Suspend-It

To live in this world means to live with problems. Life would simply be downright boring without problems. Consequently, stress is a natural occurrence. How we deal with it says how we are as a person.

Then again, in general, there are a lot of unreasonable things that we have to take in this lifetime. Otherwise, we will not survive. But the way you take it will spell out the difference between failure and success.

As for me, it is very important to take some time off when you feel that the world is just one big ball of confusion. Go treat yourself to a spa or some orlando vacations and get a breather. Don’t force yourself to connect things too quickly or you’ll end up into a more confused state than before. Most often than not, a hiatus is just what you need to see things clearly and point you to the right path. Hope this helps!

My cousin has been having constipation problems for quite some time now. She shared to me that one of her friends advised her to try a colon cleanser and given her current state, she might just do that.

I told her to check with her doctor first before trying anything else. In most cases, as I’ve mentioned in my Colon Cleansing: Is it necessary? post, most doctors do not recommend it for detoxification, let alone fixing your bowel movement. It’s generally unnecessary and at times may even be harmful.

I did recommend that she eat more green foods and do Bikram Yoga. Yoga’s overall health benefits, not to mention the fact that it helps blood circulation, could greatly help improve her current situation. She’s considering it and said she’ll keep me posted on that one. I hope it works for her.

While driving on my way home after dropping of the CPU at my friend’s house, the headlights of the car went kaput in the middle of the road. I safely parked my car at the nearest emergency bay and called the emergency road service.

It’s a good thing we recently availed of an Emergency Road Service www.goodsamers.com and their number was on my phone’s speed dial. Otherwise, I would’ve worried myself and my parents as well unnecessarily with that incident.

The road service guys were really prompt in their response and very accommodating. I soon found out that the lights just had a minor short circuit which they immediately fixed. Soon, I was back in the road driving safely home.

It’s really great to have services like these. Saves you time, worry, and a lot of hassle *whew!*

I have always been a fan of beautiful home gardens especially those with garden waterfalls or backyard ponds. Back in the days when I still live with my granny, we had a huge garden with a dose of every kind of “nature” you can think of – fruit bearing trees, butterflies, flowers, bonsai plants, birds, fishes, you get the idea. My granny loved landscaping so she spent most of her time in the garden.During those times I loved playing with the fishes in the pond, although granny always tells me not to. I always try to catch the fishes using an improvised fishing rod I made with a stick and nylon string. I always end up being scolded by granny when the fishing hook gets stuck in the pond filters.Anyhow, those were some memories of my childhood. Now that I live in the city, I really miss the tranquil setting of our old house. Perhaps I can build a small pond in the backyard, but then I won’t be able to have time to maintain it. Oh well.

I’ve been dreaming of having my very own cozy day bed since high school. And ever since we moved to our own house three years ago, I’ve been dying to get myself one.

Unfortunately, there have been a series of events that had prevented me, or rather my budget, from buying a day bed. So for now, I guess I’ll settle for ergonomic bed wedges to add more comfort to my mattress while giving support to my upper body (which is currently suffering from a mild scolio, btw) for a really good night sleep.

Until then, my sweet, sweet day bed…

Hmm… my four year old desktop broke down yesterday leaving all my precious data trapped in my hard drive. I have no plans of getting my old Pentium 4 repaired because it consumes a lot of electricity. Besides, I already got a new laptop to use. My problem is, the old PC has at least 200 gigs of data which I need to retrieve. Since I have no spare desktop, my only option is to get a hard drive enclosure to convert my internal disk to an external hard drive.My Hard disk is an old 320 gig IDE so I’m having a hard time finding the right enclosure for it. Most enclosures now are for SATA drives, making them incompatible with my HDD. I told a friend of mine about this and told him that most of my precious files are HD movies I bought from the net. He suggested that I get a HDD media player instead of a regular enclosure. This way, I could play my movies on my TV even without my computer. Fortunately, lots of HDD media players still support the old IDE interface so I won’t have any problems about compatibility.Rest in peace my old PC. You have served your master well.

