So Quick The Financial Burden

As planned, I went straight to DLSU almost as soon as my work was done.  I did quick detour home though to pick up my laptop, so I can have it cleared at security for the term (useful if I want to bring it along whenever I go to school).  With that done, it was straight to the campus, and the Literature department’s temporary lodgings. 

Met my mentor, and while he’s a swell guy, I’m feeling the pressure already.  He wants to see some of my work in a few weeks (15 or so odd pages at least), so he can check on possible areas of improvement (a lot I expect) and my own poor writing sense.  Ugh.  And let’s not forget the two-month deadline until the proposal starts now.

Oh well, at least I got some things done, specifically the Enrollment form.  Thing is, since Thesis 1 counts as 6 units, that means that there’s a significant amount of what I need to pay before the sixth.  Specifically around fifteen thousand pesos worth.  Oi.

To give you an idea, I barely have six thousand pesos in my savings right now.  Ugh.  My parents will have to bail me out again.  And given that price, yep, I literally can’t afford a repeat on that proposal.  Will have to try my best to do it in one go.

Now if you’re wondering about what happened at the office, eh it was a Monday, so: nothing much.  Tomorrow however…

Seriously thinking of just going to bed.  I’ll watch this week’s Gargantia, Nyaruko-san W, and Yamato 2199 17 and 18 tomorrow instead.

And Stuff That Was Wasted

So I went to school again today, this time during the afternoon, as it was the only time we could catch our faculty advisor.  The end result… wasn’t as fruitful as I’d have hoped really.  Basically the gist is that I still didn’t have any mentor, but hopefully that’d be dealt with by Saturday.  Hopefully. 

In the time between then, I’m supposed to come up with some documentation to try to “impress” said mentor when we finally meet, mostly two sample chapter of the proposed book, and a sample of my so-called “poetics ” (the philosophy to my writing or craft).  This, on top of once more reading up again on theory, and where I stand in the “tradition”.

No pressure, right?

This more or less puts a stopper to any kind of semi-active hobby-related gaming, as at this point in time gaming is the number one timesink I have.  And I’m not exactly the type of writer who can focus on actually writing something when most of my free time gets eaten by online tanking.  Ugh.

Back to work tomorrow.  Hope that the team looks on my two-day absence more kindly, especially now that I don’t have anything really to show for it.

Home Stretch Half-Done

As I mentioned, I went to school today to see to my thesis writing enrollment.  Before that though there was this little matter of reactivating my MyDLSU account online again, since it went inactive after I forgot to use it for two months.  Good thing I still had the receipt from the previous term, so it didn’t take too long to get done.  After that, it was an easy enough task to log in and put in a reservation for residency. 

After that it was off to the campus.  I was a bit surprised, as apparently today was the official start of classes, which meant that there were a LOT of students already milling around the campus.  The first stop was the department of course, but the person I was supposed to meet — the program advisor — wasn’t it.  Because he apparently didn’t have any classes to teach today.  Ironically he was the one who told us to come around on the 27th, though I suppose it might just be a misunderstanding, as the ability to even enroll for residency/thesis only appears on the website today.

Anyway, this means that I’m in for another visit tomorrow for advising.  Remember, Thesis Writing apparently has to be done manually, though I’m confused as according to the secretary at the department if you’re going to take thesis you don’t have to enroll for residency anymore.  So that’s something to bring up when I get there, so if there’s adjustments to be done, I can fix things quickly.

So this means two days off work in a row.  All worth it though,  I think.

P.S. It’s payday today, and I was tickled that the salary showed up in my payroll account early today.  And as the BDO and Metrobank branches were close to each other at Vito Cruz Taft, it was an easy matter to withdraw from the BDO ATM, then walk just down the street and deposit the money safely at Metrobank.

P.P.S. Bought a gallon and a half of Magnolia Kesong Puti-flavored ice cream at my sister’s urging.  Well worth it, and the family had it after lunch for dessert. Yum.

Again With The Enrollment Blues

Today’s shift at work wasn’t as tough as you’d expect, as barring one regular absent (I tend to not count our other perennial absentee, who my old team lead from the start of my work in the company is shocked to learn hasn’t been drummed out yet) we had more or less a complete complement of people.  This meant that the queue was manageable (for a Tuesday anyway), and I think we had only a single instance of the queue spiking.

