It says:

From: SIL and family
To: Moi, Louna and Frenchguy

- image of paradise -

Big thanks for this super duper vacation which we will have all because of you. We are over mega happy and this gift really pleases us a lot.
- smileys -
Again, a thousand thanks.

The translation is quite exaggerated but I just wanted to highlight how happy they are. Noticed the super super? I translated them to super duper over mega! And now, Frenchguy is super duper over mega inggit to them.

You must be wondering why he's jealous, almost regretting the plan. It's because we've never been to La Réunion and the travel could have been for us. The surprise gift to my SIL should have been to visit the western part of the USA to which they declined, so they ended up reserving La Réunion. If it was as planned, he won't be jealous as we already visited the west. My poor lil boy. Now, our planned visit to Italy and Greece this summer is not as enticing as it was, he prefers coconut trees and white sands.

Picture this: A little Frenchguy giving away his fave toy while crying because he's obliged to. Because he promised he would give it away. Palabra de honor. - that little Frenchguy hasn't grown up yet. He wants to keep his words - but sometimes, with a heavy heart.

Picture this: Moi, laughing my heart out while teasing him. Bwahaha. Bad girl

Work Tidbits atbp

I received an envelope yesterday containing a letter informing me that a certain amount of euros will be deposited on my account as part of the company's profit-sharing scheme. But before I could even plan on how to spend the euros, Frenchguy already told me that I have to fax the accompanying paper to our head office. The accompanying paper is the go signal for them to transfer the moolah to my PEE or simply put, to buy company stock-options. In fact, PEE is so advantageous as it exempts the capital and the revenu (appreciation of its value) from any taxes and social charges. The sum is then inflated by a mouth-watering amount by the company but it will be blocked for 5 (or 7) years. So what will you do? Instead of giving probably 30% of it to the government (tax on revenu), I better keep it for myself and have it available in 5 years, right? Anyway, I don't have any to-buy list at the moment, so ok, document faxed.

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The long-awaited email has finally arrived. A colleague informed me that the subject we are working on will finally push through.

In fact, I have a pending request from our Philippine site for a week-long job. But since it's not an urgent request, I've told my boss that I'll go there if I have another business in Asia. To which he agreed, but not after July.

So there, if everything works into place, I'll be in Bangkok with a side trip in Manila...hopefully soon.

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I've stopped business travelling since my pregnancy till Louna turned 1 year old. With that, I've lost my Lufthansa Miles and More silver membership and turned back to the basic blue card. With the coming travel, I think I'll have enough mileage to shift back to silver. Great. I just love VIP treatment during travels hehe.

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Frenchguy's donating his Flying Blue mileage tickets to his sister and her family this summer. At first, it was a round trip ticket to the Wild West but they backed-out at the last minute, frightened by the language barrier. Final destination became La Reunion. After discussing about it with me this morning, he suddenly realized 'it could have been for us'. Naipamigay mo na kaya.

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I'm off for a soirée choucroute. Happy weekend everyone.

How Far Could You Deal With Stress?

Most people try to personnalize their work areas to bring a certain life, a certain balance and a certain detachment from work. I, for one, have Louna's picture on my office wall and on my laptop's wallpaper and screensaver. A colleague displays one of his paintings on his wall. Another one, his wife (nope, no darts on the picture, promise).

It's normal. We spend most of our lives at work. A lot of people identifies themselves via their job. It's a source of self-esteem. It's a haven to those who want to showcase their competences, their skills and their talents. It's a place where we prove what we could do best. In fact, work has become not only a source of financial health but mental health as well. But what if stress has taken over to all that?

In France, some people are blaiming the 35 hour-per-week system as a source of stress. In fact, they get the same workload for lesser working hours. Add to that the massive delocalization of a lot of companies. Most are afraid to lose their jobs one day so they try to be productive and competitive, sometimes way beyond their capabilities. The latest news about Alcatel-Lucent suppressing 12,500 jobs worldwide in the next 3 years (1,500 in France) has just added to their mounting stress boosters.

The company Renault counted 3 suicides in 4 months. The last one left a letter clearly blaiming his working conditions as the cause of his act. The other two didn't leave any letter but have chosen their work areas as their death beds. Not long after, Peugeot Citroen followed suite with one suicide and another tentative. Both evoking their working conditions as the culprit.

