My friend died from Lupus

My friend came here in Singapore to work - seeking greener pasture and give a better life for her family. She applied at an agency and got accepted at company **Tooooooot** located at **Toooooot** . She worked for almost two months here but she got sick.

****Tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot****

Then, she decided to go on sick leave but she did not inform her company that she was going home to the Philippines. In the Philippines, she spent only two weeks and last weekend, she was admitted to the hospital and was in ICU last night. Then she lost her life today, August 16, 2009.

All of us in our flat were in shock and some of my friends cried upon hearing the news. That was all we could do, just wept.

To my *tooot* , her *toooot* was *tooot* by the *tooot* *tooot* she had at T***t. All about lupus can be found in this wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_lupus_erythematosus

I don't like to talk about it but I have to. This is for all people to know that stress really is a silent killer. As much as possible we need to avoid it. If things get toxic, be it the boss, the work or any situation for that matter, try to get out of it first for a few hours and allow ourselves to breathe and then go back to it once recharged. We should not forget to also eat healthier and never ever forget to exercise.

I pray that she meets our Divine Creator and she be at peace for eternity. Hope she would be able to seek the light and face God.

We were friends since college days and I know she is a good friend and person. She is very responsible and in fact, she is the bread winner in the family. Hope and pray that her family will be able to survive this great burden that has come along their way. May God carry her body and gave her all the comfort she did not have when she walked on earth.

What a loss.... God bless to everyone.



Note:
The toot's(*******) there were made because originally I placed the actual company name and address here in Singapore but they called my friend and my friend who is ever innocent asked her who I was and they threatened to sue me if I do not take out my blog entry. It's gonna be me versus a multinational who is a competitor or her previous company NCR (they do some atm, pos machine stuff). And I think this company has been monitoring the web probably through web crawlers (software that analyzes the web for some keywords useful to the company, sometimes gathering information related to the company or their competitor).

Long weekend, it's Singapore National Day

I had a long weekend and I needed to have some activities. I don't want to stock myself to a pile of people to the venues where Singapore is celebrating the National Day. For one thing, I am not a Singaporean and another one, their parade do not looked fun at all. I guess to some extent yes but not most of the time.

Well, what better way to do it is go to the mall and buy some stuff. Right after some fun stuff at home like facebooking, watching some funny episodes of the geeky Big Bang Theory and also some cleaning stuff (not so fun at all), I decided to take a quick bath and headed to Orchard district. I had to send money by the way to the Philippines since it's examination time for my brother and also some bills they needed to pay there, so that was the first order of the day outside the premise of our flat. After queuing at the money remittance center, I went to Wisma mall to check a good travelling bag. There's Esprit and they sell a travelling bag which was actually on bargain but I think it was too bulky. So I just walked around and then found myself at the Nike shop. There were less choices so I went out and checked the other Nike store. Since I had to pass by at Takashimaya, I also checked there and found none of my taste. Since my friends and I are planning for a beach vacation, I decided to check some board shorts. The one I had was old and has holes on it which one could peep. Anyway, I bought this nice and simple looking board short from Speedo. After that, I went out of this huge Takashimaya store and went to venture out to this newly opened Nike shop. There was nobody in the store except for the two attendants. I just proceeded where the bags were and saw nothing of my type. Then walk around and about and saw this nice sling bag. I did not care for the price and just told the attendant that I will get it. And when he checked that there was no stock, I opted to look for another bag. I then found this another bag which was in acid gray color which looked to me, nice. I don't know what has gotten me but the color of the bag and the board short I bought were all in the shades of gray. I got all things in.... It was actually a planned purchase somehow as I have said I will be traveling.

Anyway, I saw on posters that G.I Joe is showing in cinemas so, I proceeded to Plaza Singapura and got a ticket for myself. Since the movie will start at 9PM and my tummy is growling already, I went to the food court. I ordered food from this Indonesian stall. It was actually chicken in barbecue sauce with rice in a honey glazed gravy. It's good and had fun with that meal. I still had a lot of time to savour before the movie started so I went around and found myself in this otaku store. I bought a pair of naruto slippers wahahhaha. I find them cool and cute so I bought a pair. When the clock struck near 9, I went to the cinema and the movie has not started yet. It's a bit eerie as I was the first viewer to have come in. Literally, the place is empty. In order for my imagination not to run wild, I decided to play bowling on mobile. Suddenly, there was a rush of viewers already. People were starting to pack this small movie house. The movie was in cinema 1. I had fun with the movie but there was this OA scene. I guess all movies have this certain OAness or a bit of some corny part. Overall, the movie was interesting. I am not sure if the movie followed the original part but I could see there parts that sounded familiar. Anyway, for two hours and 10SGD it was worth it because I got excited and had a laugh at some part. Good thing they have billed this funny Marlon Wayans. After the movie, it was the time to go home. I rode a bus and arrived around 12.... I got hungry so I ate again.

Big Bang Theory Series

Sing with me guys with this new anthem, national anthem of the geeks and those who will be :



Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!

"Since the dawn of man" is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late
And they all died (they froze their asses off)
The oceans and pangea
See ya wouldn't wanna be ya
Set in motion by the same big bang!

It all started with the big BANG!

It's expanding ever outward but one day
It will cause the stars to go the other way,
Collapsing ever inward, we won't be here, it wont be hurt
Our best and brightest figure that it'll make an even bigger bang!

Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating out while here they're catching deer (we're catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy
It all started with the big bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!

Well, I am having some stomach rumbles with this funny series :D Thanks to some magician friends who were providing me with this fun stuff.... I think I'm not going anywhere this long vacation just because of this.

