Would you believe that I still went to work last December 31st and before we head to our new year’s eve destination, I even have to drop by Landmark to do some last minute grocery shopping for the 13-fruits that we need on new year’s eve and some stuff that we need for our overnight stay in Laguna.

Yeah, I am that busy. I have a day job and I also have a sideline work plus I have two kids to take care of. I am not complaining as my day job is what helps put on the table plus my sideline work is where I get my share for our monthly amortization for the house. So I am thankful that I have been blessed with more online work to help finance for our needs.

But sometimes it can be really tiring. Imagine working for 8 hours everyday, then I will have to work again at night for my sideline work. Maybe, I should look for body pillow deals so at least I can have a good rest after my very long and tiring day.

My prayer is that I will continue to get more sideline work but I hope I will still have the energy to do all of those.

This is one of the highlights of my 2012: 

This picture was taken during the Meet and Greet session when the Prime Minister of Canada, visited the Philippines last month. He was gracious enough, despite his busy schedule to allot a time to meet the staff here in Manila.

We were instructed that we would just have a group picture with the Prime Minister. The security was really tight in the room. They must have checked a wide selection of stanchions too to provide barricade and security post inside the room.

But we were all surprised when the Prime Minister announced after his speech that he could have individual pictures with all the staff. Everybody got excited and we really appreciate this gesture. I was one of the first few who lined up right away and had our pictures taken with the Prime Minister.

It was really one of my most memorable events for 2012.

This is one of a kind pictorial, held at the roof top of our building:

I have fear of heights so I was kind of scared when I felt the strong winds but I got to relax after a few minutes when I saw my officemates enjoying the view and taking pictures for their souvenir. So I brought my camera out too and start shooting because I am sure there is no way I will be able to go this high again.

That is how I can describe my week now. But I am not complaining and I am even praying for more extra work. You see, I am way below my quota for my sideline work as I was not able to work full time last month as we were on vacation. So for this month, I have to work doubly hard to make up for the earnings that I need for May and for June.

So far things are doing well as I got a regular writing job (though the pay is a little delayed) so at least I don’t have to worry every month as 20% of my quota is already covered by this writing job. Then we received yet another good news from my good friend Peachy for more work next month and possibly until August so I am really thankful.

I really need all this extra work as I need to save up for my share for the housing loan that we will start paying by July plus Bela’s tuition fee come August and my much awaited Cebu trip with my Twitter friends and their family.

So I hope job will continue to pour in and even if I get to sleep for only 2 hours a day, you will not hear me complain as this is what I need now to pay the bills. LOL.

For an international company like us where employees are scattered across the globe in different time zones, it is still important to have an open line of communication for collaboration, which can increase productivity and improve service of the company.

Before, this is only possible with a face-to-face meeting, which can be costly especially if the employees have to travel just to attend the meeting or conference. But thanks to Web conferencing, regular communication among colleagues is now possible without the need for expensive travel cost. 

Web conference makes use of the power of the Internet and computer to allow meetings to take place even if the meeting participants are in different places. Just set up the time and as soon as all participants are logged in, the virtual meeting can start.

And this Web conference tool is so powerful that it even allows display and sharing of files among meeting participants in different format like Word, Excel and PowerPoint for a more effective meeting.

This tool is so effective that we in the IT team are able to hold regular meetings with our counterparts from other missions allowing us to share information and tips to better improve the service that we can give our clients.

I need one of those patient monitor to hook my netbook as I feel that it will die anytime soon (or it might be sooner if I decide to throw it out of the window).

I was really happy with it during the first few months that I was using it as it provided me with what I need for a laptop – fast enough so I can do my work fast but lightweight, small and mobile so I can easily bring it every where I go. And for a while it has really served its purpose.

But lately, it has really been very slow and last week was the worse as it will stop for about 5 minutes to process whatever command I asked it to perform and then it will allow me to work for just one minute before it starts processing again. Imagine, a work that will only take me an hour or two hours at most to accomplish took me 5 hours (but I felt that it was forever) last night.

Now I am thinking if I should sell this crappy netbook so I can get the Mac Book that we have in our gadget store.

If you're looking for a beauty school for a doable occupation in the fashion and beauty business, then you should start finding out about Charlotte beauty school, among the many branches of Regency Beauty Institute.

