High Score in Ouendan!

After weeks of practice, Che got the S Rank! Now, unless the world shifted overhight, I think S rank is great! I think this is the "Over the Distance" stage (the one with the ghost guy).

Weird thing, though, is that I can't find this when I review the saved stats... ???

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depends on how you look at it LOL!), I am now becoming an DS "convert". Actually, more of an Ouendan convert! Hahaha...

Ah what the hell... Linda Linda! Linda Linda Linda-aaaaahh! It's one the songs in there and the only lyrics that I can repeat the first time I heard it! LOL!

Rock on!

Saving with Kinoko!

Kinoko is Japanese for mushroom. Shown below is our collection consisting of four of the Super Mario Brothers Mushroom coin banks. :-)

Based from the New Super Mario Brothers (N-DS), these mushrooms are:

MINI-MUSHROOM (blue & white)
SUPER MUSHROOM (red & white)
MEGA-MUSHROOM (yellow/orange &red)
1UP MUSHROOM (green & white)

These are actually "sound" coin banks; everytime a coin is dropped, it will sound off one of three, uhm, "traditional" Super Mario sounds (the coin sound, the super mushroom sound, and the question box sound).

Anyway, the plan is to fill them up with one-dollar coins (from loose change, donations, finders-keepers, whatever). Then everytime we hit 100 dollars, we exchange the 100 one-dollar coins for 1 one-hundred-dollar bill from our good, nice neighbors. We then deposit that hundred-dollar bill -- along with any other savings that we have -- to our bank account.

Back to basics for us! Somehow, it's actually working great for us. We already saved one hundred dollars this way within the first two months we tried this and we are now well on our way of earning our next hundred!

What can I say? I like the sound they make! There's something nostalgic about the SMB sounds. Since we're saving money, we might as enjoy it, right? hehehe :))

POEA suspends memo for Direct Hires

Much to the delight of many Pinoys, the POEA Memoramdum Circular No 4 Series of 2007 (aka Guidelines on the Direct Hiring of Filipino Workers) has been suspended for the meantime. Details on the infamous memo and the new memo which suspends the former are found in the POEA site.

The provisions in the memo enraged both overseas Pinoy workers and those who have plans of going abroad, chief among them are the following:

• Certificate of worker coverage under a performance bond equivalent to the worker's three month salary and secured at no cost to the worker.
• Certificate of worker coverage under a repatriation bond in the amount of US$5,000 or its peso equivalent secured at no cost to the worker.

As you can see, this apparently means additional cost required from the employers. Not sure if this is actually how it goes (heard from a friend briefly about how payment in bonds work), but I guess many people see it that way as well which, not surprisingly, caused alot of "noise" and confusion.

Anyway, going back: do the math; Pinoys are competing with other countries (such as India and China) for cheaper labor -- and this memo does not help any of the Pinoys -- kahit yung mga nangungurakot hindi matutulungan kung wala ng OFW!!! hehehe... But kidding aside, Filipino workersjust got a bit more expensive in the eyes of foreign employers, which makes us a little bit undesirable.

Not sure if this is true but I've heard rumors of a group of nurses whose work offers abroad have been withdrawn when this memo came out. Can somebody confirm this?

Aside from the above, there were also concerns regarding how these new requirements would affect the existing Filipino workers abroad. I remember going to the Philippine Embassy in Singapore several days before February 1 -- for the first time, as one of the employees there put it, the Philippine Embassy was overflowing with tons of people. Around a thousand people are crammed into the Philippine Embassy grounds which could only hold about a few hundred.

Well, the suspension of the memo was a good sign; it may have meant that the government is in fact listening to all the concerns in the petitions of the workers -- either that or they're worried with the amount of money they'll lose if there were lesser Filipinos abroad! Hehehe!

If I understand correctly, this is just a SUSPENSION of the memo; it is not yet totally abolished. So we might be faced again with this issue sometime later, after the POEA has "reviewed" it. If ever they do implement that again, let's hope that the provisions are clearly explained and is fair for all parties involved.


TIMELINE:

(Well, I always liked stories, so I might as well include how this saga went on.)Just some important dates relevant to the issue. Any other dates I've missed? Please PM me so I can update. :)

• December 18, 2008- POEA released the Memorandum Circular No. 04 Series of 2007, aka Guidelines on the Direct Hiring of Filipino Workers
• February 1, 2008- implementation of the MC No. 4, series of 2007 in Singapore (i.e., the documentary requirements for applying for an exit pass )
• February 14, 2008- POEA released Memorandum Circular No. 01 Series of 2008, aka Suspension of the Implementation of MC No 4 series of 2007 (Direct Hire Guidelines

Links:

Guidelines on the Direct Hiring of Filipino Workers / POEA MC 4, series 2007

Suspension of the Implementation of MC No 4 series of 2007 (Direct Hire Guidelines) / POEA MC 1, series 2008

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/antiOFWcircular/index.html

FLASHBACK - Pinas pictures

Because I have a nasty habit of forgetting stuff, I'll post these pictures now! :)

Us with the newest member of the Aguilar clan: Keisha!

