baguio.
Sep 1st
For those who don’t believe in love at first sight: I challenge you to walk the streets of Baguio, feeling the cold chill that raises arm hairs from time to time or the involuntary chattering of teeth — with your eyes open — fall in love maybe 80-90 times a day, watching residents who never seem to be bogged down by the heat (humidity? what humidity?) but only if you keep your eyes open. Or it might also be onset frostbite.
Let me tell you about Baguio: it’s what I think of when I dream about summers, or bicycles, or of pretty girls in jackets.
I almost lived there for college but decided not to at the time (it’s about a girl, and it didn’t quite pan out, as most high school romances go). For the weekend, and as an impulsive person, there are lingering thoughts of staying there to study again. (Did I watch Community to get inspiration to go back to school?) Of course, this time, and for most other times in the near future: it’s about a girl.
Then again, it might be vacation high — I haven’t been here since 2008, and the thought of starting from scratch someplace new always has it’s charms. Or I might have been drinking too much again. Or it might be the strawberry-taho I ate upon arriving.
Thinking about it — new school, new faces, a different house to go home to every night (that I do manage to get myself home), drinking that coffee with a scoop of ice cream at Volante cafe while trying to warm up, or eating several 6” pizzas for maybe less than 300 pesos every week, or getting to hang out with Koreans (and meeting a few of them) at Red Lion pub, getting lost at Laoakan late at night, playing with my nieces and goddaughter every day, smoking cigarettes while trying to warm up, getting to wear jackets any day of the week (rain or shine) and not feeling ridiculous, ice cold water baths that feel like bathing in glaciers because I’m too lazy to wait for hot water, getting enveloped in a blanket while reading a book, walking down Session Road because there would be nothing to do and in that nothing will have to become something being the activity of walking, drinking ice cold superdry beer while watching other people leech off internet at that one place I went to the other day, hanging out with a local celebrity, watching the never-ending lines at McDonald’s in the very heart of Session, looking for old cameras at ukay-ukays, looking for that ice cream parlour (and I say parlour, not parlor) where I ate the best banana split I could remember, eating day-old chick beside the SM, learn parts of the dialect and get it right, getting whiskey dick because of drinking too much, looking for a new place that would cut my hair in the exact same way my stylist does, trying to enroll for all-morning classes so I could get some work done during the afternoons, or simply sitting at home, catching movies on that one channel that only they get — it all sounds so tempting and is cause for great consideration.
But I look out the window from here and think that maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world.
Globe Broadband: A Diary of Hate
Sep 1st
If you were starting an angry mob, I would heartily suggest that you put frustrated DSL customers in the frontline. We can get vicious.
It’s no secret — in our country, currently, there is no one true answer for your DSL needs. The connection that is hardly-ever-down and has respectable speed will always have contractors that take forever to get to your house. Or maybe you’re of the early-adopter kind; the connection was fast and reliable the first few months — ’til more and more people found out about it. Or you could even be the sunny kind — connection’s good as long as rain clouds don’t appear.
Lately I’ve been having problems with Globe’s broadband services. What used to be “ol’ reliable” has never been quite the same after the storm from July, Bashang. The contractors have said that they’ve replaced the fiber optics and have done the necessary repairs, — I even got my modem replaced! — but it’s just not the same. I keep glancing over the modem to see if the “DSL” light is on.
It’s gotten so bad that I’ve become phone pals with customer support — I call them every week now. A prime example is last week’s debacle: I woke up Monday afternoon with NO connection. Called customer support right up to get it looked at — left the house to get some internettin’ done. Got home and still nothing. Called customer support to follow up, and woke up early, just in case the technicians dropped by in the morning. (This was Tuesday.) By 5 and with no sign of anybody coming to fix my internet, I called up again, only to have yet another job order filed for the next day.
Wednesday: I called early in the morning to confirm if anybody was dropping by, the customer support I talked to told me that my job order was scheduled for 1-5 in the afternoon, so I went back to sleep and woke up at noon. Then the waiting. 1:30, feedback called to ask if my internet was fixed. I told them no technician dropped by, and that I still didn’t have internet access. She pressed on that the technicians reported in that they already visited. TIMEWARP! Did I miss anything? I was told that they’d be calling the technicians to follow up with my lack of internet.
By 2:30, I called up customer support again, only to be told that the job order was still open, and that someone will come to look at my internet by 5. No one did. I called up again and asked for an explanation. I gave the reference number for my job order but was then told to double check; my job order apparently ceased to exist. I wasn’t so much concerned if anybody was going to fix my internet that day — I was looking for a reason why the last customer support would tell me to wait up for nothing, or why my job order would disappear from my records. The customer support agent couldn’t answer, so I asked for anybody higher than her to explain better why the communication between the customer support department, the support center and the contractors was so bad.
