WIPROITES on an AMAZING RACE

June 20. Wiproites sacrificed their Sunday to participate in the first ever account-wide Amazing Race. I was appointed as one of the marshals together with the QA team. More than thirty teams joined the fun-filled race that had them searching for clues on each stop and racing on to the next. The race brought the contenders to the Family Park in Talamban, the Abellana Sports Complex where members of the the teams had to swim across the Olympic-size pool and back and then sprint back to Ayala Business Park where the race commenced. The five-member teams raced thru the city streets begging jeepney drivers for free rides. The final challenge required eating dried lizards. Though not everyone hurdled on to the next challenge, the adrenaline at the start of the race was enough to keep the whole event alive. Let's all hope a bigger and a more challenging Amazing Race will be planned for next year!!


Kudos to Peachy and her bf, ALbert Uy for the really neat fotos!







And the winners were...***drum roll***

2nd runner up: TEAM JAKE GORDON GO (aka JUSTIN BIEBER)



1st runner up: TEAM RTA



The Champs: TEAM JEYSON SALANDRON



Til next year Wiproites!!

Going the Extra Mile

Come on Miley, this is too much. Not really a good role model for Hannah Montana kiddo fans huh? At least she shaved. LOL :)


photo from perezhilton.com

The Good Things

There are a lot of things we feel we lack. For so many reasons, we miss to count the many blessings we have. A little instropection might help us realize that what we have is more than what we need. Truth is, I think I have more than what I need to survive. It is the insatiable want that makes us shallow. Though it feels good to have the good things in life, it feels better to count the ones that matter more. And it isn't the material things that I'm talking about.

Today, I am celebrating two milestones in my so-called little career. I have just been confirmed as a full-fledged Process Trainer which means I will have an increase in salary (YEY!). I am also the happiest trainer today, having seen my first set of trainees ever to graduate from the 5-week process training I am handling. It has been fun. At times, my patience was tested to the last straw but I was able to keep my cool. I know pretty much that I am patient and considerate, which I think are not bad traits of a trainer. I do not consider such as a weakness. In fact, i consider them my strengths. And maybe it was for those reasons I have bonded with my trainees well. I have the best class in th world, well maybe the rowdiest one too, but I couldn't have asked for more.

During the short graduation rites we had, I knew that were gonna perform a sing-and-dance number for the audience who attended ( they were gonna sing BABY by Justin Bieber. haha!). Though they retreated back to their shells the time I asked them to show off, they instead read from a small piece of paper a little tribute to me where they expressed the ten things they like and hate about me. The list included how they like/hate my curly hair to the smoking breaks where i continued to rattle on about the topic we discussed in training. It was hilarious. More than the friendships I made, it felt good because I felt loved.



P.S. My trainees also bought me a shirt from the Adidas shop in Ayala which I thought was a bit too much knowing that every penny counts these days. Thanks for the nice tee guys!

I'm Getting a Blackberry!!!

I am excited to receive my first Blackberry phone. I am not a techy person when it comes to phones and I am not someone you wanna talk with about the newest mobile in town. In fact, I dont use my phone much at all. I rarely text even and my mom would rattle about how i don't get in touch with them for weeks which sometimes makes her wonder if im already a rotting corpse in some room in Cebu City.


I keep a Samsung phone right now. One that has no camera, no memory to save music, no games to keep me occupied- the cheapest you can find at the mall. I dont need something more than the basic texting and calling and i probably wont be using a phone other than that.

But I learned recently that I could get a plan from Globe under my company's corporate account where I could get a Blackberry for a phone. I got the 99-peso plan and get a blackberry. I will be paying for the monthly amortization of the phone way cheaper if I go inside a Globe store and get a personal plan. The idea sounded neat though I will be locked-in for a 2-year contract which means I should keep my job for the next two years or else I'd end up fried with debt. With my confirmation as a trainer this month, i will be getting my mobile allowance so it wouldnt hurt much my budget. I admit i am pretty careless and history shows I have lost a couple of phones - not really fancy phones but phones nonetheless. Friends tell me I should get my phone tied on my neck all time which is a not something I can be proud of really.

Can't wait for the blackberry. I should be texting more otherwise I will be keeping a white elephant in my drawer.

Hot Sunday, Good and Bad Customer Service and a Frap

Long hot Sunday.