Or rather, The Hangover…

My sister and colleague invited me to watch “The Hangover” movie last night. It has been a really stressful two weeks for me so, although I didn’t have enough cash for the movie… what the heck, I need to unwind.

For those who don’t know, “The Hangover” is a Las Vegas-set comedy centered around three groomsmen who lose their about-to-be-wed buddy, Doug, during their drunken misadventures. The only problem is, they were drugged with roofies and couldn’t remember a single thing from that night. So the movie was basically about the groomsmen collecting what memories they have to figure what happened to Doug and ensuring that Doug makes it in time for his wedding.

I had a good laugh at the plot and the lines. ^_^ Especially this one, “You are literally too stupid to insult.” The movie was just what I needed. Add a full-body massage to that, then I’ll definitely be 100% refreshed. Well, maybe throw in some Vegas vacations as well. It’d be awesome if I could spend the night at the Ceasar Palace suite like the one in the movie, don’t you think?

I definitely enjoyed last weekend. I went to a Sara’s house last Saturday to help her out in renovating the children’s room. The room used to be the guest’s room, but since the children love to play, Sarah decided to convert it into a playroom.We started stripping off the old paint from the wall then painting the wall with colorful drawings; Mike, our artist friend, even dropped by to help us with the painting. I tried painting the ceiling but it was so hard to do because of the standing position. So we just decided to paint it black and added glittering stars for a planetarium like design. We also arranged the preschool furniture and toddler toys we got on sale. For the finishing touch, we added a “do not disturb – children playing” sign on the door.I really had a great time helping out with the painting. It was like re-living my childhood days when my mom and I redesigned my room. Really tiring yet fulfilling at the same time.

The HR Manager conducted an orientation with my team last Friday due to the policy changes. We were all ecstatic to find out that our 10 sick leaves and 10 vacation leaves were combined into 20 Paid Time Off (PTO). That means we need not “get sick” just to be able to utilize the sick leaves. Hehehe. 0;)

According to the HR, the company prefers fresh and happy employees since this would mean a more productive and happy company as well. They combined the leaves to make sure that people really avails of them and need not lie about getting sick. After all, those were placed as benefits and everyone needs to rest - all work and no play is definitely not healthy.

What’s more exciting is the fact that managers (ehem, that includes me) have an additional 2 PTOs, people who’s been in the company for more than 5 years have an additional 4 PTOs, AND if there are unused PTOs from the previous year, a maximum of 5 PTOs can be carried over to the next year. I happen to fall into all those categories! *jumps up and down with glee* That’s a total of 31 PTOs! More than a month-long vacation. 0:D

At the moment I have availed of only 6 PTOs… I’m planning to take 3 more for my birthday leave on October – my friend already booked us at the Outer Banks rentals. Frankly, I’m not sure how I’ll avail of the rest of the 22 especially since I don’t have anyone I can just drag to my vacations at my whim. Oh well… there’s plenty of time to think about that. I’ll just make sure I’ll avail of all of those this year since those are not convertible to cash AND the company encourages everyone to utilize it. Hehehe.

I was invited to deliver a 40-minute speech about seo services in front of a 2000 plus high school and college audience. That would be held on September 11, 2009.

Unfortunately, I still haven’t had time to prepare my presentation, let alone the outline for my topic. Work just keeps piling up at the office. To cap it off, the 13 people under me are up for their annual review.

With all these, I decided to just take a 3-day leave on August 19-21 to have more time to prepare for it. It’s not everyday you get to speak in front of a huge audience, so preparation is a must especially since I have this overwhelming stage fright that still needs to be conquered – with proper preparation, practice and visualization.

For those who have experienced public speaking, your thoughts on how I can better deliver my speech and overcome my stage fright is highly appreciated.