On a More Optimistic Note.....

A link from Time's Tweeter caught my attention, Overrated Optimism: The Perils of Positive Thinking. Intrigued, I clicked on the link and read on. On my mind was what can be the perils?

I know that positivity resulting to complacency is one. It can be detrimental if all one does is sit all day, do nothing but just give oneself sweet talk that good fortune will come like magic. That will cause agitation at least for me.

The article as I understand it commented on certain groups of people and even organizations whose reading of positivism became more of wishful thinking to the point of sugar coating words thinking of this as motivation and optimism.

What comes to mind are the two leaders I encountered in my corporate life.

Mr. Action Man simply inspires the organization, from the lowest level up to the top management. He kept the flame, which was already quickly fading, so alive for the people once again.

We can attribute his charisma to sheer sincerity of his intentions. He is a man for others and truly an action man. He was very sensible and charismatic without being big on words. His words are not rehearsed but always with so much wisdom. His very presence vibrate positivity.

The work environment suddenly turned from tired and worried to one that is dynamic, positive and harmonious. True enough, our organization turned around barely six months after he assumed CEO position. The company made its profit after years of being in the red.

Then the torched was passed on to another leader. I commend her attitude for trying to reach out to everyone in the organization. I just don't know why her sincerity cannot be felt. She is good in delivering speeches, in making presentations but none of these were able to ignite the passion the organization once had. Even the middle managers do not feel any vibrancy on her leadership.

A leader cannot just be full of positivism and words to live by but lacking concrete and effective directions. The people will readily perceive false optimism.

Mr. Action Man managed to put actions into his words. He gets things done without much ado. He is very positive that the action plans will work and he, together with the whole organization, worked hard to make them real.

I can see where the article is coming from.

True, there were a lot of factors why the organization went back to being in the red. This is not to say it was just about the change in leadership. For one, the employees across all ranks and departments have their roles to play. The economy, the competition were the biggest hurdles (but that's why there are CEOs and executive committee).

But regardless of all these, an honest to goodness positive attitude and management are still possible as we have already proven.

"Stuff happens" as mentioned in the Time article but positivity cannot be discounted. Sobriety, when called for, should not harm our passion. Keep faith and optimism alive. Stuff happens and you start to be negative about everything, you're doomed. I still choose positivity. What else is there in the first place?

That's the point I want to deliver when it comes to creating and implementing positivity in our lives, professionally and personally. Positivity is bringing out the best in a situation, implementing actions with conviction with an unwavering faith and belief to what God can do in helping us achieve our goals.

One thing that did not sit well with me in this Time article was the way life coaches like Joel Osteen and Tony Robbins were regarded. These people live what they preach and they are not out there just to sweet talk the people. I did not mean to say the article implied something like that. But it felt like it downgraded how powerful and real life coaches like them are able to share to the people who listen and reflect.

"Optimism was not only patriotic, it was a Christian virtue, or so we learned from the proliferating preachers of the "prosperity gospel," whose God wants to "prosper" you. In 2006, the runaway bestseller The Secret promised that you could have anything you wanted, anything at all, simply by using your mental powers to "attract" it. The poor listened to upbeat preachers like Joel Osteen and took out subprime mortgages. The rich paid for seminars led by motivational speakers like Tony Robbins and repackaged those mortgages into securities sold around the world." *Overrated Optimism

I do believe that God wants to prosper us. God is good all the time. I will let this post end with this question again, tell me, what better else is there to believe? I will always choose positivity and being optimistic the way I stated it two paragraphs above. They are still more practical choices if I may say that.

Sport: Swimming

Swimming is said to be one of the best workouts we can do everyday as it involves movement of the whole body. I'm happy to note that this is one activity my husband and my daughter love to do. My daughter will also agree with me that it is one sport that gives so much fun. It can be a competitive sport or it can simply be a favorite recreation of the family. I can't swim alright but I can float and I can walk through the waters provided it's not beyond five feet, ha!

This is one of the reasons why I was so keen on enrolling my daughter in a swimming class. I want her to be a good swimmer and enjoy the waters as much as she can. She started at four years old and had been loving the waters since then. Last March, they had a preview of their swimming class for their Physical Education (P.E.) for this school year. Needless to say she had fun in the water with her classmates. Their P.E. on the last semester will be spent on the pool. Imagine the excitement of the kids.


