What type of activities are suited to outsourcing?

Typically BPO is divided into two areas Front Office & Back Office 

Front office 

Inbound sales

Outbound sales

Telemarketing

Customer service

Help desk

Order processing

Technical support

Appointment setting

Debt collection

Market research

Back office 

Accounting

Data entry

Database management

Claims processing

Transcriptions

Lease abstraction

Data extraction

Human resources

Tips when applying for a call center agent or customer service representative job?

In: Job Interviews, Job Training and Career Qualifications




Working as a customer service representative requires the employee to effectively deal with customers who have very different personalities and temperaments. What experiences have you had that demonstrate your skills in dealing with different types of people?
Employees occasionally have to deal with angry and verbally abusive customers. Assume an angry customer begins yelling at you about some problem she's having with your company. However, you are not personally responsible for the problem this customer is having. How would you deal with this customer?
Assume the following: A customer calls and tells you that because of some unusual circumstances, he's going to need some extra time to make his payment. Assuming you have the power to make the decision, what other kinds of information would you want to have before making a decision about his request?
From time to time, you may receive requests from customers that are not in line with standard policies or procedures. In some cases, we're able to make exceptions to our policies and procedures, but in other cases, we're just not able to do what the customer requests. If a customer asked you to do something that clearly could not be done, what would you say and do?
Dealing with a high volume of customers is a requirement of the job. Tell me about a time when you had to work under pressure in a fast-paced environment. How were you able to perform successfully in this environment?
Taking calls while typing is a requirement of the job. Describe your talk and type skills, when have you used this skill in your work history? What is your typing speed?
How do you calm down an angry customer?
How many languages do you speak and/or write? Describe your fluency level.
Describe a time when you had to deal with an irate customer who was abusive? How did you handle it?
1- Be your self
2- Talk business
3- Add a value to the interview
1. Is customer always right? why?
2. What are the main attributes a call center agent should have? do you have them?
3. What is a call center?
4. What are the different departments in a call center?
5. Why should a call center hire you?
6. What is the customer service for you?
What are the main skills a call center agent should have?
How to handle an upset customer?
Is customer always right ? and why?
Why should we hire you?
Call Center knowledge requirements will vary depending on the company, product and scope of the position. However typical knowledge requirements for a call center position include:
*Typing/keyboard (usually over 30 wpm) 
*basic computer and technological knowledge 
*knowledge of relevant software applications 
*numeric, oral and written language applications 
*administrative procedures and information processing 
*customer relationship principles and practices
Questions around the knowledge requirements can be answered by reviewing your CV or resume as they refer directly to your qualifications, training and work experience. Prepare for call center interview questions that explore your relevant training and work task experiences relating to the specific knowledge requirements listed.
Examples include:
What are your computer skills and what software applications have your used?"
"What size was the customer database you dealt with?"
"How many calls did you take/make in an average day?"
"What was the average length of each call?"
Answer
You definitely want to emphasize good customer service skills and problem solving. Think of an example or two for each. Staying calm under stress. Also, if you're experienced in this type of work, call volume -- the number of calls per hour.
Call center interview Questions and answers
1- Attitude
2- Team work
3- Patience
4- Computer skills
5- Communications
These are the main attributes you need to focus in.
call center is a firm that takes upon itself the responsibility of handling telephone calls of a big company that has a huge customer database but doesn't want to invest in the staff required to handle customer calls. For example, when you call up for airline reservations, directory assistance or PC breakdown help, the calls will most likely be handled by a call center.
Here are the top 5 call center interview questions and how you must prepare for them: 
1. Question: Tell us about your previous call center work experience and describe the manner in which you serviced the customers? 


This question may be thrown at you in the middle of the interview and you must be prepared for it. Before heading for any call center job interview, you must always review your past work experience and note down the highlights. 


