Today is a bittersweet day. It is officially my last day here at this company that has been my home for the last 3 years. I’ve been so excited about finding a better job that I did not consider how sad I am to be leaving too. It’s always difficult to leave something that is familiar and comfortable, especially if it means leaving people who have been nothing but supportive and encouraging. Good-byes are always tough and I’ve never been particularly good at them.
At the same time, I’m excited too. New place to work, new people to meet, new challenges to face and so many things to look forward to. And yes, I’m a bit anxious too, as all of us are when faced with something new and different. I guess this is just a lot to take in for now.
Anyway, I’m done with packing up my stuff and closing down my office. I am done with turning over my responsibilities (although I may be in a few times next week to tie up a few loose ends). I am done with saying good-bye and promising to keep in touch. And so, I guess, it is time to go.
P.S. This is my last post from this computer. It saddens me to think that cause most of my last 100 posts were done here over lunch. Now I’ll have to start blogging from home more often since I am not sure what the policy is at my new place of work. :(
Friday, July 14, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
GH
I found out a few days ago that a former colleague of mine had passed away. Actually GH was more than just a co-worker, he was a friend, and someone who I respected and looked up to as well. The news came as such a shock because, well, because you are never really prepared to hear news like this. And also, because I remember GH as someone who always had so much life and spirit.
I met GH way back in 1997 when I started working at Jewelmer International. This was my first job out of college and I was young and inexperienced while he was the epitome of a classic French gentleman, suave, confident, and filled with old world charm. After all he was formerly a jewelry designer for Cartier in Paris and was now head of Jewelmer’s fine jewelry line. But despite our differences he was always polite and pleasant (well, as pleasant as temperamental designers can be!). Three years later, I was head of Retail Sales and Fabrication, and had to work a lot with him on jewelry lines, exhibits, shows, and it was always a pleasure to be with someone who had such impeccable taste - from his designs down to his fashion sense.
I have two fond memories of GH that I will treasure forever. The first was that one night he invited several of us to dinner at his beautiful home in Magallanes where he personally cooked up a wonderful pasta meal. It was a night where we were all relaxed and happy and I really got to see the more playful and warm side that he possessed.
The second was when he designed a ring setting for me. I had been lamenting to him that I loved a particular Cartier setting but did not want to spend an arm and a leg to have them set an aquamarine gemstone I had bought from a friend. With his personal touch, he created a setting similar to the Cartier one that I wanted, but with his unique sense of style that I loved. He made my not-so-expensive gem look like a million bucks and to this day I still receive compliments on that ring.
I haven’t seen GH in more than 5 years and although we have not had any contact since then, at the back of my mind he was always someone I was planning to visit when I go home to Manila. Although he may no longer be there, I wish him well and I wish him peace wherever he may be.
I met GH way back in 1997 when I started working at Jewelmer International. This was my first job out of college and I was young and inexperienced while he was the epitome of a classic French gentleman, suave, confident, and filled with old world charm. After all he was formerly a jewelry designer for Cartier in Paris and was now head of Jewelmer’s fine jewelry line. But despite our differences he was always polite and pleasant (well, as pleasant as temperamental designers can be!). Three years later, I was head of Retail Sales and Fabrication, and had to work a lot with him on jewelry lines, exhibits, shows, and it was always a pleasure to be with someone who had such impeccable taste - from his designs down to his fashion sense.
I have two fond memories of GH that I will treasure forever. The first was that one night he invited several of us to dinner at his beautiful home in Magallanes where he personally cooked up a wonderful pasta meal. It was a night where we were all relaxed and happy and I really got to see the more playful and warm side that he possessed.
The second was when he designed a ring setting for me. I had been lamenting to him that I loved a particular Cartier setting but did not want to spend an arm and a leg to have them set an aquamarine gemstone I had bought from a friend. With his personal touch, he created a setting similar to the Cartier one that I wanted, but with his unique sense of style that I loved. He made my not-so-expensive gem look like a million bucks and to this day I still receive compliments on that ring.
I haven’t seen GH in more than 5 years and although we have not had any contact since then, at the back of my mind he was always someone I was planning to visit when I go home to Manila. Although he may no longer be there, I wish him well and I wish him peace wherever he may be.
Monday, July 10, 2006
100th Post
I was re-reading my posts and realized that this is my 100th entry. I am a bit amazed that I've actually posted 100 entries already. Pretty cool too since while looking at my first few entries I can sort of see myself evolving in terms of my writing style. Plus it's been fun going over some of my previous posts - several of them actually reminded me of events I've kinda forgotten about already. It's kinda nice to take time and be a bit reflective over my last hundred posts.
