What Happened in December

This December has been a pretty hectic month (as it is for everyone, I guess.)

The Hong Kong-Macau trip at the end of November with my teammates was fun, but it also meant I had some catching up to do at work as soon as I got back. Once December came though, the company Christmas parties came one after the other. First was the company-wide party/charity fundraiser at PTTC beside the Manila World Trade Center (it was originally supposed to be at the Megatent in Ortigas, but was moved to PTTC less than a week from the event because of some, uh, trouble? in Megatent.) Next, there was my team's planning session/team building/holiday party at the really nice Punta de Fabian resort in Baras, Rizal. It also served as our farewell party for our teammate Mel, who's leaving to take up her Masters in Australia.

In between those two events, I went up to Baguio to attend Karon and Wayne's wedding. This was the third destination-wedding-care-of-former-teammates that I attended this year, after Camille and Marlon's Baguio wedding and Mich and James' Iloilo wedding. Baguio at this time of the year is just so nice. The weather, the food and the sights are awesome, and of course, Wayne and Karon's wedding was really nice too (the food was GREAT!)

Congratulations, Karon and Wayne!

After that, there was the AMG (our group) year-ender party at the New World Hotel, where everyone was dressed well, and the food was great and the party was nice. It's probably the best HP party without alcoholic drinks I've been to (because for some reason, alcoholic drinks aren't allowed at official company parties anymore, effectively killing any chances of the HP Beer Bash ever coming back... Boooooo!)

And that's why a day away from Christmas eve, I'm still not done buying Christmas gifts for my godkids and housemates. (Actually, it's really because I'm not a big fan of Christmas shopping and I'm a lazy shopper... but why say that when you can claim to be busy attending parties?)

All We Need Are Blinking Christmas Lights.

I didn't realize that Christmas is actually less than two weeks away until I bought Christmas gifts for my college friends before our dinner last night. That's odd.

It's probably because luck hasn't been on my side lately. Or because I really am getting a bit too old for the shiz that is the season of joy and gift giving and Santa and merrymaking. Or maybe it's because our company's Christmas party was canceled because of cost-cutting measures (and to think that I was actually complaining about last year's sucky Christmas Party. Now, all I can say is at least '07 actually had one.) Or maybe it's because our Christmas tree doesn't actually have Christmas lights on it.

Aaaaand, I'm actually part of the Christmas Party committee for our team. So, I really need to step up my Christmas spirit, I guess.

Hell Yeah

Awesome Things, and Things One Should Probably Rethink Before Trying

Had a great time last Wednesday, celebrating my team lead Jonpe's and my former team lead Seph's new roles. The pics are over here. It was a fun night with the free food and beer, and the all-night karaoke. But what really made it awesome was when one of our teammates suddenly was given a rose by a "mystery" guy. What's funnier is my teammates went out to investigate who the "mystery" rose-sender was, and they were given the most obvious clue about who it was by the staff who delivered the rose... ROTFLMAO! Some things just align in a way that makes you think the universe intended them to happen exactly like that, and some things, well, not quite sometimes.

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Nickelodeon is back on my cable. I can finally watch Fairly-Odd Parents again. Yay.

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The Amazing Race 13 had teams going to Siem Reap, Cambodia last episode. Woohoo! They went to Angkor Wat for the roadblock task (where teams had to look for the Chamber of Echoes, which I think I found when I was there, but I had no idea that it was a chamber where you had to thump your chest to hear an echo), and to Bayon Temple for the pit stop. Awesome awesome awesome!

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Krispy Kreme has some new Reese-flavored donuts. Which will probably make me fatter because I love Krispy Kreme, and I love chocolate, and I love peanut butter. (I just took home a half dozen box of donuts for the weekend, right now only two are left.) Hurray for my belly!


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Now playing: The Magic Numbers - Mornings Eleven
via FoxyTunes

Beer and Fireworks

Another October, another month of year-end performance reviews. The good part about fiscal year-ends in my company though is they are always book-ended by the Beer Bash, a night of free flowing beer and partying. The beer was San Mig (what else...) and the food was from Fish and Co., and music from Stonefree and Taken By Cars (there was a DJ too, but I didn't really pay attention to what he was playing, which according to Mia, sucked.)

The next day, our bundle/department/org unit had our second off-site event of the year. Earlier this year, it was an overnight stay at Subic where I got completely trashed. This time, it was just a day trip to Enchanted Kingdom, and it was tagged as a "Friends and Family" day, so I didn't expect to get drunk (I didn't.) On the contrary, I actually was only able to go on 3 rides (2 of them lame rides, and one of them, we had to line up for more than an hour.) I don't know if it was just me getting used to the feeling, but I honestly wasn't all that thrilled while riding on Anchors Away. I guess the thrill of Anchors Away was no match to last month's Abyss at Ocean Park.

The clincher of the night though was I the fireworks competition at the end of the night. There were 6 groups in competition, so it was fireworks overload after dinner, which I wasn't complaining about.


Pics are over here:
Beer Bash 2008
AMG at Enchanted Kingdom

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Now playing: Coldplay - Death Will Never Conquer
via FoxyTunes

Snow in Zakopane, and Parties in Manila

I've been back in Manila for more than a few weeks now, but hey, better something than nothing.



