Crimson Heavens

Something really weird has been happening to our kitchen for quite sometime now….

All of a sudden, roachies are coming out from only God knows where! Not one, not two, but 20+ of them, one after another! Really creepy! I swear, it’s never happened before except for these past few months. Of course, they don’t come out like that everyday, it’s more of like a weekly occurance, specially when we’re doing the laundry. Like they’ve been disturbed from underground or something. We even brought the caretaker in and he moved the stuff around to see if there are holes somewhere, but we couldn’t find anything!

We do not only the attack from the roachie army, but the water in our kitchen, has a really dark reddish-brown color every morning and after letting it flow for sometime and it becomes clear again. And our water filter, has to be washed realllly often or it would end up looking really gross! Our faucet is being eaten up by rust and it had to be replaced at least every month. I bet even if we bought those posh Danze faucets they’d also end up crumbling like stale bread bahahaha!

I mean, sure if we live like total slobs and not clean our kitchen it would be understandable. But my in laws are really, really particular when it comes to cleanliness and all, so there’s no question of us breeding roachies and all that…Weirdnessss

So I haven’t been blogging lately. Work is currently driving me insane so…

Anyway, I’ll try to give you all a quick update on what has been happenin’

1. I haven’t been sleeping well these past few days because work…but then again that is nothing new…

2. I managed to set up a quick blog/podcast as a request by a Filipino resident priest here in Kuwait. This is for all Filipino Catholics out there – > http://www.pinoycatholicspodcast.info. To my fellow Pinoy Catholics, visit nyo naman…

3. Wanting a baby so bad is eating me up.  I am really getting depressed over it.

4. Our organization is in charge of the film-showing for the Phil. Independence day celebration here in Kuwait. Personally, I think the movie that is to be shown is so corny…I won’t mention the title na…Gives me the creeps. Haha!

5. I managed to recruit 2 more members for our organization. I hope they’ll get to come on Friday (see #4) so they’ll officially register in the org na.

6. Not been feeling well lately too (Probably due to #1?)

7. Hubby and I were supposed to go to the Philippines for a vacation this September, but that plan got cancelled coz…we’re going to Goa! I asked for a 36-day vacation…dunno if it’l get approved though…I miss my aunt and sister’s cooking…

8. I feel like rolling on something soft, nice and fluffy. Ignore me, that’s my disfunctional brain talking.

Thinking a proper title to go with your post every-single-*toot*ing-time can be such a pain. And since I am already in pain, I am not in the mood to waste my time on one silly title of which people won’t really be paying attention to. Now that we got that part over with, it’s time for my not-so-interesting narrative about anything and everything I could think of right now.

Anyway, big thanks to all the people who expressed their concern about the problem I am having with my teeth. Teeth are not aching that much anymore, but I still have to take ‘em damn antibiotics for the infection. I feel bilious and weak…Ack! Disgusting!

In addition to that, hubby is sick. AGAIN. And if he’s got teh cold, I will get it too eventually. At times like these, I wish we have a maid, at least someone will take care of the house when we’re both “indisposed”. I mean, come on! Don’t ya’ll wanna be pampered when yar sick? Well, fine, at least we need someone to cook us something decent…But then again there’s just the two of us here at home. Personally, I don’t believe that we really need to hire a maid right now despite of the fact we’re both working. I think the problem is that we both do not have close relatives in Kuwait who can come and help us out.

As for work, well, everything is going on smoothly…hopefully it’ll stay that way. I’m learning lots of things and am getting paid for it…YEY! Although sometimes I feel that too many things to learn, and too little time for me. Sometimes I even wonder, what if I end up in a situation where I have to make a quick decision on something that I have no experience on? I mean, right now, people are already starting to ask me for my expert opinion and they expect me to have complete knowledge on what I am talking about. What if they need my expert opinion and well, I couldn’t give one?

‘Nuff of that. Thinking about it makes my head ache wahahahaha.

I am thinking of starting a “Tagalog” blog—or a “Tag-lish” blog for that matter—-for ranting purposes…WAHAHAHA! Let’s see…I don’t know…Prolly…Maybe?

Gah…I need to do something creative.

As I had mentioned before, this family has a custom of feeding ‘em neighborhood street cats every night. Two of these street cats however, had been receiving special treatment eversince we had found them.

Dinner time, and we open our doors to these too little buggers who come and dash towards our bathroom where their dinner is served in two separate plates. They are the only ones allowed to enter our house, the rest we feed outside.

