Home

I am terribly confused where home is right now. They say home is where the heart is, but my heart is both at Seattle WA with my family and here in Cebu with my boyfriend. 

                                      

 

I never thought I'd miss Seattle. It really didn't seem like home at all while I was there. I had my family with me and that was all the home I had there. We lived with our uncle and we don't have our own place. My sister's tuition fee was three times that of the local American's, it was a new place to us to live in, new start, and for the first few months we had to get by with just one income coming in. We are past that and with God's help, we got by fine. Our family is now in a better state, both financially and emotionally speaking. 

I see my sister and mom upload photos, and I also browse through old ones while I was living there with them. And it's weird, I find myself thinking "I miss home". Or how I'm so excited to fly "home" to my family for the Christmas holidays. I never thought that I thought of Seattle as home, but now that I find myself missing my family and the routines I had while I lived there, I guess you could call it my home too. 

The house here doesn't feel like much of a home, apart from the memories of course. I come home to an empty house. I have my aunt who helps manage my dad's business here, and our 2 house help who takes care of the house and me. Our house help doesn't clean as much and work as efficiently as before. Of course it's different that my parents aren't here. Each time I am with my boyfriend, that feels like home.

I just need to be patient and hopefully both my family and boyfriend will be in one place, that would also mean my boyfriend leaving his family though. But that is far ahead so we'll both deal with that when the time comes. 

Currently I plan on going on a one moth offsite work arrangement to spend Christmas holidays with my family. Also, if in a year's time I still find myself in my current situation in terms of career, I'll probably plan on flying off to the US to work there. As for my boyfriend, he'll follow when he's ready.

I guess home is indeed where the heart is, and lucky for me, I have a lot of home to go home to. :)

Thank you, Jesus.

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

Love We Deserve

So I have seen about two Facebook statuses that quote from the book or movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower

We accept the love we think we deserve.

And I commented on one of those who posted it up as a status: 

and in turn, does that mean we also expect/ ask for the love we think we deserve? :)

I truly am curious about the matter. If we only accept the love we think we deserve, does that give other the right to demand for the love they think they deserve? It is after all a two-way street right? And who is to judge as to what amount of love we rightfully deserve? 

I know however much I will love our Lord, I can never even by a quarter fulfill the love he so more than deserves. With that in mind, who is to say that the person isn't giving you all the love that he/she can give? What if he/she has given her all but it still isn't enough for you, or for the love you think you "deserve"? Maybe in most cases, we just give what we can and however much love we want to give and take in return however much love is given back to us. Love after all isn't self-seeking right? 

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Love and let love, 

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! :)

Inspired by a Wife's Story

Even in trying times (that is obviously an understatement), I am amazed by how much of an inspiration wife has been.

I do not know the couple personally, I just heard about them because their younger siblings were my batch mates in school. Also, my cousin is a good friend of the husband. I first heard about them when my friend posted a link on her wall. It was the link to the YouTube video of her brother's proposal to his beloved girlfriend. As I am a fan of love and all the romantic frills, I of course had to watch the video. I also stumbled upon the (back then) bride-to-be's blog page, where she wrote about the proposal in detail. I later heard again about them when my friend and my cousin posted on their Facebook walls about needing donors. Sadly, the husband was diagnosed with Cancer (Lukemia), about two years into their marriage. I said a silent prayer for him and his family at that moment. From then on, every now and then I would stumble upon links to the wife's blog entries. She has been blogging about their battle against the "Big C" (as she calls it). Very inspiring.

Monday, I was having breakfast at McDonald's with my cousin. As we were eating pancakes, my boyfriend text messaged me that our friend's brother has passed away. Sad. I talked to my cousin about how, just a week ago, I chatted with the said friend over wedding preparations and stuff (as she is engaged to be married next year, and so is my good friend whom I might plan the wedding for).  I checked Facebook only to see that the news was true. (Amazing how Facebook and the Internet in general gets you easily updated.)

I ranted on to my cousin about how weird it is we are normally eating breakfast (pancakes which I have been craving for, since about two weeks ago) and how at the same time a whole family and a wife is devastated with the loss of a loved one. How the world maybe all crumbling down on you and where everything hurts at the moment, but aside from you feeling all of that, the rest of the world lives on normally. 

So I once again visited the blog site of the wife. I thought "at least she got left behind with a kid", because I saw how she was very pregnant during our graduation ceremonies. Her sister was graduating with me and since our last names started with the same letter, I was to march right after her sister, with her and her mother. I later found out she lost her child. Just a few days after graduation she gave birth to a 7-month premature baby who only lived for 18 days. My heart sank lower. On top of this she has a father who was bedridden (her sister mentioned it during graduation, in passing) and her mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer. I cried upon reading a few of her posts and watching a few of the videos of her and her (now) late husband. I was so moved that I messaged her and told her even if we didn't know each other, that I was praying for her. My heart was heavy in ache that I ranted on to about 7 people about how all of this pain is felt by one person. But I am amazed, by how inspiring she is as she blogs. How she writes about her human weaknesses but never failing to acknowledge that Lord's greatness amidst  all the pain.

I would very much want to share the link to her blog but I am afraid she might not approve of it (although I doubt that). She doesn't even know I am blogging about how I am snooping in her life through her blog. But I have just been so deeply moved and blessed, I just had to. 

I am sorry if this is somehow invasion of privacy but I was playing it safe by not mentioning names, even if the pronouns make everything all confusing.

I am still praying for you. 

Hello Blogpost.

It has been almost two years since I wrote on here. I have been updating my Tumblr from time to time though. It is so silly how I keep moving from one blog to another. How sometimes I feel I want a fresh start, or how I sometimes want all my blog posts from all over to be in one place, or how I sometimes wish not to just think about it. 

Well, after weeks of thinking I have lost my blogspot blogs forever, I have finally retrieved them. I see they have done some upgrading. Maybe it's time to come on back home? 

// I also just noticed how I have overused the word "random" on my Tumblr as a label, and I can't even find it on here.

xx, Allie