Tomorrow, I’ll be going to Bulacan to accompany a group of students on their field trip to Biak-na-Bato. I’m a little excited but, at the same time, dreadful because of a lot of reasons.

For one, the students that I’m going with are much younger than the students that I usually handle (fourth and fifth graders). These are children that are around 10 to 12 years of age, which means rowdy and boisterous bunch of girls and boys. Second, I still have a ton of things that I have to finish before the week ends. Third, out-of-town trips are usually tiring enough even without having to watch over students. Fourth, since the destination is far, assembly time would be really early, as in 5:30-in-the-morning kind of early.

On the other hand, a field trip is a field trip. It’s still a break from work even though it entails accompanying the children. Might as well enjoy it!

Our friend is thinking of settling down for good in New York. She’s looking into the North Fork real estate market for possible properties she might be interested in. She’s trying to look for a good real estate agent and I told her about Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Since she’s thinking of getting a property in North Folk, I looked at the site and saw that this company has a good, extensive listing of properties in the Hamptons and North Folk. Their site would even make her search for her dream home easy because they have a lot of photos, she can easily see and browse through different properties. I hope she finds a house soon, we’re also eager to visit her once she gets settled down.

Finally, the science expo eliminations has come to a close. We’re done with the presentations, the judging and the setting up. All that’s left is to tally to scores and determine the best projects in each division.

Of course, I have my biases. I can’t wait but hope that my advisees make it to the top of their divisions. I am genuinely proud of most of them. But, alas, I can’t do anything about the scores. The outcome depended purely on the judges’ call from the moment that the presentations began. Now, all I have to do is to bear the suspense and wait for the official announcements.

I can only cross my fingers…

There are a lot of people a lot to say about customer service. Andrea’s aunt has a small boutique that sells clothes and shoe. One of her main concerns is providing excellent customer service to her clients. She’s not always in her store to monitor how her employees are treating their customers so it’s a current problem for her. There are a lot of ways to evaluate a customer shopping experience. I’ve suggested getting some mysterious shoppers who will help identify the strengths and weaknesses of her employees. It would then be easy to address the improvements needed for the store. I’ve told her about Bestmark.com, a site that provides a unique mystery shopping program and customer survey programs. They go beyond providing such programs, instead they also introduce solid management and data alignment solutions to help improve your business. She’s all for it if it means the betterment of her shop.

Before mateo was born, I promised andrea I would do the cleaning whenever the baby poops. And I did exactly that. In fact, my first encounter with mateo’s behind was explicitly described by my wife in her previous post. But because I had to go back to work and also because she decided on staying home to take care of mateo, andrea got the lion’s share of the cleaning eventually. I only help out occasionally when mateo’s in a grouchy mood.

But a few days ago, unfortunately, I started cleaning his bottoms again. Why? Because when we inspected his butt, we saw that it was already red with scrapes, perhaps from all those times when cat or andrea would wipe off the poop with tissue. We decided to forget the wiping for now and stick to good old hand-washing in order to clean him without irritating his butt.

But andrea, of course was adamant that I should do the deed. I, on the other hand, didn’t want to provoke a fight so I decided not to argue anymore. Anyway, I promised her I would be the one to clean mateo’s butt in the first place, so I did. Now, I’m proudly reclaiming the role of mateo’s poop cleaner. Huhu!

Is there such a thing? Is it possible to have an accident and expect it to be hassle-free? An accident is a hassle itself. Things get more complicated if other people other than yourself are involved in the accident too. Andrea’s dad has been in more than one accident already. Almost all of those were car-related accidents. Most of the time, it’s his fault. Thankfully, the most damage he has inflicted is on a plant box. God forbid if he injures anyone in the future. Despite having injured no one in any of his accidents, all of them are definitely not hassle-free. What more if people are involved? Or worse, you’re the injured one? My sister, on the otherhand, has a friend who was sideswiped by a truck. It seems that processing Accident Claims are not that easy too. According to him, he never realized how important it is to get a good legal service whenever you’re claiming compensation for personal injury. There are great services like Keypoint Legal Services that offers a No Win No Fee agreement which means their services cost you nothing if the claim is unsuccessful. Great, huh? It’s a shame that my sister’s friend didn’t know about this when he was trying to get compensation from the accident. Next time, he knows which help he’s going to get. But let’s hope there won’t be any next time.