Alih, a fellow trainer, was recently promoted as a GL which is nothing short of a reason to celebrate. She had intended to celebrate her achievement at Casa Verde but had to make quick change of plans due to the long queue of hungry mall rats. JV, another trainer, also had a very bad experience at Casa Verde yesterday which made Alih decide to jump over to the resto next door - Bistro Ecila. Restaurants oughta give good customer service to 'customer service people'. The food was great at Bistro Ecila - I love pork chop! There were eight of us - Alih,JV, Aisha, Jix, Miah, JV's bf, Dexter and me- and with a few good laughs over sumptuous food, the dinner completed my day.

After Bistro, we went to Bo's Coffee to chill and cool off. Today was the hottest day ever that we needed coffee to keep our body temp at normal levels. Everyone agreed. I had frap. One of the good-looking baristas caught Jeremiah the Tank's eyes that confidence took over the good side of him and asked the guy for the seat that was an inch away from where he was standing. Asking for the sake of being noticed - so patagad. The guy obliged with a smile and even more so when Miah's name was called from the counter under the pseudonym Anne Curtis. That quite caused a commotion.

It was a nice dinner ALih! Congrats!

mobile

(an ode to my cheap nokia phone)

moving.
we move tirelessly
crisscrossing miles
that get us no
farther than our
first step.
like connecting dots
like drawing constellations
our destinations form
random shapes
from our arbitrary thoughts.
we move and stop and stare
then move again.
picking up memories
and saving them in
our hard drives
like we collect numbers
of people we keep
in our mobile phones.
in losing them,
the puzzle
we so patiently built
crumbles.

signs

if you wanna have a good laugh, you might might be surprised you'd get a hearty one at an ukay-ukay market. here's some that i collected over the years plus contributions from Atty. Benjie Zosa and Oliver Lancin that they posted on the Facebook page I created named KARATULA.

chatter

talk over french fries
and cigarettes
turns into
childhood tales
that make us recall
the oddness of the years
gone by
and the sweet familiarity
of innocence
that had slowly withered away.
in reminiscing,
we mourn.

city dogs

dogs in the city
they bark on concrete
that towers them, envelopes them.
they bark on speeding cans
that roar back louder
in a scary, deafening noise.
they bark on people
who bite back and backbite.

dogs in the city.
they bark at a world
that swallows them alive
and consumes their minds
until they become mad dogs
running around the city streets.

clueless

you tell us
to retreat to our shells
because you can't
get out of your own.
the chains that bind you
the mask that you wear
grows heavier
creating lines on your face
that you cannot deny.
you put on a puppet show
and we gladly oblige
as we clap on your fantastic
performance
knowing that you only have
yourself to fool.
clueless.
you are.
because everyone knows.

waiting

in bed
the lights turned low,
i gaze at the ceiling
and in the cracks
i see moons shining
and stars dancing
from universes away.
i count the minutes
in the length of each
tiny light's twinkling
as they're consumed
by nothingness
only to peep out before
i could gasp another breath.
i entertain myself with
the galleons of clouds
passing by
until they all sail away
into the window,
into the light.
the door creaks open
and my waiting ends.

SRP Tunnel Now Open

Photo by Rey Roman Tura)

THE South Coastal Road tunnel finally opened to motorists May 8.

The 0.97 kilometer twin box tunnel traverses beneath Plaza Independencia in Cebu City and will allow access of vehicles to the South Road Project.It is the first undergorund tunnel of it's kind in Cebu and is expected to decongest the main city streets.

That's something to smile about!

I LUV CEBU!

If ever you find yourself in Cebu, don't miss to grab one of the I LOVE CEBU shirts. You can get it customized and have your name on the shirt in 30 minutes. Shirts are available at ISLAND SOUVENIRS at the Ayala Center.

I have seen more and more people wearing the shirt and I am at the verge of getting my own. It certainly is great for tourists.

Bantayan Summer 2010

My second visit to Bantayan with the QA team on our first beach outing. It was so much fun I could only hope it could happen again sometime in the future. But, i guess not.

I tell you, Bantayan can change lives. You'll get out of it and you're never the same. Well, that's what happened to us. :)

sidewalk thoughts

i sit on a sidewalk
my life in stationary
while thoughts run
round and round
in a race
i could only wish the road
will run out.
i could finally hear
silence.
the littlest gust of wind
creates a sound as i
let out a breath of smoke.
18 cars past,
i wished they had dragged
these thoughts to where
i do not know of
until they all dissipate
until i couldn't care less
until all i could remember
was counting cars and
a vague memory
etched on paper
that i painfully erased.