That said, I wasn’t able to finish the shift today, as I had to excuse myself (with permission of the TC-on-duty) and head to DLSU, because it’s enrollment time once again.  Technically I’m just paying for my residency, and I won’t see the cost of the comprehensive exam dues yet (haven’t reapplied again after all), but it still merited cutting my workday short, as I didn’t want to spend too long in line, which was usually the case if I went during the late afternoon after my shift was done.

So, went to DLSU, but I was baffled at the lack of lines in the old rooms where the EOFs were usually printed out in.  Apparently they moved everything to the new Henry Sy building, so that’s where I went.  Two long escalator rides up (the equivalent of two floors on a normal building), I was at the new location for the so-called registration hub, where many of the registrar’s front office functions were relocated, including apparently printing out the EOF.  As for the wait itself, well, it didn’t really last that long, as the line as it were (with comfy seats for a change!) moved at a brisk pace.  Before I knew it I had the form in hand, so I hurriedly went down to the Accounting office to pay for my residency fee and head home.

… Only to be told that the payment of enrollment and other miscellaneous fees had also been relocated to the Henry Sy building.  So I hurriedly walked back to the hall, rode up four long escalators again (the multi-purpose hall was located on the 4th floor this time).  As for the hall itself, it’s what you’d expect for a place that hosts functions like weddings or debates, roomy, a bit dark, and a little too cool for comfort.

Anyway, my name was called soon enough, and I paid for my residency as usual in cash.  After that, it was straight home.  I wasn’t able to use my umbrella, thankfully, as the dark clouds we saw from the office had thankfully dissipated by the time I got to the campus.

Now, where do I go from here.  Obviously I have to pass, if only to get my father off my back.  Honestly, it can be annoying sometimes when he suddenly comes into my room, without warning, to lecture me on why I’m taking too long with my studies. Dad, as if I can rush the freaking scheduling!

Bah, at least that obligation is done.  Here’s to hoping for a somewhat-easy day at work tomorrow.

Paid For, And Done With

It was raining again this morning, though not strong enough for me to consider bringing an umbrella again to work.  I figured that a hat and jacket would be enough, so that was all I took, and I wasn’t disappointed, especially since the rain in our area didn’t turn any stronger than a shower.

Normally I’d be a little frustrated that we’re undermanned, especially during one of the busier days of the work week, but for some reason the queue wasn’t as populated as I expected.  As such two of us were enough (for the most part) to take in the calls up to the end of the day shift.  There were still spikes though, but again they weren’t as bad as other occasions — the most we had today were around four calls waiting, and those were soon taken care of anyway.

As planned, it was off to the university as soon as my shift was one.  The trip there made me regret bringing my jacket after all, as it was pretty hot and humid during the afternoon, and what’s worse there was nary a breeze to make things better.  Okay, it wasn’t as unpleasant as I’m making it sound like, but I was still sweating quite a bit.  Ugh.

When I got to DLSU, I was half-expecting my entry privileges to be suspended (in my experience it usually gets deactivated prior to enrollment), but this time around it was apparently still active, so I was able to just go in without getting stopped at the turnstile.  Getting the EAF form though required a bit of a wait though, as by the time I got there the line to the printing station had gotten so long, that they were asking people to wait in two rooms for their turn.  Even then it didn’t take as long as I’d feared — I think I was just a little past Romeo and Cinderella (I was watching the BR version of the Mikunopolis ’11 concert on my phone) before I finally got to the printing station itself.  I was a little worried once I got there though, as I didn’t bring the previous term’s registration form with its receipt, but apparently for students already in residency it isn’t required.

After that, it was an even shorter wait at the cashier’s for payment.  I didn’t really stick around long after that, and as soon as I’d paid my tuition, it was homeward bound as quickly as  could manage.

Now, if I could only figure out how to stretch the remaining three-thousand odd pesos left that I had in my savings after the enrollment to my next payday…

 

 

 

Feeling Down Is No Excuse

If the title of this entry isn’t clue enough, I’m feeling kind of depressed right now.  No worries, these fey moods are pretty common, when you give me enough time alone to, you know, think at how useless I’ve been for the past three months.  And since my father is away, pretty much leaving me alone with my cousin for a few days, well, there’s none of his well-intentioned if misguided daily interventions to bother me enough to ignore how I’ve done nothing creative in forever. 

