Life in Zambo

About two weeks ago, an office colleague of mine told me that she was buying a weighing scale for quite a deal. Being on the path of losing weight myself, I still haven't gotten myself an accurate scale. I got myself one a few months ago, but my brother and I found out that every time someone gets on it, it either adds a few kilos to the actual weight, or to make you like it even more, it actually makes you weigh a few kilos less. When I clicked that button to purchase the scale, I kinda had a tiny bit of guilt coursing through me, because I knew that I just did exactly the opposite of what I promised myself. Which was to be prudent with my expenses. But I'm glad that I at least got to spend on something that's related to my quest of losing weight. I really should put some numbers and logs on this blog so I can see if it's actually working for me or not. I need to start tracking to know what's working or not. My mailing address is always at the office, becau...

If you can remember my last post about Fitness Apps , you'd know that I have been running. It's been three weeks since I last posted about anything, so I figured I'd post something about my latest run. I started running regularly back in November 2012. Like most people who wanted to be fit, I would plan to go running, exercise, and eat less, but in the end, I'd just let my lazy self get what she wanted: stay on the couch, pass on the exercising, and just eat and eat and eat. Let me show you a few charts from Zombies 5k. It's from when I started running up till my last run.

As a public engineer, you can't really make the kind of money that will get you a nice house, a nice car and even some vacation time. It's all about public service. Once you enter public service, forget luxuries. You can't afford it unless you're paid what only about 10% of government officials are paid. My salary bracket is the lowest among government employees and that's not even PhP 10,000. *Sigh* So what can I do in this situation? Let's see. I'm a public engineer paid with minimum wage, living with the parents and that means I don't have to pay for food at home. I can contribute, but I don't have to. I don't have to pay rent, I don't have utility bills, except for my cellphone bill, which I will be downgrading as soon as the contract's about to renew. What have I been doing with my salary?

In another two weeks, I'll be seeing dear old Cebu again. I actually have plenty of appointments to attend, but other than medical or business appointments, I also have plenty of friends to meet, and of course, an anniversary with the boyfriend to celebrate. Although the anniversary is top priority, I also received an invitation from the Cebu Bloggers Society Inc. President, for the Social Media Influencers Summit (SMIS) . I am quite excited about the upcoming event. The last time I attended a bloggers' summit was back in November 2011 and it was by far the most successful event that the CBSi has organized through everyone's effort. Bloggers and non-bloggers alike attended the much talked about Visayas Blogging Summit 2011 . This year, the Theme is #TrendingForward As you can see, it's even hash tagged, depicting online presence. So what's the Summit all about? As the name suggests, it's a gathering of social media influencers. If you are on Twitter, F...

I once worked as a call center agent in Cebu City. As such, we were required to provide world-class service to customers all over the world. To keep our jobs, we were required to be kind to customers, to always keep in mind that the customer is always right, no what. When you turn down a customer, make sure that you are doing it for something bigger than a customer. A few weeks after I arrived in Zamboanga, I went grocery shopping. I had a small plastic bag which had one item in it. I could've stuffed it in my pocket, but I didn't, because I didn't want a bulging pocket. So I strolled into the supermarket, when all of a sudden, in the rudest possible way, "Pssst, psst, pssst!!!"

Every early morning, my dad would wake up, pray, and go to the store to buy some pan de sal . He used to do this every day before breakfast all alone. Almost a year ago, when I first came home, he's had companions do this task with him. I call them Choi-Choi and Chai-Chai. It's actually Tisoy and Tisay, since among the litter of nine puppies that April gave birth to, they were the only light-colored ones. At first, my dad was hesitant about letting me keep them, but I wouldn't hear of it. There wasn't anyone I could trust enough to keep my peace of mind intact. There wasn't anyone who was cheesy enough to do what my dogs can do. It's amazing though how my dad managed to train them to run into their, ummm, fenced space when there's bread involved. They become really smart when they see bread. I trained them to sit and wait, but my dad trained them to stay out of the house, and go to their room.

Zamboanga City's close to the sea, so going to the beach can become a daily occurrence. The water's cool and clear, unlike in Cebu, where you still have to travel quite a distance just to find some good spots to enjoy the seawater and at an entrance fee that's worth well, more expensive than Mother Nature intended for us to afford. After the marathon , the group and I headed to the Golf Beach , named as such since it's not just a beach park, but also a golf course. It's been a number of years since I last came here. I have been wanting to go to the beach for a while now, but unfortunately I wasn't ready for this trip, so I didn't take a dip in the water.