Swim, baby, swim!

Can this pass as water ballet?

Fun in the water

Water baby
***See more pictures with sports as theme at Photo Hunt.

Music and Me...and My Daughter

"Only know wherever I go, we're as close as two friends can be. There have been others but never two lovers like music, music and me." Those were two lines from Music and Me, one of the songs of the greatest performer who ever lived, Michael Jackson. I will not really be talking about him but my daughter's love for music.

Love for music runs in the family. My in-laws and my father listen to a lot of Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Engelbert Humperdinck and Elvis Presley. My mother is more upbeat. She loves The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Everly Brothers and the like.

Definitely my love for music and my husband's were influenced by the music playing in our respective homes as children. It was music which made me first notice my husband. He was singing Doctor, Doctor by The Thompson Twins. I like that song. We used to have the same preference - pop, R&B, a little of jazz, new wave and alternative music. But my husband is inclined to classical and jazz music now. I stick to pop.

Then came our daughter. I let her listen to music even inside my tummy - classical yes, up to the time she was an infant. She learned all those toddler songs and nursery rhymes. At one year or two years, she was humming to a song frequently played on our music player - Cruisin' by Gywneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis. I remember she keeps on listening to it my ears almost bled. Haha.

As a tweener, she definitely has her own taste for music. Some I know like Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Paramore and my favorite too, Taylor Swift. A lot of her other favorites I don't know so I take my time to research about them like Boys Like Girls, Hey Monday, Panic at the Disco, Metro Station, Justin Bieber, etcetera.

She was really excited when we watched Metro Station's concert a few months ago and had her CD signed by the band members.


To support her love for music, we let her take up guitar lessons last year. She continuously play the guitar and tries to complete a whole song.




Watching the 3d concert of Miley also meant purchasing the CD.


One of our gifts to her during her birthday this year was a Taylor Swift CD but she's holding here what seems to be Jonas Brothers'.


What music keeps me company these days? Kanye West...no, of course not though I love his song Heartless. But I'd rather listen to the version of The Fray or Kris Allen.

Stay safe everyone. Let's pray that Pepeng weakens and will not wreak havoc anywhere.

***Read more sharing at Mommy Journey.

Realizations After "Ondoy" (Typhoon Ketsana)

It's quite hard to focus on the daily grind. Everything seems trivial thinking that the metropolis is still in shambles but this too shall pass. I have my own pressing concerns but it seems my world stopped. What are my concerns compared to the tragedy that befell my kababayans (fellow Filipinos)? Kaya ko 'to! Kaya natin 'to, mga Pinoy! (I can do it! We can rise above this, fellow Filipinos!)

Contributing in our own little way to help relieves anxieties. It should, right? But still whatever help we did feels so little and are not enough when we see on television what happened to our brothers and sisters just an hour or two hours drive away from our residence. Even the first floor of my father-in-law's house in Bulacan was submerged in water. They are safe now. My husband and my sister-in-law helped clean the house yesterday.

In the midst of all these, realization sets in that we are not in any way prepared. We do not even have contingencies at home. Nobody is taking note. We do not want another disaster like Ondoy, no. But we do not want to be caught unaware. We would like to take some measures which could come in handy, which could help us, if not us, the people in our community or elsewhere, or our relatives who might be needing them. (By 'we' and 'our' I keep on mentioning in the above paragraphs, I am referring to me and my family.)

1. Important documents are in a storage place easily accessible for us. This has always been the case but I became more conscious about it now.

2. Extra batteries for emergency lamps and flashlights. These we do not have so they are added in our grocery list.

3. Food, we do the groceries weekly but we need to buy more food that are ready to eat - bread, crackers, cup noodles (oh yes, we can eat the raw noodles).

4. We always have stock of 2 five gallons of distilled water good for four days but maybe I will add 2 more.

5. Put some clothes and towels for each of us inside a bag kept in a closet in an area easy to grab.

6. Charge, charge, charge cell phones. Have extra batteries. Take note where we keep our candles and matches. I have forgotten where until the brownout last Saturday.

7. Do I put in a plastic bag every night the school things of my daughter? Just a thought. Maybe only if it's raining too hard.

8. Secure laptop and pictures (put the pictures in one box instead of all of them on top of our cabinets). These aren't priorities but it won't hurt if they are safe when emergency calls for us to evacuate.

