carbo-loading

i am one big blob of carbohydrate.

when i say i carbo-loaded today, i really, really did. i feel like i have a movie to make wherein i have to be as big as bridget jones. oh my lord. just to give you an idea of how i took the term carbo-loading to the extreme, here's what i ate:

• half rice and sweet and sour fish balls for breakfast
• a cheese roll from Conti's given by Ms. Gladys shortly after breakfast
• a cheese naan from Bread Talk for lunch
• a big Japanese sweet corn for lunch (that is because i devoured the cheese naan right after i bought it and thus, it didn't even last me the whole trek back to the office)
• assorted junk food that i alternated with my corn
• a big banana choco chip walnut muffin given by Ms. Lanie within an hour after lunch
• 4 ding dong mini foil packs given by Ms. Agnes after the muffin
• a few pieces of Ms. Gladys' junk food in between the ding dong foil packs
• a bite of Applewerm that i gave to my mom an hour after the ding dongs
• a full meal, meaning i ate rice, at Tokyo Tokyo another hour after the Applewerm

there you have it. i now understand why the diet experts advise their clients to keep a food diary. i feel so disgusted now! not to mention, fat! and to think that the whole week, i subsisted on perhaps, less than 1,000 calories a day. oh, well. oh, well. tomorrow: GYM!!!

***

i am so relieved that the weather's pretty bearable now with the rain and "cool" breeze. unfortunately, jack isn't around to enjoy it. and when jack isn't around, well, there's also no work for me. the good thing about that, however, is that i got to prepare for my monday review class. can you imagine, i have 8 chapters to discuss in a matter of an hour and 30 minutes. that is, if all my participants would arrive at 4:30pm. but that wasn't the case last monday. we started at 4:55pm, because of course, i dare not start promptly at 4:30pm with only 2 participants, right? i hope that for this monday, though, it will be more fun. i don't plan on discussing the chapters one by one anymore. i'm not an idiot! it's supposed to be a review class. the assumption being that they already know what i'm going to talk about. and that is why i prepared sample questions so that we can just go through them and discuss whatever concerns they may have. that's the gameplan. hey, i have 2 LOMA's to take, too, you know. i don't even get paid to conduct review sessions. heck, i don't even get a free bottle of mineral water! as ms. agnes said, purely for self-fulfillment.

***

this week, i was travel agent to the trainers. who would've thought that cebu pacific would bring back their promo, but this time cheaper by 9 pesos! i booked them for cebu and arranged for their shangri-la mactan accomodation. chi spa in shangri-la is soooo breathtakingly beautiful. plantation bay is also quite picturesque. aaahhh...i'd love to take a vacation!

going back, though, i kind of like the idea of running a travel agency. ms. agnes, it turns out, has also been toying with the idea so now, i've found myself a business partner! i just have to talk to tita edna and look at our options, talk to my financier (a.k.a. my boyfriend), get ms. agnes' go signal, and off we go! as i've said many times this week, it's the closest i can get to realizing my fantasy job of being an FA.

as a matter of fact, ms. lanie said i'd make a good travel agent because i'm patient with the booking process. that is why she gave me the muffin as a prize. aww..isn't that neat? hopefully, when i get to run my own travel agency, the prizes will come in the form of free trips to europe or wherever. hihi

***

march is finally over. it actually felt like a drag to me, if you ask. i hope that with the breaks in april, i'll find time to relax with my boyfriend somewhere far from the hustle and bustle of city life. commuting is such a hassle, i swear. i cannot wait for a break from the mrt and lrt rides. for once, please, i do not want my butt finding its way into a stranger's hand or even cheek to cheek with another butt. oh my lord. and while walking along UN Avenue? what about that? well, there's the smokers who are a step ahead of me such that when they puff, the smoke envelops me like a cloud of cancerous air. i mean, it's polluted enough in Manila...do we really have to smoke? fine, i know the answer must be a resounding "yes," but please, maybe not while walking? whenever i get a whiff of their smoke, my mind breaks into a chant: "Die, Smoker! Die!" i know, i know, that's a horrible thing to say. but you know, while i have a lot of friends i love dearly who smoke and a boyfriend who smokes, they do it in the proper places. okay, so we can't have pocket gardens sprouting all over the metropolis like they did in the ateneo, but all i'm asking is some consideration for the other commuters who want to reach their offices smelling like they actually did take a bath in the morning. but then again, maybe that is asking too much. oh well.

i've a teaching job!

okay, okay. so it doesn't pay. but what the heck. i've been long telling myself that i have to try teaching. this is, perhaps, the closest i can get without really going out and applying.

tomorrow is the first day for the review class. i'm handling LOMA 280, the very first in a series of 10 examinations, which, if you pass all, merits you the title, FLMI (Fellow in Life Management Institute, i think.) i actually have 2 two take in May (marketing and law) and i have yet to break the halfway mark in marketing. i took on the review class because it seemed pretty interesting to do, and 280 is rather basic. i mean, not to sound arrogant or anything, but i've studied what's in the 280 course ever since i got into this industry (since 2004 to be exact.) thus, i'm pretty psyched to be at the helm this time. i just hope my 13 participants will be easy to handle.

