, and you're thinking about getting one, you'd have the liberty to Google it to know the specs, read about user's opinions, etc. Whereas decades ago, if you didn't know anyone using it yet, then you'd only have to trust the salesperson who's of course just trying to sales talk you into getting one!

Next up: dental braces. Who could have predicted that teeth could be rearranged? For people who didn't have dental alignment problems, they'd probably not appreciate the existence of dental braces fully. But for someone like me who went from bite 3 (lower teeth in front of upper teeth) to the normal bite 1, a lot has changed. It gave me a boost in confidence, not to mention that it also got rid of my lisp. If they had invented it centuries ago, then probably Mona Lisa isn't smiling without teeth showing, coz she wouldn't have that crooked teeth that she's trying to hide, according to dental experts. :)

Ondoy's Attack

On Friday night J and I were still planning to party on Saturday night somewhere in Ortigas. I picked J up from the office and went home as it started raining. No biggie. It always rains. When we got home (at the condo in Taguig) the winds started blowing really hard. Whenever it does, it made a howling sound as it passed through metals of the balconies. Pepper, on the other hand, looked so wary. Even when it's time to sleep, he wouldn't, and would just be close by. I fell asleep with my arm dangling from the bed just so he'd feel like he's beside somebody.

Saturday morning. Still raining. The balcony's so wet now, I got the feeling it must be flooding already. I tiptoed on the balcony to check if my car is still parked outside our building--or if it was already submerged somehow. Elmo (my car) is still okay. No signs of flood. But a lot of cars had already illegally parked. I knew something was wrong. We switch on the tube and tuned in to the news... Horrible.

We start calling people from Navotas. As I expected the phoneline was dead. I called up my mom and got a hold of her. They sounded so calm. They have electricity. Almost all of them are home, and the flood--like most high tide days--were just knee deep and didn't even reach our backyard. Hmm. Tolerable. Thankful.

Seaoil Merville calls up to stop operations. It was waist-deep already.

SMS started pouring in. I knew people must be worried about the flood capital Malabon-Navotas, seeing the one-storey flood in Pasig, Marikina and Rizal. I assure people we're okay. Then I started wondering, and worrying, about people I know who live/have their families in the said areas. Some of my friends are not in the Philippines and I'm sure they're worried sick about their family.

This post goes out to MM, who was in Manila but their home was flooded in QC. I'm glad you're okay now. And to Lyka and Precious, who are both away from home while in Japan and Korea, respectively, and whose family are still in danger. I am texting every hotline I see on the news to report your area. I know how it must feel being so helpless so far away.

And to everybody whose houses, cars and businesses (like in our case) was damaged by the floods, let us be thankful we are still alive. And let us pray for those who weren't able to make it, or are still waiting for help to arrive.

Passport Renewal

When I was still flying, I would shudder at the thought of renewing my passport in a few year's time. I was using my very first passport then, the one I applied for through a travel agency. I still had to go to DFA though for the personal appearance. I remember so vividly the queues under the scorching sun, the fixers who take advantage of people who know less of the processes, the owners of the photo studio who trick you into having your photo retaken and the general fear of pickpockets in such a crowded area.

Researching on it, I realized I could do it hassle-free through a travel agency again. But since they recently approved the machine readable passports (MRPs) one must still go for a personal appearance for renewal from the old school passport. Darn it.

A few weeks back, we chanced upon a Cebu Pacific seat sale and booked roundtrip tickets to Singapore. Grabbing the chance, I urged J to renew our passports together since I happen to have read through email that starting next year MRPs are required to travel. Be it true or not, my passport would still expire January of next year so it would be inevitable to have it renewed (and converted to MRP). CJ gave in and browsed through sites to gather more info on how to go about it.

Finally, we signed up for Passport Direct by Pilipinas Teleserv Inc. (www.passport.com.ph) for the renewal. The service worth P1,300 offered document pick-up, filing, scheduling for appearance appointment and delivery of passport. Though it may sound so worry-free I still was expecting the worst since I learned that some "appointments" don't actually mean a thing. *ahem US visa application* Sign up and pick up was a breeze if not for one thing: our dog chewed on my passport minutes before the pick up guy came.

The next day a Passport Direct agent called up to give me a heads up on possible delays caused by torn pages of my passport. There was nothing I could do but sigh and hope the filing goes through smoothly. Luckily after a working day we were informed about or appearance schedule day, so again I prepared for the worst.