In honor of my 100th post, I'd like to share some good news. After months of job searching, dozens of interviews, and several close calls, I finally accepted a job offer. It's official today. Sorry about not sharing more details at this point. First, we are at the last stage of "negotiating" and so ANYTHING is still possible (see how cynical I've gotten?). And second, I am choosing to not share too much info about the company and the new job for fear of being "dooced" (fired from a job for blogging confidential information about it).
Suffice it to say it is several steps up in terms of position, much higher pay, better benefits, and to top it all off the company is located 10 minutes from where I live. Of course, on the flip side, it is also more work and the demands are greater. But after all this waiting, I think I am pretty much ready for anything. If all works out, I start in two and a half weeks. I'm crossing my fingers that all goes well at this last stage.
I thought this would be a fitting post for my 100th entry - and if all goes well, I'm sure my adventures at the new job will fill many of my next 100 posts :)
In honor of my 100th post, I'd like to share some good news. After months of job searching, dozens of interviews, and several close calls, I finally accepted a job offer. It's official today. Sorry about not sharing more details at this point. First, we are at the last stage of "negotiating" and so ANYTHING is still possible (see how cynical I've gotten?). And second, I am choosing to not share too much info about the company and the new job for fear of being "dooced" (fired from a job for blogging confidential information about it).
Suffice it to say it is several steps up in terms of position, much higher pay, better benefits, and to top it all off the company is located 10 minutes from where I live. Of course, on the flip side, it is also more work and the demands are greater. But after all this waiting, I think I am pretty much ready for anything. If all works out, I start in two and a half weeks. I'm crossing my fingers that all goes well at this last stage.
I thought this would be a fitting post for my 100th entry - and if all goes well, I'm sure my adventures at the new job will fill many of my next 100 posts :)
Weekend Dining
Over the weekend my hubby and I both gave in to our inner sloth. It was much too hot and too much trouble to bother with cooking and washing up. So, we had a good time trying new places to eat and getting take-out food. Enjoyed 5 whole meals and we didn’t have to wash a single pot, pan or dish! Bliss!
Friday night we tried a new (to us) Japanese restaurant called Raku-Raku. I love how Japanese food is so artfully arranged. I think it totally adds to how good the meal tastes. Jojo and I each had trays of the house special, tonkatsu, which is anything breaded with Panko breadcrumbs and deep-fried. Our dinners included the combo -- pork, shrimp and taro, a huge serving of shredded lettuce with a sweet-sour dressing (reminiscent of Thousand Island dressing but lighter), small dishes of pickled radish, jalapenos and beets, and a cup of hot miso soup. Jojo had a side order of cold soba noodles while I had four pieces of spicy salmon sushi. It was all very good and not too heavy on the wallet – dinner for two cost us $25.00 (plus tax and tip).
On Saturday, we had errands to run and found ourselves at the South Bay Pavilion mall. It’s not a very big place and therefore not a lot of choices, so we ended up at the Food Court. Jojo decided on a terriyaki chicken & broccoli rice bowl from an unknown but clean-looking fast food stall. Since I didn’t want to line up at the other food stalls, I had the same thing except my rice bowl was topped with spicy chicken and mixed vegetables. We weren’t really expecting anything great from the food court, but at least the food was okay, hot, quick and cheap ($4.95 a bowl).
Saturday night, we headed over to my new favorite take-out place, Famima!! It is an upscale Japanese delicatessen and premium food store where you can get anything from pre-packaged gourmet meals, to magazines, to coffee, to stationery, to DVDs, and many more. It’s sort of a high class and very clean 7-11 but with an eating/reading area too. Since it was well past 8 pm when we got there, Jojo and I were very hungry and everything looked so good. After going thru all the aisles, we decided to share a panini sandwich with pesto, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes and provolone cheese, a dish with 4 pieces of mu-shu pork and veggies with hoisin dipping sauce, and a plate with 8 pieces of spicy tuna sashimi and edemame. Plus mineral water our bill came to $15.72 – not bad for all that! After toasting our panini and heating our mu-shu we settled in to enjoy our meal and surprisingly it was really good. We were too full for dessert – too bad cause the green tea mousse and the tiramisu cups looked so tempting. I couldn’t stop raving over Famima!! the rest of the weekend to anyone who would listen.
