I am at the KLM Crown Lounge here in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport waiting for my flight back to Manila. Officially, I am a platinum card member. Woohoo! Access to this lounge is one of their perks. There's free food (snacks only), free drinks (even liquor), super comfy seats(I want to bring them home with me), television. My only complaint is that there's no free internet. There is wifi internet but it costs 10euros for 24hours access. Too expensive for me because I'll just be staying here for a short while.

What I love about Schipol is this resto near the the passport control going to gates F,G which is on the ground floor of Lounge 2. The resto's name is Noodles. Obviously they sell noodles. (hehe) You gotta try their Chicken with light soya noodles. Add a lot of chili powder... Yummy! It's so good! My trip home is never complete without passing by this resto. Btw, wallet damage is around 12.50euros which is around 812pesos. Omg! It should really be damn good for this price. Come to think of it, there's no such thing as cheap food here in europe.

Probably this is my last trip to Helsinki (for the Nth time!). I know i've said this too many times but then honestly, there's been a lie low on Nokia projects and after this project I'm currently handling closes, there aren't any Nokia projects in the pipeline. However, there are tons of local projects that is waiting for my attention. This is going to be one hell of an experience for me since I've been doing offshore projects for the last 3.5years. I will miss helsinki (inspite of all the cursing) for sure. Btw, it was already snowing when I left Helsinki this morning. Snow was around 5inches thick near the airport area. What a way of saying farewell to me?!

Have you watched the movie Lake House? Mushy but I can so relate. Just a brief about the movie... Keanu Reeves, an architect, is a man from the past while Sandra Bullock, a doctor, is a woman from the future, 2years ahead of Keanu to be exact. They lived in this glass house by the river but in different times. They discovered this time portal (a mailbox...literally a mailbox in the house) that enabled both of them to communicate with each other. After several snail mails later, they fell in love with each other and set a date in the future wherein they will meet in a posh resto. Two years later, that anticipated day came but only Sandra Bullock came. She found out that on that fateful day, Keanu died in the morning of their supposedly 1st date. sad....

Few years ago, I have this boyfriend(on and off relationship for 5years -- most of the time it's off!) who's in cebu. He was an architect. I knew from the start that he was sickly but we never discussed it. He wouldn't want to discuss his sickness and everytime he's in the hospital, he would lie to me about it. Since I was in Manila, I was unaware of what really was happening to him except for those few times that his cousin would tell me the truth about him. He disliked the fact that other people worry about him and pity him because of his condition. There were several times that I would find out that he was in ICU. Of course, due to the nature of my work, I never really had the time to visit him but I try to give call him and communicate with him as much as I can. Anyway, two years ago, we agreed to see each other in Manila August 6, 2005. I would gotten back from Helsinki by then and he would be back from a project in Singapore by then. He never made it to that date in Manila. He passed away on July 18, 2005, about a month after his 27th birthday.

After hearing the bad news, I've never felt so much remorse in my entire life than that time. It was so painful. I just never expected to lose him that early. I never made it to his funeral because I was sent back to Helsinki that time and I also had no intentions of showing my face to his family after the very bad incident that happened to us. Finally after mourning for almost a year, I decided to visit his grave and pay my last respect. There was this tinge of guilt and regret when I said goodbye to him. If only he waited just a little longer... If I had gone home a little sooner...

Moral of the story... life's too short. I have learned to seize the day. Live each day as if it were the last. Say Iloveyou everyday to people who matters to you. There's never a wrong time to remind them how much they mean to you. =)

Labels: lovelife

Winter is about to come. Temperature here in Helsinki dropped to -1C yesterday. Worse of all, it's been raining non-stop. I hate winter!

It's not a surprise to see me again here in Helsinki. Nothing really changed except for a higher pile of work which I have to do here. I hope this go-live thing goes well. My teamlead's other project is getting so overly problematic that I can smell another panicking boss. They've been exchanging honest to goodness, brutally frank and full of corporate politics b*llsh*t emails yesterday every 10mins. I don't know if I should be happy that my hands are full because of this go-live so they can't just pull me out of this project and throw me in that timebomb project. I am no savior you know! But then for the past months, my boss has been forcing me to that dubious project that he felt I can save. Am I that good in cleaning up after somebody else's mess? Maybe. But God knows how much I hate cleaning up!