Regency Beauty Institute is among the eminent beauty schools in the United States. They simply initiated with just 2 campuses in Minnesota and after this they already have 80 campuses throughout 19 states. This just goes to show precisely how fine this school is as they always have a lot of enrolees which shows how good their program is.

Their campuses mirror high end spas and salons so their enrolees are absolute to attain the best practical teaching. Soon after their enrolees be suitable to their courses, they have an enrolment to career process where they support their graduates hunt for employment as they have very good contact in the fashion, runways, spas and cruise sector as their graduates are the most wanted over the US.

If you decide to definitely need to create a title in the fashion and beauty industry, check out Regency Beauty Institute now.

This blog post was based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com or contact Regency Beauty Institute – 9101 Kings Parade Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28273

Different components make up a network system, from the switches and routers that connects all the network systems together, to the servers that manages the processes and communications, to the workstations that is used by clients to process data and a lot more. These devices are expected to function 24x7 as any downtime can’t be tolerated as it means disruption of work and services for any company.

But we can’t expect that all these devices will always function at their 100% performance. They are just machines after all and eventually, they will fail. So it is important that companies make use of network monitoring tools to monitor the network devices in case they will encounter any problem so immediate action can be done to solve the problem and restore connection or prevent possible downtime.

There are a lot of monitoring software available and one of them is LogicMonitor, the best network monitoring software available in the market today. What makes it stand out from the other networking monitoring tools is that it does all the hard work in order to monitor the entire network infrastructure. All that the software needs is the host name and it will detect the device or the OS and will configure all the processes and thresholds that needs to be monitored.

Let’s take for example their windows server monitoring. It will determine the OS that is installed and will automatically detect the CPU usage, the Hard Disk for latency, the SQL servers and other processes that needs to be monitored for a particular OS.

With this networking monitoring tools, systems administrator can be confident that they will not miss anything and will be able to address any problems to avoid any downtime.

I have no plans actually of taking a day off on my birthday as I am saving my leaves for a possible long vacation on May. But then I have to attend a meeting with Bela’s teacher tomorrow and so I thought to just take the whole day off so I can spend my birthday with my family.

It was a last minute leave that it was only after lunch when I decided to take a leave and asked my boss to sign my leave form.

It was already 3:30 PM and I am still catching up with work as I have to finish my pending work before taking a day off so I was really busy and was running around. I was on my way to the HR section to submit my leave form and I happened to notice that there are a lot of people in the pantry. Of course the gossiper in me took over and got curious as to why almost all my officemates are gathering up at the pantry. So I peep in the window and everybody got surprised when they saw me, especially my boss. It was only then when I realized that they are preparing to surprise me for my birthday. Boy I was really surprise but I am sure they were more surprise than I am.

My boss is really a super woman as I don’t know how she was able to pull off an impromptu surprise party complete with a birthday cake from our favorite cake maker, Costa Brava, with text which says “Happy Birthday Abie.” There was also overflowing ice cream.

I was really touched and I feel so blessed for having great colleagues like them. Thank you very, very much, especially to Michelle, who never fails to organize a surprise party for me every year. Mwah!!

It will be a long weekend as Monday is a holiday. I am so excited already as I plan to go shopping for the whole day tomorrow while I wait for Bela to finish with her ballet practice. And then I plan to ask hubby to take us for a day trip or overnight stay in Tagaytay on Sunday as it has been a while since we last went out of town.

But looks like none of my plans will push through and I might even need eye wrinkle creams as for sure I will be staying up late this weekend to finish all my pending work.

But I am really not complaining. I have been praying for more work and now that God has granted my wish, I am more than thankful. This is actually what I need as I really need shopping funds for my Christmas shopping. I already have a lot on my wish list and looks like I will be able to buy some from my list after I finish my work for this month. So I am really very grateful and very happy.

A very busy but blessed month for me, work wise.

A uniform can be a status symbol for an employee just like surgical scrub for those in the medical field. Wearing a nice uniform can make them feel proud with their job, thus they will be more inspired to work hard and give 100% service to all their patients.

That is why most hospitals look for scrub store that sells medical scrubs and uniforms that offer different color and styles so their employee can really feel good while they are wearing their uniform. And that is why Blueskyscrubs.com is so popular as a great source for medical uniforms among hospitals.

