november = death

What is it with the month of November that makes me associate it with death? Is it because October welcomes it with Halloween, and it starts off with All Saints Day and All Souls Day? Or maybe because Papa’s birthday falls on this month and I’m sad because he’s not here anymore so that we can celebrate it with him? Whatever it is, November is the most depressing month of the year for me. And it seems no matter how excited other people are preparing for Christmas and New Year, I still get this feeling of doom.

my blessing, my gift

Hubby was invited to give a talk to the unit heads of SFC Cluster B one evening a couple of weeks ago. Usually when he shares or gives talks to the community, we would bring Caila along with us (and I wouldn’t get to listen to him because she would always need my attention). But this time we decided to leave her at home with Ate Cel so that she wouldn’t be puyat because for sure it would end late.

food-days

This week has been full of food! And almost everything is related to the office, so it’s not as if I could avoid eating. What the heck! I’m just using work as an excuse to pig out. But, seriously, I really don’t think anyone could resist all the tasty chow that tempted me almost every day.

rubbing shoulders with the bosses

Our company had a business meeting last Sunday and Monday. Attendees were top managers from our Japan head office, a couple of engineers from our Kuwait office and their General Manager, and some of the managers and a sales assistant from our office here in Dubai. The only person who I felt didn’t belong in that meeting was me because the topics being discussed were all about our projects, business, and engineering stuff, and I have absolutely no idea about those things. Seriously! Nothing about it is in my job description! But since our Deputy General Manager was the one who included me in the list of attendees, there was nothing I could do about it. In the beginning, I felt that my name was added just so that our Sales Assistant wouldn’t be the only female attending; but later I realized they needed me there because I was the one coordinating and arranging the whole thing with the hotel, setting up the laptop, making sure everything was working and ok, ensuring the drivers arrived on time, etc. In short, all Administration-related stuff (which was part of my job anyway).

beat diabetes walk

As planned, my family and I participated in the Beat Diabetes walk last Friday. But since we didn’t get the chance to register in advance, we had to settle on the sizes of the remaining shirts, which unfortunately were large. And because we arrived late at Oasis Centre (just 15 minutes before the walk started), we also didn’t get the chance to have our faces painted and have our blood sugar tested. It didn’t matter though; what was important was we were able to join because as I mentioned in an earlier post, our participation was for Papa.

our family song

There’s a cassette tape we have recording an ordinary day when we were living in PNG. You could hear Mama cooking at the background, I was a baby so there wasn’t much I was doing, and Papa had gathered my siblings around him so that they could sing a song together while he played his guitar. The song was John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads, and even though the only one who sang in tune was Papa, that song automatically became our family song which we would sing during gatherings.

i won another raffle prize!

This time I got it by joining Mumcierge’s October competition, which, again I joined knowing that I wouldn’t win, but still hoping that I would.
The announcement of the winners was posted on their FB page on November 2, I found out the next day, but it was only last Wednesday (16th of November) that I had the chance to collect my prize from Elaine Stannard, the founder of Mumcierge.

mama's washing machine

One day during our vacation...
Me: Ma, alis muna kami. May kailangan lang asikasuhin sa labasan tapos may bibilhin sa SM. May ipapabili ka?
Mama: Meron, washing machine.
Take note, the way she said was as if she was asking me to buy some soap at the supermarket.
Me: Nyek! Kulang ang pera namin para dun! Atsaka di namin yun mabibitbit pauwi.
Mama: Kasya yun. Hindi naman kailangan yung may dryer; may nakita ako na washer lang na mura.
Me: Sige, Ma, magpapadala ako sa December para makabili ka. Christmas gift ko na yun sa yo. Pero sa ngayon, wala sa budget namin.
Mama: Yehey! Ok lang. At least may maeexpect ako. Thank you!

oh christmas tree

Since coming to the Middle East, I’ve never put up a Christmas tree in my apartment. During my first 2 years, I spent the holidays in the Philippines; and then from my third year until 2009, I was too lazy to put up any Christmas decorations because I was living alone anyway and my studio apartment was too small. If it weren’t for a hanging décor sent from my family in Germany, my place would have really looked blah during all those Christmases.

2011 vacation

I know, this is a late post. Our vacation was 2 months ago, but it took me this long to finish this (it had been saved and edited so many times in my draft folder). I had to refresh my memory and remember some details, but finally, I’m done. Most of it will be about our journey going to the Philippines . Let's see if I get to finish the posts about the other stuff during our vacation (which reminds me, I also need to prepare a post about our experience coming back...oops!). Anyway, enough of my explaining. Here’s what happened...

the washlet

In an earlier post, I mentioned that we would be moving to a new building. Last Thursday before the Eid Al Adha holidays was our last day at our old office, so when we went back to work yesterday, we went to our new office. As expected, it was a busy day. Everyone was unpacking, sorting out their stuff, reading and taking the required actions of e-mail messages that had accumulated over the holiday, and all the other things you usually do when you move into a new office. There were still some furniture that hadn’t been delivered yet so not everyone was able to settle down completely; but generally, we were ok.

marriage and togetherness

There’s a couple we know who have been married for at least 25 years. Whenever we see them, we notice that they’re usually very sweet to each other: holding hands, making akbay, the husband tucks his wife’s hair behind her ears, etc. They embodied a picture of a very happy, and very much (still) in love couple considering the number of years they’ve been together. However, just recently we discovered that their marriage wasn’t all honey and roses as it seemed. At home, they weren’t truly happy. Since they both have jobs and they admitted they’re both workaholics, they rarely have time to sit down together and talk, even for dinner. Even though they lived together, it’s like they were living separate lives because of the busy schedules they had. For several years, this set-up worked for them. But then they realized later that it wasn’t healthy for their marriage.