Another news came directly in my mailbox. A manager from my previous post died of massive heart attack and the family is blaiming his big boss because of too much pressure. It seems that the defunct had been complaining about his work conditions too. The sad part is that he was obliged to resign because he couldn't take it anymore and he was just finishing his contract. He was close to freedom. He probably waited too long. - This news really shocked me. A Filipino died of too much pressure? We're known for being jolly, right. Tinatawanan lang natin ang problema. He must have endured too much pressure..

Based on personal experience, I've always considered these frenchies as more stressed-out fellows compared to Filipinos. But it's contagious. I now spend some sleepless nights thinking about work, and when I finally catch sleep, I then dream about work. I'm trapped in the system. I do try to manage it tho. Louna is my main stress buster, blogging is another way.

How about you? How do you deal with it?

Scrap It

Credits: Backgrounds by Joyce Designs of Scrapbook Bytes, Jamie Rousselle and Beth Nixon of Digital Scrapbook Place, Button Stitches by Tracey Rennemo and Stitches by AC Perky of Scrapbook Bytes.

I was browsing on our old memorabilias and I stumbled on our wild, wild, west adventures last October 2004. It was our late summer vacation getaway as I was tied with work for the whole summer. Tho I was a newbie at work at that time, thus no paid leave yet, I had sufficient days off due to all the Saturdays I've worked for my project in the Philippines.

Going back to the subject, it's probably one of our best vacations together so I thought, it's worth the scrap. As I was working on it, I can't help but smile on the memories which started rushing in: Frenchguy playing cowboy! I was actually with a little boy at that time. In fact, he's of the Western Spaghetti generation. Ya know, playing guns at 8 years old thinking he was a cowboy hehe. So there you go, my Frenchguy, playing actor, and moi, the photographer.

Have a great weekend!

Disciplining a Toddler

I was busy preparing something for lunch this weekend, and as usual (especially when Frenchguy's out), Louna was there in the kitchen, playing with her toys but most of the time clinging on my legs. I know this is quite dangerous but she cannot stand staying alone in her playroom while I cook. She's a gourmand. So as a precaution, I take extra care not to spill anything on her.

Then came the drame. I accidently spilled one of my ingredients, not on her, but just near her (but I nevertheless measured the danger of this bad habit). Louna, frightened and surprised, started crying and went directly to the corner while looking at me with her sorry look. I kept on telling her that it was not her fault but she just continued crying. So I stopped cooking and cuddled her in my arms.

After minutes of retrospection, I realized that we never disciplined her that way. We never asked her to stay in a corner when she does something bad. I'm not against this method of disciplining a child but the thing is, we never asked our daughter to do that. She must have seen that in her nanny's place or somewhere else. As mothers, how would you react to that?

Also posted at Pinoy Moms Network.

First-Time Gardener

Winter is exceptionally warm this year. The snow has timidly showed only once in Dijon just to remind people that it was indeed winter. The whole February adopted spring temperatures that jonquilles (daffodil) started to blossom three weeks earlier than the normal time.They're supposed to be in full bloom starting March. Anyways.

This weekend, Frenchguy and I finally decided to start on our common project - garden beautification. Early or not, we don't really know. Like the plants, we also lost our mark.

Since we moved to this house, it's actually my first time to work outside our house perimeter. I was preggy on the first spring, a doting Mom on the second. This year seems to be the best time for me to initiate on gardening. We could work on our rhythm while Louna occupies herself with her toys.

We started by removing all the weeds and boy, that was tiring. We then removed all the lavender plants infront of the house and replaced the soil (we will do the planting next week). We ended by putting some fertilizers and now, I'm aching everywhere. Should I confess that gardening is NOT my passion?

This weekend, however, is far more of a gardening experience. For the past years, Frenchguy and I led a somewhat separate life (limit that to gardening time please). He worked in the garden while I took care of Louna. He's tired.. and I was equally tired. But not for the same reason. He thought I was escaping from gardening, I thought he was escaping from being a father. Gardening was translated to friction in our couple. This weekend was a whole new experience tho. We were together. We were both tired but we were happy and satisfied. I guess I will do love gardening after all. Louna does.

Embellishments from Free Digital Scrapbooking.

Prague: The City of 100 Spires

The magical city of bridges, cathedrals, gold-tipped towers and church domes, whose image has been mirrored in the surface of the Vltava river for more than ten centuries. Prague is also a modern European metropolis full of energy, music, and art.