We woke up at 5am and parked around DFA at 7:30. Hand in hand, we started walking along Libertad street from Roxas bou. One by one fixers started swarming telling you to do this and that, get this and that. We didn't stop walking and when we finally got near the gate I saw plastic chairs for people waiting for their turn. I uh-oh-ed for a moment til we noticed a guy wearing a Pilipinas Teleserv uniform holding out a placard to catch the attention of any Teleserv clients. We approached him and in we go, passing everybody else on queue. We were assisted all the way by these uniformed guys and they even have benches especially reserved for their clients (we had to wait coz the office starts at 8am). By 8:15 we were already back in our car wondering how to waste an entire day J filed a leave for.. :) I am so recommending this service to anyone especially my flight attendant friends!

So many things

Mmmm. Such a very long time I haven't blogged. Things are way too different than my previous three years wherein I'd die without internet connection. So maybe just a few bits on what's up and new with me.

Well I'm still managing the gas station though I don't go there as often since the station sup is back from maternity leave. Side story, I got so mixed up whether or not the employer shall pay the employee the maternity benefit apart from what she's supposed to get from Social Security. Ohwell. I'm not very familiar with government stuff anyways.

We got me an individual healthcard (Medicard) account since I'm currently classified as self employed...or something like that. I miss having that Maxicare benefit I used to have with Asiana wherein I feel like it's okay even if I get sick. My wakeup call came during the time I thought I had the A-flu virus. Eee..scary. I seriously didn't go to work for a few days.

I finally got to meet up with two of my college friends, Lyka and Darylle, whom I haven't seen since Christmas season of last year. Hehe. We just had dinner at home and catching up. As for my highschool friends we were supposed to go to Enchanted Kingdom last weekend but it rained. And oh my J and I just booked for roundtrip tickets to Singapore on October! Finally... I'm gonna be on a plane and be a real passenger. My J's so excited to take a plane ride with an ex-flight attendant. Hahaha!

My J got me a new phone after I got her one. Haha. We so love our N97s allbeit difficult to use while driving. On the brighter side there's less texting while driving.

I'm so loving my car Elmo--'99 Honda Civic Vtec Vti in red. Got leather seat cover few months ago, replaced wiper blades and we're thinking of changing the tires. Beats me. At least I know how to open the hood and fill coolant and water in and check the oil. My trunk carries three liters of water, small bottles of brake fluid, automatic transmission fluid and engine oil. Super chilly a/c that I get headaches sometimes due to the cold. My brother absolutely loves the white headlights and signal lights. Wonder what else I could do to my car...

Our shih tzu Pepper is almost 8months old and we've already experienced him getting sick. Boy I felt like a mom worried sick about her child! Took him to the vet a couple of times and the vet prescribed meds for toddlers(!)and...YAKULT! Anyway he didn't like it that much so the vet suggested we give him yogurt since he need the good bacteria in his tummy. Seems strawberry yogurt is far yummier than cultured milk. :)

i'm currently job hunting and I couldn't figure out what job I'd like. Hehe. I don't have many luho in life. Or maybe just one: good food. I'm constantly on the search for good new restos... Suggest any?

Dumbing Sensation

I feel incompetent and worthless. And it sucks even more when I don't know where all these are coming from. I'm scared when I don't have the answers, or when I'm unable to make the simplest decisions. Used to be that I'm this uber-confident person but right now I just feel plain dumb and stupid--that sometimes no matter how hard I try I just can't do things right. It feels as bad as when you get stuck at 2+2 and you're at a loss then out of nowhere a 7-year old pipes in, "four." That bad.

Guilty Innocent

Sometimes I get giddily scared. Gut feel says you have to hold this thing or it would go away. There was this one day I woke up and I thought that my J isn't completely honest and loyal with me. The logical me would tell me, it's just a thought; the paranoid in me would try to find out. In as much as it takes me sometime before I actually get suspicious on people, it takes me about the same amount of time to get my suspicions off someone. And I don't want to live on suspicions every day.

I get sad when my J thinks of me that way; maybe it's the same reason why I thought J isn't honest. Because the simplest things would tick J off, because the simplest things would mean so much worse than it actually is. I start to wonder that maybe that's the way J does it that's why it freaks im out that much..

It's tough living without trust, or not being trusted, for this matter. I feel low of myself; guilty unless proven otherwise. Should it not be innocent until proven otherwise?