Cory Aquino, an Icon of Democracy

We Filipinos owe democracy which was stolen by the dictatorial regime of Marcos, to Corazon Aquino. I personally thank her for her great strength in doing so. I personally admired her of her courage and spirit to do what is right despite all the adversities with all of those adversaries surrounding her. The Filipino people has once again restored within themselves dignity and pride taken by the oppression from it's highest leader then, F. Marcos. The Filipino people has once again, became and will become prouder people of this universe.

I was awake like around 12noon as I had slept late. I am supposed to do some informal accounting of house bills and when I open my laptop, and open my browser checking my yahoo mail, there I saw in the front page that former President Cory Aquino, lost her physical battle of colon cancer. In this regard, I was looking for youtube videos about her. Then I saw her speech to the US Congress which for me was inspiring. I'd like to share this three part videos of that great speech of a woman full of valor, integrity and piety to God.

1st video here:



2nd video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4gWe6KkFX4

3rd video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn0ZbsEUUrg

UFO Catcher, Obsessively Good

Yeah guys you are right. I am Genesis and I'm admitting to be addicted with UFO Catcher. Well, let me explain why.

I love the thrill and fun. I like to win. I like it when I'm with friends too. For all those reasons, UFO Catcher has it all. I played with this UFO Catcher machines with like minded friends. It's winnable especially when you have the right skills and it's fun winning. It is full of thrill when the toy seemed to be dropped at the hole in any corner of the machine and it's all the more exciting when at the time of dropping the toy being caught, it bounces and do some somersaults and then slides itself to the hole. See my point? LOLS =))

Anyway, yesterday was "our" UFO Catcher day. Should I give emphasis on the pronoun "our" or the word "UFO Catcher"? Ah, never mind! After my one hour gym at Fitness First, I went home riding a taxi just to make it on time as my friends were waiting for me. To my surprise they were not that much ready. Well, I had to take a bath again as I did not have a good bath at the gym. My friends were actually done right after I finished on the shower and on the otherhand, Wengs our new recruit was furiously calling Jax already. What's the furious about? It's like this. Jax told Wengs to go to City Hall at around two and we will get her from there. It was already 2:30 and we were still at our flat. I had to jump up a bit so we could go and it was already 2:45 and Wengs has waited for like an hour already when we arrived at City Hall MRT station. Razel was also there. We then went together to Bedok and from there, rode a bus going to East Coast Park.

We've heard that, at the second level of a certain building where Burger King is situated, there is a UFO Catcher center, well not really a center but an arcade house. We checked that out first and found it to be true but the machines when we checked them were clearly rigged as stoppers were all over the place. I was so hungry by that time as I did not have my lunch yet so we decided to eat at Sub-Way. We took their cheapest combo meal except for Razel, as she had her lunch right before we came to East Coast Park. After the meal, well obviously everyone was excited as seen in our big fat faces. Wahahaha! Well our faces would have those disticnt features if we spoke of UFO Catchers and playing with it. We played this sureball machine and I won two toys, Yayen won three and Jason won one toy. Since we have spent like some hours in that machine, we headed to the beachfront. It was not the best beach front moments as Singapore is very poor in that aspect but it was still okay. We had some mini picture taking and ofcourse some chit-chat. After like 30 minutes of jest and tricks, we went back to the UFO Catcher center and since the toys were not in the right positions, we decided to just play bowling. We had to have bowling since everyone do not want to go for a bike and we also need to be hungry again because the plan was like UFO Catcher and eat-all-you-can at this steam boat food section nearby the UFO Catchers. I guess it's 200 meters away. So we headed for the bowling complex and played two sets of game. By the way, we had to purchase a pair of socks individually. When the first game ended, I ranked second from Jason and on the next game, I ranked first this time. Yayen's move amazed me because she can make a lette C with her serves. I would like to also know how to do that. Anyway, we actually knew how to play bowling because back in our college days at the Cebu Institute of Technology, we would play like twice or thrice in a month at this cozy bowling center at SM Mall in Cebu. I said cozy because their facility is way much better than the one they have at East Coast Park. We ended up a bit tired and so we decided to go to the steam boat. But, the place was still crowded so Razel got a reservation and then we went to the UFO Catcher center again. We played a bit and we won some small stuff toy. After that our reservation was ready and so we headed for our planned belly feast. I took lots of fish and shrimp. My friends took some great stuff as well. One thing I noticed is that they have less variety compared to the one I had at Novena. Anyway, as for the price of it of 13.90 SGD, not just your tummy will jump up of joy but also your wallet. It was fun cooking and eating and talking all sorts of things - hope people around us were not annoyed at our created noise. I guess people don't seem to care as nobody complained. We finished the meal with home made ice cream. After we were satisfied with that late dinner, we headed back to where else, but to the UFO Catcher machines. We had some few tries and we ended up winning toys for Razel and Wengs. Then we tried at this big stuff toy. I just learn a new trick with it watching the guy played. Jason told me that they had seen that technique at Iluma when they had a chance to play there. Well it was very much easy to understand the trick so I tried it myself and I won a Doraemon. Yayen tried it herself as well but left to four dollars in her purse. I volunteered to continue as she seemed to have lost her confidence. After the last penny I got her a brown Doraemon in that same UFO Catcher. Heheheehe. We decided to go home as it was very late. In fact, there were no buses already going to each of our places and that would include night buses. So we decided to take a taxi.

We came home a bit exhausted but full of smiles and fun. This is I think a serious case of being, shallow? No, I refute. This is a simple way of having fun with friends.