Die Ipis, Die!

"Ipis" or cockroaches are icky little insects that creeps me out. Whenever I would see one, I would go running the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, we're having some sort of ipis infestation at work. Fortunately, the breed is not like what we have at home (the brown flying ones). The ones at work are more of the little ones that find their way in little itsy corners. Nevertheless, they still scare the bejeezums out of me. Whenever I would see one crawling on my desk, I would drown it in alcohol and pummel it with a newspaper. To think it's not even 1 cm long. :D Overkill. Hehe.

Just this morning, I saw one crawling near my computer. I screamed my voice out which brought my male officemates to my workstation. I don't know whether they were annoyed or amused or scared, but they just stood there and watched the ipis silently make its way across my workstation. Ugh. Die ipis Die!

Odd thing is, I know we have monthly or quarterly maintenance done to eradicate such pests. I don't know why they seem to be getting bolder now. Ugh. Losing my faith on them pest controllers, I requested for a can of baygon. Can't wait to get it next week for I'll surely kill those little pests.

If I can act the "scared little girl" at work, I can't pull that act here at home. Over here, it's every girl for herself.

All of us siblings are scared of cockroaches. You should hear us outshouting each other everytime a flying ipis makes a rare appearance. Of course, we would push my brother to kill it for us and being the dutiful brother that he is, he would quietly creep where the ipis is resting and make a guerilla attack--hitting it once and run away as fast as he can. Not bothering to see whether he killed it or not.

Nowadays, we managed to find the stomach to kill any ipis that crosses our path. Actually, we would ignore them if they won't cross our respective comfort zones. I for one, would kill any ipis that would somehow manage to find itself in my room, or in the bathroom. Try taking a poop with an ipis running over your feet. Ugh ugh ugh! Yuck!

Funny though that the ipis is the most resilient species there is. I remembered reading once, that if a nuclear bomb should go off, the ipis would survive. Ugh.

Is The Glass Full?

After being generously gifted by my sister-in-law of Ayala Theater tickets, Leo and I watched "Shattered Glass" today.

The whole movie is a biopic of Stephen Glass, a journalist who was found to have fabricated more than half of his published articles last 1998. Glass was played by Hayden Christiansen (if you don't know by now, the guy who plays Anakin in Star Wars Episode II and III).

It's amazing how he managed to pull something like that, and to think he wrote for a much respected publication!

Stephen Glass resurfaced after graduating from Georgetown (law degree) by publishing a book and of course, this biopic. He was lambasted and criticized by his peers for even resurfacing and trying to make "amends" for his previous actions. Amazing.

Kingdom of Heaven

A new world. A better world than has ever been seen. There you are not what you are born but what you have it in yourself to be. A kingdom of conscience, peace instead of war, love instead of hate. That is what lies at the end of Crusade. - Godfrey of Ibelin

Being a Ridley Scott movie, I knew it will be a movie chockful of violence, blood and gore. Nevertheless, I was still not prepared for the bloodshed that greeted me.

The Kingdom of Heaven is a story of a 12th century blacksmith who found himself the son of a baron and then defending the walls of Jerusalem the next. Though the idea may seem common (hey, watch Filipino movies. The unbelievable always happen), it's still amazing to watch Balian, the blacksmith, superbly played by Orlando Bloom, grow from just being a blacksmith into a knight.

All of the characters in the story, except for Godfrey (Balian's Father, characterized by Liam Neeson), existed in real life. The writer took the liberty of fixing the timeline a bit to accommodate the King Baldwin (he died a year before the start of the story).

I really love this movie. Though I left the moviehouse with a headache, I am still at awe. Not only of Sir Ridley Scott's genius, but the history where this movie is based. Almost the whole movie and the great battle scene is set in Jerusalem. It's amazing that after a thousand years, the same conflict still exists in that place. Balian used to stand on Jerusalem's stones. Saladin, the Muslim King, once stood outside the walls of Jerusalem. Muslim, Jewish and Christian blood was shed on that land.

Though the Crusades were once touted as the greatest moment of the Christian religion, I felt ashamed for the actions of the forefathers of my faith. That's why I could not help but cry when Pope John Paul II came to the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem and asked for forgiveness for the past sins of the church. No one should go to war because of their faith. No one should condemn a person for having different beliefs.

