Upon checking my MSN mail, i saw an ad of the Windows Live SkyDrive on the banner on top of the page. I got a bit interested so i clicked on and was redirected to the Windows Live SkyDrive page where i learned more about it. So its one of the new services offered by Windows Live which gives you free 5 GB of password-protected online file storage. You can use it to store and access your files anywhere privately or allows you to share files with others too. It is accessible anytime you login using Windows Live ID. With all the free online file storage out there, i think i could use this one when needed. I kinda trust Microsoft more than any other websites offering the same service.
Archive for September, 2008
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Finally, after two and a half years, our yearbook is finally released! Whew! actually we though this moment wouldn’t happen anymore after not hearing much news about it after graduation and getting a bad news that some list were lost. So last Saturday, I went to PLM to get my copy. Well, i was excited and it was nice to see good old friends and classmates. There a lot of changes in the university as well but still i’m glad i was able to find my way around - it’s not much of a big change anyway. Our yearbook is kinda heavy but it looks okay. It has the title of “The Pioneer” with an explanation on the first page. Pages are categorized by colors which represent each college and looking on the sides, it would be very easy to know which one is mine - the CET or the College of Engineering and Technology. Pages are colored red and obviously its the thickest. So i flipped the pages and looked up for my name. Good thing the names were listed alphabetically so i easily found myself. It felt funny seeing myself on it, glad that my picture and info didn’t get lost. I gave a quick laugh on the description i had given for myself thinking that time thinking i was so college-ish. Some info are already outdated like my old blog url and my mobile and home numbers. I think the only info that remains to be true is my home address and my email address. hehe 
*Too bad the images aren’t that clear, thanks to my good old samsung phone..hehe
Last friday, we celebrated a Moon Cake Festival at the office, courtesy of the Filipino-Chinese employees in our department. It started off with a free light dinner at around 5:30pm. There’s pork barbeque, lumpiang shanghai, pork siomai, pichi-pichi, pansit malabon, and pansit puti. By 6:15 the dice game started and i’m on table 12. Well, i’m pretty much lucky because from the first turn that i had, i always won a prize from the 4th, 5th, and 6th group consisting of food/snacks. I had a bottle of C2 apple, a box of chocolate mallows, a box of tiny chocolates, 2 gummy worms, a company ballpen, and a box of hello panda. Too bad i wasn’t that lucky enough to win prizes from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd group consisting of gadgets and appliances, hehe. But anyway, at least i enjoyed the night and went home with someone rather than nothing
Here’s some tidbits about Moon Cakes and the Moon Cake Festival:
Mooncakes are Chinese pastry traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Typical mooncakes are round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. A thick filling usually made from lotus seed paste is surrounded by a relatively thin (2-3 mm) crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are rich, heavy, and dense compared with most Western cakes and pastries. They are usually eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese tea.
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, or in Chinese, Zhongqiu Jie, is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese people and Vietnamese people (even though they celebrate it differently), dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China’s Shang Dynasty. It was first called Zhongqiu Jie (literally “Mid-Autumn Festival”) in the Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia and Singapore, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is usually around mid or late September in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.
The Moon Cake Festival also is a time for friends and family to get together, enjoy sumptuous meals and play the MoonCake Dice Game. All the game requires are six dice and a china bowl. Just throw the dice into the bowl - and the different combination you get stand for different ranks of awards you will win. The game has six ranks of awards, which are named as the winners in ancient imperial examinations, and has 63 different sized mooncakes as prizes. But due to practical reasons, most Chinoys use toys, household items, school supplies, chocolates, chips or money as prizes. The magic number in this game is the number 4 “the red four”. It is believed that the winner will be very lucky in the coming year.
*the prizes i won..
Here are some surveys, quizzes, contests, and fun stuffs to do that allow you to win prizes just by joining
Play Online Pinoy Games and win
Answer Pinoy Surveys and win
Vote:Coke or Pepsi? and get a chance to win a year’s supply
Win 1 Year supply of Noodles
Win free Globe or Smart load
Win TGIF Gift Certificates by answering an insurance survey
Win a Dual Sim My|Phone + 5000
Win SM Gift Certificates
Win a WOW Magic Sing!
Win Olympus Digital Camera
Win Batman The Dark Knight items
Win Sex and the City items
Win Indiana Jones items
WIN! all 5 official Olympic mascot dolls!