I just booked for a weekend getaway at this lovely city for the Labor Day weekend on May. It will be Frenchguy's first flight experience with Louna and our first visit to the city. If you've been to the city and you have the list of must-do and must-see wonders of Prague, please leave a note. Thanks.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Common question? Not here.

The first time I asked that question here (to Frenchguy's niece, she was 8 years old then), the parents (and the grandparents) looked at me like as if I'm from another planet. But hey, isn't it the first question asked in the Little Miss Philippines pageant on the primetime show Eat Bulaga?

With the look I got from everybody, I quickly understood that it's not their ordinary topic. French kids don't dream of becoming a doctor to help poor kids nor an astronaut to go to the moon at an early age (or at least to those I frequent). My niece had a massage kit when she was 3 years old because she wanted to be a physical therapist like her Mom and Dad. I asked the same question to kids of her age here and the parents had a good laugh out of my question telling me what do these kids know about professions at that age?

I met two parents with grown up daughters and they have a common problem. Their daughters still don't know what to pursue at 16 years old.

Frenchguy's niece told us she wanted to be a cashier in a department store when she grows up (she was 10 years old then). That is just to end the conversation. And I'm sure no Filipino kid will dream of that job even from the poorest of family. She's 12 years old now and still doesn't have any idea of what her dream job is.

My niece, 7 years old now, still dreams to be a Physical Therapist. She's studying in Japan (in an American school) and the first in her class.

Moi wanted to be a teacher before (like my parents) then changed my mind at 10 years old. My love for Math was probably encouraged by the dream of becoming an engineer, I don't really know. But this dream surely led me to where I am now.

How about you? Do you encourage your kids to dream big at an early age? How is it in other countries?

Posted at Pinoy Moms Network.

When Work Goes Beyond the 4-Walled Room

I have been watching the telly the other night and my attention was caught by a program on M6 (topic: Extraordinary Homes), particularly the Australian couple living la vida loca in their appartment on the mega-luxurious ship The World. I wondered how they could manage such an extravagant life till they showed their laptop. Stupid me. Of course they're still connected to the real world (their businesses) with all the technologies available onboard.

Now let me talk about me.

I live exactly the same technology overloaded life (minus The World, of course). Technology has broke through the traditionnal office walls that I could work even inside my cozy toilet at home or in any internet center anywhere in the world.

My list of technology gadgets :

VPN : A virtual private network (VPN) is a private communications network often used by companies or organizations, to communicate confidentially over a public network. VPN traffic can be carried over a public networking infrastructure (e.g. the Internet on top of standard protocols, or over a service provider's private network with a defined Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the VPN customer and the VPN service provider. A VPN can send data e.g. voice, data or video, or a combination of these media, across secured and encrypted private channels between two points. Read more from this site.

But this gadget starts to be outdated so I pass to..

i-Pass : iPass is a commercial company that provides Internet services to business users working remotely (out of their country or region). Typically this means travellers with a laptop computer.

For most countries in the world, dialup service is available, in which one calls a nearby phone number that connects to the internet. Today it is also possible to use iPass with a wi-fi connection, if there is a Hotspot with an iPass arrangement available. ISDN connection is also offered in some regions such as Europe. Read more from this site.

Outlook Web Access : OWA is used to access e-mail, calendars, contacts, tasks and other mailbox contents while on the go. Microsoft provides Outlook Web Access as part of Exchange Server to allow users to connect remotely via Web browsers. Most of the functionality in Microsoft Outlook is also available in this web "look-alike". The most important difference is that Microsoft Outlook lets you work with e-mail, calendars etc. even when you don't have a network connection, while OWA requires a network connection to function.

OWA can be used from Internet cafes and any other location that provides connectivity to the Web. Read more from this site.

Conferencing has taken a whole new world too. Webmeeting, call and video conferencing. What a gallery of airfare/train savvy solutions.

Some companies even provide instant messaging - and I mean internet downloadable gadgets - with the microphone and webcam installed! A friend of mine showed me her 6-month preggo state through Skype while she was in her office in Makati. Galing!

I'm sure, there are more innovating technologies out there waiting to be discovered but these gadgets are already enough to give me the impression of having a shadow - my work following me anywhere I go. Enough.