Jesus taught us to love one another as much as He loves us. It means accepting and loving people regardless of their beliefs, of their race, and of their religion. My faith is not perfect, and I don't believe that there is a perfect religion--my dad told me that. But I believe in Jesus. I believe in God who created Heaven and Earth. I believe in this church and acknowledge the imperfections, and that is where the beauty of it lies. That is why I still stay, and why I still believe.

And now that I'm finished sharing my thoughts of the story, it's time to activate my fan girl face.

MY GOSH!!!! I LOVE ORLANDO BLOOM!!!! EEEK!!! EEEKK!!! EEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!!!

I have been a avid and drooling fan of Orlando Bloom ever since the Lord of the Ring days. I remembered surfing for his pictures over the net and any bit of information that I can find of him. I swooned over his magazine covers and shrieked with joy when they gave him additional scenes in the last two movies of the Rings trilogy. I watched all of his movies, but none of them has made turned me into a fervent devotee like this movie did. Maybe because this is his first starring role. All his past movies (Pirates of the Carribean, Troy) had him on a supporting role. In this movie, he managed to carry his character, the story and the movie and he did a really splendid job.

The battle scenes were reminisce of some instances in Lord of the Rings. Like when the Muslim army was going to attack Jerusalem. They looked like the Sauron's horde attacking Gondor. And when Orlando rode a horse to meet the army. Gosh. I wanted to cry!

After leaving the theater, I vowed that I will get the DVD and watch it again. Of course, I'll fast-forward the battle scenes. They're still so gory and I could not bear to watch it. I had to bury my face on Leo's shoulder.

I love this movie, not only because of Orlando Bloom, but the way it helped me appreciate my faith. Though what religion you belong to, we are all God's Children.

At last!

Our IT problems are now over. I received a text this evening that after four days of non-business, our server is now up and we're ready to be BAU (business as usual) tomorrow. That's a lot of catching up to do.

Moreover, Scott was finally voted out of AI. Maybe the fans realized that they voted the wrong person off and are rectifying their mistake. All that's left is Anthony. Can't believe he's still in there. Since my beloved Constantine (yep, I'm a slobbering fan girl, much to my SO's disappointment. He was rooting for Scott) was voted out, I'm cheering for either Bo Bice or Carrie Underwood.

I am so glad that we're finally going to be working again tomorrow. Now I know how it feels like to work in the government (well, some branches/offices that is). All that inactivity, pretending to be busy and waiting for the clock to strike 5:30. It's not my kind of life.

What does T.O.D.A.S stand for?

Work has been very unbearable these past few days. Unbearable because we're positively doing nothing!

This is very alarming considering that we play a critical role in the business, but due to some IT problems, we have been "down" for the past 3 days (and I'm talking about working days). As it is, everything is beyond our control and as usual, could have been mitigated if the powers-that-be actually listened to a previous proposal. But no, they're so intent on cost-cutting that they had to make the decision beyond the critical time. Now, I think they're losing more than what they had saved due to the downtime.

Since the powers-that-be also refused to make us go home on these down days, we were left to amuse ourselves. We dug through our harddisk files and we came across old "tests". You know, those jologs quizzes and trivia (thus, the title of this blog post. FYI, the answer is Television Outrageously Delightful All-Star Show). It was fun and as usual, I was given the task to be "Kris Aquino".

We met again before we went home this afternoon (I've been leaving the office at 5:30 pm for the past few days) and we agreed to come to work after lunch to give IT more time to do some last minute tinkering. They promised that we'll be up by then. Hopefully this would push through because other departments have been hounding us with their follow-ups and such.

On a brighter (?) note, since our officer-in-charge is on scheduled vacation leave, ESM is our current officer-in-charge and I'm his so-called second hand for this week only. It has been nerve-wracking because he keeps on sending me to these meetings which I know next-to-nothing about, just so that our department is properly represented. However, it does feel great since I'm rubbing elbows with AVP's and the such. Hopefully, all the answers that I've been giving them are accurate enough and won't give us any future problems. I'm used to meeting with my officemates, but meeting with higher-ups, it's a whole new plane! My mind goes blank and all the stuff that I learned in MBA goes flying out of the window. This is something that I need to get used to if I want my career to advance.