Car Can Racing Game
A lot of people want to have their own business even if they have to start up small. But starting a business needs a lot of work and most importantly one would need money. It’s easy if you have big savings but what if you’re just a regular employee with earnings just enough for your monthly expenses or an individual with savings but not enough as a capital to start a business with? Well, Small Business Loans come to the rescue!
Whether you are starting big or small, its easy to get small business loans for your small business financing needs. Use your personal savings and combine it with small business loans or use the loans alone as a capital for your start-up business. A lot of companies offer small business loans for everyone so be sure to choose the right one for you. Some nice features like that of UnsecuredSolutions are high loan amounts, affordable rates/low interests, great terms, pre-qualification, fast approval, no upfront fee, no pre-termination/pre-payment fee, easy processing, experienced and trusted, and guidance from loan experts.
Now, having your own sari-sari store, retail store, food booths/food carts, fast food chain, boutique, salon, car wash shop, laundry shop, water refilling station, and many more types of small business is not impossible anymore because there are people and companies willing to help you make your dream come true fast and easy with small business loans.
It seems that i don’t feel like eating my packed lunch today and i’m craving for something else which i still can’t figure out til now. But anyway, i had my usual rice and hotdogs for breakfast at home and i still have some pringles and cookies left from yesterday here at my desk. I like the taste of this chocolate chunks cookies - milk chocolate macadamia variant i’m munching on right now though i seem to be craving for some oatmeal cookies. I just finished eating a slice of pizza and then Alsie (my officemate and friend) gave me a banana (saba) which really delighted me. I’m so happy to have one coz i already had the last piece we have at home yesterday so i only have a ponkan for my fruit dessert for lunch today. Anyway, that’s it for my food thoughts. I wonder what i’ll have for lunch..hmmm…
Just today, i started using a patience meter in my Windows Live Messenger status message at the office. It will help others to know how to deal with me like when to talk to me normally or when to crack a joke or when to ask stupid questions etc.
Basically, it all started when this new hire in our team (well i think he’s more than 3 months now) started asking help from me for a specific product. As always, its my job to help especially if it concerns my products. However, after i gave him the help he needed, it didn’t stop there. He continued asking question on how to and why it is’t working and stuffs like that with another product. I really got pissed off since most of his questions are easy and are available in the published documentations we have and its as if i’m already doing his task step by step. I already told him a lot of times to find what he needs in the documents instead of asking right away. And yet, he still keeps on asking and whenever im explaining something, i had to explain it 3 or more times before he gets it. No offense, but i’m trying to be nice to him and be helpful but why can’t he help himself? Its obvious he isn’t that smart and has low comprehension but i just wish he tries to improve himself. I get pissed easily when someone keeps on asking me about something which can be found in our documents. Why can’t he have the initiave to do some searching before bothering others?(and i’ve been telling him a lot of times before already to “check the documents, its there”). It’s okay for me to help, but for easy stuffs that can be found on the table, please help yourself. I’ts not my job to spoonfeed everything.
Now back to my patience meter, after i had it with that guy and told my co-functional lead about his staff, and shouted silently on my own, my patience meter which dropped to 5% finally came up to 25%. Good thing lunchbreak came and so i was able to relax and my patience meter is starting to rise again.
A summary of how i describe my patience meter:
85-90% I’m cool! everything’s normal
75-84% trying to keep it cool…
50% warning! watch your words!
26%-49% i’m definitely not in the mood! only really important stuffs accepted!
below 25% - don’t bother me at all! (except for my higher ups of course.. lol)
While browsing through my inbox, I came across a forwarded message to me last year. It was one of those short stories that I really like and I can relate to… well, not 100% but the thought it gives, is almost the same as mine. I guess I’m a woman who can be independent but of course it wouldn’t hurt to have that special someone
In a brief conversation, a man asked a woman he was pursuing the question:
“What kind of man are you looking for?”
She sat quietly for a moment before looking him in the eye and asking,
“Do you really want to know?”
Reluctantly, he said “Yes.”
She began to expound…
“As a woman in this day and age,
I am in a position to ask a man what he can do for me that I can’t do for myself.
I pay my own bills. I take care of my household without the help of any man…
or woman for that matter.
I am in the position to ask, “What can you bring to the table?”
The man looked at her. Clearly he thought that she was referring to money.
She quickly corrected his thought and stated,
“I am not referring to money. I need something more.
I need a man who is striving for perfection in every aspect of life.”
He sat back in his chair, folded his arms, and asked her to explain.
She said “I am looking for someone who is striving for excellence mentally because I need conversation and mental stimulation.
I don’t need a simple-minded man.
