Lazy Starts

What can be said about today?  It was laid-back and relaxed at the office, and with a lot of people on the floor coupled with it being a Sunday in the US, that meant that there were  huge avail times.  Naturally I took advantage of this, though not in the way that I’d have liked (given the slowdowns connected to loading images is still there).  So yeah, no manga reading, but I was able to start a character sheet for the World of Narue’s entry at Tv Tropes.

Aside from that though, it’s pretty much routine.  Hmm.

Again, Not Too Bad

Today’s shift was again surprisingly stress-free, but I guess I have to thank the customer service teams on duty for actually, you know, being there to take in the calls they’re supposed to be receiving in the first place.  So this meant that, barring one strange instance where the membership application queue suddenly spiked, the avail times were very reasonable.

It’s really too bad though that I wasn’t able to take advantage of the time in between calls though — the latency issue is still very much apparent, and my systems freeze up if I as much open a website with many images on it.  It’s come to the point that I have to disable everything related to images on the browser to even be able to work…  But that means that I can’t read any of the scanslated manga that’s been posted for the day.  *sigh*

At this point I’m pretty much stuck with just the forums I visit.  Mmph, maybe I should just use the time to browse online copies of the books that might pop up on my upcoming comprehensive examination.  Seems like a good alternative means to make use of the avail time.  I’ll see if I can try that tomorrow, hmm…

Oh, and apparently my sister and her husband tried to get themselves tickets to the Avengers movie, to no avail.  Unlike myself, they pretty much gave up, as the lines at SM Mall of Asia were ungodly long, even more than how it was at Glorietta.  Ah well, they did say that they might try again during the week instead, as there’ll be less people watching it by then (as many people will be at work).

That said, isn’t it Labor Day on Monday?  That would mean that it’d be a holiday… Ah.  Best of luck to the two on getting a ticket on that day then.

Delayed Due To A Movie

So I eventually did get to watch the Avengers movie.  Took a heck of a lot of work just to get a ticket however, given the crazy lines at the Makati cinemas I usually go to.  Heck at Greenbelt everything was sold out except for the 1:35 AM screening.  Seriously.  I wasted a lot of time there, and had to backtrack back to Glorietta, where I had to endure a half-hour wait in line before I got to ticketing counter.

I got a ticket.  The thing was, at the time it was around six thirty.  The screening was scheduled for 9:55 pm.

Whoopee.  I decided not to waste my time waiting for three hours at the mall, and instead went home.  While I can’t say that those hours were productive (they were split between downloaded anime and drawing a skyline on SAI), but it’s better than just sitting around doing nothing waiting for the screening time.

I eventually did go back to Makati to watch the movie.  As with most of my movie visits, I’ll probably hate myself afterward, as I usually buy myself something to eat from the Wendy’s restaurant just outside the cinema doors.  Really heavy stuff, biggie-sized fries and iced tea… and your run-of-the-mill bacon mushroom melt.  Calorie overload.

As for the movie itself?  Well worth it, is all that I can say.  Didn’t stay for the stinger (the Marvel movies always seem to have those), since it’s kind of late, and there’s still my Sunday shift.

Though I have to admit being surprised that it was a Josh Whedon film.  The more you know.

Anyway, that’s the reason why I missed my usual Journal post.  Should have done it before I left for the movie, but it kind of slipped my mind.  Oh well.

Better get to bed.  Work again later on, Sunday shift and all.

Hate It When I’m Right

Although I woke up relatively early (for a normal person anyway), I wasn’t able to join my father on his morning walk like he wanted.  He didn’t really seem to mind that much, and didn’t bring up the issue during breakfast, so I didn’t worry about it as well.

Given how it was my day off, I figured it was as good a time as any to finally (because I had money for a change) have my iPOD looked at at one of the local Apple service centers (PowerMAC for the curious).  It’s been more than two months since it stopped functioning I wanted, and I really wanted to see if there was anything that could be done to salvage it.

The verdict?  It was a lost cause.  

I kind of expected that, what with the fact that it couldn’t even see the ton of music or movies or anime series anymore, but it was still a little saddening to hear “officially”.  It’s been through a lot, that iPOD and me.