A darned shame but, hey, it’s the story of my life.  Still it’s no excuse for me not to put in a journal entry for today.

 Besides, talking about my day today might be therapeutic, in its own way.

So, my father went on his flight early today.  He even woke me up so I could see him off, though it was hardly needed given how he’d prepared for everything the night before.  Also he timed his leaving the house to coincide with my sister and her husband going to work, so he wasn’t alone when he was headed out either.  I gave him the usual greetings, and asked him to give my regards to our relatives over there, for what it’s worth.

I went back to bed after that, and slept a few more hours.  By the time I woke up, it was around ten already.  I didn’t go wash my face nor did I rinse my mouth as custom, oh no.  The first thing I did was to boot up the PC, connect to the net, and head to the school’s site to enroll for the continuation of my residency.  It took all of five minutes, maybe even less.

With that done, only then did I go through my usual morning routine, plus taking a bath, since I had to go out to withdraw my salary.  It was payday obviously, and it just wouldn’t do going to the BDO ATM and my bank still stinking of sleep and wearing the previous evening’s clothes now, would I?

After all that, it was off to the closest BDO ATM.  And how much was the fruits of my labors this time around?  A paltry six thousand five hundred pesos, and a few change that I can’t withdraw anyway.  Still, it’s better than nothing, and with my savings at an all-time low (just around ninety-seven pesos all told), this meant that my salary obviously went into my savings.  And even then, it didn’t enjoy staying there before I had to deduct from it. 

First of course was the credit card bill, due on the 13th.  I put in about a thousand and five hundred this time, so yeah, at the rate I’m going I’d be debt-free by Christmas!  Yay.  This was followed by another one thousand and two hundred peso deduction for the renewal of my gym membership.  And that’s going to be followed by what I’m going to have to pay once I drop by the university tomorrow.  

This leaves me with… not much really.  In fact, I don’t think it’s going to be enough to cover the phone bill that’s going to come at the end of the month, and that’s only if I don’t deduct from it for my daily spendings.  Which I can’t really do.  Ugh, what a pain.

Yeah, the next payday can’t come soon enough, for sure.

 

 

 

Floorspace Relocation

Apparently sometime during my two days off someone in the upper management decided to shuffle everyone’s seating positions on the floor again.  So you can imagine my surprise when I came in and found a full customer service team in the usually-forlorn corner of the work floor me and the other daytime workers occupied.

It wasn’t that hard to spot where everyone else was though, and in some ways our new seating position is much better than the one we just vacated.  For one, it seems to be located at that sweet spot where the security cameras had no angle to view us.  Not quite a blind spot, but it gives us some leeway to do stuff that we normally couldn’t like, oh, take out our phones.  Of course for the latter we’d still have to watch out for the occasional guard patrol, but on the whole it’s much better than what we had.

On the downside, with the transfer, we seem to have lost the ability to open websites outside of the remote client.  There goes another avenue to read manga without having to worry about freezing my system.  Ugh.

Non-work issues aside, I was a bit worried that it would rain on the way back, but that fear wasn’t quite as well-founded as I thought.  It was sunny throughout the afternoon, and although it does rain eventually (it’s actually raining right now outside), it only did so after I got back from church, and even then only very late in the evening.

Not going to work tomorrow, since I reserved the day off to be able to enroll for this school term online.  Unless something happens to my connection (hopefully not!), it should be very quick, meaning I’d be able to use the rest of the day however I wish.

Oh, and tatay is heading off to the province again, this time to oversee the completion of documents for the other house being built over there.  I was a little confused a bit at the fact that he was working on two houses, but the one this trip is concerned with was the house built for my grandparents (my mom’s parents), which is in a neighboring city to the one in my mom’s hometown.  Something about looking after it, because no one else seems to be in any condition to see the construction and documentation through (at least on my mom’s side of the family).  Hope things go well and smoothly.

By the way, it’s payday tomorrow.  And it couldn’t come too soon, as my savings has dropped to critical levels.  I have literally just ninety-seven pesos in my bank, so yeah, minus credit card payment deductions, my salary is going directly into it.  Ugh.  At the rate I’m going, I won’t be in the black until probably Christmas.  To think I have to renew my gym membership tomorrow too…

Oh well. Just the typical start to my work week again.  I mean, it just won’t be the same if I don’t have something to complain about my life, yes?