Also, call centers look for team players, so focus on the successes you achieved with a team and talk about the achievements as being part of a team effort, not as your personal achievements. As far as the customer service part goes, you have to lay it down straight - tell your prospective employers about how you handled customers without any fiction thrown in. 


2. Question: Are you proficient in using different software? What are your computer skills?


All call centers use net telephony because it is cheaper than using land lines. Next, all call centers have a customer database and you must figure out what software is used for maintaining a customer database across different call centers. 


Then there are the log files, which have to be created after every call is answered. Finally, there are the usual applications such as MS Word, Excel, etc. Figure out all these software before you go for the interview. 


3. Question: This is not really a question, but the interviewer/s will be judging you by your communication skills, the way you deliver your lines and by your grammar.


So, when you are speaking in the interview, remember to speak in a clear and concise way and pick and choose your words. Use short sentences and deliver them in a slow, patient manner. 


4. Question: What does a call center mean to you? 


This question may seem harmless, but its connotations are huge. The interviewer is trying to gauge your seriousness and commitment to the job and this question is a standard call center interview question. 


Remember, you have to reply to this question in all seriousness and earnestness - never ever give the impression to the interviewer that you are taking the job just until you get a better one or for fun and profit. Be serious and say in a formal voice that you want to make a career out of working in a call center. 


5. Question: Describe the importance of teamwork and team spirit?


All call centers thrive on team spirit and if they get a whiff that you are a loner and will turn hostile while working in a team, they won't hire you. So, go ahead and pick up some management books that expound the virtues of teamwork and lay it on thick during the interview. 


These are the top 5 call center interview questions you can expect to be asked. If you have applied for a technical job, then expect the questions to focus on the technical subject with all the others questions being mainly fluff. 


A call center manager's interview questions will mostly focus on team building, team spirit and man-management skills. So, whatever job it is that you have applied for: prepare in the manner we have advised you and you will come up trumps.
Answer
Honest , and be confident..
Answer
How do you negotiate with clients,telephonically to achieve a win-win situation? 


source: wiki.answers.com

What is a Call Center?

Today call center is one of the most promising industry of the Philippines. Now what is a call center? A call center is a physical place where customer and other telephone calls are handled by an organization, usually with some amount of computer automation. Typically, a call center has the ability to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, to screen calls and forward them to someone qualified to handle them, and to log calls. Call centers are used by mail-order catalog organizations, telemarketing companies, computer product help desks, and any large organization that uses the telephone to sell or service products and services.

A call centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace for call centre agents, with work stations that include a computer for each agent, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration (CTI).

Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue retailers, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centres. Examples of this include help desks, retail financial support, and sales support.

A contact centre, also known as customer interaction center is a central point of any organization from which all customer contacts are managed. Through contact centers, valuable information about company are routed to appropriate people, contacts to be tracked and data to be gathered. It is generally a part of company’s customer relationship management (CRM). Today, customers contact companies by calling, emailing, chatting online, visiting websites, faxing and even instant messaging .

Here in the Philippines  a call center company g

What is BPO?

Business process outsourcing means examining the processes that compose the business and its functional units, and then working with focused service providers to both re-engineer and outsource these at the same time. BPO involves the full transfer of responsibility for functions such as transaction processing, policy servicing, claims management, HR, finance, and compliance to the outsourcing company. The outsourcing provider then administers these functions on their own systems to agreed service standards and at a guaranteed cost. 


Typically, companies that are looking at business process outsourcing are hoping to achieve cost savings by handing the work to a third-party that can take advantage of economies of scale by doing the same work for many companies. Or perhaps the cost savings can be achieved because labor costs are lower due to different costs of living in different countries (labor arbitrage). In exchange for the potential cost savings, the company in question must relinquish control over an aspect of their business that explains why business process outsourcing is often reserved for non-critical, non-core type of work. 

Why do companies outsource?

