New job, longer commutes, and a road accident

I have so many stories to tell, and there were a lot of times I wanted to write about something immediately but can't because I'm too busy. Now things have piled up and I don't know where to start haha. Okay, so let's do it chronologically!

New job!

I started with my new job last week (August 22). The first four days is dedicated to onboarding us. We learned a lot about White & Case, its founders, the history, vision and mission, the executive committee members, blah, blah, blah. To be honest I've never attended an onboarding this in-depth. Everyday we do a recap of all the concepts. We do quizzes, we recite, etc. Very classroom like. Can't say I hated it.

As part of our initiation (as I'd like to call it) to the company, they made us complete this signature sheet and human bingo card where we had to hunt for people and get their signatures. It wasn't supposed to be competitive but there's a consequence for losing so might as well put some energy into it. Argh.

True to their values, the entire week was indeed very engaging. I met a lot of people and gained new friends. My introverted self was challenged to the core and eventually has gotten used to the cringing sensation of shaking hands and introducing myself. What have you, even public speaking didn't taunt me that much. Noice.

Longer commutes

I remember being scared of leaving Pointwest because for three years I'm only 30 minutes away from work, and I don't think I'm ready to journey back to Ayala every freaking day. But thank God my schedule is midshift so I wasn't too worried about getting caught in traffic. The only problem is going home! Even though the ride home is a breeze (Ayala to Fairview in 45 minutes can you believe it), it's already too late and too dark and I have to cross the super well lit overpass at FCM (note sarcasm) pa to reach home. So I tried bringing the car to work, not really to Ayala but I found a flat-rate parking area at Centris Quezon Avenue so the plan is to leave the car there and commute to work, then go back for it after my shift. I was happy at the thought of not crossing the overpass anymore.

But well, two days into it an I got into a road accident!

This time with a PUJ

My poor Vios getting used to my incompetent driving.

Can't dive into the details but in summary: I hit (was hit by) a jeepney while turning to Quezon Avenue. Thank God I was not alone. I was with three of my officemates and they're all such great moral support. As in, just the fact that someone's there with you makes a lot of difference. One of them called the MMDA to check so in a few minutes we got authorities at the incident.

We went to the police station and filed a police report, and because me and the jeepney driver is accusing each other and there's no concrete evidence, we have to elevate things to the court. OMG. Thank God I have insurance so I can leave the dirty work to them.

A bunch of learnings:
- In case of a traffic accident. DO NOT MOVE YOUR CAR until you've taken pictures and videos of the situation. Get out and record the scene, you need to get an angle of the road, where you are, where the other car is, your surroundings, the damage, and even the signages around. Who knows if the jeepney was entering private lane? Or you are crossing theirs?
- If you can help it... JUST LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE AS IS until the first responders arrive. Don't let anyone move their car without agreeing to certain terms. If they move, they're guilty. Char. If the scene remains untouched, the MMDA can sketch the incident and decide who's at fault. If you're causing traffic, make sure you've taken enough pictures before moving your car out of the way.
- SAVE MMDA HOTLINE - 136. Have extra load with you because it's not free to call. GRR.
- If you must really take matters to the precinct, ask the MMDA officer which Police Station covers the place of accident. In our case, Centris is covered by some police station at Project 8. We were escorted to the place and filed an incident report there.

Sobrang hassle but thank God because:
- We're all safe
- I have friends with me. What do I do without you guysss. Thank you Bear, Tats, and Mhy for staying with me! Shempre na-abala ko sila so I felt bad for wasting their time but I'm super thankful at how supportive they were <3
- My load didn't expire until I got home, whew. I was able to call my dad for help but since he's with my mom at the hospital, he called my uncle to back me up.
- My uncle followed me to the precinct. So overall I wasn't too fazed by the situation hahaha.
- My dad is very very calm. Every time I get into accidents like this, he always makes sure I learn something from it first before telling me what my faults are.

