When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer, ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it
cold.

Who is this guy?

What is he holding?

A check for Php 2,500 for winning Categories Game Part 3 in our Forum.

Congratulations Wilyam!  It pays to play at AIEP, right?

Wilyam also won the 1000th post worth Php 100!

Lastly, Wilyam’s team won The Referral Game for a prize of FREE dinner and FREE movie for the team!

Join us in the forum!!!

Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest, and it opens up your heart, and it means that someone can get inside you and messes you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. “It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love”

—Neil Gaiman

No matter what I do, I have never been fully productive on Sundays. It’s really lazy Sunday for me. I bust my ass working from Monday to Saturday, and sometimes, I have work to finish on Sunday, but I could never muster enough strength and sense of intellect on a Sunday. All my work on this day are always halfway done or haphazardly completed. There’s something about Sundays.

I tried to write a proposal.  I tried to post.  I tried to think.  I can’t fully concentrate.  Part of me wants to fight for having a lazy Sunday.  I deserve it.  I worked to hard only to have my Sunday taken away.  So my mind says, “You have work to finish.”  But there’s another voice saying, “It’s lazy Sunday.”

So I end up just surfing the net, hoping that I would get something done in the process.  What about you?  Do you have lazy Sundays?

Whoa!!!  So many things to do, and so little time.

Where should I start.  First, we just celebrated Joanna, Neysa, and Mia’s one year with The American Institute celebration at Italianni’s, Greenbelt 3.  I can’t believe it’s been that long already.  Yet, it feels like it was just yesterday.

We’ve spoken to potential business partners recently asking us to open up in Mongolia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, Korea.  Even a good friend wants me to open up a school in Mexico City, Mexico.

We are currently working four major corporate clients this month.  That’s four in one month!  Yikes!  Sooner or later, we’ll have to ask Maryann to become a specialist!  

It’s stress, but the healthy kind.  Sigh!

Hello everyone!

I’d like to introduce to you Maryann. She is our final member of the AIEPRO family. She is not a Specialist, but she helps with our office tasks, like correcting papers, filing folders and profiles, preparing meals and snacks, typing, delivering files, organizing and decorating the rooms, and now, BLOGGING! She’s also involved in our FORUM!

We want to help Maryann with her English proficiency and her communication skills as well. We consider everyone in our team, regardless of position, to be vital in the progress of our school!

Here, you will see her posts and the corrections of her writings. We hope that her development will inspire you.

My daughter, Alexa,  turned eight on September 3. Of course, I took a leave from work to prepare for her after school party. I cooked Filipino-style spaghetti , which is a wee bit sweeter than regular spghetti; and fried chicken – using the Del Monte Fried Chicken Mix which my daughter loves. I got a chocolate cake from Red Ribbon  and ice cream from Nestle, namely, Chewy Choco Crinkles and Banoffee Surprise . I chose a kid-friendly menu so it wasn’t  too complicated to prepare. The party was a hit with the kids. It was such a hit, that they pretty much decimated the food. I never realized what voracious appetites these children had . They were all below twelve years old and they went through the food like they’ve never eaten before! It was hilarious. I didn’t even get the chance to eat. Which was cool since I was too busy making sure everyone had enough on their plates.

I just finished reading Mitch Albom’s for one more day, and I have learned several things from it.  Sometimes, we forget the basic things in life because we are caught up with work, relationships, friends, and then more work.  This book reminded me of some of the basic, but extremely valuable lessons in life.

First, we must always show our love to our mothers.  Our mothers are always there for us.  My mom has always been there for me, but I rarely showed to her how much I appreciate her.  As an adult, I’m showing her how much I love her and appreciate all the things she’s done for me.  I’m also showing my father my respect and love for him, even if he has done so many things wrong to us.

Second, it reinforced the notion that I already believed which is, there is reason for everything.  The clock on the wall has its purpose, not just for time.  It also has a story of how it got there.

Most importantly, we have another day to look forward to.  That’s why this book is called “for one more day.”  Never give up.  When things seem like they are going wrong, when nothings going right, when you are tired, that’s when you know you have another chance to fight again.  Keep fighting till your last breath of air.

This book was heartwarming.  I know that I must never forget those around me, especially my mom and dad.  I’m looking forward to reading [b]Tuesday’s with Morrie[/b] also by Mitch Albom.

My computer finally gave in today.  It could no longer take the workload I was giving.  I’ve filled it’s luggage to the max.  Yes, I have officially reached its storage capacity of 80GB.  So, I decided to go treasure hunting for a new gadget, and found this fire red 160GB external Hard Drive called My Passport Essential.  It’s the size of a passport, and it can hold up to 160GB of digital information.  Yahooooo!  Or should I say, woohoo!  Yahoo is not paying me to mention their name.  Not like it matters.

Anyhow, I can finally take some load off my laptop.  It has taken a memory beating for almost two years now.  In fact, I am synchronizing my files as we speak.  It’s so great to have information in such a small unit, smaller than a pocketbook.  I paid Php 3,798 for it, and it’s well worth it.  At least for now.

I wish I could store information in my brain, my memory, just like that.  Hit “synchronize,” and it will synchronize with all the information in this magazine or that book or this manual or that piece of literature.  In science, they call it osmosis.  In technology world, they call it data transfer?  Hmmm.  Is that right?

If you haven’t bought an external memory drive yet, you haven’t been looking at enough information.  Music.  Videos.  Pictures.  Applications.  And so much more.

I’m still surprised why I support these huge monster businesses.  This morning, since I arrived early to school at 7 am, I decided to have breakfast at McDonald’s.  I had a nice Hamdesal (Ham for American and desal from pandesal for Filipino).  Right after that, I had a warm short mocha, which reminds me of the day when I was studying in Seattle several years ago.

I would rather support mom and pop stores, but they are nowhere to be found here.  There is a Jolly Jeep behind Manila Bank, where I work, but the staff got sick there a few months ago on a hot Saturday.  Vin was sent to the hospital with several thousands of pesos for his medical bill.  Mia suffered regurgitation in front of a freshly cleaned toilet bowl, not to mention a heart-stopping kiss the floor dance at the school.  Me, I only had rashes on my arms and neck.  No more Jolly Jeep since that day.

McDonalds and Starbucks, both major American businesses, are already taking over the world.  I call it the McDonaldsization of the world, and now, the Starbucksification.  I have heard of the former term used before, but I haven’t heard of the latter yet.  Philippines, for sure is suffering a Starbucksification.

Perhaps it’s the convenience.  Both establishments are just around the corner.  Perhaps it’s the comfortable sofas and air conditioned rooms.  I must resist.  And in my resistance, I shall not put their logos here.  But then again, I have already mentioned their names here.