All of the scrubs of Blueskyscrubs.com can not be bought from stores but can only be purchased online and they ship to any part of the world. They even offer free shipping for orders of $155 and above. They have one line of scrub for men and two designer styles for women. Their medical scrubs is also available in different color so those in the medical field will have plenty of options.

Now nurses, doctors and other medical practitioners can really look good while at work by wearing uniforms from Blueskyscrubs.com.

A good friend of mine just resigned from work so he can pursue his passion in the fashion and beauty industry. It took him a while to arrive at this decision as he is scared at first if he can really give up his career now and start from scratch again with the fashion industry.

But he finally got the courage to finally resign after he discovered Hoover Alabama Cosmetology School located at Regency Beauty Institute Hoover 1775 Montgomery Highway S., Hoover, AL. 35244. Regency Beauty Institute is one of the fastest growing beauty schools in the United States. He learned that Regency Beauty Institute can provide him with the best training as they provide comprehensive training to all their students. They also provide the best hands-on training as their campuses are well equipped and mirrors upscale salon. They even have good connections so they can help their students look for work in salons, cruise ships and even runways.

My friend believes that he can easily look for a job after he graduates from Regency Beauty Institute and so he really feels confident that he made the right decision to resign so he can start a new career in the beauty and fashion industry.

This blog post was based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.

Last Friday, I took a leave from work so I can go to NBI to get my clearance as I need it to renew my clearance from work. I went to the NBI office located at Victory Mall in Caloocan. I was accompanied by my dad and we went there early to avoid the long queue.

We arrived around 8:30 AM and I was surprised to find out that there is a long queue already. Hubby knew somebody from there and so I decided to look for him so he can accompany me and avoid the long lines. LOL. But I am glad I did that because after he filed my application, they discovered that I have a name sake with a case. Her name is Joy Ramos and her case is slight physical injury.

Since my name has a hit in their database, I have to go through their quality control to make sure that I am not that person. I was interviewed by one of their officers. I got scared at first when I learned that I will be interviewed but it is just a simple process actually. The officer just asked for my address to verify my residency and he just has to see me in person to verify that I am not the “Joy Ramos” who is in their file.

After the interview, hubby’s friend accompanied me to the releasing section and I just waited for less than 10 minutes and I got my clearance. What a breeze.

Thank you really to hubby’s friend (which I decide not to reveal here. LOL) who assisted me. You really made my life easy.

Agenda for Tonight: Check for car insurance rates as our car’s insurance is due to expire soon and so hubby wants me to check for rates this early so we can get good offers not like our last car insurance which is a little heavy on the budget.

But instead of accomplishing my agenda, I ended up reading tweets of my friends and checking pictures and status of my friends in Facebook. I have been so very lazy these past few days. Probably because I am still adjusting to my new time now as I have to wake up early even if I only slept for less than four hours as I have to go to work. Last Tuesday was my first day back to work after my maternity leave so it has only been a week so my body clock is still adjusting. Thankfully Cobi is cooperative as he wakes up every three hours now to feed instead of every hour during his first month. So at least I get to sleep even for just a few hours before I have to wake up again to prepare for work.

But that is life. I have to work to help my husband with our family’s expenses so I guess I have no choice but to get used to (soon) with my new setup.

My dad works as a former seaman but he retired more than a decade ago so he was happy when he was able to talk to one of his former colleague. His friend shared with him their current problem with one of their boats as he knows my dad has extensive experience since he worked as a seaman for more than ten years.

And so my dad was more than happy to help him and he shared to his friend the site where they can order affordable and reliable Marine engine, the site of US Engine Inc. US Engine Inc is a store which sells rebuilt engines for all types of vehicles like Mercruiser engines, Marine engines and the like. Their engines are guaranteed to be safe because it has been manufactured by their experienced technicians with the help of the leading soft parts sources so all their rebuilt engines pass the standard of the automotive machining industry. It also comes with a seven year warranty which just shows their confidence for all their products.

Before an engine is rebuilt, all hard and soft components of an engine, like their Boat engine for example, will be individually tested first before they get assembled based on the O.E.M specifications. After assembly, it will be inspected, tested, re-adjusted and then it will be inspected twice before they will be packed and shipped to their clients. That is how rigid they test and inspect all their rebuilt engines making it very safe for use.

The friend of my dad was so happy with this information shared by my dad and he is sure that US Engine Inc is the answer to their problem.