Hay! It's less than a month before my wedding and I damaged my bridal car hahaha. Sana mapaayos agad haha

Ang haggaaaard!

I can't believe it's already Wednesday! I was imagining my one week vacation to be peaceful and sweet but here I am running errands everywhere. In chronological order starting last Friday...

Friday - last working day at Pointwest

To be honest I wasn't too emotional about leaving Pointwest. Not until my onsite teammates started sending me well wishes that I realized, man I love my team! I wanted to send a goodbye email but I didn't know how to start. In my awkwardness I even had to Google "How to send goodbye email at work" HAHA and mind you, they were really helpful. I'll probably get to it this week, before they kill off my access.

Photo by Keats!

We had a subteam lunch (which is midnight) at Shakeys Katipunan and a team breakfast at Ral's Technohub so you could imagine how terribly full I was the entire day.

Saturday - went by so fast

You know how toxic Saturdays are for night owls like me. It means forcing my body to be awake for 12 hours more because I have things to do. Actually we only had one thing set that day, which was the last leg of our pre-marriage counseling with Paris (our officiating pastor). After our session we ate lunch at RUB Ribs & BBQ at Sct. Rallos where I excitedly ordered a burrito bowl which disappointed me because it has no trace of Mexican in it. Anyway, I guess our last session dissuaded us from having kids early in our married life HAHAHA. Rightly so 'cos we don't really have plans of having a baby yet. Blog, don't jinx this.

Got home soooo tired. Slept 14 hours total. Sarap.

Sunday - haizt

And I thought I was gonna feel rejuvenated after a long long sleep but no. My parents used the car so I had to commute to church. Then I got my period. My mood swung and I can't pick a dress to wear. And then, I can't book an Uber 'cos my phone is acting up. I was literally crying at my first world problems. But everything eventually leveled down. We ate lunch at Shang Plaza where we finally saw their new tiles HAHA. It's been a while since we last went there and every time we do, there would always be men working on the floor, breaking the tiles. God knows how long it took them to replace everything. Anyway, congrats lol.

Also, I bought a bunch of cold-pressed juices from Pure Nectar by Fruit Magic to see if I could do juicing again. I don't like the taste to be honest. I don't think I liked any of the juices that much. They were bordering on spoiling already, so much for the expiry date that's a week from now. Urgh. But what have you, I ordered again for day 2, and 3. Hm. Ang yaman ko.

Monday - the haggardest of them all

Jeckie took a leave from work cos we had to apply for marriage license. Sobrang haggard ng araw na to jusko. I thought I'd have time to go to my RDO branch to have my 1905 stamped but noooo. First thing we did was get our cedula at UP Village. No lines and super cool aircon, love it. Then we went to the city hall to apply for marriage license at the Civil Registry. Then back to Jeckie's to rest and wait for 1pm for the Family Planning seminar. Then it rained so hard while we're about to go to the Health Department huhu so much hassle getting a taxi! Arggghhh.

Anyway. I learned a lot that day. I learned that pills, injectables, and implants are all hormones that make you have regla so you can't bear a child. Other family planning methods discussed were ligation - which I don't care about... and IUD -- which was interesting! Not because I'm considering it but because it's very enlightening to learn about how it works based on the female anatomy of the ovaries.

It's like, okay, the goal is to not get pregnant. What can we do?
The egg cell should not reach the uterus: Okay let's cut the tubes (ligation), or block the passageway (IUD). But that's too invasive! Fine, let's give you hormones so your egg cell falls off and dies when you're ovulating. So cool that there are so many ways to work on a problem and all solutions are valid haha.

Okay after that enlightening yet tiresome seminar, we went home to change and rest a while before we head to our final agenda.

The lobby that smells like pancakes. Or biscuits. Whatever.