9. First aid kit or health kit including sanitary napkins. Oh yes, I just have to say that lest we are forgetting.

10. Reduce, reuse, recycle. I don't know any project in our community about trash segregation. I can start at home.

New media rocks. I'm trying my best going about my usual business but my social networking accounts are open for real time updates. It's like looking after one another reposting in Facebook, retweeting relevant messages about relief and rescue operations for the victims of "Ondoy". I sincerely hope those posts helped a soul or two.

The importance of communication cannot be discounted in normal situations much more during calamities. This made me realize that it has been 15 years since our PLDT landline goes dead whenever there are power outages. I remember I emailed about this concern four or five years ago and the reply I got was that the batteries on their main box(?) will be replaced. I did not follow up but this morning we did. Yes, we followed up after 4 or 5 years. It seems the batteries were not replaced as we continue to have dead phone lines during brownouts. "Ondoy" has to happen to make us remember this concern.

We emailed the customer care of PLDT this morning about this fifteen year old issue. We hope to have a working phone line even during brownouts. We cannot contact 173 or 171 so the next option was to email. A generic answer won't do. I hope they act on the matter quickly.

My Bayantel DSL (dis)connection issue seemed trivial with the latest problem the nation is now facing but I just have to say we are still having intermittent connection, running on its third week now. I will refrain from discussing it here further since we already emailed their customer support again as we cannot get through their landline.

For now, let me focus on the more important things I need to do. Help in whatever way we can. Clothes for donation are sorted. Will do groceries later. Attend church activity tonight. Count our blessings and pray for a quick recovery and for a safer, more prepared Philippines. God bless this country!

A Deluge Called "Ondoy" (Typhoon Ketsana)

I woke up at half past eight thirty in the morning yesterday. It was cloudy, the pavement was damp looking outside our house. It seemed it had just rained. I thought it was a good thing. We all want some cool air.

It rained hard after a while. I thought nothing about it. My husband went out and told me when he came back the street was ankle deep with flood water. Again, I thought nothing of it but was surprised our street was flooded. We have not experienced any real flood no matter how strong the rains were. There were drainage problems years ago which caused our street to have ankle deep flood water but it stopped as soon as the drainage issues were addressed.

My husband went out for the second time and came back telling me the water was higher than ankle already and the street a little farther was waist-deep. I couldn't believe it. How could it be waist deep? That area was very near ours. I went out to check myself. Oh yes, there was flood water on our street. Not really high but two or three houses' driveways were already with water.

I was praying please spare our house. I don't want to be lifting sofas and other appliances. I don't want to be removing water from the house. That's a mess. We were on guard on the rise of the water level.

It was a pretty normal Saturday morning in spite of being on guard on the water level. I talked to my sister over the phone, talked to my sister in law and my brother over YM, and watched my niece through the webcam. I heard of flood in other areas but it did not alarm me. My brother who was tuned in to ANC said "parang ilog na pala d'yan" ("seems like a river out there"). They live in the U.S. I thought nothing of it. I thought it was the usual flood that will go away in a matter of minutes, at least less than an hour.

I was logged on to Twitter and Facebook as well as Plurk and updates from friends, celebrities and news networks kept coming in. Oh no! The flood waters in Pasig, Cainta, Marikina and Fairview were rising quickly and steadily. My cousins were stuck along the road because of the grid lock and flood. My father in law's first floor was already under water. Streets in almost all areas of the metro were submerged in water. I was alarmed!

I love the rain, it always soothes me but for the first time in my life I prayed for the rain to stop. People were getting stranded everywhere. Electricity in some parts were cut off for safety reasons. We experienced two brown outs and for the first time too this did not annoy me.

My daughter said she was so bored. I just have to make her realize we should be thankful we are safe in our house. A lot of people were wet, hungry and scared on top of their roofs.

I texted and tried to call my relatives and friends to check how they were doing. I was relieved to read every reply saying they were okay. One has experienced waist-deep flood but generally fine and water subsided easily.

I mentally accounted what we should be bringing in case we needed to get out of the house. I told myself I won't be able to sleep if it will still rain during the night. I wanted to be updated what is happening outside especially the flooded areas. I was thankful the rain stopped, drizzling maybe but it was really quiet last night. No rain. I was able to go to sleep. On my mind and in our prayers was the safety of all the people still stranded outside.