This is Anthony. We found him during the feast of St. Anthony when he was just a few days old crying his lungs out at the path behind our house.

Francesca is Anthony’s adopted elder sister. Actually, he started following her mom around and the two of them eventually took him in as part of the family. Baby (one of our regulars), Francesca’s mother, always leaves her young too early, so she too was left to fend for herself.

But both were too small and too weak to be able to survive and they ended up not being able to eat anything because the bigger cats always ate their share. They started getting sick because of this so we all decided to take them home and feed them in the bathroom (Lucy, our resident cat is quite territorial so we had to take them somewhere she wouldn’t go).

I’m usually in charge of making food for them but I have been sufferring from this irritating toothache that got my whole right cheek swelling like a ripe peach. Annoying. Actually, it’s my wisdom tooth. It’s been trying to come out for years now and I guess it is what they called “impacted wisdom tooth”…Grr…Problem is I can’t just trust any dentist here…I’ve heard stories about some of them not sterilizing their equiptments…EWWNESS…I hope we have some kind of a free 800 number to dial for, oh I dunno, reliable recommendation for medical clinics, doctors, dentists etc…Wahahaha! Okay, fine, don’t mind me…am just insane…and am terribly hurting…

So we went roaming last Saturday again, as usual, and hubby took me to Salmiya. We really didn’t do anything but go straight to this food-court thingie over there to have our brunch (sorta) since we both woke up very late. And then after that we went to Sultan Centre to see if there are any new stuff that we might be interested in…

We went to Eureka too and we saw that they were selling Wii consoles for 99KD (it costs 120KD in other electronic shops). Of course we didn’t buy one even though hubby told me that we could if I really want it (he actually prefers to buy an xbox 360 or ps3 if ever we’d buy another gaming console) but I said no. Even though I want it so bad, 99KD is still a lot of money and I told him I’d feel guilty.

We went straight to Kuwait City instead of home after Salmiya and went to Alghanim Electronics over there to drool on ‘em game consoles. Of course hubby was more interested in PDAs and he started bugging me about buying me a one (he wanted to buy me one for Christmas). And so we went home with this:

An HTC Touch Cruise. The bugger is actually happier than me…

One of the items in my “To-Do List” for 2009 is that I need to upgrade my current Microsoft Certification. I am a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer, and although this certification will still be valid for at least a year more, Microsoft will not be offering this certification starting February (I think…not sure) and I figured it would be wise to proceed and upgrade it. This means I have to study again and take several Microsoft Certification exams (I have to take minimum 1 exam, depending on to which I want to upgrade to).
A candidate can opt to attend classes or to study on their own. Last time I did my certifications, I bought a set of books worth 250USD (which was a huge amount of money at that time) and well, I eventually felt that they were a waste of my money. It is easy to make excuses not to study if you only have books to depend on…Anyway, the exams are worth almost 60 USD each, and since I probably have to take more than one, hell, I really have to study…Problem is now, I have less time on my hand because of my job, and to attend a course in the nearest review center is going to be a no-no for me.
Anyway I decided to browse through some websites that are offering online/multimedia solutions for busy people like me. I saw this website QuickCert, and I think they do offer what I am looking for: practice tests, multimedia presentations, and more…They offer review materials for a wide arrange of certifications like MCSE Certification, MCSD Certification, MCAD Certification, COMPTIA Certification, etc.
Anyway, I still have to see…

I know, I know…December wasn’t really the “Regularly Writin’ ‘Em Blogs Month” for me. As I had mentioned in my previous post, “I was preoccupied with work-related bulls**t…”

Our team-leader and systems analyst had been promoted (sorta kinda) into a position of which he will only have to go to work for 2 hours everyday, and I was named as the person who would take over his position and of course, his responsibilities. For the last three weeks he was training me (but it was sort of like a hush-hush thing, dunno why the hell it had to be all that…). I was also in charge of seeing through the hiring of the new programmers who will work under me. My side of the department actually wanted someone that we had evaluated…not some idiot person that the HR will get for us and then later on would just be some big bullshitter talker…Of course, the Trade Test we devised took care of that (*evil laff*).

My new position as the Development Team Leader was announced on the 29th of December and I formally took charge on the first working day of this year, same day ‘em newbies were supposed to start workin’. There were instances that I did wanna give ‘em young-ins a few good smacks because of their selective amnesia (and christmas-lights-like common sense, blinky-blinky) with regards to given instructions, but then again, they are new and probably terrified of their short, sometimes-childish, but very WEIRD AND unpredictable supervisor.