We're moving to Flair Towers after the wedding. By God, with our current status I think we may be stretching our living standards a bit but myyyy the place is beautiful. I haven't checked the other condos around but I want to vouch it's the prettiest among its neighboring condos haha. We paid the reservation fee, signed the contract, and heaved a great sigh as we realized that this is it... we're living together soon in this nice building that's next to Rebisco so you could imagine the smell everyday. ARGH IT SMELLS LIKE PANCAKES IN THE LOBBY, WHY.

Tuesday - not better

I am so freaking tired. Monday was all about accomplishing our marriage license requirements. Tuesday was about securing my pre-employment requirements naman. I already have my NBI clearance, so my agenda for the day was really just to go to BIR then submit the papers to White and Case. All the while worrying about my pending articles from freelance work, and the 2 invites I have to finish this week. LORD HAVE MERCY. I wanted to have enough time to spend at home so I could focus on my other jobs but oh Lord. daskjfhdskhfvbsg fhgafsafh

I left Makati around 6pm and rode the P2P bus because I was so tired and I wanted to sleep. But what have you: rush hour, payday, and the horrific accident at Mindanao Ave involving a cement mixer and a car - made our travel from Glorietta to Trinoma a ridiculous 2 and a half hours. I've completed an entire sleep cycle and we haven't even passed Boni. I can't. I was mentally crying at all this.

Side note, back at White and Case I learned that there was only one slot for the position I applied for and HUHU I can't believe I got it. Pressure. That is what you are.

Wednesday - today

I promised to finish the articles due yesterday and I did, yehey, but not after going to Trinoma to meet with our OTD haha. Now that I'm done with my writing, it's time to indulge in Game of Thrones! Also, Bride of the Water God hihi ❤

Hope you had a restful day!

Wait, I have to sleep pala loool.

Heeeey

Our invites are ready for distribution! Actually they've been ready for a couple of weeks now haha. Big labor of love for the design and DIY kraft envelopes. Please remind me to blog about all my wedding DIYs. So far we've made envelopes, boutonnieres, and flower balls for our flower girls. SO MUCH WORK. 

Today was cool. Met up with a couple of my college friends to hand out their invites. Ate a lot of pizza too. My weight loss journey is totally failing. I'm back to 150lbs after being 147lbs consistently for a couple of weeks. I blame Potato Corner.

Now I'm thinking of doing a juice cleanse a week before our prenup, which is next week. HAHA Wish me luck. I'm eyeing Pure Nectar by Fruit Magic because it's nearest hehe.

Tomorrow is my last working day at Pointwest. I'm torn between writing an email of gratitude to my teammates, here and abroad... or not bothering with it at all HAHA. I'm leaning more on writing something personal though because as much as I'm excited to move on to my next job, a part of me wanted to tell them how grateful I am of everything they've taught me. For one, I've finally found a place in the IT industry after being so frustrated about programming. And here I am, moving on to a new job with a same description, fortifying my expertise in the domain. <3

Anyway, will wrap this up because finally I have scripting work to do (read: exciting). I've been slacking off for the past couple of weeks and I've been itching to do some scripting. :)

5 symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency that are often ignored

Photo by Bethany Legg on Unsplash

We Filipinos are known to be very hard-working and family-oriented. Providing for our loved ones and making them happy is our number one priority. Every day we go out to work no matter what, not minding the weather and bearing everything possible just to put food on our tables day after day, without fail. But what if all our efforts take a toll on our health?

What if you suddenly feel weak, depressed and tired all the time? You may not know it if but you may be suffering from Vitamin D deficiency.

What is Vitamin D?

Vitamin D is a key chemical our body needs to be able to perform every day tasks without feeling burned out. A lot of our organs are regulated by Vitamin D, including our heart, lungs, brain, and bones. Low levels of it are linked to chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, and heart diseases. Our bodies are naturally capable of producing it from sunlight, but in this day an age where we avoid the sun like the plague, how do we cope?

