Breast Cancer

Source

Did you know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month? I didn’t know this until I’ve read about it in Daphne’s blog. I would actually just read this and not mind about it if not for a colleague of mine. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. After a week or two of the diagnosis, she had mastectomy. This was done only a week ago. She is 32 years old, my age. The first thing I thought about was her daughters – she has two, ages 3 and 5. Even though we're not very close, I am saddened by this news. I can empathize with her having a daughter of my own and knowing that we’re of the same age, although I can only imagine what she’s going through now. I only learned today that she has stage 3A breast cancer. We’re all praying for her to survive this. Will you please help us pray for her, too?

And please click the link to Daphne's blog for more details on breast cancer awareness. 

Flower Puff Christmas

16 December 2010

I only recently got our pictures so this is a bit late.

My friends from the division celebrated the culmination of our Kris Kringle with a Christmas Party. We actually also did this last year but I wasn’t able to blog about it. Our code names last year were bold stars, this year were flowers - we're flower puff girls hehe. So anyways, there were only a bunch of us but we had so much fun! Can you believe the party program only consists of eating, a game and then exchange gift but we were all very happy in the end.

Photo-op before we ate dinner. We were waiting for people to arrive so that we can start.

We had just one game which was charades. Every item was Christmas related. So I can't remember what A was acting out on this one hahaha.



We were all excited to get our gifts so after just a game, we exchanged gifts already. Here I am with my mommy, M. My codename by the way was Bougainvillea haha. No, I didn't choose that. What we did was draw lots on our codenames first. And draw again who are babies are. My baby was Champaca but she didn't come to the party.



Look how happy I was with her gifts, she gave me two items from my wishlist.


While others were duped haha. Here's M being punked by J. M wanted foundation from The Body Shop but when she opened here gift she got Mena hehehe. But of course she got the real think in the end.



We didn't need fatcow hosting to enjoy the party. We just needed good company.

Rock this Christmas

Last Friday was our department Christmas party at the Discovery Suites, although to be politically correct, we actually call it year-end party. As I mentioned in a previous post, our theme is Rock. We shot a video as part of the presentation. Each division was asked to present a video and the winning video was announced during the party - ala MTV Music Video Awards. We almost won hehe, we got the 2nd place but of course we all thought we should be the winners! Anyhoo, I was lucky enough this year to win in the raffle. Won myself a Starbucks tumbler (which reminds me I still have P300 worth of GCs from Starbucks which will expire this year)!

If I weren’t pregnant, I think I would have stayed until the end just like last year. The theme this year was so much fun the previous year’s. Everyone was game to dress and act like a rockstar. Let me show you the photos.

Christmas with the Ex

As soon as December came, Christmas parties are already lined up. The first Christmas party I attended was the annual Kris Kringle of my previous department. Yes, even old colleagues are invited to join. How I miss these peeps!




One of the games was bato-bato-pick! Each of us brought P20 then we’re told to find a partner. We need to play against our partners and whoever wins will get the P20 and play against the other pair’s winner. Until the last two winners play against each other (each with their winnings of P20 bills). I thought at first, it was corny. But it was really fun, and, surprisingly, exciting. The winner won P380 just like that! The last two contenders battling for the pot money haha!




Another game is guessing the title of the song. But instead of just saying it out loud, each group has to form the title with the words given to us. And then has to continue singing the song. They mistakenly included too many “the’s” in their title haha!


Of course, the party wouldn’t be complete without the exchange gift! Here we all are with our gifts from our mommies! Happy people!

Office Party

It's less than two weeks to go before Christmas so a lot of us are attending parties left and right. Last weekend I went to two parties, one of which is our office year-end party. We had it at the Crowne Plaza and this year's theme was James Bond. I've mentioned several times that I've transferred departments so I wasn't really keen on attending the party this year because I haven't gained a lot friends yet. But all my worries were out the window the instant me and my colleagues started talking about what to wear to the party.


My department now is relatively smaller than my previous one so it really felt new to me when the party started. Dinner was first in the agenda then we had some raffle prizes given off. A group of orphaned kids performed a medley of songs and dance numbers. Then there's the game where they show a scene from a James Bond movie and we had to guess which movie it's from. I don't really know much about James Bond (maybe just the recent ones) so we hit the photobooth. Here are some of my favorite photos.

