3 posts tagged “saturdays”

Last week was supposed to be the first normal week I was to get at work after transitioning to the new team. Wow, that was a full month of being in training. But I find that, even if I already knew how to do the job, and what was expected of me, it still felt different. It is different.

With the old team, I always had Sunday nights to myself. I was the lone TM in those nights, and there were no SMEs at the start either. I found that I could handle things,  I especially didn't have to worry about not passing SL. No, I did, but it wasn't so hard to manage it.

This time around, I have Saturday nights. Boy, do I dread it. It was exciting, I was on my toes the entire shift. And I had to take two sup calls at that! But I can't seriously say that I'm looking forward to it again. I'm not.

I will have to face it though, unless Edsel agrees to swap rest days with me. I won't ask for it though, not this soon. I'll let him have his preferred off for a couple more months :) I'm sure agent schedules will be improved enough to make sure it isn't always that hectic on weekends. Maybe I'll have something to do with that too. Or not.

Anyhoo... not even halfway through the shift, I started feeling woozy. I thought it was just lack of sleep, or maybe I was hungry. But when I got home and had some sleep, the feeling did not improve. By Sunday afternoon, it was still very heavy. I had mom take my BP and it was quite high. I slept a little more when boyfriend came. He took my BP too and it was in the normal range, but still quite high for me. I slept through the entire evening, but I was still woozy by Monday morning. Boyf did his best to take care of me, and I mostly slept through the morning too. It totally spoiled our plans of going out. So much for a social life on a weekend.

I think I'm feeling better now, but that's probably because I spent the whole day on boyf's new laptop, browsing through stuff while the owner was at my desktop PC playing his game.

I have to be real well by tomorrow morning though, since work resumes tomorrow night. If the wooziness is still there, then I definitely will have to see a doctor earlier than I planned.

I had quite an activity-filled Saturday. My calendar was never this full on any other May day, I reckon.

Weeks ago, my mom told me about their office outing, it was going to be a day trip to a resort in Laguna. She signed me up, along with my dad and my nephew E. Of course I said I'd go, I had not gone swimming yet this summer. Work has been filling my life lately and I knew I needed to de-stress.

Then plans were made for a get-together with college friends, in celebration of our first baby's (Iskra) third birthday. Without even thinking about it, I said I'd be there. Later realizing it was the same day as the Laguna stint.

Add to that the fact that the boyfriend's schedule was changed this week. We no longer shared the same off, which meant that date night (or day) would have had to be moved to Saturday.

And of course, there are my batchmates from work. We marked our second anniversary at NCO on the 23rd and though there's only 5 of us left from the original 24, we wanted to celebrate. They wanted it to be Saturday too.

One more thing to add to the mix

How on earth would I make room for all these in one day?

Here's what happened:

Early morning Saturday I uploaded my Monitors. Deadline is Saturday 3pm and there's just no way we'd be back home before then so I definitely had to complete the task beforehand. I slept through Friday afternoon (what a waste!) so when I woke up around 10pm, I knew I had to get working. Of course, being me, I didn't do it right away. I don't even remember what I did but I know I had to rush through my uploads from 3-am til 5. Oh, and I found time to load my gadget with good music too.

Leave for Laguna by 6am. Took a shower, packed my stuff, grabbed a bite and a drink and got in at the backseat of my dad's car and snoozed til we got to the SLEX stopover. I had to get another drink, and junkfood, for the day's stash. Popped two Advils too. I would not let a headache ruin my day.

Relax. Take in nature. Read a book. Listen to good music. As I feared, I wasn't able to take a swim because my friendly monthly visitor decided to overstay her welcome. I had to content myself to playing with some of the kids while they were away from the water; eat good food; listen to music; and catch up on my reading. I had a great time.

The kids on the left are Kian (2) and younger brother Liam (9 months). At first, Liam wouldn't come to me but when he eventually did, we played for close to an hour! He turned the pages of my book and clung to the post of the cottage to hold himself up on top of the picnic table. Kian was my dad's swimming buddy. Dad was missing Esban because he's always around when we go swimming but he couldn't go this time.

I liked the place (La Roca De Trinidad). It was a hot and humid summer day, but being under the trees, it felt quite cool. And it isn't expensive. I seriously am thinking about bringing my team there. Simple lang, inexpensive. In the end you'd be able to enjoy the company of people you choose to go there with.

It was an intimate outing even if it took two buses to transport everyone (plus us). Intimate because everyone felt like family. In truth, a lot of them really are family. There's Aunt Betsy whose daughter Liza is a dear childhood friend. Aunt Fran whose daughter Tania I grew up with, and whose family lived next door to my mom's a long long time ago. My grandparents and Aunt Fran's parents were buddies too. I'm sure there's even a blood connection there somewhere. There are so many others that we relate to not just because they work with my mom, but on a more personal level. You really have no reason to feel left out.

 Being with them reminds me so much of what used to be and at the same time reminds me that I can still have it if I choose to. Be with the community, I mean, and not be isolated in my own little world. (Perhaps I'll write about it some other time).

Among pretty flowers. Late afternoon drive. Coffee and pasta. Rain, rain, go away. We went to those stalls by the highway that sold plants. I think we brought home about 6 different plants, some of which bear flowers. I convinced mom to get the Lily because the flower looked magnificent! The one we brought home is a younger plant and currently has no flower though. I'm sure it will bloom in due time.

We took a pit stop at one of those stations along the SLEX because my dad wanted to have coffee and pastries. I was hungry so I had pasta. By the time we were done, the rain was pouring really hard, we had to wait it out. It didn't take long though til we felt comfortable enought to run to the car and get a little wet.

It was long enough for traffic to build up though.

We arrived home later than I hoped - 7PM. My date with my girlfriends was at 7, I did tell them I was going to be really late though.

It was my youngest cousin Jomar's 12th birthday and just as we arrived, they were serving the food. That, I missed. I had to feed Zune and take a quick shower to get to Trinoma and meet up with the girls.

I didn't want to miss his birthday, specially since I've been missing out on hanging out with my cousins, and the kids. To think that we live in one big compound, it's just unacceptable. But the day was just too full to cram anything else unplanned in.

Late into the night with the girls, and our guys :)

This story will have to wait another day. But I will write it because I have so much to say about this reunion. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves for now.

 More of this over at BraveJournal.