Proper Supplementation

Forti-D is a supplement that grants us our daily dose of Vitamin D which is 800 IU. It comes in a gel capsule form that's guaranteed easy to swallow and is very affordable at only ₱6.50 per capsule. If you care for your family, you should also care for yourself. Start serious protection today with Forti-D.

Signs and symptoms

Here are common symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency that often gets overlooked. According to a study conducted by Hi-Precision Diagnostics, 7 out of 10 Filipinos are Vitamin D deficient. If you're suffering from any of these, take a step back and evaluate your Vitamin D intake.

1. Feeling tired all the time
Getting plenty of sleep but still waking up feeling exhausted? This may be caused by low levels of Vitamin D.

2. Unexplained depression
Vitamin D receptors are present in many areas of the brain, including those linked with depression.

3. Poor athletic performance
Overall physical performance is affected by Vitamin D deficiency. It's linked to increased inflammation, making you feel overly exhausted even with just a light amount of workout.

4. Not enough sleep
There's a measurable improvement in sleep quality with regular Vitamin D supplementation. Having trouble getting sleep at night may be caused by low levels of Vitamin D.

5. Poor immune system
With a poor immune system, you'll easily catch whatever is prevalent at the moment. Colds, viruses, flu - if you seem to be getting frequent bouts of these common illnesses, it's time to fortify your body with Vitamin D. Not because it's widespread means it's normal to catch it too.

Seryosong Proteksyon, Simulan Ngayon!

Protect you and your family from Vitamin D deficiency. Poor health is a magnet to dreadful diseases and your family needs serious protection from these harmful elements. Because of indoor lifestyle, ageing, and our constant hiding from the sun (sunscreen, umbrellas, etc.), it's hard to get enough Vitamin D from sunlight these days. If you equate the required daily dose of Vitamin D to food, you'd need to eat 40 eggs / 8 glasses of milk / 800g of Salmon / 2 cans of tuna flakes EVERY DAY. Proper supplementation is your best bet. A capsule of Forti-D is all you need to get equipped with the recommended amount of Vitamin D in your body, keeping your vital organs functioning healthily. Forti-D (Colecalciferol 800IU Vitamin D3) is a product of Unilab and is available in all leading drugstores nationwide at only ₱6.50 per capsule.

For more information, visit www.forti-d.com or www.facebook.com/FortiDPH

Layout change!

I've wanted to update my layout for sooooo long but I just don't have the time recently (excuses). It's impossible for me to get a new theme because this one I have right now has been customized too much, way too much it's hard to bring all those changes to a new template. Argh.

Here's a random photo from Unsplash:

So there, after the font change (from Montserrat x Crimson Text to Playfair Display x Lora), I finally found a way to rearrange my posts. At the surface, it's really just the layout that's changed. Featured image on the left, post summary on the right. THAT'S IT. But do you know how much effort that took me and my puny brain?

First, I have to float certain elements to the left or to the right, add some margins, adjust some paddings, blah. Easy peasy, they're all just CSS.

Next, I have to set a default photo for posts that have no pictures in them (aka. my daily dramas). Otherwise the left part of the post excerpt is going to be empty. I thought I could just expand the snippet to 100% if there's no image but it looks unbalanced and ugly. And since that solution also entails some code-digging, I'd rather work on something that's tedious but pretty. That is, looking for a way to set a default thumbnail for pure text posts.

And I did. I found a solution over heeere. I had to study where to insert the code correctly, but when it worked, all that's left is polishing.

Not really.

When the code finally worked -- ok let's not insult developers. When the markup finally worked. I had to test for responsiveness. So that's another level of adjustments, mostly paddings, margins, media size behaviors. Urgh. And we're done.

And I'm happy!

There's a part in me that wants to do some refactoring but I'm afraid I'll mess something up. There's literal gibberish in my template. I have 1000+ lines of CSS, and a bunch of encrypted javascript functions I may or may not be using. I have sliders and carousels I want to remove because even though they're hidden via CSS, they're still eating up loading time. Argh. I'm a total webdesign wreck. Just kidding.

