just thinking out loud

The number of tourists and travellers getting stranded in the main airport continued to rise amid the protest.  Today the number had risen to 100,000 angry and frustrated tourists wanting to go back home. Their life is screwed up as the situation they are in is absolutely uncalled for and they were left to suffer.

Stories of these stranded tourists really make me so upset. Some of them had been through the immigration or passport control and then only to find out they can’t board the plane and they don’t have a visa to stay in the kingdom anymore. What could be worse than that?

I can imagine the frustration these tourists/passengers are facing and to augment that communication is also almost impossible because of the language barrier.

I also feel bad for  expats and foreign workers in the kingdom who might have wanted to go home this Christmas and are left in uncertainty. But I do hope everything will return to normal very soon.

I’m afraid that Thailand’s tourism industry is getting the worst impact.

That’s right, after a fortnight at the hospital I was told to stop for the moment while my visa is still processing. It’s really exhasparating because I’ve been waiting for so long to get a job and even if I got the letter from the home office stating I can now get employed without work permit the county council won’t acknowledge that.

But can I do? I guess they are just making sure that they are employing legal immigrants to the UK and even though others are lenient about this unfortunately the employer I got is very strict. It’s just sad that other people’s fault cause innocent ones to suffer and it’s always like that no matter where we go.

Well, at least, there’s a good side of it because I can have more time to spend online. However, I don’t really get that much money on my online jobs. I do wish I could earn more from my autosurf but I now I have scraped my paypal and alertpay account to zero.

I do hope my passport will arrive by next month with the visa so I can go back to work.

That’s too sad indeed. The musical score for the movie Dark Knight has been tagged ineligible for Oscars because apparently there were so many names. Of course it would be confusing as to who gets the credit and take the award home if ever they get chosen. Well, this is just my opinion and I don’t have a strong basis for it.

However, talking about the movie, I personally feel that the movie is great not just because Christian Bale is my most favorite of all the Batmans. I would like to give especial credit to Heath Ledger for playing such a commendable role. He really did his stunning best before his unexpected death and thankfully enough he made it through the completion of the movie, Bless his soul.

Isn’t this a cute one?

Thanks to BlogCatalog, I was actually running out of idea on what to blog today and then I received an email from them inviting bloggers to participate in recognizing the World Aids Day and there are five ways to participate .

I especially like this badge that I have put in this blog tobe displayed until December 3. Well, they didn’t say I should display until then. It is just my decision.

It is overwhelming how this dreadful HIV have spread so rapidly. Coming from a monkey and passed on to humans, HIV have become pandemic affecting all people young and old alike. We had discussed this HIV in one of my masteral classes and I remember asking how it was passed on to humans. And my silly or stupid imagination actually asked if it was through a sexual intercourse which I think was not the right answer.

Well, more or less, I supposed that people, especially the sexually active ones are aware of the harmful effect of HIV and if not, let’s spread the word.

I was watching a movie clip about the great global warming swindle and I was surprised at how the media has deceived us. Sometime last year I have already heard my friend talk about natural cause of the global warming. We have always been told as far as I can possibly remember that our reckless use of recyclable and reusable materials is one of the major cause of global warming. Uses of aerosols or hairsprays, Refrigerators containing CFC or chloroflourocarbon are said to cause the depletion of ozone layer and many more.

All over the media you see tips on how to care for the environment. Factories are also trying to make their products more environmentally friendly.

Although I have nothing against these things it’s the fraud they have overly over emphasized that WE are causing the global warming. But it does not mean that I don’t care anymore of my actions toward environment and green living. I still uphold the golden rule of Reuse, Reduce and Recycle to help in my small ways our forest. I really think we should focus more on preserving our forest for deforestation can cause real damage to us like floods and landslides.

Well, after a turbulent week last week I had a good time with my job today.

I started working in the hospital last week as a ward hostess catering to patients.  Basically, the job is serving food to the patient and it’s just like working in a restaurant because we got to go to ask the patients what they want to eat that’s in the menu. It was my training/orientation week but I was like thrown into the battle field unarmed.

I didn’t realize there was so much to know about my job. First I had to read the menu for the elderly patients who couldn’t read. Then I’d go and get them a serving of the food they have chosen. Having little or no knowledge at all about English food made the job too complicated for me as I didn’t know what comes with what like jacket potato with cheese and tuna or baked beans and stuff like that.  At first I was paired with a guy who didn’t have the art of handling a new worker who’s under training.  I got told several times what I should and shouldn’t do while we were serving food. Fine! I’m a new worker who had zero know-how about what we’re doing and I really appreciate the way I was handled by him.

The hospital ward seemed confusing for someone who had never been there especially for me who easily gets disoriented with directions. So when it was time to collect the trays and plates I missed some side-rooms (private and semi-private rooms as what we called them in Thailand and in the Philippines. When I went back to the kitchen I started loading the diswasher when he came a few minutes later with all the trays I missed. He looked ragingly surprised that I was already back in the kitchen when he supposed I was still collecting trays and plates. I apologetically explained that I got lost in the wards and his reply really hurt me. “It was easy. Just put it on your head!” Quiet and withdrawn that I am, I asked myself why I was doing this job and be under someone who hasn’t got a degree yet. Excuse me? This is not the only job I can do. I can quit right now and look for a better job. These thoughts poured out from my mind and I actually thought of going back to Thailand and be a teacher again. I don’t care if I get paid more in this country. I just missed working professionally again.