While one center said that I had to have it formatted, the other (the one in Greenbelt) said that it was time to turn it in for a new model.  Given how I had a  lot  of stuff in it, I wasn’t too keen on having it formatted, so after the visit to the first center I hurried home if I could do something something somehow on my end.  Use up all available options and all that.  The thing is though, both my desktop and my laptop can’t even  see the iPOD anymore, much less format it.

And the second opinion sucks just as much.  Although if I turn it in I’m guaranteed a whopping 50% discount on a similar iPOD Classic, that’s still around seven thousand pesos to pay for, equivalent to pretty much a single cut-off’s pay.  It’s at that point I thought to myself that maybe it would just be better if I got a smartphone or 4G phone for that amount of money.  Ugh.

The thing is though, if I don’t replace the iPOD, I’m going to be left without a player to use for my sessions at the gym.  With the selection of music being played there, it’s  really hard to keep the pace that I want, and the old MP3 player I’m using (my sister’s old one before I bought the iPOD during a visit in Singapore) is starting to fail (probably due to all the swaying around).  Ah, decisions decisions, which is kind of worse since it’s decisions connected to a whole lot of money.  Blah.

The heck with this.  I’m watching the Avengers tomorrow, hopefully with my sister.  I’ll lose sleep on the player issue  after that.

Welcomed Arrival

After all those stressful workdays, to say that I was looking forward to my days off is understating things.  That said, it would be an awful waste just to sit around and do nothing during those two days, so I’ll  try to do something productive (somewhat) with that time.  Hobby-related obviously, but that’s as close to useful as I could manage, ahaha.

Wasn’t able to go to the gym today.  Instead of my left knee, it was my right ankle this time around that felt like it was burning.  Hopefully it’ll be okay by tomorrow, so I can do a make-up session.

Tatay wants me to tag along for a morning walk again.  Let’s see how  that  goes, shall we?

Object Of Surprise

Although it was payday, for many of my officemates there was little to be happy about.  For some odd reason, the pay they received for the cutoff didn’t quite match up to their expectations, especially for those who did overtime over the past few weeks.  In many instances the salary they received was actually less than what they normally got (and being part-timers like myself, it’s not really much to begin with).  I expect an avalanche of complaints for Payroll by early this evening from upset agents, for sure.

Interestingly enough my pay somehow got through unscathed.  While I haven’t received the payslip yet, at about seven thousand pesos it’s pretty substantial (and surprising), especially when one realizes that I didn’t put in a single hour of overtime, nor was my attendance for the month particularly outstanding (heck, I even had an instance where I couldn’t come into work).  It’s no wonder my teammates got on my case, though most of it was just making light of their (admittedly sucky) situations by comparison.

Oh well, it’s money in the bank.  While I hate to jinx things, this is probably the first time in a long while since my savings have gone beyond the ten-thousand peso mark.  That’s a minor milestone in itself, given how hard it is to save up money with my salary, when one considers the contributions I have to give for the house bills. Mmph.

Lets see how long things will last, shall we?

Temporary Bow Out

I won’t elaborate on my shift today, as it was every bit a stressful as a Tuesday shift could possibly be.  It’s kind of second-nature for my line of work at this point, and the sooner I can put the day behind me the better I say.

I wasn’t able to drop by the gym this afternoon though.  My left knee started to bother me again, so that meant I pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon resting.  Given how I slept past midnight yesterday, I thought it was just as well.  I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t nod off at work, but I suppose the backed-up queue kept me busy.

Since I didn’t pay the gym a visit, I had to make do with fifteen minutes worth of dumbbell exercises.  It’s not going to make up for the skipped gym session, but at least it’s something.

Working on the cityscape bit by bit. It’s really harder than it seems.  Perspectives for structures can be tricky, to say the least.

And that’s pretty much it.  I’ll see just how many more building outlines I can finish, then it’s back to bed.  The story of my life, as usual.

Oh yeah, it’s apparently payday again tomorrow.  At least that’s something I could look forward to.

Not-So Relaxed

After a relatively stressful Sunday, I’d have expected at least that today’s shift would at least a little more laid-back (that, and it’s supposed to be Sunday evening in the US, meaning less calls).  It didn’t live up to my usual expectations, with weird spikes in the queue that caused the three of us to scramble like headless chickens.  And what’s worse, there was this terrible latency within the system that caused things to freeze if one even just tries opening a site with a lot of pictures in it.  That really killed my day right there, as it meant that I wasn’t able to freely browse the net in between calls. 

