A Birthday Celebration at the Office - Nov. 26, 2007

I just came from a dinner get together with my family to celebrate the birthday of my nephew and now at the office we are also celebrating the 24th birthday of Ms. Raquel Solera. Food food food! hahaha! Actually she already treated us with the kinilaw that we feasted on at Dumoy beach garden... but she bought some ice cream for the agents today.. and we also had some cake (the one we secretly planned to give to her while we were at Mc Donalds).

Despite the limited supply of cake and ice cream, everybody was able to get their own share of the ice cream and cake.... just take a look at the video below..

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John Matthew's 5th Birthday - Nov. 26, 2007

My adorable nephew turned 5 years old today. Time flies so fast. It looks like only a few days ago when he was a bald cuddly baby and now he is a pre schooler whose antics never ceases to amaze us.

my nephew at 5 mos old

He celebrated his birthday at school with his classmates. My sister provided them with cake and ice cream. But in the evening we went to Harana to have a family dinner together.

tita Glenda and uncle Mark with the cake they bought for John

He was very eager to blow his candle... but he did not eat the cake.. he is very choosy with the food he eats. He does not eat just any food he sees even if it looks yummy. It will take ages before you can convince him to eat it.. but once he discovers it to be delicious.. he will keep coming back for more!

He surely had the time of his life when he started playing at the playground. We have brought him to this place several times already but he is so afraid to climb up the stairs, ride the horse, and slide thru the different colored slides.. but this time.. thanks to the endless prodding of my brother who had to slide thru the kiddie slide (good thing the guard did not see him) just to show my nephew how much fun and safe it was to slide.. he finally did it! and he just kept sliding and sliding... he even rode the horse carousel for the first time... FYI he is so afraid of heights.. we have to carry him in the malls when we need to go up or down using the stairs and escalators.

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Family Bonding at Paradise Island Beach Resort - November 4, 2007

Oh well.. I forgot to blog about this one.. never mind if the dates are not in proper order. The posts have been delayed anyway.. I decided to treat my family to a beach outing since I gave a promise to my nephew way back May of this year that I would bring him to the beach when he finishes answering the books which his new school gave him to be filled up so his lessons can more or less be synchronized with theirs coz he is a transferee. FYI I was his tutor for the summer before i got employed as a content writer and started living as a vampire(asleep during the day and awake at night). It took several months before I was able to fulfill my promise but it was good enough that I was able to fulfill it.. better late than never.

We arrived at Paradise Island Beach Resort at around 6 in the morning. We always prefer to go there early since the sun is still not that damaging to the skin and of course we would not want to miss the high tide. This is the usual problem when you go to paradise island beach... at around 9am the sea water would slowly drift away because at this time the tide becomes low. There are only few times in a year when it would be high tide the whole morning.

Anyways, the fare for the pump boat ride is now at P12/head for both adult and kids.. and i was shocked to find out the day tour entrance was already pegged at P90/head while the overnight stay is at P200/head... whoaaa!!! I could still remember when I spent the night with some friends there and the price was still P100/head. Good thing my father has a senior citizen card. It is indeed a big help to get discounts. Plus we sneaked in a 1.5L bottle of coke.. shhhhh... we hid it in a towel! hahahaha! I was carrying a coleman cooler and the guard asked me to open it up but it was only filled with ice.. ice for the coke of course! hahahaha! =p If we poured the coke inside the cooler, they would have made us pay for a corkage fee. That's how strict they are.

We decided to take a dip at the water first then ate our breakfast at around 7:30 in the morning. Then of course went back to the water again. My brother and I saw some teenagers catching some fishes. There were fishes everywhere and we know how much my nephew loves fishes. We attempted to catch our own fish too but it was harder than we thought. I even begged the lifeguard to lend us the net they use to get some dirt off the sea but he told me it was prohibited. We forgot the sun was already scorching hot since we were concentrated at catching a fish.. just a single fish! After several minutes of trying and failing, the lifeguard called me and handed me a fish. Gosh! finally his conscience got him.. hahaha! He told me.. "Sensya na mam.. simpleng isda lang yan.. di masyado gumagalaw".. i told him it was OK.. and really thanked him.. i gave the fish to my nephew who was so excited and even bragged about his fish to some relatives who also went on a family outing and arrived at the place just before lunch time.

My nephew had lots of fun playing at the sand.. not minding the heat of the sun.. we were even shocked when he ran back to our table and grabbed a plastic cup then came back with the cup containing what you would call an "omang or umang". It looks like a very tiny crab that is inside a small shell.. it was surprising coz that thing runs fast and hides beneath the soil fast. He made it his pet for several days but it died a week after.

After eating lunch we decided to call it a day and head home since the tide was already very low and the heat of the sun was scorching hot.. but look at my back.. i am now a member of the X-Men.. hahaha! sunburned again.. the culprit? that fish that died immediately that night.

But it's ok.. what's important was I made my nephew happy.. it's very evident on this pict with his papa.