“I am looking for someone who is striving for excellence spiritually because I don’t need to be unequally yoked… believers mixed with unbelievers is a recipe for disaster.
“I need a man who is striving for excellence financially because I don’t need a financial burden.
“I am looking for someone who I can respect. In order to be submissive, I must respect him.
I cannot be submissive to a man who isn’t taking care of his business.
I have no problem being submissive…he just has to be worthy.
“God made woman to be a help mate for man.
I can’t help a man if he can’t help himself.”
When she finished her spiel, she looked at him.
He sat there with a puzzled look on his face.
He said, “You are asking a lot.”
She replied, “I’m worth a lot”.
Pharmanex is a company that offers health products from vitamins, food supplements to lotions, body scrubs, etc. They are famously known with their NU Skin line (NuSkin). Basically, its a company that markets itself through networking either thru finding someone that will actively sell their products or just recruit and recruit people under them.
Personally, i have tried some of their products before and i think they’re pretty much okay except that the price is kinda high. As for the company itself, i could say they are just like all other networking companies where you will attend a seminar with a very impressive speaker and a believable presentation. And when you sign up, its either you will sell the product or you’ll recruit people under you to join.
So what makes Pharmanex/Nu Skin different? With all honesty, I am pretty much aware of such companies since i was in elementary if i remember it correctly. My father and my aunts/uncles have been involved in many different networking companies and as a kid tagging along, i’ve learned some lessons in this business and i became familiar with the process - from recruiting up to the seminars conducted. So to say, they’re all just the same. So what i notice that makes Pharmanex/NU skin is the way they recruit people which i now call “false marketing strategy”. At first, i thought it was just the person who first invited me to the seminar who had this fooling tactic. But i lately, i learned it has become the tactic of most members.
It all started early last year when i received a phone call from a girl who told me that i was referred by Berna (who happened to be someone i met at the office). She asked if i am interested in trying the job opportunity she’s offering. She said she’s from a company (i forgot the name) and told me they needed 2-3 people to fill in the slots. Then thinking it was something to try just for the sake of trying, i agreed and she told me to meet her at 26F Trafalgar Tower in Makati and bring my resume. I went and was shocked to find out i have been fooled. It was actually a seminar for Pharmanex/Nu Skin. I was really mad at her that time and i wanted to tell her how mad i am and i didn’t like it that she tricked me. But since i have tried the products already and i’m already there, i sat down and just listened. Besides, i have nothing to lose. But then i realized i am listening to the very same type of seminar my father and aunts/uncle went to before. The speaker sounds very promising and fun - well they’re all like that anyway. But in the end, they never convinced me. Besides, i’m not into selling especially those type of expensive products and i’m not into recruiting people either.
Anyway, i brought up this topic so that it can help anyone who might be searching about it too. I have been a victim of false marketing, recruitment strategy or misrepresentation of jobs. Yesterday, a close friend of mine was fooled into attending them. He invited me to come with him for business project a friend of his invited him to. But since i’m not available, i wasn’t able to come. Then early this day, i realized that the trafalgar tower sounds familiar to me. So i googled it and there i found out that its the office of Pharmanex/Nu Skin. And worse, i found out many has been victimized by false marketing strategies or misrepresentation in jobs. I realized it wasn’t just the tactic of the girl who first invited me but it seems to be a common tactic of the company members.
Honestly, i don’t have anything against the company and the products and i’m not saying they are a scam nor every member uses this strategy. My point here is that the strategy that some used is not good. I mean, i for myself don’t like to be fooled so why would i fool others? and i don’t think its good to start a business relationship with someone that started with a lie. That girl could have honestly told me about the company and the product so that if i attended, it would be of pure interest and not because i was expecting something else. They mislead people and fool/trick people just for the sake of having them attend their seminar. Yes they don’t oblige you to sign up but you were forced to attend the seminar indirectly. So for me, if ever i would sign up or join such businesses, i would prefer to register under someone who told me the truth and invited me rather that someone who told me a lie. So i hope the best for those “honest” members and i hope the worst for those “liars”. White lies or recruitment strategy, a lie is still a lie. And nothing good will happen especially in business if it starts with a lie.
A lot have been victimized already by their strategy. Don’t believe me? Well google it and see for yourself….othewise, check out this posts i’ve seen and read!
How to Detect Misrepresentation in JOBS
i almost fell for that one - NUskin
New Recruitment Strategies By Companies?
Recruitment Strategy? Beware and Be Aware!
The Networking Rant
15F Octagon Building
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