I did it, I did it. O yeah, o yeah, o yeah. I am just rejoicing because I was able to finish my To-do list before we leave for Bicol tomorrow. I was already panicking and I feel so stressed out just a few hours ago because it is almost time for us to leave and I still have some items that haven’t been checked on my to-do list. I will be bringing my laptop and my Smartbro USB with me but I am not sure if I can get a good signal there so I am really not sure if I can go online tomorrow until Saturday. So I really wanted to make sure that everything that I have to submit has been submitted so even if I don’t get a chance to go online during the weekend, everything has been covered.

Maybe it is better if I wish that I will not get a good connection when I am there so I can use that two days to take rest and slow down a bit.

It is 1:15 AM already and I will be waking up in two hours so I better grab a little sleep before our flight. Have a good weekend everyone.

Even if you've never considered it before, getting a job in another country may be something to think about. With the economy so poor in so many places, people have to move around if they're to have the kind of job they want - at least in some, specific fields. For some of these people, Middle East jobs are the answer. There are thousands of jobs in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and other places in that region. Many of them are service industry jobs, but there are all kinds of choices there.

No matter what job you're interested in doing, you'll be able to find something that you're happy with and that you can make money at. You might not be sure about living in the Middle East, but many people from other countries live there, and they enjoy it. The cost of living is often very low when compared to other countries, and the accommodations can be quite good, depending on where you are. There are different cultural values there, and you may be expected to act a bit differently than you would in your home country. Reading up on the culture that you'll be going into and remaining polite and open-minded can really help you if you take a job in the Middle East.

Since there's a lot of money to be made it would seem as though everyone would be flocking to these jobs, but there are a lot of people who aren't willing to move away from their homes. Because of that, you have an opportunity to get a great job where you can make a good living. If you're considering going to the Middle East for a job, make sure that you do your research and work with a reputable company that can help you get the job and get settled in your new home.

We were out the whole day yesterday and when I reached home, we have no Internet connection. I have tons and tone of work to finish online but I guess luck is not on my side so I just tuck myself to bed and went to sleep. I set my alarm at 4:30 AM so I can wake up early and finish work. I still can’t access the Internet from my laptop so I called SMART and they reported that we have good connection in our area. I have to wake up hubby too (bad me) to fix check our connection and thank goodness he was able to make it work.

Now I am typing away and rushing to finish work before its deadline at 8 AM. I hate rushing….Next time I know better and I should finish work first before prioritizing other things.

I had lunch with one of my friends and we talked about our jobs. I told her that I am already contented with my current job and admitted that I am already considering retiring here.

On the other hand, my friend told me that she feels unhappy with her work because she feels that there is no growth. I remembered some of my colleagues who are in the same boat as she is but instead of resigning, they just decided to enroll in graduate business school.

My friend like the idea as she wanted to have a graduate degree too and she is really that serious that she already found a school where she can take GMAT prep courses to prepare her for the admissions exams. Since she can’t quit her job while reviewing, enrolling in the GMAT prep courses of Knewton is her best option to prepare for the exam as she can review online. This means that she can view live GMAT courses or watch the video wherever she is and whenever she likes. And even though it is online, she will be guaranteed the best prep courses as Knewton only hires experienced teachers in the industry.

My friend is so excited with this new adventure. Who knows, if she pass the admission exams for her MBA, and if she finish her graduate degree she might be able to get a new job that will finally make her happy and contented.

I had lunch with one of my friends and we talked about our jobs. I told her that I am already contented with my current job and admitted that I am already considering retiring here.

On the other hand, my friend told me that she feels unhappy with her work because she feels that there is no growth. I remembered some of my colleagues who are in the same boat as she is but instead of resigning, they just decided to enroll in graduate business school.

My friend like the idea as she wanted to have a graduate degree too and she is really that serious that she already found a school where she can have GMAT prep to prepare her for the admissions exams. Since she can’t quit her job to while reviewing, enrolling in the GMAT prep courses of Knewton is her best option to prepare for the exam as she can review online. This means that she can view live GMAT courses or watch the video wherever she is and whenever she likes. And even though it is online, she will be guaranteed the best prep courses as Knewton only hires experienced teachers in the industry.

My friend is so excited with this new adventure. Who knows, if she pass the admission exams for her MBA, and if she finish her graduate degree she might be able to get a new job that will finally make her happy and contented.