Work Desk

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging that much. I realized I haven't blogged as often this October. Been busy with work and not so much happening in my personal life either. A friend mentioned that PGMA has declared another series of holidays by the end of November and as always we don't benefit from that. Sigh! I wish there's a holiday every month. Or wouldn't it be nice if we only go to work four times a week? Yeah, yeah I'm one of those people who don't really love their work but they stick to it because that's the best thing they can do. I'm kind of like Chandler in Friends. Remember that episode when he quit his job as statistical analysis and data reconfiguration and then he found out after consulting with a career expert that's that what he does best? Although of course later on he was finally able to get a job he really loves – advertising. So anyway, what was I blabbing about… yeah my work! Well, what can you do if something isn't really something? You try to make the most out of it. And here at work like most office people, I spend 95% of my time here at my desk. I try to make it as personal as possible but still with a level of professionalism in case the boss decides to visit my cube. Here it is.

I actually took this photos for Riz's giveaway thingy but wasn't able to blog about it soon. And sorry for the rant accompanying this photo…I just really really need a break. Really.

Moving

Well, hello! I feel like I haven't been here in a long while. I've moved work areas following my promotion. It usually takes a month after the effective date of the promotion for the physical transfer to take place because I'm moving I moved to a different department. But even though I knew all about it, the move was actually done in haste. So stressful as I only knew on the day itself (it was less then a month from the effective date). Good thing I was able to turn over my responsibilities to my colleagues and there wasn't much work left behind, although there were a lot of documents left to be filed. Sheesh! And now I'm trying to study my new work. This is all new to me so I'm trying to read books and references online.

I feel like I haven't had time to be sad about the transfer. I mean it's only now that I'm typing this down that I realize how much I'll be missing all my friends from my previous department although of course we're only a few floors away from each other. And for the past few days I've still been seeing them everyday. They've all been very good to me. And I'm really going to miss them.

I wasn't even able to join Riz's contest on posting what's on your desk because when I read her blog at the time I was packing my things in boxes to be transferred to my new work area. And now that I'm here, my things aren't. phooey! Some kind of miscommunication with the people involved with the moving of my things. Haaay!

So that's about it. I'm still here. I hope to blog more about myself in the next few days heehee. I'm excited about this weekend because we're seeing some friends we haven't been with for a few months now. See you when I see you! Or should that be "read me when you read me"? :)

I'm Ready for My Close Up

What are the things you do to prepare for an interview? No not the showbiz thing! A job interview! I went to an interview for that promotion. And believe it or not, it was the first time I ever prepared for an interview. They say that you had you had to research on the company and know some things about them, but I never did that. I remember when I got interviewed for my present job, the interviewer asked me if I knew something about the bank. I can still remember my answer and looking back, that was a stupid answer. It only goes to show I didn't even research on how the bank operates. Ugh! So anyway as I've said I prepared for this interview. I listed down my "strengths", my "achievements". I have a list of questions that the interview might ask and what you should avoid and highlight in answering those questions. I didn't want to memorize my answers because I'm sure my answers to the real interview would come as "memorized" if I did that. I wanted to be prepared for the things they might ask but my answers to come out as natural as they can. My "reviewer" was lent by a friend and it was a very interesting read. One of the questions listed there is the "silent treatment". I'll just copy the text from the copy lent to me and share it here.

TRAPS: Beware – if you are unprepared for this question, you will probably not handle it right and possibly blow the interview. Thank goodness most interviewers don’t employ it. It’s normally used by those determined to see how you respond under stress. Here’s how it works:

You answer an interviewer’s question and then, instead of asking another, he just stares at you in a deafening silence.

You wait, growing a bit uneasy, and there he sits, silent as Mt. Rushmore, as if he doesn’t believe what you’ve just said, or perhaps making you feel that you’ve unwittingly violated some cardinal rule of interview etiquette.

When you get this silent treatment after answering a particularly difficult question , such as “tell me about your weaknesses”, its intimidating effect can be most disquieting, even to polished job hunters.

Most unprepared candidates rush in to fill the void of silence, viewing prolonged, uncomfortable silences as an invitation to clear up the previous answer which has obviously caused some problem. And that’s what they do – ramble on, sputtering more and more information, sometimes irrelevant and often damaging, because they are suddenly playing the role of someone who’s goofed and is now trying to recoup. But since the candidate doesn’t know where or how he goofed, he just keeps talking, showing how flustered and confused he is by the interviewer’s unmovable silence.

BEST ANSWER: Like a primitive tribal mask, the Silent Treatment loses all it power to frighten you once you refuse to be intimidated. If your interviewer pulls it, keep quiet yourself for a while and then ask, with sincere politeness and not a trace of sarcasm, “Is there anything else I can fill in on that point?” That’s all there is to it.

Whatever you do, don’t let the Silent Treatment intimidate you into talking a blue streak, because you could easily talk yourself out of the position.

