Of Saturdays and Yoga

Today I woke up early, with only 5 hours of sleep. Actually, I was already rushing because I came home an hour later from work after getting carried away talking to a co-worker and I failed to prepare my things before I went to sleep.

After meeting up with my friend (my good friend's ex-girlfriend who became a good friend of mine as well, weirdly but pleasantly enough after their break-up) Alynah for a quick catching up over lunch last Tuesday, I told her about my interest in trying out Yoga classes. It was a good timing that Surya Nanda Yoga was having intensive workouts this weekend. An energy exchange of 500php/ session; 1,000php/ 2 session; 1,800php/ 4 sessions or the whole weekend workshop. We decided to go with the 500php, Saturday morning session: Fun Flow Practice with Mrs. Allen Maitri Enrique. Sidenote: Maitri sounds like a yoga/ yogi name or something. We chose that since schedule since I had to work 3-12 midnight today.

from off their FB page

It was a good and very (very) challenging yoga practice. It was not helping me concentrate either when someone is going around the room taking random picture which sure enough is now posted up on Facebook.

We ran a bit late because I couldn't find my shorts, so I had to wear this other one. I picked Alynah up at JY Square and off we went to Surya Nanda Yoga for the first time. It was a bit weird, different from the usual Citigym environment that I was used to (after a month of membership). It wasn't air-conditioned (although I get that since we were going to sweat), windows were open, and you could heere the busy street outside. Although the music did help muffle that out, and it was a Saturday so the streets weren't as busy. We practiced at the 2nd floor of West Gorordo Hotel, just the next building (if not the same) to where their studio actually is.

I did not participate as much as I would have during the yoga sessions I joined in Citigym because this was intensive yoga and I am still a beginner. First few minutes into the session, sweats immediately broke out. It was good sweating. But later in the session I dried up. The yoga poses and exercises just wasn't right for my lazy body and my lack-of-sleep state. I didn't feel I was able to maximize the 500php I paid for, but I did not regret going either. It was nice going with Alynah. During the cooling down or Savasana, I think I might have felt asleep, good thing I hear the instructor's voice and snapped back to reality.

We asked to see their studio after the session and we entered the side of the building (I'm not sure if it was a separate building) and we had to walk to the 5th floor since the lift wasn't working. The studio was really small and the girl said they could hold up to 20 students if they really maximized the space. They had only one really small dressing area. Currently the charge 1,000php for 10 days sessions and 1,500 for 10 night sessions, consumable within a month. They had other packages as well but my memory fails my now. Within the next month they'll be moving to a new and bigger space, and so as follows the increase in their prices.

Alynah and I drove to Waterfront so she could go check out Citigym. I love that they still have the Youth package, 1,500php/month for those under 23 years old. This is the most affordable deal I've ever come across and Alynah seemed pretty sold to the environment, facility, the variety in classes, and the 24/7 gym access; not to mention the free individual locker use, shower, sauna, and steam room. Their yoga classes are fewer than last month's schedule though, hopefully that'll change next month.

I would like to try yoga hopping. And I really hope I'll keep up with the yoga. I hope I get the poses and pretty soon do some breakdance moves (lol). 

We drove the Lahug because I wanted to inquire on French lessons, they are quite pricey and their next class starts on March and ends on May. I plan to leave on April, so maybe I won't be taking that class. I drove Alynah home and the girl talk and company was much appreciated.

Came and logged in to work early. I had a lovely lunch with boyfriend at Tokyo Joe's (2nd time this week). And boyfriend accompanied me to work. We have KFC take outs for dinner. I am sitting here and I just finished a movie and a series, while boyfriend was doing work and now is playing his online game. The band from the restaurant next door is playing now and I guess my Saturday isn't as bad, even if I had to work.

Thank you boyfriend! :)

And as always, Lord, may Your will be done.

Graveyard Shift, Day 1

I was one to always found graveyard shifts interesting. I always wondered how odd it would be to be up when everyone's asleep and asleep when everyone else was up. Well now, I got to experience it. 

Back when I used to work in Tacobell in the US, I did a lot of closing shifts, especially at the end part of my being employed there. I however did not feel much of it because I didn't have friends there, no social life, and I really didn't care much for the time there. 

I think graveyard shifts suits me well because I am nocturnal and I love coffee. But even so, I'm not saying that the late night shift didn't take its toll on me. I have some adjusting to deal with. 