The Biggest Loser

I spent half of the day at the Ayala Center Mall with Leo. We really did not have anything planned. Since going out of town is out of the question, we went to the mall to escape the searing heat.

I bought a nice blouse and window-shopped for bags. I saw this really nice bag at Girbaud but it was too expensive. Maybe next month. However, I did buy Leo his thumb ring at some silver store.

When Leo dropped me off, I planted myself in front of the TV and browsed some shows. While waiting for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to start, I browsed through other stations and paused when I saw these group of large people weighing themselves. I figured that this must be the new show that my friends have been telling me about -- "The Biggest Loser".

I remember last year when I was also enrolled at a really classy gym, I was watching a show with the same format at Discovery Channel although I can't remember the title now. It was so inspiring that it really made me want to lose weight. Anyway, I totally forgot about Queer Eye and kept the channel locked on RPN 9 waiting for updates on the show. Hopefully this can encourage me to lose the much needed weight.

The weather is not helping with my plan. The heat is making me crave for the cold stuff--ice cream, halo-halo and other high sweet stuff. Really bad but I'm trying to control my sugar intake now. I'm glad Starbuck's came out with the Low Calorie Frap. I hope that it won't hurt me too much if I drink that.

At least now, I'm very conscious with what I eat. When I was watching TV the other day and saw a station featuring how Lechon was being made, I wanted to throw up. I could just imagine all the cholesterol and oil in there. Heck, I also wanted to throw up when I saw Tocino was being served for breakfast today (but I valiantly ate some of it. It WAS after all, my favorite food).

I still have a LONG way to go. My pregnant sister-in-law is also on a diet since her doctor said she has some sort of problem with her sugar. Hopefully we can do this together (and also my officemate who has a similar dilemma as mine).

Here's to becoming another big loser.

Labor Day

My sister-in-law and I bonded today.

Since her due date is sometime this month, I took her out today so she can get her much needed daily walking exercise. Her doctor advised her to walk a lot to help the baby go into its proper position. Her 9th month is on May 15 and we're all excited for the new baby to arrive. My two sister-nurses are also pledging to watch over her and monitor her contractions. They said that we'll bring her to the hospital once her water breaks. I've never seen a birthing before but since they've seen their share in the hospital, then I guess they know better.

We went to Landmark to buy more baby stuff and I bought shoes and a blouse. Due to the heat, I wanted to buy a short-sleeved blouse which I can also wear at work. It seems that my short sleeved blouses are too informal for work.

My sister and her husband also visited us today. It seems that they're going to Ilocos first week of June before classes starts for them. I wanted to come along but Leo reminded me that school has started for us by then. I was so disappointed because I really wanted to go out of town. I was not able to go anywhere this summer, well, except for Tagaytay last Holy Week. And it looks like we can't do any long distance driving in the near future due to Leo's injury. Gosh, I SHOULD really learn how to drive. It might come in handy when my sister-in-law gives birth. As it happens, only us girls will be here in the house during those crucial weeks. My dad will be sleeping over at Makati to watch the place for my grandparents who are visiting their daughter and her family in Australia. My brother, on the other hand, is working the night shift. So that leaves us. I don't mind really. We're all very excited about this baby--being the first apo and pamangkin.

Yesterday, SO and I went to Shangri-la to watch a movie and browse around. We caught Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac's Guess Who? It's funny but it's only so-so. The only funny part for me was when they were in the car and all these songs about colours were being played one after the other (Ebony and Ivory). The day before that, we saw The Interpreter at Greenbelt 3. It's also so-so. Can't wait for the new movies coming out next week. I'm looking forward to Orlando Bloom's Kingdom of Heaven and of course, the last episode of the first trilogy of Star Wars. My dad wants to watch, being the Star Wars fan that he is. He was the one who actually got me into the series. He told us that he took us to the cinema near Luneta to watch Return of th Jedi. He's particularly excited over this one.