*Okay, about halfway through typing the text I got tired and googled the 64 toughest interview questions so I just copied and paste the entire thing here. You can read the entire text here. Good luck on your interview!

I Got Promoted!

I'm so psyched! Finally finally! I texted my parents and then my mom texted back.

Congratulations! Galing mo talaga anak! Remember ako ang tutor mo nung maliit ka pa!

I don't know if I would cry or laugh because of it. It seemed like I was a small girl again back in grade school memorizing the different prefixes. I had a hard time differentiating them. I don't know what to put un-, re-, dis-, de-, ok I know I'm really stupid but English is my waterloo..hello BS Math nga e!) We had a quiz on it and I failed as in super bagsak. So my mother had me answered the whole test again..and we didn't stop until I got all the items correctly. As in if in the first try I got 10 answers wrong, I'll have to do everything all over again. Gumana ang pagkakabisote ko..pag iniba-iba na nya yung pagkakasunod-sunod ng questions mali-mali na naman sagot ko ahahahaha! But really, thanks to my mom I had good study habits and practiced them until college even until I started taking actuarial exams. I don't cram and I really study even on weekends. Sa bahay nung bata kami bawal ang TV pag weekdays and then pag may quarterly exams dapat weekend before the exams nag-aaral na kami!

Thanks Ma for everything! I'm here because of you!

*Okay, this post was supposed to be about the promotion but heck got carried away because of that text. Anyhoo, I'm just so so happy about this!!

Skyflakes

Today, a few hours before lunch time I got hungry so I opened a pack of Skyflakes. But because of the pile of paper on my desk, it got lost. As in I never saw it again. It's already 2:45pm on my watch and I haven't eaten the whole pack yet. So if you see my missing Skyflakes kindly return it to me hehe.

*When I told this to my colleague she joked that I might have included it in my folder for signature of our director. Oh shit! Now I'm afraid I just might have done that.

This Made my Day

An officemate was trying on some coats and jackets she borrowed for her upcoming trip to Europe. They were taking pictures of her with her donning the clothes.




G: R, bagay sayo yan..para kang artista..parang si Katie Holmes.
me: tara dali magpapicture ako sayo para kunyari fan mo ko



Thank God for officemates who are a lot of fun to be with. Makes each passing day easier to go through.

Tagaytay Higlands

Our division had its summer outing last April 5. We went to Tagaytay Highlands. As customary, we can pick any of the venues the SWR committee have for us - Tagaytay Highlands, La Luz and Mandarin Oriental. I have been to La Luz before and I didn't want to go to another hotel outing like last year so I opted for Tagaytay Highlands.

There were only a number of us who joined this venue so they arranged for our tranportation in a coaster. We met up at 6am at the bank and then we're on our way down south. Raffy who was a member of the SWR committee kept us awake during the ride. He was telling us stories and got us to join a game. The mechanics of the game is that we all have to guess the time of the our arrival at the gate of Tagaytay Highlands. It was so traffic at the South Luzon Expressway that most of us guessed the time around 9:15 - 9:45am. I think by 8:30am we are already at the Sta. Rosa tollgate and if you're frequent in Tagaytay you know that it wouldn't take an entire hour to get to Tagaytay proper from the tollgate. So most of us we're hoping it would be traffic along the way and we're happy when some vehicle gets in our way just so our guess will be the right time. Someone even offered to buy everyone corn in the cob so that she can buy time haha. Talk about people not wanting to get to their destination early just so they can win the prize. Anyway, we arrived at the gate at 9:05am and Lorena won the game. In case you're wondering my guess was at 8:45am. She won a $100 wahahaha.

Raffy giving the mechanics

With my seatmate, Melanie

Lorena winning the $100 hehe

Look how foggy it was when we got there

Our first activity for the day was bowling. I was teamed up with Lorena, Gigi, Alona and James.

Our team with Alona's son, Arlo.


And we won! Look at our scores. Yey! I scored 121 which was really great because I haven't played in a while. I was even the 2nd top scorer. :)

After the game, we were supposed to ride the cable car and funicular ride but it was raining so hard that the cable car wasn't operational and they opted to go to the funicular ride after lunch instead. Before eating they gave out the special awards. Our prize for winning the bowling game and my prize for being the 2nd top scorer. I have a confession to make I ate pork when I was there - lechon and grilled pork chop. Gah! I wasn't able to stick to my diet. But that's okay because I had oatmeal that same night hihi. Excuses excuses!

After a hearty meal, we went to the funicular ride.

It was free time for all after that. Some went for a swim while a few like me just chilled out near the pool. And what a coincidence I even saw Joel there. Apparently their division was having their outing there as well.

So where have you been this summer? I hope your summer is more exciting than mine.