As if that was not enough, the following day I made another blooper. I rinsed the dishwashers before we had finished washing all the dishes. Well, I didn’t know. I thought we needed to rinse them every after wash. Again, my partner got upset because he said that we have to wait ten minutes for the machines to warm up again. Well, an hour later he mellowed down a bit.

But on the fourth day he left me with so much more to do. I had to finish half hour later so I had to collect the tea cups and wash them before I go. He finished at 8 pm and because he did the tea run he wanted me to mop the floor as well. I had to comply to all his demands because he thought that he was doing more than I and I should equal that. Forgetting that I was new and under training, he just overwhelmed me with too many instructions and at the same time practical training.

The last day of that week I had had enough. I told myself, “Why would I be keeping this job? I felt so run down. For five days I was trained by different people who said different things making things overly complicated. Everyday I see new supervisor who never really looked after me and how I was doing. At the end of the day, I told the supervisor on duty that I was quitting. She was very soft-spoken and tried to convince me to stay with some promises. But I was firm on my decision. However before I said my final goodbye that night she told me “hope to see you on Monday with fingers crossed.

Saturday, November 22, I went to the office carrying my uniform to give them back and to tell them that I was quitting. But when I was asked what really happened I couldn’t help but tell the whole story although I insisted that I didn’t want to blame anybody. It was just that I was slow on following all the instructions. Well, it didn’t turn out as planned. I learned that I was handled very badly and unfairly. I was convinced to give it another week or two and that I would be trained with supervision.

So far today proved it so much easier. It turns out all the hardships I went through last week made me smarter and stronger. And when I was signing out I saw my friend from last week and he greeted me sweetly.

Thanks God I didn’t quit!

We got about five inches of snow today. It started snowing Friday night and on Saturday morning the road was all white. Seeing all the leaves gone from the trees I felt like I just got here in the UK. When I arrived on March 21, the temperature in London was 9 degrees celcius but it was minus one here in Norwich. I didn’t like it a bit. But yesterday afternoon I had a completely different feeling. Seeing the snow falling from the sky I was filled with gaity as I chomped on how fun it was. On Friday night, I went out of the car and asked my wonderful husband to take a photo of me in the midst of falling snowflakes.

Well, today seeing the snow-covered ground I was filled with so much excitement and my husband read the message. So before I had asked him he told me that we were going out.

It was such a nice feeling seeing the surrounding so white and children dashed through the parks making their snowman or just gliding their butt over the soft and fluffy ice.

These puppies sleep to a lullaby sang by their owner. They are the cutest ones I have ever seen yet. And yes they are the most popular dogs on the internet based video-sharing gathering four million views just over the weekend according to MSNBC news.

What happened was when the video of the pups was seen on Ustream, the employees found them when there were only a couple of viewers and they forwarded it to their families who did the same until the video has reached millions of viewers just over the weekend.

I got to watch the video myself on youtube and I just can’t help sharing it. I hope you will enjoy watching them too.

Talking Dog

 Another popular dog with more than 4 million viewers is this talking dog. Very smart
indeed.

This dog is a threat to the sharks

However, this is the most viewed dog gathering more than 12 million views. A dog attacking shark. Can you believe that?

I am into this autosurf thingy called Megalido and I thought it was such a good money maker online. First it was a 12/12 meaning you surf 12 sites for 12 days and you get your money back plus 44%. I personally got paid two times and my investment has become doubled in less than a month.

I was really planning on big thing with them and I have had made my chart for my race to $1000 from this site.  If things went well with the former program I was going to have my first $1000 sometime in May next year starting with just $6 investment.

But today when I pulled my inbox and read the weekly report from Megalido I was shocked at what I read. They have scraped the 12 days plan and extended it to 36. Now I have to wait three times longer than usual before I can cashout my money. I am not very happy about this especially after making a target date when to get my first grand.

Truly, you shouldn’t count the chicks before the eggs hatch.

I was called in to work again in the winery this week and the other night I fell asleep. I started work at 8 pm and I didn’t get to drink coffee before leaving the house.

Tuesday night we packed wines in 750 mL bottle. I saw a bottle on the table and it was much bigger–1.5 L. I said to myself that I was lucky I didn’t get to pack that one. But the other night I proved myself wrong as I saw the big bottles coming from the machine. I thought I was not going to make it through the night. The 750 mL was already a bit too much but because I am using the gym my muscles are conditioned to carry that weight. I got home with some muscle pain in my arms but it was okay because it’s just like working out. Anyway the second night was a disaster. I almost dropped some bottles because they are heavy and wet they easily slip out of my grip. Thankfully I didn’t drop any. I did this on Wednesday night and until now my arms still ache a little bit.

It was good the machines stopped from time to time giving me to rest a bit. When this happens we prepared the cartoon trays and it was very boring. At around 5 am the machine stopped and it got fixed 15 minutes before 6 AM. During this time we were just making trays and because I was less active I got sleepy. My eyelids were getting heavier and I just dozed off. A Polish girl who was a regular staff at the winery gently woke me up and said that I might get caught if someone comes in. Maybe I was reported because I didn’t get called in on the next evening. But it was such a relief. I had plenty of time to rest. But I sure will miss the money I should be making from the winery.