I am still suffering from jetlag. Bad idea to sleep during the flight going here. The other day, I slept at 4PM and woke up at 12midnight and never able to go back to sleep afterwards. So yesterday, I had to put a velcro at the back of my head so I can stick my head to my chair while sitting down to support it from falling from my body. Hehe. Just kidding! I was so sleepy by 3PM yesterday but had to force myself to keep awake because I can't go home just yet. The client paid me to be here so I must be visible here in the office come what may. This morning, I woke up at 5AM (not bad!) so I was already here in the office by 7AM. More or less, I am still following Manila's sleeping time.

I'm too lazy to pack my things for my flight tomorrow. Hayyy... As usual, this flight is taking my supposedly vacation and rest day (due to end of Ramadan holiday).

I have a new addiction... YouTube. Hehe. Guess what im watching? That one thing I dislike watching because HH is so addicted to it. Anime! Specifically Cooking Master Boy! Hahaha. HH was quite surprised to find out I started watching this anime. It was just out of curiosity that I watched because of some noontime anime show on tv while I was stuck here at home. That's it! I've been spending sleepless nights watching it.

HH is in Macau for a vacation with his younger sister. I should have gone with them if not for this flight. What can I do? Im a workaholic, remember?

Daily Rants... When you hear your boss talking b*llsh*t once more, what do you do? I usually pretend answering emails but in fact I was just chatting with some other friends while he's talking. haha.

My luggage is still empty as of current time.

Just want you to know that I am still awake... unfortunately, still working. =(

I will shout at anyone who will annoy me tomorrow... i mean, later.

I'm stuck at home because of fever. 3 of us from my team plus my boss got stricken by this epidemic in the office. Epidemic or just overworked? So now, there are two patients here at home... my mom and I.

I am bored to death so I have decided to give my blog a facelift. Ok... I just got this template somewhere. I am just a programmer not a web designer! Haha. My tagboard is back. Thank you, John!

My f*ck*ng tag board is not working. I checked out www.tag-board.com and tadaaaa! The site is gone. Ok... this is what I get for settling with free stuff. Libre na nga nagrereklamo pa. It served its purpose for the last 3 years (if I'm not mistaken). However, I lost the 1st and last tag that the architect posted. Uyyy senti! Hahaha.

Anyway, I'm still looking for a good shout box to replace the old one. I hope I can find a good one soon.

1. Favorite Comfort Food
Ice cream. It never failed to give me the much needed comfort especially when I'm abroad and it's nearly impossible to cook my favorite pinoy dishes.

2. Favorite Breakfast Meal
Daing + rice + fried egg + suka with hot chili. Yummy!

3. Favorite Lunch Meal
Fried Chicken + Rice + Knorr seasoning. I can eat this everyday when I am in Helsinki.

4. Favorite Dinner Meal
Same as my favorite lunch meal

5. Favorite Dessert
Vanilla ice cream!

6. Favorite Cake
Store-bought cakes... Becky's Kitchen Chocolate mousse and Blueberry Cheesecake

7. Favorite Pasta
Bolognese

8. Favorite Dish That Others Find Weird
Cerelac (Wheat-Banana). I still eat it at this age.

9. Favorite Fruits That You Haven’t Eaten In A While
Mangoes

10. Favorite Junkfood
V-cut Barbeque flavor

11. Favorite TV Show Related to Food (Cooking show, Travel show with food, etc.)
Unwrapped, East meets West, Food911, Wolfgang Puck Cooking show

12. Favorite Pastries
Helsinki Choco muffins, Portuguese egg tarts, Cream Puffs

13. Favorite Way to Eat Potatoes
French fries

14. Favorite Ice Cream
Arce Dairy Avocado

15. Favorite Alcoholic Drink When You Really Really Really Want to Party
Smirnoff Ice

16. Favorite Bar Chow
Pork Sisig, Crispy Pata

17. Favorite Chicken Dish
Fried Chicken

18. Favorite Place to Eat with Your Sweetheart or Your Best Friend (Choose 1)
JT's Chicken Inasal along Ortigas Ave., La Mesa Grill in Mall of Asia(new discovery!), Pares Mami House along Retiro (perfect for pigging out)

19. Favorite Place to Eat with your Family
At home eating fast food take outs yung mejo bitin para nag-aagawan pa. Hehe.

20. Fill in the blanks: I wish I could eat ____ in/at _____ with ______.
I wish I could eat Al Fresco style in the streets of Barcelona with HH.