 

 

 

Back To The Usual

It was a routine day at work today, which is to say that there really isn’t much to say about that I haven’t already talked about before.  Instead I’ll talk to my trip to DLSU afterward which… isn’t much to talk about either.  Really, it was just a quick trip to have my assessment form printed out, then it’s off to pay for the residency fee, and even then it wasn’t that long a wait before my name was called.  Which was too bad, as I wanted to try to access the university’s Wi-fi network while waiting, though the fact that it needed a password killed that off rather quickly.  

Hmm, I really should visit a mall so I can access some public Wi-fi already.

I didn’t go to the gym after I got home.  Instead I just plunked down and slept the rest of the afternoon.  Just felt really tired after I got to my room.

So pretty much a boring day today.  Nothing to see as usual, so it’s best to move along.

Apply And Pay

It was enrollment today, or at least for those like me who missed the ultra-early-we-don’t-have-your-grades-yet-but-we’ll-do-it-anyway online adjustment done at the start of the month.  Although it likely didn’t make my team lead any happy, I missed work to be able to devote my full attention to it.  It was a good thing too, as I was soon to find out once I got to the main campus: though I didn’t have any academic subjects left to enroll, I now had to apply for residency, and not only that, get a Form of Academic Completion so I can be evaluated to see whether or not I was eligible for the comprehensive exam.  

It involved quite a bit of running around, to say the least, but by the end of it all I was able to finish what I set out to do… Sort of.  I’ll still have to drop by the school again tomorrow after work to pay for the residency fee, and as for the completion form, I’m supposed to get it by Monday or so.  Whew.  So while technically I won’t have to worry about classes anymore this term, I’m going to have to prepare for the exams, which means hitting the books… And boy, it’s a lot of books, to say the least.

Oh well, it’s something to worry about when it comes.

After taking care of anything enrollment-related, it was a brief stay at home, before me and my father headed off to Greenhills to help me pick a new phone.  I was somehow able to convince my mom to help a bit with the funds needed for one, though it means it’s going to count as an advanced birthday present from her.  Oh well, given how I care and use for my stuff, it’s an investment that will likely see me years of use, so much thanks to mom again.

Incidentally, while I wasn’t too surprised that nanay would help me out money-wise, I wasn’t prepared for tatay to do so as well.  He’s like my sister, meaning quite stingy with the cash.

Although technically nanay gave us leave to shell out at least seventeen-thousand pesos for the purchase (probably enough for a Galaxy S-II), I eventually settled for a much cheaper Galaxy Ace.  I don’t really need the computing power of the S-II anyway (do I look like a company executive or something?), and some of the apps that the Ace has built-in are more than enough for me.  I do plan on adding to them eventually (like getting Tweetdeck for it), but I’ll have to drop by a location with free wi-fi first to test out some of the net-only features…  Hmm, given Ghostlightning’s comments on Twitter suggest SM Megamall, so maybe I’ll try it out there.

Anyway, it’s more or less back to routine tomorrow, with the only change I suppose being that I have a new phone…  I wonder how long it’d take for me to get used to all of its functions?

Caught From Behind

… And all of a sudden, it’s enrollment time once again.  How time flies, huh?

As with the previous term, I’m going to have to miss work tomorrow so I can enroll properly.  Though our company obviously has web access, our school website (where we do the actual reserving of classes and stuff like that) is one of those places blocked by the company’s filter.  So everything’ll have to be done either here at home, or at school.  I’m thinking of dropping by, if only to confirm the requirements for the comprehensive exam, and whether or not it’s one there’s a process to it other than selecting it from the list online, and adding it to my adjustment slip.  Mmm.

Work was pretty much routine for a Monday, so nothing much to say there.  Ditto for my visit to the gym.  It started raining just a bit ago, and while it’s mostly petered out by now it’s done its job of alleviating the evening heat somewhat.  I wish it could have lasted longer though.

Going to try to give my supervisor another call before bed.  I already sent an email before I left work today informing him about the enrollment, but a call is also required to seal the deal, so to speak.