I got in touch with a supervisor who assured me that by the next day (Thursday), someone would come and fix my internet. There would be a matter of prioritization (so, not every customer is a priority?), personal emails from both him and his co-supervisor and personal guarantees from him and the agent who answered. From Monday to Wednesday, I have gotten personal guarantees — and yet I still didn’t have a connection.
Thursday, no one dropped by. For some reason though, the internet was back. I didn’t have the energy to waste more time listening to “please hold” advertisement, so I didn’t report it. By Friday, at 7 in the morning, waking me up from my week’s lack of sleep, technicians dropped by to look at my internet. I told them that I had connectivity from the prior day and they told me that they were just “double checking.” Rrrrrriiiiigggghhhhhht.
This week, as I’m told, the whole region was under network restoration. Intermittent connection ’til it finally gave out at around midnight. Called up customer support again and was told that network restoration had been done, so it was a genuine concern. I was told that since it was after 12, the job order will have to be scheduled for the next day, regardless if I called it in at 12:01 AM, the technicians will be scheduled for a visit by the next day. I had been assured that rebates from the outages would reflect on my next billing statement — I didn’t want money that was already mine — I want to be connected, with as little interference as possible.
As I write this, the other DSL company for whom I applied for have still not returned. I think about all the customer support agents of whom I’ve gotten to talk to over the last 2 years and I start to feel horrible — they have exercised extreme restraint and patience — their job is to be yelled at by dissatisfied customers looking for a reason. For now I’m not quite sure for whom.
I’d like to think that customer support agents think about my situation as a consumer, that there’s some kind of prioritization going on when I don’t get to use the service. But I don’t believe it.
this really happened, chapter 1.
Aug 13th
The lighting of a cigarette is an art. You can’t verbally instruct someone how to light a cigarette without showing them first — the feel of the cigarette between the lips, the feel of that first surge of black, black smoke once you light the damned thing;
She did it in twos, one for me and one for her, with cupped hands as if whispering a secret.
I always did fancy looking at her. From afar, she looked intelligent, charming and interesting — but mainly it’s because that one time, her cleavage was peeking out in that little red number and I wanted her to touch my penis. The only time I saw her was by the smoking area. See, in buildings, they’ve forced smokers into these little spaces that could accommodate (and tolerate) them, usually beside garbage bins.
She had left her lighter one day, and asked if she could borrow a light. (And how exactly do you borrow light?!) From then on, we would smoke together, which was usually accomplished by ignoring my officemates when they were smoking beside me.
One day she wasn’t there. I had chanced upon her walking on her own in this mall near the office —
“I was on EL” (emergency leave, explaining why she wasn’t around that day)
“what was the emergency?”
“…carrying a child.”
She stopped smoking, and I smoked twice as much. (then I realized she wasn’t the only girl in the world, but I didn’t know that yet, it was 2007.)
Remittance Made Easy: LBC Peso Padala
Aug 6th
Imagine the frustration: you get told that there’s going to be some money sent over to you, and it never gets there on time. A wave of disappointment, canceled plans and waiting. It’s probably happened to any of us at one point in time — finding a reliable service to get money delivered can be challenging.
LBC started out as a brokerage and air cargo agent in the 60′s — since then, they have constantly been improving their service, with linking and bridging customers in mind. LBC’s Peso Padala service has always been the country’s safest, fastest and has the cheapest rates in the country.
There are stories of people finding the service so reliable, they end up becoming long-term customers, relying on LBC Peso Padala for their remittance needs. Stories vary, like people supporting their relatives in other parts of the country, online stores receiving immediate payment for their products or services, or even for emergency purposes.
An example is Albert Naarol, 29, who has been using the service to send money to his siblings in Butuan and Cebu, and financial support for his 6-year old son in Bacolod. He has been a loyal LBC Peso Padala client for a decade now.
20-year-old Debbie Allene Ybona offers LBC Peso Padala as a payment option for her online store. Getting hassle-free payments is a boon when it comes to being a first-time entrepreneur.
Public school teacher Lorena was able to use LBC Peso Padala to help her niece, Myca, from Batangas, to get money for fare back home, 15 minutes before the last bus leaves. Lorena was able to drop by an LBC branch at 2:45 in the afternoon, and by 3, her niece Myca was already on a bus home.
These are only a couple of examples, but with over 950 LBC branches worldwide to serve Filipinos and their loved ones, remittance has never been easier.
ramblings.