With Kiara and the family

With SPI guys

Dinner with Mike, Amy, and Mitch (maraming absent!)

Me with "Timberlake" guys

See you guys again! :)

Valentines Day work

Well, still busy as a bee here but I have just enough breather to do this one post.

Work is piled up as usual, as I receive tasks more than I can finish. Pretty much the story of my whole professional life! Hehehe. I remember the time when I closed up 30 cases in a week (one of the largest volume of weekly case closures I got back then), but found out I had received 31 cases! So by the end of the week, my total backlog increased by one! Hahaha! Those were the days... :)

I just noticed that Valentine's day is not widely celebrated here in SG (unlike the Cinese New Year last week). Hopefully we can use this to our advantage so we can have a nice dinner somewhere without worrying about other couples; PDA (public display of affection, not the gadget!) is pretty much a given here, but I hope the finer/nicer places and hangouts are not that jampacked.

Happy Valentines to everyone out there! Couples, singles, lonely-hearts club, whatever. :)

Back from the Holidays

After a week, we've finally returned to Singapore and resume work.

It felt like my first day again. I've forgotten many of my usual work routine. Good thing I didn't forget to login! :)

So here I am, using the small window of opportunity to post here while the rest of my mind is thinking work-related stuff. Wow, I didn't imagine this is the amount of work that was waiting for me! 61 new email messages -- on top of the 10+ email messages I left hanging when I left for the holidays! :)

Hahahaha... Yeah, this is gonna be great! :)

We're baaaaack!

And after three months in Singapore, we're back and we've never been happier to see Manila! :)

Like many Pinoys there, we've taken advantage of the fact that Chinese New Year is a two-day holiday in Singapore. With February 7 and 8 falling on a Thursday and Friday, we have an extremely long vacation; very ideal conditions to fly home, in spite of the increasing concerns of overseas Pinoy workers regarding the stricter rules imposed by POEA.

The downside, though, is that we cannot maximize the extended weekend vacation. The airlines took advantage of the situation; all flights on February 9 and 10 (Saturday and Sunday, respectively) have soared; more than 3x the usual cost of flights. Hence, we had to book a flight before that.

Still, home is home and we're glad to be back! It's gonna be a busy week for us here and we\ll enjoy every single second of it!

Yipee! We're home! :) :) :)

NDS Lite Surprise!

Actually, I've posted this already in Che's blog earlier. :) I always wanted to get one of the handhelds, I just don't know which one to pick. Since Che made it explicitly clear that she wanted to buy the DS in the future, that's when I decided that "OK, NDS it is."

Che liked Mario Kart DS and Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! I like New Super Mario Bros. Now I know exactly what the Red-White, Green-White, Blue-White, and Yellow-Red mushrooms do! :)

Now, I'm looking for other DS games to get. Any suggestions?? Pretty please?!? Hehe :)

Brothers Forever - Renaldo Lapuz (American Idol)

After several weeks of headaches, watching this clip last night cracks me up! Don't know if he's a Pinoy. You be the judge:



Note: Taken from American Idol Season 7 - Dallas Auditions Day 2

Starting the New Year

First up, Happy New Year!!!

It's a brand New Year and what a way to start... Early morning January 1st, we were busy preparing for Che's flight to Thailand. The first day of the year and she already got deployed to the client-side. I have no problem with it since this is work. This is what we signed up for.

The weird thing is that it's also a holiday there in Thailand... So why was Che booked on the earliest flight of the day? Che says her boss says that after landing, she should go straight to the client's office. Later, she found out from the contact person there's no one on the client's office so there's no need to go there.

Oh well. I guess I should still be thankful. She was supposed to be there from mid-December, which would have meant that she will be spending Christmas and New Year there while I'm stuck here. It got bumped and bumped further and I think this is as far as she could go.

Also, at least she had some time to settle in first. Cramming is bad in school; much worse in work. :)

I guess that's it for now. I wanted to upload some pics but I can't. Che took the camera as well and I haven't copied them yet to my notebook. :)

Thanks for reading.