Labels: friendster survey

I just got home from the hospital. I was the bantay assigned to watch over mom the whole day. Mom underwent surgery this morning and I think (fingers crossed) she will be ok. However, her doctor gave me a fright when she asked me to go to the Operating Room right after mom's surgery. When I arrived the OR, mom's OB asked me where my pops was, I told her he went home to take a bath. The OB said, "Ah, I will just show you what I took off your mom." With no further warning, that thing that was removed from my mom right on top of a silver plate (of course there's a medical term for that but I just don't know the name) flashed before my face. Bloody and all that gross. I could have vomitted in front of the doctor but good thing I was able to stop it. I even panicked when I saw it. The doctor just asked me to take pictures and show my pops. After the horrific incident with my mom's doctor, I stayed in mom's room and waited until she got out of the OR. She's now in her room recovering. Thank you, Lord.

I need to end this soon because im watchin PDA (Pinoy Dream Academy). Yup, im a fan! =)

Adsense is intriuging. I have heard of some people earning money from this advertising thing from google. Most if not all, had good testimonials to say about how they earned money from blogging. The question is, am I ready to publicize this blog?

Being googleable (what a word!) meant millions of people will be able to browse this blog. For one thing, blogging is not my forte. Most of the time I talk about crappy (but sometimes make sense) things. Who would be interested with that? Haha. Second of all, I am a lazy blogger. I just blog when I feel like talking about something, or sometimes just so my blog gets updated although I don't have any coherent topic to discuss. Thirdly, I have never imagined myself getting scrutinized by blog lurkers who are 1)bored to death 2)have nothing important to say 3)least people whom I should mind. The way those $$$-earning bloggers talk about how they earn money is quite convincing and honestly, the money-grubbing side of me is so tempted to give it a try.

I don't know. I am not sure if this little privacy is worth giving up for shopping money. Hehe.

Today, I am letting go of my dream to go to Barcelona before this year ends. I am letting go of my dream to eat Al Fresco in the beautiful streets of Barcelona, drink wine til I'm dead drunk, smoke cigarettes like there's no tomorrow, be merry in an unfamiliar place and take away all those worries from my head. I am letting go of those dreams for now. Just for now.

Mom is scheduled to undergo surgery on Saturday morning. This is one of the reasons why I changed my mind about going to Spain. Although most of the expenses will be shouldered by our HMO (I hope!), I don't think maintenance will also be shouldered by them. So that means I will need cash to pay for her medication, follow-up lab exams and anything else that fancies my mom. When you get hospitalized, you'll be spoiled in our family. It's been like that since I got sick few years back. I just hope she gets well very soon.

If you notice, I am blogging quite often lately. This is because I've only been doing project support. This stage of the project is the most relaxed time. I can even take a short vacation if I want to. Although I know I deserve a good and long vacation, I opt not to. I'll just save my vacation leaves for the Christmas season. I missed christmas in the Philippines last year so I will definitely spend it in Manila this year.

Ninuninu... tagal ng sundo ko. I'm waiting for HH to pick me up from my office. He picks me up every single day. It's that unsafe here in Makati during night time! I'm such a spoiled girlfriend. Hehe.

I didn't pray to see my Nokian crush again but somehow, forces of nature must have done something to allow me to be sent back to Helsinki one more time this year. I am scheduled to leave for Helsinki again (for the Nth time!) in a few weeks. This is becoming a norm for me. I mean, flying to Helsinki and Manila once a month. For the last 3 months, I have been doing this. I know I should be thankful for these blessings. However, when I imagine how revolting the pain on my back will be during the long flight (regardless if they upgrade me to business class), I just can't help but complain! I love travelling but I really hate long flights, airline food and claustrophobic airplane toilets.

On the brighter note, I am turning Platinum Elite on my next flight. Hehe.

I just found out that a batchmate of mine from STC now owns an IT Company. WTF?! Is she lucky or what?! We are of the same age. We were even schoolmates in college but we were never close. We don't even greet each other when I see her in the corridors. She's a BA OrCom graduate. She's not even an IT graduate. Much more, not even a BS. Sorry, I'm biased with BA grads from UP. Coming from a BS course, I perfectly know how more difficult it is to pass BS subjects than those in BA. For one thing, BS courses in UP are quota courses unlike BA. Hehe. However, I am happy for her.

I couldn't imagine myself starting my own IT company. I don't like the hassles of admin, accounting, auditing, etc. If I can earn as much money from being an employee, then why would I bother with more work and worries for the same pay? Besides the fact that I enjoy harrassing our admin/accounting department, I don't like worrying too much about the social responsibility aspect of the IT Biz. Maybe I'm just too young to think about these things. Enough said.

At work, I am doing more geek stuff. I'm on my 10th hour of reading stuff at jakarta.apache.org, writing software architecture docs, designing software functionality and a few bathroom breaks. Isn't that amazing?