Coffee

My Duty-mate 

 From boyfriend, bought the day before :)

Before the shift began I started my day at 8AM, I woke up that early from my 4AM sleep and did some errands (shipping and groceries). After which I kept myself busy, making siomai and cooking my own lunch (fried rice with spicy chorizo, iced tea to drink). I didn't want to sleep too early because I'd end up waking up too early. I was in bed by 11AM-12PM reading my eBook (Slammed) up until around 3PM. I slept in and my bladder woke me up at around 6:30PM. I went back to bed but couldn't sleep. I was hungry so I went down to eat. I went back up hoping to sleep in until 10PM, but that was a fail.  

At work I found myself confused as to what time I should eat. So when I felt sort of hungry and I feel it was too early to eat my meal, I'd be eating all sorts of things. And when time came I decided to finally eat my meal at around 5AM, work got busy and I didn't finish eating until 7AM. I didn't even finish the food because I lost appetite. Earlier hours of the shift, I busied myself with the free online course I enrolled in. 

Studying

Stuff I ate:

Meal

It was interesting to see the crowd from slowly increase as the sun rose. The sky's interesting color change was also a sight even from inside the building. 

I ended the shift feeling like I was floating and I felt a bit light-headed. I drove home and it was weird. I was driving home to my bed whilst everyone else around was just getting ready to head off to school and work. They just started their day and I just ended mine. 

At home, I didn't eat but had milo to drink. I stayed in bed, relaxing and enjoying my eBook until 11:30AM. I slept in and my bladder, again and consistently, woke me up at 6:30PM. I went to have dinner and I watched TV, cleaned up a little and took a shower. I was ready to head out for work before 10PM. I took my time driving to work, and it was nice. Now I am at day 2 of my graveyard shift.

This had been very detailed for my own sake as I blog for myself. :) I like back reading to my old posts, reliving a few moments again, and seeing how much I've changed.  

Lechon, Cloud 9, and HON

My yaya (yes, I feel yaya has a more endearing sound to it compared to house help) forgot to pack my viand today. I only had rice and banana. I usually eat lunch after I get to work and have settle everything (i.e., checked my work mail, open all the software and accounts needed to be opened). I have been eating lunch at around 5PM lately. It was raining very hard so I could not very well go out and buy some viand for myself. There might be something on the 3rd floor of this building, but I was not very fond of the food stalls up there, aside from the canteen which was close on weekends. So I messaged boyfriend if he could ask the food stall vendor on their building if they would be so kind as to deliver some food to our building. I wanted to eat some lechon, one of my favorite food and one of the food Cebu is best known for. Boyfriend said he would personally deliver the food himself. :) 

I was on Skype with my mom and boyfriend delivered my food with extra Cloud 9! I love eating sweets to close my appetite. I got that whole habit from my mother. I had free lechon and Cloud 9 from a sweet boyfriend. :)

After an hour or so, boyfriend was done with his job and he came over to my work place with me. I asked permission from my colleagues in advance that he might be coming over. On Saturdays I work alone at the Techbar. And I can not help but feel like a fish in a giant aquarium sometimes. Our office has a big glass window where people outside could see us from in here. So yes, kind of makes me feel like a fish sometimes. 

Currently: Boyfriend is playing HON whilst I am blogging. :)

 HONing

BLOGging

I am usually alone on my Saturday shifts, but I am glad boyfriend is here tonight to keep me company with his game noises and exclaims of frustrations or being excited over the game. Next shift is at 11PM but they usually get here around 10. This is my last night with this shift, last night I am off at midnight. Next week I will be starting my 11PM - 8AM shift, and that shift will run up to 3 months I think, longer than the usual 2 months. 

Current read: Slammed by Colleen Hoover, as recommended by an officemate. Also a high rating on http://www.goodreads.com 

eBooking to save money

Today before I went to bed a little after 6AM, I just finished Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata.

I'm off to contniue munching on my Cloud 9 and reading my eBook,

Allie

I Am Not Fond Of My Job

I am currently listening to The Beatles - Hello Goodbye for the third, going on fourth time today. 

I posted this Youtube video up on my Facebook wall thinking a good friend would be leaving for Dubai to work there for two years. Fortunately, her agency called that her ticket hasn't arrived yet so her trip is postponed to Monday. A few more days to spend with her. :) I was going to blog about my good friend, but let me do that on Monday or so.

Let me rant about my work. Lately I have been very bored with work. I am happy and thankful I have this job; I like the company I work for, I just do not share the same enthusiasm with the job I have. I work as technical support engineer. People instantly think it is a call center job, but thankfully it is not. It however is not a far cry from one. 