So that meant no catching up on scanslated manga while at work.  Oh well, it was a minor loss.   I could still browse some of my favorite forums (I had to disable image displays just to be able to do anything though), after all.  

I do hope that the issue is fixed tomorrow though, as I had to restart my remote browser multiple times (since the system either froze or slowed to a crawl whenever a site with tons of pictures was being loaded by the browser).

My workday ended mostly as per routine, but I was a little surprised at the slightly overcast sky that greeted me as I got out of the building.  Definitely much more preferable to the usual scorching heat plus humidity, and with the dark clouds over in the direction of Cavite, it meant that rain might have been in the cards.  Sadly for the rain it didn’t quite materialize, at least in my area, but hey, any shade is much preferable than being under the summer sun.

And that’s pretty much it really.  Not exactly the most exciting day for anyone, ahaha.

False Security

For a moment while I was at the office, I thought that the shift would go differently.  While the merchant queue was backed up as expected (it’s a Saturday evening in the US after all), it was surprisingly quiet on the customer service side of things.  I think the large number of CS agents on duty had something to do with it… which meant that when those started going home for the morning, it was back to the usual teeth-grinding stressful calls that usually characterizes Sunday shifts.  And this was on top the already backed-up queue on the merchant side of things.

I think it was only around twelve noon or so before the avail times became anywhere close to what could be considered sane.  Those of us left at that point — a pair on both CS and merchant services, with two team coaches on support — were able to breathe a little more easier at that point, but there were one or two instances after that where a sudden spike of calls would just happen.  Annoying, I tell you.

I didn’t go straight home after work.  Instead I made a detour to my favorite massage spa to de-stress for the day.  It’s been a while since I last had a full-body massage, and boy were my shoulders stiff and sore, among other things.

And after that?  It’s straight home to my room, with the A/C on full blast.  Can’t relax in what seems to be an over, after all.  I had to pass on continuing on the skyline for the Stampede though, since I really wanted to just lie down for the rest of the evening.

Stuffed And Idle

 

 

As expected, I wasn’t able to go with my father on his usual walk early in the morning, but that’s what I get for going to bed past midnight (and surprisingly enough, I wasn’t watching anime).  I woke up relatively late, and started once I shook off the grogginess that usually comes with it, I busied myself with fixing the last few segments of the stampede.  As of of around three in the afternoon, I was pretty much at where I was some three odd months ago.  Finally.  Now I can worry about the next phase, which is the background.

I decided on a cityscape, but lack of any practical experience drawing buildings aside, I didn’t even have examples to base said background.  So, after things cooled down for the the afternoon, it was off to my old stomping grounds in the financial area of Makati. 

Suffice to say I took a lot of pictures during my hour-and-a-half walkabout around the Ayala area, most of which were either pictures of buildings or the trees lining the sidewalks close to it.  I tried not to look too suspicious doing so, of course, but so far no one really bothered me while I took panning shots of the facades of the buildings lining Makati and Ayala avenue.

After getting enough reference pictures, it was time to head home. I passed by Buddy’s before I did though, and bought a (small) bilao of pancit Lucban for the family to share.  Man, it’s been a while since I’ve had a taste of it — give or take two years, ever since I left E*Trade in fact. 

Anyway, despite it being supposedly “small”, the bilao had enough pancit in it for eight to ten people, so obviously when I got home the three of us there at the time (myself, my father, and my cousin) wouldn’t be able to finish it all.  We did eat our fill though, and for the most part my father (surprise, for all his travels around the country, he never sampled the food of the regions he visited) and cousin seemed to like it, compared to the usual pancit malabon that we usually buy for the holidays or special occasions. 

The rest we left for my sister and her husband… who, hilariously enough, brought home some lapaz batchoy as well.  Needless to say, we’re going to still have pancit to eat by tomorrow.  This isn’t even counting the adobong pusit that my cousin apparently prepared for dinner.

Seriously, we were stuffed by the end of it all.  I’m probably going to hate myself tomorrow, but eh, it’s something I haven’t tasted for a while, so I can look the other way for now.

That aside, I foresee that I’m going to spend a lot of time on the cityscape background.  Even if I won’t devote a lot of details to it, that’s still a lot of buildings and accompanying greenery to fill up the space with.  It’s going to take a bit, for sure.