I woke up dreading to watch and hear the morning after "Ondoy". Watching the news yesterday was heartbreaking. Watching and reading about the aftermath was devastating. The news, the pictures were enough to traumatize me. As of this posting, 11:16 PM, there are still people yet to be rescued in some villages. I pray for their safety.

Pangs of guilt, worry and fear are eating me up to the point of almost getting a headache with all these emotions going inside me. I have never felt this way before.

I am worried because anytime this can happen again.

I am scared because we are not prepared for any calamity. Nobody is.

I am guilty because I am sitting in front of my computer in the comforts of our house instead of out there helping in whatever way I can. I am relaying informative updates as a way of doing my part. As what has been said, if you really cannot help outside and might just add to the chaos that is going on, just stay put. Pray and stay calm.

We did contribute through our church this morning. A lot of our churchmates in Rizal were affected by the flood. It was nothing big but I hope it will help even a small number of people. We will sort out clothes tomorrow to drop off to donation centers. My husband will go to his father's place to help clean the house.

I was wrong to think that this flood only concerns my aversion to a messy house caused by muddy water. Metro Manila and nearby provinces were inundated. It was horrible. Watching the devastation was enough to traumatize me. I could only pray for strength of those directly affected by the flood.

I heard from updates that another storm is expected on Wednesday. Preparing for contingencies won't hurt. It's necessary coming from what just happened, massive flash flood surprised us all. I hate to say this but a tragedy like "Ondoy" need to happen as a wake up call for all of us. Noah built the arc when it was not raining. Let us bear that in mind.

In all these I thank God for taking care of us as well as my relatives and friends. I pray to God to ease the pain and fear of all the people affected by the storm and the flood. I pray for a quick recovery for the people, for the country. I pray for better crisis management by the government and by the people.

Prayers work wonders. I am a believer. That eased my troubled mind. Now we work hard as one to prevent another crisis. Let there be light.

*****
I'm glad Julie was fine after the night their house was surrounded by flood water. I pray Feng is doing okay. The first floor of their house in Pasig was submerged in water when Chats forwarded her text on Saturday night. We have not contacted her since then.

These Are A Few of Her Favorite Things

Do you remember Maria's song from The Sound of Music, My Favorite Things? If I will change the lyrics and replace them with my daughter's favorites, we might need a twenty track CD, with extended versions, remix and bonus tracks. My daughter has a lot of favorite things, persons and activities that keeps her occupied and wide eyed. Mamarazzi that I am, I keep snapshots of all of them. I would love to share some. Please indulge me.

She loves books which I have shared countless times in this blog. I have featured her showing a collage devouring her books. She can't wait most of the time that she reads her book as soon as we buy them even if we are still in a restaurant waiting for our food.


Books
She loves chicken fingers and fries that these are already staple when we eat out. I'm close to begging her to skip it and order something else. The second choice would be pasta in pesto sauce.


Chicken fingers and fries
This often happens with children. They have a favorite among the things they own that they won't let go. My daughter has an obsession with her purple and yellow hoodie. This is already like a part of her uniform going to school. Good thing it has a good fabric and color which does not fade due to laundry-abuse. She uses this like three times a week. I have to tell her to give attention to her other sweatshirts and hoodies. Also, she reverted to her favorite color, purple. From purple to pink and back to purple because according to her, pink is too girly girl.


This jacket and the color purple
She plays volleyball and badminton but swimming is still her favorite sport. She does not want to get out from the pool once there. She loves the water that even her shower time takes more than thirty minutes I have to knock on the door and tell her to finish bathing.


Swimming
Like most children these days, she loves using the computer and visit her favorite sites - Meez, Disney, Nickelodeon, YouTube and uses YM to chat with her friends. Reality is she can only use the computer on weekends on a limited time. On rare occasions I allow her to use it on weekdays especially after a trimester test, a sort of a reward to her.


Computer
My daughter is a craft buff. Sometimes she spends a few hours just creating her scrapbooks and collages. Here she assembled the 3D poster of one of her favorite celebrities, Miley Cyrus. Beside her are the magazines sent by my sister which mostly contain the tweens' favorites, Twilight, The Jonas Brother, Selena Gomez among other Disney stars.