But yeah, let's leave it for later.

Happy Friday, friends!

EDIT: My archives are a mess please don't go there for now. :)

Font change!

Yeah and that merits a post lol. Funny how a small change can make a big difference! I was getting bored with my previous layout, thinking my fonts look too sharp they're breaking. Then I chanced upon a nice looking blogger theme and got my font from there. In fairness, I love it! Playfair Display is a free font from Google and it looks soooooo nice. Specially the ampersand! So yeah, I replaced all header fonts with Playfair Display and went back to Lora for the body font. <3

Anyway.

It's 4:30am and I'm slacking off again!

I tried the pomodoro technique earlier, you know, 25mins pure work then 5min break and HOLEY MOLEY HOW IS IT SO EFFECTIVE?! I've listed 5 tasks for the day and when the timer ended I'm done with 3.

Now I'm back to procrastinating.

Top 5 make-up trends this 2017

Honestly, I'm becoming more and more interested in make-up lately. My stack is still pretty basic though, but for someone who's not a beauty enthusiast I'm surprised quite a lot of trends caught me this year!

Here's 5 of the top beauty trends owning the internet this 2017:

Photo from Unsplash

1. "No-makeup" makeup

Nude's still in. Girls want to look as bare as possible by putting as much as possible on their faces. Guilty as charged here! Neutral palettes and flesh-toned lipsticks are still so popular today, and for good reason. Nude makeup gives you a fresh and glowing finish that looks natural. Like you didn't even try (even if you sat two hours at the vanity). Don't we all want to look effortlessly beautiful?  No wonder Urban Decay's NAKED palette is such a huge success.

2. Bright and daring makeup

As much as nude makeup is in, this year is also the year where wild and extreme colors rose to popularity. Glittery lip gloss and neon eyeshadows, despite what people think, is more of a statement than a preference. Take California based Lime Crime Cosmetics, a line of vegan and cruelty-free makeup. Its creator, Doe Deere, takes pride in producing high quality and highly pigmented makeup fit for everyone who takes self-expression unapologetically.

3. Microbladed brows

Or at least, full looking and defined brows. Gone were the days when thin arched brows were lit. Right now, people are investing in all sorts of products to achieve more natural-looking brows. Even brow products are evolving. There are feather brow pens, 3-in-1 sculpting pencils, and even brow fibers now, can you believe it?

Microbladed brows, however, offer a more permanent and natural-looking solution so those who want to stick to this trend - which I presume will stay for another three years or so. It's a type of cosmetic tatooing involving an ultra thin and wispy blade that certified specialists use to manually draw hair on your skin. You know what, I'm actually saving up for this. 

4. Unique makeup brushes

Because regular makeup brushes are so effective, somebody decided it's time to reinvent them for more profit.  Beauty blenders, silicon sponges, paddle brushes are all the hype this year. I'm 110% skeptic at first, but in fairness, they're all the rave online. So I had to try them right? I personally have a beauty blender and I don't use it anymore haha. I have a couple of paddle brushes too and can I just say that they're cute and fluffy and feels super good on the skin. Other than that I'm good with my regular brush set! Haha

5. Excessive contouring

Not the most well-received trend, but still a very popular one at that. It's a complicated trick that's originally made for red carpet celebrities because it was meant for HD cameras and harsh lighting. How it suddenly gained mainstream popularity, I have no idea. Now, a highlighter, a contour powder, and tons of concealer are part of every girl's make-up kit, and Instagram has become their version of a red carpet.

Out of the 5 I didn't get particularly obsessed with bright makeup and contouring -- mostly because 1) contouring is hard and 2) I'm not too confident about sparkly things on my face! But for the rest, I was so in. I told you, I have paddle brushes and a beauty blender. I'm getting my brows microbladed one day. And the no-makeup makeup look is my daily game.

What beauty trends are you following this year?