Moving Forward

I know, I know. It's been a really long time since I've posted something. But I want to redeem myself, as part of my resolution to resurrect this blog. And partly because I foresee a decline in my social life since I will soon be in an LDR (aawwww).

Anyway, as with any new year post,  I will start with the highlights of my past year. 2013 was a big year for me. Many life changing decisions were made, actions taken, money spent, haha, among other things. So here goes.

1. I resigned from my job at the hospital. Initially, I wanted to pursue a different career path. To explore the possibility of working in the academe. And so I left to pursue higher education. After almost three years of working there, I finally summoned my courage to leave my comfort zone.

2. While waiting for the semester to start, I began a teeny tiny business. I turned my love for baking into my livelihood, well, at least for that summer. Surprisingly, I made enough to sustain myself all through out the summer. A big THANK YOU to all my customers!

3. As I said earlier, I wanted to pursue my Masters. It was a logical choice to apply to SLU but my dad suggested the possibility of studying in UP Manila. Since it was one of my frustrations (and his) to not have studied in UP during my undergrad, I decided to indulge him by applying. The hardest thing about it was the uncertainty. The result of my application came so late. I was certain that I would be enrolling at SLU, I even had an interview for a teaching job lined up. The day before my interview, the results came. I got accepted! Which leads us to next big change.

4. MOVING. The most spontaneous thing I have done. EVER. In less than a week, I was all packed and ready to move to a new city. Everything was moving so fast that I didn't have time to be scared or anxious. I was big ball of excitement, so thrilled to start a brand new life.

5. About two weeks after moving, I started to get crazy(er). With my classes being that I only have to go to school a few hours thrice a week, I had limited social interaction. I even started talking to the lizard on my wall. So, I applied for a job. My job hunt was whirlwind adventure. Within a week, I was interviewed, tested and hired. The job was so much different from the hospital. I worked in an office of a BPO company. And with my limited technological capacity, it proved to be a challenging job.

6. The coming months went by fast. I studied and learned the job. Met new people and made some friends. Amazingly, during the year-end awards of our department, I was recognized as one of the "Breakthrough rookies" of the year. I must admit, it felt nice to be recognized for the effort I put into the work I do. And I got a gift certificate with it too.

Wow, now that I've written them down, it doesn't seem so much anymore. LOL. Regardless, it really was a life changing year. Since I moved, I've become more independent. Taking care of myself is harder than I've expected.

And as I say goodbye to 2013, I welcome 2014 with open arms. For this year, I just have a few goals I hope I can achieve.

1. Travel more.
2. Live healthier.
3. Increase my savings.
4. Handle work and school better.
5. Be okay with being alone.

I know, my goals are vague. I'm not exactly sure how to accomplish them altogether. And I hope I can figure them out. I guess we'll just have to wait see if I make sense of the mess that is my life.

Day Off Project #5 : Roasted Herb Chicken

I know, I know. It's been a while since I posted an entry. Or did a project, for that matter. Been busy with work and travelling. And now that I realize it, I should have posted about my travels, damn. Anyway, I'm back, and that's all that matters.

Although I am enjoying baking pastries with my oven, I wanted to broaden my horizons and COOK with it. People close to me know very well that I am not good cook. Not even a decent cook. People seem to have difficulty in ingesting the food that I cook. But I really want to redeem myself and try an ambitious dish, Roasted Herb Chicken.

Actually, it is not a hard dish to make. I got the recipe of the internet. It is actually a mixture of recipes. The carrots, onions and garlic are chopped in big chunks and tossed in olive oil and lime juice. This serves as the "bed" of the chicken. The chicken is is stuffed with lime, leeks, rosemary and thyme. The chicken is also rubbed with salt, pepper and olive oil. Plop the chicken onto the bed of vegetables and pop it in the oven at 200 deg Celsius. Roast for 1 1/2 hour but baste the chicken halfway. And viola!

Baking Therapy

Different people have different ways of dealing with stress. Stress eating is the most common while others turn to shopping therapy. I've definitely tried both of those ways in dealing with stress. But both off them have negative effects to me, shopping leaves a big hole in my pockets and binge eating just makes me feel guilty.

But lately I have discovered a way to relieve my stress, baking. As you know, I recently got my own oven and have been trying some recipes. Although I have not been baking as much as I would want to, since I have been soooooo busy at work, I really enjoy making desserts from scratch.

Baking for me is so therapeutic. Whenever I feel stressed, I just bring out my baking stuff and almost immediately, my stress fades. Another upside is that I no longer have to buy sweets to cheer me up. I just eat whatever I make. Also, my family benefits from this because there is always dessert, haha.

Here are some of the desserts I have made/ baked.

My strawberry cheesecake

Albino Leche Flan

Uneven Chocolate Chip Cookies

Gooey Brownies

Vanilla Cupcake

Happy cupcake

Just looking at them makes you happy. :)

Day Off Project #4: Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a new baby. My oven! After months of saving for it, I finally got one. No more "no-bake" recipes for me.

My first baked project was pretty simple, Chocolate chip cookies. Just mix all the ingredients in a bowl, pop them in the oven, then voila, cookies.

The ingredients are flour, baking soda, salt, butter, brown and white sugar, vanilla, eggs, and of course chocolate chips.

For my first batch of cookies, I put too much dough and put them to close so they kinda got stuck with each other. This resulted to square cookies, haha.

My succeeding batches were better, they looked more like cookies. But the sizes were still uneven, some were bigger than the others. I still need more practice baking but I got good responses during our outing. My cookies were sold out. haha. :)

Five years and counting..