I tried to like the job, tried to love it, but it gets frustrating when there are things you do not entirely understand, and even more so when there are things people assume you already get. I would like to clarify that we were not given proper and formal training, even our supervisor has acknowledged this and apologized for it. I am trying to understand things as I go but it is not healthy at all that I do not have a clear black and white picture as to things I should know in order to perform well with the given job. I just wish they gave us time, sat down with us, and clarify things as oppose to us just assuming things as we go. Maybe then I will be confident in my job and in what I do. I know they have provided us with documents to go through, but as I have mentioned time and time again, I am not one for self-learning. Sorry, it is just hard for me and I know it is no excuse, but I am just saying. Plus, it is always better to learn hands-on and be guided as we go. Also, the people I work with have their own techniques in doing things which sometimes is contradicting to that of the other person with the same job. I can not say who I should follow. One time I had to work alone after two weeks of so called "training" (which did not even cover half of what I needed to know) and I was worried I did not know exactly what to do. I brought this up to our supervisor and all she said was: "You will learn thorugh baptism of fire." That is one way to put it. But her confidence in me somehow gave me the push to say "Yes, I can do it." 

So now I am here, two days and three months after I first started, and I already feel like I have lost the drive to keep on going and pushing myself. I was hoping after I rant on here I would feel better. At times like this I would like to remind myself that I left my family in Seattle, Washington for this. And that I should make it all worth it and learn all I can learn. And if I do not, then I would have just wasted time away from my family trying to make something of myself but ended up failing and disappointing. Scary. So now I close this and I am off to push myself to finish that trivia questions which was due last week but was extended to today because only one participant submitted an answer. 

To making it worth it, 

Allie 

//Update: Shortly after this blog was posted, after days of avoiding the trivia because I did not know where to scour the answers, I finished it. Answered and submitted! Thanks to my colleagues tip on where to find the answers! :)

So… a Japanese colleague added me up on Facebook, and now I see his rants but can’t understand it. I click “translate” but Bing does not really translate that well, I think it is translating word for word. I cannot make much sense to his rants, only parts of it. 

And oh, that last phrase at the end: “kitakits ugma” :) HAHA. I just sure hope he is enjoying his stay at Cebu. 

In my life today: first ever company ID. (Taken with Instagram at TechBar)

first time working up here at the 8th floor. I’ve always been down at the Techbar. But it just so happens that at 3pm, TB is usually packed. Plus I had that 2pm eco friends meeting up here at the green room. 

I find myself liking it here, working here. Own desk space with clear boundaries, comfy chair, and the best part- a small locker just below the desk, on the side. So, it looks like I will be working up here from now on. :) 

Cheers to own space! 

Good morning Wednesday!

Early today we had a global sync meeting going on and there wasn't anyone here who could set up the gotomeeting log in. Thankfully miss Ne (our supervisor, or something like that) guided me accordingly on Skype.

After meeting we always have free food, and since I was too hungry to wait on the free food, I went on and bought a heavy breakfast. And I didn't really enjoy it. Anyhow, there’s a budget given for the food, and since there were only 5 of us, it was a bigger budget for each of us. We all ordered from KFC, I ordered 2 pieces chicken which I will enjoy with my boyfriend later during lunch. 

So my co-workers were saying I should dress up everyday like I did yesterday, all girly and stuff. They said something like, “yesterday you were such a girl, but now you’re back to being a boy, you should be a girl everyday” (of course in our dialect). Today I only have jeans, Crocs slippers, boyfriend’s loose shift, and boyfriend’s jacket on. I didn't fuss about what to wear today, so long as it’s comfy. Times when I dress like this reminds me of how my boyfriend first thought I was a tomboy, like how ahia Jermy thought the same about me during my elementary days. Haha. I like how flexible I can be in terms of the way I dress. :) As my old friend Stanley would put it, I have my own style. 

The day isn't half way done yet, I’ll be carrying on streaming Angelito: Ang Bagong Yugto and testing some mCloud environments. And hopefully I get to study too. My greatest enemy: laziness. 

I also hope the hang out at Jackielyn's place later for food fight and movie will push through, although I wouldn't cry if it didn't. 

Formal Tuesday.

So just for fun, we were encourage to wear formal attires today. Although, I think the more appropriate term would have been corporate attire. 

I wish we had uniforms like my outfit, a comfy office skirt and blazer. It will save most girls a few minutes in the morning not having to think of what to wear to work. I really pictured myself, when working for an IT company or getting an office job, in office uniform or corporate attire (the latter preferable). 

Not everyone joined in the whole formal attire thing though, some forgot and some didn’t have any formal (corporate) attire available for the day. 

And on the side note, it was my first official photos with the people I work with and the place I work at since I worked here. HAHA!