I still have yet to have a formal conversation about the terms and conditions of my new job (i know it is weird, you get the job first before the seeing the proper contract)…sponsorship, term life insurance term health insurance, salary, bahhhh…it’s just so annoyingggg….

I celebrated my New Year’s Eve (day) and New Year’s Day in bed—knocked out, suffering from THE FLU. I was not able to leave the house at all for 4 friggin days (no work on the 31st, no church, no grocery shopping, no nothing!). THE FLU did not spare my husband…after taking care of me for two days, he also fell sick. We both don’t have fever now but we still sound like mad, uncontrollable Alsatians (WOOF! WOOF!).

My blog finally got a PR2! Yey to me! Moolah, moolah, moolaaahhhh….

Anyway, Happy New Year…Hope this will be a bright year for all of us.

1. I’d really love to have a Wii but it’s just darn too expensive!!!

2. Although I am late, I really wanna say: CONGRATULATIONS PACQUIAO for kickin’ teh Mexicano’s butt!

3. My husband had a 9-day holiday in total from 5th of December til the 13th (weekend holidays included) for Eid…Me? My boss thought it was cute to make us go to work on Sunday and Thursday last week since it’s not an official holiday anyway. We’re one of those few companies that were open that those days.

4. Hubby took me to Kuwait Scientific center and I fell inlove with a wild cat that happened to look like a brown, ungroomed, overgrown Persian! RAWR!

5. To make me feel less depressed (see item no. 1 for the reason…) hubby bought me a 350GB External HD and 2 PC game DVDs yesterday. He made food for the adopted streetcats and fed them all by himself last night (letting me play my Wii frustrations away all night long).

I’m still transferring my files from the old 40GB external drive to the new one.

6. Hubby is blaming his ponch to my cooking and he declared an all-veg diet for the both of us starting tomorrow.

7. I still want that Wii but I had accepted the fact that I won’t be getting it (until the price drops to, more than half it is now). Fairwell, my beloved Wii Fit!

Right now, they’re building this 100-floor giant just a few blocks away from our place. There will be a posh mall, posh movie theatres, rooftop garden and posh offices also on the upper floors…hmmm, interesting…makes me think how they’ll be able to pull it off. Actually in my area, there are probably about more or less 7 construction sites of supposedly high-rise buildings…they had finished constructing a whole bunch of them in the city, three of which has digital signage installed.

Just imagine, Kuwait is a very small country with approximately 3 to 3.5 million population of which, only nearly a third of it are Kuwaiti nationals. Only Kuwaiti nationals are allowed to open businesses and approximately 50% of them are of that age where they can own one and still not all of them do. So what are all those buildings for? I don’t know, but I guess they are planning something big for the country that’s why they’re giving it a HUGE MAKE-OVER.

I mean really, they’ve brought down a lot of old buildings and new ones are popping out left and right. The designs are more of on the modernist styles, with a lot of ‘em blue glass windows, usually having minimum of 20 floors (not sure).

I wonder how the city would look like 4 years from now….

Gloomy weather for All Souls Day…I feel that the weather suited itself to the occasion…Like ‘em rainy days and funerals in the movies…

Anyway, it started raining here in Kuwait, which only means one thing…winter will come in a few days. I like rainy days…They remind me of Philippines, actually. And, it is at these times that it is best to rummage through some old things, reminisce, have warm buttered toast and coffee and cuddle with the loved one…But then of course I won’t be able to do all those except during weekends (BOO!).

As for winter, well I hate it as much as I hate summer over here. No snow…just strong gusts of icy cold wind…and me in my usual penguin look (I’m short okay? So wearing layered winter clothes makes me look like a penguin). NOT NICE! (Which actually makes me seriously think about this Hydroxycut-thingie…). Work load also tends to really reach up to my neck during winter. Why? Because summer AND Ramadan are over, those company employees/employers are catching up with the piled up work they just ignored during those two seasons and it means more project approvals for our company.

Well, it is a good thing that the ITP-K web-design course is over, I’ll get my slow Saturday morning back. Not that I hated it, it really does feel nice in the end when you know your helping people and they are very grateful of teaching ‘em stuff. It was their project presentation + “mini-graduation ceremony” yesterday and I’m really proud of them. I mean, they really did well considering that they NEVER knew how to create websites before the course…All they really need now is practice! So… CONGRATULATIONS ITP-K WEBDESIGN CLASS 2008! (I am still waiting for the newspaper article to come out…har har har!)