It has been five years, five anniversaries, that we have not spent together. An anniversary is supposed to be one of the happiest days in a relationship. A celebration of  two people's love for each other. But for the five years, we have not been able to spend one. Sad, I know. It seems like fate is preventing us from spending it together.

But I guess a day does not define a relationship. It's about being for each other through ups and downs, through good times and bad times. It's about turning an ordinary day to one of the most special memories. Still, I'm still upset I didn't get to spend the day with you. I guess we'll just make new memories, more special days and better celebrations. I love you Hubie! Happy 5th Anniversary! ♥

Convention Time

Last week, Feb. 22-24, the Philippine Society of Hospital Pharmacists held its 50th Anniversary and National Convention at the Manila Hotel. I was one of the lucky staff from our hospital to attend the said event. We left Baguio early morning of the 22th along with other hospital pharmacists namely from Benguet General Hospital and Baguio General Hospital. It was nice to get to know some of them and share practices we have in our hospitals.

Finally we arrived at Microtel Mall of Asia at around noon. But we encountered some difficulty in checking-in. It seems that the reservation for our room was made with a different name. So my fellow staff and I had to wait for the Unilab agent (they sponsored our accommodations, among other things) to clear it up with the hotel management. Since we were the last one to get checked-in, our companions were already waiting for us at the lobby to go to Manila Hotel for the registration. We barely had time to get freshened-up.

By the time we got to the Manila Hotel, the registration are was packed! We had to get in line fast because of all the pharmacists arriving for the convention. I didn't expect to see that many pharmacists. And to think those were only hospital pharmacist. After waiting in the long line, we finally got registered. The organizers told us we could get our PSHP ID's the next day so my co-staff and I were free to go around. But first we had to help Sr. Mel (she's our boss) to check-in.

The room was absolutely magnificent! The room had a view of the Intramuros, two beautiful beds, huge TV, amazing bathroom. Too bad I didn't bring my camera to capture the sight of that wonderful room.

After leaving the hotel, we decided to go to 168 mall in Divisoria. It is a kind of mall where everything is a bargain. And you can find almost everything there. From fashionable clothes, accesories, shoes to everyday things like umbrellas and pens. That is why I love shopping there. From the hotel, we took two jeepney rides to get there. We spent two hours hunting down items we wanted to buy until we decided we didn't have anymore money to spend, haha! We said we would take a cab from the mall to the hotel. But to our surprise no cab would let us ride for less 300 pesos! It was crazy! 300 pesos for a cab ride?!? So we decided to ride a jeep to city hall where we could wait for other cabs. But I had a blooper, I forgot to get out at city hall and the jeep went straight to Taft Ave. Luckily, I remembered that there was a jeepney station in Taft to MOA. So those rides cost us only 21 pesos per person as compared to the 300 pesos those greedy cab drivers were offering.

The next morning was the official start of the convention. There were seminars lined up. The resource speakers were from other country. It was very enlightening that practices we've only dare to dream of are really applied in other countries. I was inspired to set up those practices as well.

Apart from the seminars, there were also exhibits from drug companies in the hotel. They gave us freebies but we had to line up for them. Unfortunately for me, I was wearing super high heels. This made waiting in line excruciating. And to think there were a lot of lines in that day, including for the PSHP ID. It took me almost 2 hours in line for that ID. When the 1st day ended, I was only too happy to go back to the hotel and change outfit for the fellowship night.

The fellowship night was not what I had expected. There was a buffet of delicious food, awards and performers. The part that I enjoyed most was the performances of the singers. The night was hosted by Grace Lee and Mojojojo. The first performer was Luke Mejares. He had such beautiful voice that could just make you fall in love all over again. He was also so charming. He took time to talk to the guests and have photos of him. Another performer was Princess Velasco. I really didn't know before that night. She too had a good singing voice. And the songs she sang were already popular so it was nice to sing along when she was performing. But the highlight of my night would be the performance of Side A band. Not only did they sing a lot of songs but they were friendly as well, Joey in particular. Another is the guitarist. Although he doesn't talk/sing much, he was friendly and smiled a lot. I really enjoyed singing and dancing to their songs.

 See how happy I look when I got a photo with them? Adrenaline was still pumping in my system even as we got to the hotel. It was really a fun-filled and exciting night.








The 2nd day of seminar was such a blur. Nevertheless, it was a day of so many learnings and inspiring practices which I hope could be applied here in the Philippines, especially at our hospital. After the convention proper, our sponsor held a dinner party at the roof top of our hotel. We had fun and games and raffles. This party also paved the way for me to see my college friends. It was so nice to see them again and to catch up on what's happening with them.

All in all it was a good convention. Ir was full learnings and I also had fun too! :)

Day Off Project #3: Leche Flan

Who doesn't LOVE leche flan? It is one of the most common filipino desserts. I personally love it. So I thought for my next project I'll make it.

The ingredients are fairly common. Just eggs, condensed milk, evaporated milk, sugar and vanilla. For the syrup, caramelize the sugar in a pan until light brown. I didn't quite caramelize it enough because I was afraid of burning it and making the syrup bitter. So my resulting syrup was clear. For the custard, mix the egg yolks, condensed milk, evaporated milk, sugar and vanilla. Whisk gently so that bubbles will not form. Before putting the custard mixture in the llanera, coat it with the syrup. After putting the custard mixture, cover the llanera with foil so that it will not get watery. Steam for 40-45 mins. When the custard is cooked, cool at room temperature before refrigerating for a few hours. Flip over a serving plate and let the syrup drip over the custard. And Voila! Leche Flan! 

Materials and ingredients

Pretty eggs

I let some of my friends taste my creations. They said it was good. Yay! Sucess! Maybe good enough to sell? haha. :)