for this "job," HR gave me a kit which, unfortunately, did not contain a lesson plan. it did, however, come with a door sign! i cannot be more excited to have a door sign to post in those little glass things they have at the training pavilion. and i have a sign up sheet, too! hihi! it's really like teaching!

i have to be honest, though. with all of my excitement you'd guess i already have everything lined up for tomorrow. well, not quite. and to think i have 3 chapters to discuss in one and a half hours. it's okay, really. i mean, not that i have any other choice but to cram, huh? but the good thing is, jack will be in new zealand the whole of this week, so i will be pretty much capable of preparing for the class at work. aaahhh... i just hope i won't make a fool out of myself tomorrow.

i've so many things i wanted to write about but i just can't get myself to write them because when i get home i just want to lay in bed not because i got so caught up at work, but because i'm just too lazy to get my ass out of my beloved bed. haha.

it's 11:09pm as i type, and i've not laid a finger on the 280 book nor the reviewer. and did i get to review for my own LOMA? nooooo... yesterday, i was with my two bestfriends and went to the gym after with my boyfriend. today, he and i went to a birthday party at ayala westgrove (which i can devote another blog entry to, if i had the diligence.) all i can say to myself is: good luck!

ala Alias

"Hi, I'm Kate. Nice to meet you."

that's how i usually begin my spywork for this project of mine. i pose as a 25-year old mom to a 2-year old baby girl looking for a pre-need plan. when i told jack about this, he said, "did you, really?" and when i told him that the agent i talked with yesterday actually believed my little script, he said, "oh, come on..." well, anything to please the blue-eyed boss, i guess. hahaha

the funny thing about my mystery shopping activity was that i got to see my company from a competitor's point of view. and boy, was it a twisted image! imagine, the agent was so sure that my company isn't managed by AIG because according to him, if we were part of AIG, our name would be AIG, too! then what about SunAmerica, or AIA? aaaahhhh...and he had this little story about how our claims records are so bad it's already a running reputation. well, well, well. if i could only slap him with a business card (not that i have one, though), i would've. but then, i was only using him anyway, so i had to restrain myself. he was, however, so full of conviction i had to remind myself my interim boss is an AIG VP. a cute AIG VP at that.

i do think we have an image problem, though. if truth be told, i only found out about my company being managed by AIG during my first week at work! yeah, shame on me. but what the heck.

i love cebu pacific!

i will finally get to see boracay for myself.

last friday, my boyfriend told me to access cebu pacific's website for their anniversary promo. tickets to local destinations and HK are really, really cheap! imagine, we're flying manila to iloilo and kalibo to manila all for P3,304! and yes, that's already for the two of us. the thing is, though, you can only book from march 3 to 8, and travel period is june to october. anyhow, this is too good a deal to miss, so i'm already set to travel this september. aahhh...a week off with my boy...can't wait!

***

at work, i'm getting a good dose of funny HK english from no less than Jack Howell's secretary. heck, our really old company artist who's already deaf can write way, way more eloquent english! i may have to post her famous lines here. today, she said in her e-mail:

jack have a lunch meeting today at 11:30am-1:00pm. but he will not attend. he is free only this afternoon after 4:30pm.

i was tempted to reply with, "really? he have?"

and there was something like, "he is available timeslot is...."

oh dear, reminds me of sir dumlao.

monday work

i cannot believe that there will be work for me tomorrow. it's been a month-long hiatus, and i feel like a student who has to face school after the summer break. only that i got paid for lounging around. hihi

as i type, i'm also googling for specifics on what people really mean by C socio-economic class. i believe i don't know who's who anymore. tomorrow, dione and i are supposed to survey people from the C-class (sounds like the Benz, huh) and i have no idea who we're supposed to attack with questions the answers to which we already know.

oh, well. what can i do? this project of us is big-time. like Jack Howell big-time. so we have to perform to the hilt, i guess. and while i report directly to the big honcho AIG VP that he is, and i'm teammates with senior executives, i know that my position is more of the team runner. meaning, minion. runner. researcher, if you may. technically, i'm the research-on-this-get-data-on-this-girl since the rest of the team members all have "real" jobs. i'm not complaining though, i'm sure i'll learn a lot. if only Jack didn't have to travel so much from HK to Manila and back as often as we MAPpers go to Dell's to buy food. or maybe more.

friday will be presentation day but i'll be on leave to attend the wedding of my boyfriend's friends (ok, so they're my friends, too.) this won't be a problem, i guess, since the runner won't be reporting. dione and i will be like ghostwriters. we do our work then pass it off. great.

anyway, i promised myself to go to work early so i'll wrap this pathetic little entry up. don't blame me...my mind has yet to get used to being used. hahaha.

and by the way, google says i should by a book that outlines all the characteristics of all socio-economic classes in the philippines. it's $15. good luck.