Happy Episode 2

My good friend's son is home after spending the first 55 grueling days of his life in an incubator and in tubes. It is a miracle indeed.

His son is now with his family 24 hours a day, having been cooped alone for almost 2 months in an incubator in the company of only nurses and doctors, due to limited visitation times in the hospital.

Accordingly, my friend's son is actively responding to the sounds and sights of his loving parents who are just so overjoyed to be reunited with him in the comfort of their home.

Happy news indeed.

Consulting

Being in the management consulting industry is exciting and perpetually stimulating. You never run out of opportunities to learn and be at the forefront of ground breaking insights. The works give you both the motivation and rewards to seek for new information and innovations so that you can add real value to clients.

However, it becomes tiring and draining once you stop learning new things and become stuck with intellectual masturbation. Well, some may argue that it depends on how you see learning and what sort of things define learning (pardon my self argumentation - it becomes a habit when you have stayed long enough in this industry).

I specialize in telecom and while I enjoy the constant search for new ideas in social media and perpetual distillation of emerging business models, I hate the part when you have to sit and create pre-sales decks to clients who never seem to get tired of asking for proposals. The hateful part of this process is when you keep on finding ways of saying the same thing in a different way to the same client who can't seem to figure out what he wants.

I miss the days when I use to do delivery. While it is tiring and pressure-packed to manage a project, it is fulfilling in a sense that there is real engagement and application of ideas. You may not be learning ground-breaking ideas but you do get to bring YOUR ideas to the table of those who can make them happen.

Today is just one of those days when consulting feels tiring and draining.

Happy Episode

A few weeks back, i wrote about a friend couple whose son was born premature with some complications that even the best doctors in Singapore have almost given up trying to find a solution to his condition.

For a while, it seems like the couple was just waiting for the inevitable. Miraculously though, their son has recovered and now he is out of the ICU. Now the baby is slowly gaining weight and can already drink milk from the bottle.

Things like these miracles make me smile, and believe even more that the Universe truly conspires to make things happen.

Work and a new home

By Raul and Sarah Alicaway

(let me have the liberty of re-publising a story written by a good friend who recently migrated to Canada - original article published in www.canadianimmigrant.ca)

Leaving Manila on the last eligible day of our visa — and landing in Toronto just about an hour before our visas did, in fact, expire — gave us the jitters as we journeyed to Canada. Our two kids, JC and Migs, never knew the risk we faced of being immediately asked to travel back to Manila.

At the Lester B. Pearson International Airport, we finally relaxed as we were warmly welcomed by the Bolivars, family friends who selflessly accommodated us for almost a month in their home.

But, after landing, we didn’t waste any time. Three days after arriving, we were already attending a downtown seminar about Canadian accounting designations sponsored by the Association of Filipino-Canadian Accountants (AFCA). We had business, banking and accounting backgrounds in the Philippines.

Within our first month in Toronto, we were blessed to have secured confirmed job offers in our respective fields — I as an officer in one of Canada’s banking giants and Sarah as an accounting technician in an accounting firm (she was referred by an AFCA member).

In due time, we moved to a safe and nice community close to everything — subway station, bus stations, church, school for the kids, public library, community centre, family doctor’s clinic, grocery stores, Filipino store, Fairview Mall (which has lots of everything!) and lush parks and greenery. Early on, we already felt our decision to come to Canada was a rewarding one, even though we had had many doubts prior to boarding the plane in Manila.

We are thankful for God’s provision to our family. Just eight months down the road, I became a manager for GTA branch operations at ICICI Bank Canada and Sarah became a senior accountant at Weinberg & Gaspirc, Chartered Accountants.

We’ve both also been blessed on the education front: I took the International Accounting and Finance Professionals (IAFP) Program at Ryerson University and have qualified for the certified management accountant (CMA) accelerated program; Sarah has been granted 50 out of 51 credit hours in her pursuit of the chartered accountant (CA) designation at the same time being granted 14 out of 15 maximum allowable transfer credits in the certified general accountant (CGA) program.

Our kids are also adjusting fast in the Canadian school system, with JC always landing on the honour roll and Migs having lots of friends across many nationalities and cultures.
Paying forward, we have humbly opened our simple home in at least two instances to friends and their families, helping them with their initial stay in Toronto.

As what the Bolivars did for us, we also guided them on what to do during their initial days, from applying for a SIN card, opening a bank account, looking for an apartment, applying for phone lines, getting familiar with transport systems and Toronto maps, and more!

As our story shows, a little help and a smooth beginning can make all the difference in your journey to Canada.

Jolly Frog

I came across this new Filipino food place along Neil Road in China Town called Jolly Frog. It's right below the PSG Asia office, right across a parking lot and a stone throw away from the offices of Ebay, Skype, and Paypal . It is a nice and decent place actually.

Well, the food wasn't that great, but the entire dining area is clean and comfortable. My colleagues and I had a peaceful and relax lunch.

The food lay out is the 'turo-turo' (literally 'finger pointing' i.e. you can point any food and mix and match as you like and the waiter will serve it to you in a plate) style in canteens or SM Malls' foodcourts back home. That day there were a few popular Filipino dishes like Tinola (Chicken boiled with Chayote,'Siling Labuyo' leaves -a type of chili,- and ginger, and spiced up with 'Patis' or fish sauce), Beef Steak, Pinakbet (ground meat boiled with an assortment of vegetables like squash, string beans, and bitter gourd spiced with 'Bagoong' or preserved anchovies), and some more.

My colleagues were not so impressed though with the dishes' taste. Even I, felt I have tasted better versions of those before. Well, there is always room for improvement. I guess the place has newly opened and certainly I hope, the owner is seeking feedback from patrons.

When I say peaceful, I mean this place is bereft of the typical noisy chatter one experiences in most Hawkers here in Singapore. Its relaxing in a sense that you don't find people milling around your table waiting like hawks for you to finish dining. The place is neatly painted white and adorned with a couple of decent paintings.

What is most commendable however is the display of the courteous brand of service by Filipinas who run the place. It is the beautiful and warm smile that sincerely conveys the willingness to serve and make you feel you are valued as a customer. My colleagues of course, expected no less, having known from their own experiences of Pinoys, how we are hospitable and courteous in our ways. Luckily, my countrywomen did not disappoint them.

Ironically, it was an Indian colleague who recommended to me the place. Tired of gorging the same kind of delicacies from Hawkers near our office day in day out, it was a pleasant surprise to find a Filipino food place in China Town. It was a nice respite from the 'chicken and char siew rice' for a change.

It was a nice excuse for me too to give my colleagues a perspective to 'Filipino dishes'. A few of my friends have asked where else can they find places to eat Filipino dish in Singapore. To which I mentioned 7,107 Flavours at Marina Square (where I have not been to yet, but heard so much from Pinoy friends the past year), and a few stalls in the historic Lau Pa Sat along Robinson Road like Ka Roger, Panyeros, and Jolly V.

I hope I will not disappoint them with 7,107 Flavours as I heard it's quite pricey compared to your usual dining place. Let me visit it one of these days and see for myself if the price is worth the dine. :-)