Crafting and Celebrities
One of the best times she had last summer was spending time with her favorite cousins. They call this their "hang-out". She loves her Ate Jill and her Ate Tin.


With Jill and Tin
She lives in the U.S. but my daughter and I love Frankie, my niece and her only first cousin (my brother's daughter). Yes, we're a small family. And here's our favorite picture of her sitting on what used to be her favorite rocking horse which I sent her through Amazon.


Frankie

***Read more sharing at Mommy Journey.

Bayantel DSL Recurring Disconnection Issue

I have been experiencing time out and internet disconnection for maybe seven days straight now. I don't really know what is wrong and so do Bayantel DSL technicians.

The intermittent connection is a part of my Bayantel DSL internet since they became my ISP but it was tolerable. I've been very patient. But it's been getting worse the past weeks. I call several times a day and almost everyday Bayantel technicians visit our house to check why we are having disconnection problems. My husband already removed the router to isolate any problem. It's still intermittent.

I appreciate the three Bayantel technicians which visited the house on Sept. 16. Along with their supervisor on the phone, they tried their best to locate the source of the problem and fix it.

They have checked all possible areas where the source of the disconnection was coming from. They have changed the cable inside our house on Sept. 15 because it was bleeding. They have checked the cable in the area where our connection is coming from which they call OPAC. They have changed the cable from the post to our house on Sept 16. We all thought the problem might be coming there since according to one technician, there was a soft part which seemed to have a broken wire.

I was not supposed to agree when they asked me if they can close the job order because for the past days our experience was after the technician leaves, the modem blinks again and the terrible (dis)connection occurs again. But since the technicians were very nice and the problem seemed to have been addressed, I said they can close it.

The connection went well. I was thinking at last, we'll have a disconnection-free internet now. But the following day, the modem blinked again and so I have to call their customer support for the nth time.

Another issue I want to raise to Bayantel DSL is their posting of customer complaints. This happened thrice to me already. The exact time I called was not the time they posted my complaint.

I called on Sept. 17, Thursday, at 9AM but the customer agent told me the complaint was posted at past 12 noon. I asked why. She said maybe they waited for one report to be closed. What?

There were other two similar incidents. One was I called at around 10AM but report was posted an hour after. The second one was worse. I called in the morning but it was posted around 3PM.

As I type this I just reset my modem and it signaled I am connected but when I check the ping, it said "request timed out" again. That was less than a minute.

Bayantel DSL technicians went at the house again yesterday but what else can they do but monitor the connection since they have already exhausted all means to check what could be the problem. They did not bring any modem with them even if I requested through their customer support so they have to leave and go back two hours after which really inconvenienced me because I have a six o'clock appointment.

Anyway, they went back, changed the modem to the one they brought but we still have the same problem. It's still blinking and gets disconnected. The modem even lost its power so we decided to just retain the old modem. Of course I can't let them close the report so they put "for monitoring" in their remark.

I called customer support twice today, Sept. 19, first at 10am and the second time at past 12 noon. Just please address my disconnection problem once and for all. The technicians were saying it could be the distribution port structure which is causing the problem since it's very old. But they don't have the authority to touch it. It's with the Bayantel linemen already.

I don't have the energy anymore to get angry to Bayantel DSL. Either I endure this kind of poor connection service or leave Bayantel after more than two years. I have been asking around which is a better choice. The consensus was to just get PLDT DSL because they have better connection. A neighbor has a PLDT DSL and he said for the past five or six months, they only had one issue but it was resolved immediately. Same feedback with a colleague. They have been using PLDT since January this year and there was only one incident about a disconnection issue and was fixed in no time.

I hope Internet Service Providers will not only focus in generating sales but also on how to cope with the maintenance of their hardware. I do not blame the technicians since they have shown responsibility in addressing the problem. I just don't want to comment on their competence but obviously, this disconnection problem has not been addressed. I do not shoot the messenger as well as most customer agents are very accommodating.

I'm a customer very easy to please you see but my patience is running very low with the terrible connection Bayntel DSL is giving me. Maybe Bayantel's facilities need thorough rehabilitation.

I hope the National Telecommunications Commission and the Department of Trade and Industry also conduct regular audit on the kind of service ISPs provide. Just a thought, who knows, a senate inquiry might do the trick.

All I can do now is wait again for their technician and pray that the problem will be resolved today and I won't get disconnected anymore.