Sunday lunch I cheated a bit on our “no-cooking-all-weekend-policy” since I defrosted some shrimp, sprinkled it with grill seasoning, baked it in the oven, and served it over pre-cooked egg noodles. But it was so hassle free and took all of 5 minutes for prep work that I am still considering it as “no-work-cooking”. Plus since I baked it in foil – it was also a “no-dishwashing” meal too.
Sunday dinner was a no-frills meal of “it’s-not-delivery- it’s-Di’Giorno” pizza. Between my hubby, brother and I, we had the medium sized, thin-crust four-cheese pizza and the regular-crust supreme pizza. Yummy, except I was reading Nicholas Spark’s “At First Sight” and was so into the book that I left the pizza in the oven a tad too long, resulting in slightly burnt pizza crust. But hey, pizza is pizza, and it was still good.
So, that was our weekend of no-cooking and no-cleaning. Although it was a lot of fun, it was far from healthy, so we probably can’t do this all too often. We’ll be eating more home-cooked and balanced meals in the next few days - at least until the next attack of laziness comes around!
Friday night we tried a new (to us) Japanese restaurant called Raku-Raku. I love how Japanese food is so artfully arranged. I think it totally adds to how good the meal tastes. Jojo and I each had trays of the house special, tonkatsu, which is anything breaded with Panko breadcrumbs and deep-fried. Our dinners included the combo -- pork, shrimp and taro, a huge serving of shredded lettuce with a sweet-sour dressing (reminiscent of Thousand Island dressing but lighter), small dishes of pickled radish, jalapenos and beets, and a cup of hot miso soup. Jojo had a side order of cold soba noodles while I had four pieces of spicy salmon sushi. It was all very good and not too heavy on the wallet – dinner for two cost us $25.00 (plus tax and tip).
On Saturday, we had errands to run and found ourselves at the South Bay Pavilion mall. It’s not a very big place and therefore not a lot of choices, so we ended up at the Food Court. Jojo decided on a terriyaki chicken & broccoli rice bowl from an unknown but clean-looking fast food stall. Since I didn’t want to line up at the other food stalls, I had the same thing except my rice bowl was topped with spicy chicken and mixed vegetables. We weren’t really expecting anything great from the food court, but at least the food was okay, hot, quick and cheap ($4.95 a bowl).
Saturday night, we headed over to my new favorite take-out place, Famima!! It is an upscale Japanese delicatessen and premium food store where you can get anything from pre-packaged gourmet meals, to magazines, to coffee, to stationery, to DVDs, and many more. It’s sort of a high class and very clean 7-11 but with an eating/reading area too. Since it was well past 8 pm when we got there, Jojo and I were very hungry and everything looked so good. After going thru all the aisles, we decided to share a panini sandwich with pesto, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes and provolone cheese, a dish with 4 pieces of mu-shu pork and veggies with hoisin dipping sauce, and a plate with 8 pieces of spicy tuna sashimi and edemame. Plus mineral water our bill came to $15.72 – not bad for all that! After toasting our panini and heating our mu-shu we settled in to enjoy our meal and surprisingly it was really good. We were too full for dessert – too bad cause the green tea mousse and the tiramisu cups looked so tempting. I couldn’t stop raving over Famima!! the rest of the weekend to anyone who would listen.
Sunday lunch I cheated a bit on our “no-cooking-all-weekend-policy” since I defrosted some shrimp, sprinkled it with grill seasoning, baked it in the oven, and served it over pre-cooked egg noodles. But it was so hassle free and took all of 5 minutes for prep work that I am still considering it as “no-work-cooking”. Plus since I baked it in foil – it was also a “no-dishwashing” meal too.
Sunday dinner was a no-frills meal of “it’s-not-delivery- it’s-Di’Giorno” pizza. Between my hubby, brother and I, we had the medium sized, thin-crust four-cheese pizza and the regular-crust supreme pizza. Yummy, except I was reading Nicholas Spark’s “At First Sight” and was so into the book that I left the pizza in the oven a tad too long, resulting in slightly burnt pizza crust. But hey, pizza is pizza, and it was still good.
So, that was our weekend of no-cooking and no-cleaning. Although it was a lot of fun, it was far from healthy, so we probably can’t do this all too often. We’ll be eating more home-cooked and balanced meals in the next few days - at least until the next attack of laziness comes around!
