disjointed

Haven't had much sleep last night. Woke up at midnight, fell back asleep at 5am. Could barely drag myself out of bed. Didn't get to work on time.

Got off the wrong floor on my way to the office. Had to take the stairs the rest of the way up. Good thing my workstation's just at the third floor. Still, one of the managers who was with me in the elevator had a good, long laugh after I finally caught up to him at the third floor lobby, half running and gasping for air .

Will cross my fingers as I leave for Makati in five minutes. Another meeting that might decide my future. Hope it'll be promising. Wish me luck!

this nerd thinks Excel is fun

Today was long and busy. I didn't think I'd get to finish all my documention assignments. But happy thing was, come 6PM, my charts were all done!

Working in Excel is unexpectedly fun. I think my graphs looked moderately nice — or at the very least, eye-catching. For someone who used to do just simple monthly household budget basics on a spreadsheet, I give myself a pat on the back for today's work.

Just last week, a friend was saying how he had also been tasked to do a lot of Excel documentation work for a time until it got to a point where his graphs could pretty much do the spreadsheet equivalent of a full song-and-dance number. The kind of documentation work I do right now doesn't contribute much to my portfolio. But hey, I'm having fun and it pays the bills, so I'm not about to complain.

*  *  * 

Tonight's dinner is Sulley's famous adobo. The soy sauce and vinegar smell usually gets so strong, it sticks to the walls for about half a day. But Sulley's adobo is goo-oooh-ooood! He lets it simmer for quite a bit, too, so the meat gets really tender and just about melts in your mouth. Yum!

He's made tasty additions to his repertoire recently, too. Yesterday, we had chicken curry fried rice and chopsuey. Before that, a couple of days back, it was chicken croquettes.

And while he putters about in the kitchen, this lazy wife is busy tweaking her new blog. Hehehe…sometimes I really wonder what I'd signed away in blood to get this lucky.

weekends are for oversleeping

It has been a lazy, lazy, lazy weekend. Woke up just before noon, had lunch, watched a couple of Kekkon Dekinai Otoko episodes, raided the kitchen for more edibles and generally ambled about like a shamelessly overfed cat. Life's great when you get D-Addicts english sub releases for three episodes in one sitting over a bowl of Japanese-style ground beef curry.

Last Friday, the company I'm currently applying at started doing some serious background check and called each of the references listed in the application form I filled out. They even dropped by my home address for an unannounced interview with Sulley. It was lucky he was home at the time. But he also happened to be resting, so the lobby guard turned the interviewer away — with good reason.

The pre-employment background check was done by a third party company, which I hear was pretty costly. I take it this means they're serious about hiring me, right?

I've had companies who've called my character references before as part of the pre-employment screening process. This was the first time, though, that someone actually went to my home to, i dunno, find out if I kept a 15-foot shark in my livingroom?

Amazingly thorough, if a little kind of freaky.

But I like this company, so I do hope that for all it's worth, they'd offer me a good package. Am keeping my fingers crossed in the meantime. Oooh, I hope there'll be good news to write about soon.

learning curve

Using i.ph definitely takes some getting used to. In a lot of ways, the interface is plenty powerful compared to the blog sites I've tried in the past. But in certain odd instances, getting my new blog to behave itself is starting to get frustrating.

I've been obsessively tweaking my settings for the past two days. Still, I couldn't seem to find my way around doing some pretty basic stuff, like posting photos in my image gallery and such. What's up with that?

The site's a great piece of work, don't get me wrong. It would be nice though to have something other than "download gallery remote" in the iGallery section. There's probably an explanation to this somewhere in the forums, but I'm just too lazy to type up a search at the moment.

Speaking of lazy, going to the gym seems to be a fad these days, along with playing badminton and having spa treatments. This morning, the guys at work were complaining of muscle pains after starting their gym routine the day before. Here in the building where I live, residents get free use of the 15th floor gym. And from what people say, there seems to be some pretty adequate equipment in there.

I've only been inside the gym once to use the weighing scale — not a memorable experience. So I don't really get how lifting metal plates or doing an hour's walk without getting anywhere could actually be enjoyable. One of these days I'll give it a try just to see what all the fuss is about if the urge to stay on the couch doesn't win out.

slow day

Today's shaping up to be another uneventful day, which is good. I like uneventful; there's no running around, and you get to spend the day looking like you're hard at work. One of the reasons I decided not to become a newspaper journalist is because, aside from being allergic to extreme deadlines, tear gas and airborne riot batons, I enjoy keeping my behind where I currently happen to sit.

People have unique ways of dealing with slow, lazy afternoons at work. The guy who sits to my right has turned to rapping with no pattern or meter in a self-learned language of orcs. Now he's banging his head. I'm not sure if it's some form of mystic dance, but just before that he was having an animated discussion with his monitor.

This morning, I got a call from one of the lawyers I used to work with in L.A. I've been worrying that he might not remember me anymore since we haven't spoken in six years. But he called to say hello and we talked for a bit about how the folks from the old office are doing. Great guy. Turns out he's been living in Manila for a year already.

It's fascinating how some people could manage to stay in touch with old acquaintances. To someone who habitually switches addresses every year or so, that could be a real challenge though.