June is Good to Me
The start of June and the end of May has been a productive week for me. I actually had accepted an offer from a big company here in Dubai after going through more than twenty interviews by the third week of May however, I was disappointed that they didn’t hand me my offer letter or contract even after waiting for five days for it. I was sitting and lying at home for the entire time then I decided to stop waiting and finalize things with them. The HR manager who told me he’ll process it told me that the offer letter needs verification and approval from the COO and he wasn't sure when would that be. I was thinking about my visa by that time and because I had already wasted five days, which by the way is like a whole week, I need to get a visa as soon as possible so that I won’t anymore extend my Tourist visa.
Anyways, to make the long story short, I called up that company and told finalize that I can’t anymore wait for the offer letter and because they couldn't really provide me a definite answer, I went on and asked a previous colleague to submit my resume or CV to their HR. It’s a famous logistics company here in UAE and I was glad that after the HR manager who was also a Filipino and from Dumaguete City received the CV, he immediately called me and scheduled for an interview.
Cloudless City
It has been a week since I arrived here in Dubai UAE, I recall that day when I first had a glimpse of what Dubai is, I saw blurry skies and cemented structures. Tall buildings, train stations, unified trees, neat, clean city but full of sand or dust. That day when I arrived, I asked my brother why the other end of the city is kind of blurry, said it's sandstorm. So, since that day, I would always look up the skies but I have never seen a single cloud at all yet nor a clear blue sky. And oh the starry night is always absent here as well. I miss Bohol and I am longing for that view we have at the back of our house in Guindulman. The wind there blows swiftly and the blue sky with lots of clouds doing a slow dance and then there's the green rice fields which turns light brown during summer.
In here, the sky's color is dull blue, if I look on the horizon, I see a blurry view. If there's a sandstorm, my brother said the place is full of dust and that if you go out, your nose will definitely be filled with dust.
At night, the skies don't show any stars only the moon. I believe the moon is quiet lonely there with no other company but the sky scraper buildings. I guess the reason why Dubai has a lots of shimmering things designs here like the Burj Khalifa is because they would like to see some stars across the sky at night. Though it is just an artificial star, at least they have something which represents those ones which aren't available in this country.
Manila International Airport Experience
This is a continuation to my previous post regarding my first international flight experience...
While waiting for my turn, some airport personnel were handing out the departure information sheet in which I wrote down some personal information. After thirty minutes of waiting and standing, I went nearer to the check in counter; I provided my passport, ticket and a certain travel tax receipt since I am travelling with a visit visa. I had to run over to the counter for my travel tax, paid Php 1620 and returned with the receipt in hand. The counter person immediately assisted me and provided my boarding pass and the baggage claim stub.
I rushed at once to the next counter to pay the terminal fee which was Php 550, boarding pass was the only document needed for this step. Then I went over to the travel verification counter, these guys were from the immigration office and I am considering this step as the most annoying procedure. I went to Miss Basher’s window, presented all of my documents, passport, Visa and the attested affidavit of support from my brother which was sent to me a day before my flight schedule. Miss Basher was a strict; her looks were telling me she isn’t pleased with me. While checking on the documents, she asked why the handwriting on the departure info sheet and the one on my visa are identical, at this point; she was looking at me ridiculously and asked if the visa and affidavit of support were sent to me from UAE. Of course I said yes, I received it yesterday and that my brother and my penmanship looks the same but those documents were definitely sent from the UAE. She was still skeptical and asked a couple of documents, first she want me to hand her my brother’s birth certificate which I don’t have with me (I was already sweating by this time). Since I can’t provide the document, I presented her my brother’s Overseas Employment Certificate instead but she asked for my brother’s birth date, I replied with the month and day but I forgot the year.
Bye Bye Pinas, Hello Dubai
My brother demanded I should be at the airport five hours before my flight schedule, it’s kind of early I thought but I have to follow him since he had done this and that before. However, when he demanded I should be in Manila a day before the flight, I wanted to say no but then again, since this is my first time, I just let it be and agree to his commands. And so I flew to Manila last May 7 via ZestAir, I thought I had chosen the right airline then until I was told I had to pay Php 2250 for my excess baggage. I was preparing a thousand peso for my 25 kilo baggage, and then I thought I should have gone with Cebupac since they have this better baggage deal, but anyways, I was there and I was left with no other choice so I paid the amount with a sad and heavy heart.
Due to the baggage issue plus the super hot temperature inside the tiny Tagbilaran Airport, I wasn’t able to properly bid goodbye to my family and to James, it was almost 12 when I checked in and the flight schedule was at 12:25. Well, remembering that scene I guess there was an advantage to that, it left us with no “drama” moments, I didn’t see mama cry unlike when we were sending off my two brothers last year. Then I wasn’t able to kiss James goodbye too, haha! I didn't cry too until I reached the waiting area but I composed myself and just thought of happy stuff.
ZestAir is indeed different to CebuPac in terms of service and amenities; I would prefer flying with Cebupac in the future.
Earn By Posting Online
Who would think that I could be this active with online paying site named Bubblews? I joined it because my brother's been asking me to make articles for him and I was curious with how this site is helping him get extra cash. So instead of making articles for him, I made an account for myself but had used James' name instead. I just thought it might be safer that way so the readers will think that it's a he rather than a she who’s posting those things there. Well, I still ended up making articles under my name though and it looks fine since the site is a democratic one. You can post anything from diary-like articles to news to tutorials and the like.
The site would only require you to post an article which has at least 400 characters and you're good to go but I prefer making articles which aren't short. The truth is that I like my post to contain 300 words and above with specific photos. Photographs have something with them which attracts readers you know.
The Best Candy Ever!
While I was still working and I go on long vacations in my home town in Bohol, the first five days make me very busy catching up with what I missed about my birth place. Mom and I with family talk about everything and anything under the sun, I request foods which I haven't eaten for awhile, play around with my niece and catch up with some childhood friends. This is the usual trend, most of the time I would miss some of the lists here because of time shortage however right now, because I am on an indefinite vacation and since I am on my seventh day, I have already done almost all of the normal things I do. I am starting to feel idle and want to really work, in a couple of weeks from now I will be out of budget and that scares me but thanks to Candy Crush, it makes me busy these past days.
For the benefit of those who don't know what Candy Crush is, it is actually a Facebook game, it is played by matching three or more candies while completing the given task, a player is given maximum of five lives and if you lost all the given lives, you can request for friends, earn a life by viewing an advertisement or simply wait for the life to add up after a few minutes. The rules seem to be simple but the catch here’s that the level of the challenges increase on each stage. There's a road map of the challenges and honestly speaking, I still don't know where it leads, maybe there's a pot of gold at the end of it, that I'm not sure yet but all I know is that I want to reach that point. Unfortunately, I am stuck at level 33 at this point, all I need is to clear all the jellies, sounds pretty fine but I am stuck here for already a day. This is the longest time I took to clear a single stage though, it makes me want to quit. Well, the main reason I am writing this is because I am tired of asking lives from my friends. I guess I have to rest and will play again after an hour.