Monday, July 03, 2006
Superman Returns
Over the weekend we caught the new Superman Returns movie. Since I’m a big fan of blockbuster films and am a sucker for “good-vs.-evil-where-good-triumphs-in-the-end” flicks – this one should have been a winner for me. It was not. I mean, it was ok, actually it was good, but in my book, it was nowhere near as great as I expected it to be.
There were several things that bothered me while watching the movie. First, there were too many allusions to Superman being THE savior of the world (Savior of the world a.k.a. Jesus Christ). This was implied several times throughout the film. First when Jor-El (Superman’s dad) says, “Even though you've been raised as a human being you're not one of them. They can be a great people, Kal-El, if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son." And then the part when Superman confronts Lois Lane by saying “You wrote that the world doesn’t need a savior, but every day I hear people crying for one." And what about the time Superman is in space looking down at the earth while recharging his strength from the sun and he has his arms outstretched like Christ on the cross. Maybe I’m overanalyzing things but it was definitely unnerving in my opinion.
Second I am not so sure about Kate Bosworth playing the part of Lois Lane. I kept thinking she was too young for the part and was sadly lacking in portraying “maternal empathy” for her son. I kept seeing her as selfish and self-absorbed. Also, I really like James Marsden and think it’s unfair that he keeps getting cast in roles where he’s the great guy that the girl falls in love with but gets left in the end for another guy. We saw that happen in The Notebook where Rachel McAdams leaves him for Ryan Gosling. At least in that movie, he had a chance – but here, well, who can compete against Superman???
The movie did have its good points, of course. I thought the effects were great and really well done. As for the storyline, I think the writers, producers and directors deserve credit for continuing the tradition that is Superman. It really does pick up from where Superman 2 left off. But it held its own as it delved into the torment that Superman was feeling coming to grips with coming home only to discover the world has moved on without him. Brandon Routh did a great job as Clark Kent / Superman. For a relative newcomer, I thought he filled them role quite well considering Christopher Reeve was a tough act to follow. It definitely helped that he was so good looking (both as Kent and the man of Steel). The other supporting actors were good too. But my runaway favorite has to be Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of Lex Luthor. I am a big fan of Mr. Spacey and this movie really shows his prowess and his talent as a character actor.
I think that overall, inspite of some technicalties here and there, the movie, (all two hours and forty minutes of it) will continue to captivate its loyal fanbase as well as gain many new fans in the process. And I am certain that there will be several more sequels to this movie because, afterall, in these trying times, we all need someone like Superman.
There were several things that bothered me while watching the movie. First, there were too many allusions to Superman being THE savior of the world (Savior of the world a.k.a. Jesus Christ). This was implied several times throughout the film. First when Jor-El (Superman’s dad) says, “Even though you've been raised as a human being you're not one of them. They can be a great people, Kal-El, if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son." And then the part when Superman confronts Lois Lane by saying “You wrote that the world doesn’t need a savior, but every day I hear people crying for one." And what about the time Superman is in space looking down at the earth while recharging his strength from the sun and he has his arms outstretched like Christ on the cross. Maybe I’m overanalyzing things but it was definitely unnerving in my opinion.
Second I am not so sure about Kate Bosworth playing the part of Lois Lane. I kept thinking she was too young for the part and was sadly lacking in portraying “maternal empathy” for her son. I kept seeing her as selfish and self-absorbed. Also, I really like James Marsden and think it’s unfair that he keeps getting cast in roles where he’s the great guy that the girl falls in love with but gets left in the end for another guy. We saw that happen in The Notebook where Rachel McAdams leaves him for Ryan Gosling. At least in that movie, he had a chance – but here, well, who can compete against Superman???
The movie did have its good points, of course. I thought the effects were great and really well done. As for the storyline, I think the writers, producers and directors deserve credit for continuing the tradition that is Superman. It really does pick up from where Superman 2 left off. But it held its own as it delved into the torment that Superman was feeling coming to grips with coming home only to discover the world has moved on without him. Brandon Routh did a great job as Clark Kent / Superman. For a relative newcomer, I thought he filled them role quite well considering Christopher Reeve was a tough act to follow. It definitely helped that he was so good looking (both as Kent and the man of Steel). The other supporting actors were good too. But my runaway favorite has to be Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of Lex Luthor. I am a big fan of Mr. Spacey and this movie really shows his prowess and his talent as a character actor.
I think that overall, inspite of some technicalties here and there, the movie, (all two hours and forty minutes of it) will continue to captivate its loyal fanbase as well as gain many new fans in the process. And I am certain that there will be several more sequels to this movie because, afterall, in these trying times, we all need someone like Superman.
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