Here are some pics from our trip to Zakopane

Zakopane is a nice, small town up in the mountains in the southern part of Poland, near the Slovakian border. We stayed at a really nice hostel called Stara Polana. And we made a snow man!

The place is really beautiful. The ten-hour train trip was worth it. =)

I came home just in time to join our off-site team building trip to Anilao, and two company Christmas parties. The trip to Anilao was awesome; my teammates are always fun to be with. The first Christmas party was for our bundle, the HP AMG-DME group. It was a costume party, as usual, and our team came as characters from Robin Hood. It was a pretty good party (I got a 10-cup coffee maker as a door prize!) I'll post pics on my multiply site later.

The second party was for the whole company, and to be blunt about it, it sucked ass. Logistics was awful and the food wasn't all that great. I can't wait to fill out that post-party survey.

Merry Christmas everybody (who celebrates it)! Happy Holidays (to those who will get to spend one)! and have a Happy New Year (if you get by the next eight days without dying)!



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Now playing: The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
via FoxyTunes

Pasko, ikaw na naman?

Last Tuesday, my company held its Christmas Party at the Le Pavillon. The theme was Le Carnivale, and there were clowns, people on stilts, and mimes everywhere. The party was really fun, it started at around 6 pm and ended at about 1am (i think). The food was blah to be honest... It was supposedly catered by the Hyatt Hotel, but the food wasn't really all that interesting. (Last year's food was better.) All performances featured my co-workers, and most of it was really fun to watch. Cheers performers!

One thing I hated though was I got almost exactly the same freebie gift that I got last year! (Last year, I got a rectangular baking dish, this year I got an oval baking dish.) The good thing though: Free Overflowing Beer! Any party with an open bar is a great party if you ask me.

Then on Friday, I went to another Christmas party, this time it was the our Bundle's Christmas party. As it's becoming a tradition of sorts for out team, we were all supposed to come in costume. Two year's ago the theme was the 80's, last year it was the Movies, and this year it was White. Each sub-team had to wear a common costume, as long as it was predominantly white. The party was held at our teammate's house in not-so-nearby Commonwealth. (We came 2 hours late, besides getting caught in traffic, we took some time dressing up, and also had to take a slight detour to pick up some props: our balloons.) Oh yeah, we came as kids in a kiddie party

Last thing on the agenda last week was our sub-team's Team Building. We left Manila Saturday evening and made our way to Tagaytay City, Cavite where we had dinner at Lesley's (the dinner was heartstoppingly delicious: Bulalo, Crispy Pata and Sisig. Yum!) After dinner, we proceeded to this awesome house in Nasugbu, Batangas (thanks Vic!) where we slept till late in the morning. The next day, we went to San Juan, Batangas to enjoy the beach! We booked ourselves to La Luz Resort. La Luz was a little disappointing. The rooms were really nice, but aside from the beach, there was not much to do once the sun came down. Good thing we brought some vodka with us. That definitely kept us entertained till the early morning. We played our team's favorite game, 1-7-11 (woohoo!), and another game that Primo introduced to us, Raise (Race?) It wasn't really a game as much as it was a way for us to finish of the bottle of vodka. WOOHOO! Once the vodka bottle was all cleaned out, we used it to play spin the bottle. All I can say is, we didn't have enough bottles to get us to talk out of our asses that night.

Cheers to all who organized the parties! Last week's parties was really fun.

One party I failed to go to was the one organized by my college friends. It ran smack into out team building, so I couldn't make it. Sorry guys.

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On a more bitter point, I'll be working on both Dec 25 and Jan 1. Jeez... And what do we, holiday workers, get for it? Nothing. Not even 1% extra pay for working on those two holidays. Because the company I work for somehow has this twisted policy where they do not pay their employees anything for working on holiday. And they expect us to be motivated and deliver high-quality output.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Looking For Positives

Every year, my company holds a beer bash sometime towards the end of October to celebrate the close of another fiscal year. Last year it was an all-too-simple gathering at our office building's seventh floor terrace, so obviously, this year's Beer Bash at the Hard Rock Cafe is an improvement.

Last year our bundle was still composed of around 60 to 70 people. Now, coming into the new fiscal year, our team has grown twice in number, and will soon change it's name (again) to something that sounds less interesting (something to the tune of Oracle Database Solutions or whatever.)

We also have a new manager joining the bundle (the third immediate manager that I'm going to have; the first one resigned on my second month at work, afterwhich we went though a period of having no immediate manager. Two months later, the new one came on board only to move out to another company after about six months with us. Two more months of having no immediate manager officially ends tomorrow.) I wonder how it will be. The way I see it, this new manager could possibly be a deal-maker or a deal-breaker.

I've also mentioned previously that we are moving to a 24x7 application support hour arrangement. This happens in the coming week. This also means I will get stuck on doing shifts more often, and vacation plans will be harder to plan out. One gripe that I have about this is that it will actually be harder (if at all possible) to plan a week-long vacation. I'm also going to have to start effectively planning out my tasks since manning support shifts isn't the only thing I'm supposed to do.

Changes indeed.