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Dumoy Beach Garden Outing - November 24, 2007

What better way to celebrate after 6 weeks of SEO training but to hang out with your officemates and have fun! The night shift agents decided to party at Dumoy Beach Garden. Our SEO training graduation ended at past 12 noon but I still had to drop by at SM to buy my nephew a birthday gift, so I was able to come home at past 2pm already. I Slept for 3 hours and woke up to meet up with Karlo and Mylene somewhere in Matina since the other agents have already gone ahead of us. I still had to buy some food at a convenience store. I was just shocked that Wilmer came inside the convenience store ahead of Mylene.. I even commented "Ngano naa ka diri? kusuga pa sa imong pang amoy?".. Little did I know.. he was already texting with Mylene that is why he was aware that we would be meeting up there.. hmmm.. i smell something fishy.. hehehe..

When we arrived, Raquel, Lyra, and Melissa were already singing their hearts out in front of a videoke machine. Since some of the food was still being grilled by Erwin and Dennis, we decided to join them. Soon... food was served and we also played a card game called "123 pass".. Mam Claire also joined us in the game .. unfortunately the looser will have to drink a glass of beer.. and sad to say I lost several times... the problem is I am allergic to alcohol... i think i only drank twice but the rest I had to pass on to Karlo and Odrale who gamely drank the beer on my behalf (thanks talaga dahil kung di nila sinalo malamang nag palpitations ako buong mag damag at di ako mag eenjoy) .

After finishing 3 big bottles of beer, we decided to go back to the videoke machine and spent the 100 pesos which Karlo gave us. After singing several heartbreaking love songs, I suggested that we sang upbeat songs to liven up our spirits. We were dancing while singing some upbeat songs.





When we ran out of coins, Melissa and I decided to stay by the beach and watched some students who were undergoing what we suspected as a fraternity initiation at the beach just beside Dumoy Garden. Melissa was even able to get some nice shots of the sunrise.



Yes we stayed there till morning... just proves we are really vampires and we can withstand staying awake throughout the night.....




And to really certify how bonded we are.. we even ate breakfast at MC Donalds Bajada. After our breakfast, some headed home while others went straight to Redemptorist Church to attend mass. I preferred to go home since I was not dressed properly to go inside the Church.

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SEO Training Graduation and Winning the SEO Contest (3rd prize) - Nov. 24, 2007

Finally! After 6 weeks of undergoing SEO (search engine optimization) training, we are now what you would call graduates of a short course on SEO. It was a very big sacrifice on our part, especially the night shift agents who had to stay after our shift ends at 7am for 6 straight Saturdays since our SEO training is scheduled from 8am to 12 noon. For my part, I had to sacrifice going out with my family and friends, but I am just thankful my friends were very understanding.

"night shift agents in a huddle.. gutom na. hehehe"

All the sacrifice and hard work was worth it because I did not only learn several important stuffs on SEO, but also won the 3rd place for the SEO contest initiated by the company. It was a contest participated by agents both from our Iloilo and Davao branch. The Iloilo agents have a very big advantage over us since they already finished their SEO training way ahead of us before Ma'am Claire came over to Davao to give us the SEO training.

a REALLY BIG check was awarded to me.. until now I have not been able to have it encashed .. hehe

As the 3rd prize winner of the SEO contest, I won five thousand pesos (P5000). P2000 of my winnings went to my mom, since I promised her that if I will win I will giver her 2k as her share. So I am left with P3000. P500+ I shared with my fellow night shift agents when we had our outing after the SEO contest. I bought some chicharon, chichirya, a very big bottle of mineral water, and some cali shandy. A small portion of the money I also used to buy my nephew a remote control car for his birthday last Nov. 26... the rest of course went to my savings.

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Backtracking

Because it has been ages since I last updated my blog, I have a lot of backtracking to do...I have to slowly put them in and maybe just indicate the dates since some of these events took place months ago....

But because it is now 1:44am, I have to get some rest.. been lacking sleep for the past few days and I would not want to get sick during this season when I have lots of parties and gatherings to attend to.. I am looking forward to a lot of fun with my friends on our traditional Christmas get-together.. so I better sign off now and continue my posts maybe tomorrow when I get ample time. Read full post...

Time for a REVAMP

It has been ages since my last post. I used this blog site as one of my entries to the SEO contest that i joined way back September.. I was not really able to put in all my effort into optimizing my entries since I have been kept busy during those days by lots of stuffs both from work and with my family and friends.

I only had the last two weeks before the final tally to really optimize and I really thought it was too late. But I was glad that I was still able to win the 3rd place. Of course I have to give credit to where credit is due, and I really have to thank my client for giving me those important tips that made my entries move back to the top 10 on google search. I really loved his food for thought on SEO - "SEO is not a sprint, its a marathon".. but for me, in a contest running for only 2 months it has got to be a sprint.. Of course I would also like to thank our SEO trainor Mam Claire for being so patient and answering my queries on the do's and dont's about SEO. It really helped a lot.

Before I make a new post, I have to remove the blog posts that I posted in this blog that was all intended for SEO and edit some entries. Read full post...