Reduce and control operating costs
Improve company focus 
Gain access to world-class capabilities 
Free internal resources for other purposes
Gain access to resources that are not available internally 
Accelerate reengineering benefits 
Handle functions that are difficult to manage or are out of control 
Make capital funds available 
Share risks 
Bring in a cash infusion

Is call center industry is a sunshine industry?

The call center industry is tagged as the "sunshine industry" by the government because of its massive expansion, thus generating thousands of employment. It is the fastest growing sector within the IT software and services industry. It is not only sprouting in Metro Manila, but in other metropolitan areas as well like Cebu, Baguio Davao and Pampanga. With an unemployment rate at 13 percent, the highest in Southeast Asia, the call center industry is perceived as a rare bright spot in the country sailing economy.


Thus, the Arroyo government is putting high hopes in the ICT-enabled services sector for the development of the economy. To realize its goal of placing the Philippines in the call center map of the world, the government has designated more than 96 special economic zones that offer tax breaks and other incentives to foreign investors and is improving the telecommunications and other basic infrastructure.


The available skilled labor force however could not catch up with the demand of the industry. Out of the 380,000 graduates produced annually, a mere five percent qualifies as call center agents. In fact, only three to five percent of applicants are taken in by the call center industry.


What is very alarming is the government mainstreaming the education system to churn out graduates that would fit the qualifications needed by the industry. In this regard, the Technical Education and Skills Authority (TESDA) of the Department of Labor and Employment has released a scholarship fund for would-be contact center professionals. Malacanang mandated English as the primary medium of instruction in both primary and secondary levels, aside from placing more emphasis on Math and Science as preventive measures. On the tertiary level, a number of schools all over the country, like UE in Recto, are now offering the subject Advanced Communication for International Business.


As remedial measures, formal training and certification programs for call centers have already started in training centers like AHEAD Learning Systems and the Avaya Customer Contact Training Center (ACCTC) located at the Mapua Institute of Technology. Call centers like People Support (Phils) Inc. has already started conducting special classes in the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) on basic contact center education for graduating students.


University of the Philippines student leader Atom Araullo, himself a graduating student, says that this move on the part of the government is reflective of the dominance of other countries in the economic affairs of the country. This tendency is nothing new since based from history, the government has been mainstreaming the education system of the country based on the demands of the global market for semi-skilled workers.


Not so Bright after All


After a deeper analysis, the exponential growth of the call center does not paint a very bright picture after all. Although the quality of the Filipino labor force lures in investors, the undoubtedly more decisive factor would be the cheaper labor cost. While the salary rate is comparatively higher from the minimum wage popularly offered nowadays, the practice of developed countries to exploit the cheap labor pool of underdeveloped countries would eventually lead to lower wages, especially so since 60 percent of the operational cost of a contact center in the country goes to labor, according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).


Research also shows concerns on the health costs for those working the graveyard shifts. According to Rebecca Stoll, an analyst for US research group Gartner, after touring call centers in the country, as you can just work at night so long before you burn out. This suggests that prolonged call center employment may pose several health risks for the agents.


Most workers are denied to right to unionize. There is lack of job security and the labor force is not trained for skills that would benefit the country. At the other end of the line, agents are often subjected to racial discrimination, harassment and verbal abuse, and yet obliged to remain unruffled and calm. Weng adds, 'Stressful, especially during the early part. But then I have to learn to detach myself. I sometimes feel like a robot, I'm not learning anything.


Bubble Industry


Analysts predict that aside from facing stiff competition from other countries, the market would soon be saturated and the industry will burst. This is the reason why mainstreaming the education system just to cater to the demands of the call center industry would be a big blow to the economy.


According to Melvir Buela, an undergraduate engineering student from UP Diliman, the education system should be attuned to what the country really needs. He added that for undergraduates looking for jobs to save money for the rising tuition rates, call centers are the best option since the shift and the high pay are beneficial. However, he does not approve of the brain drain to the semi-skilled call centers.


Araullo says that graduates flocking to call centers imply that many are finding it harder and harder to find decent jobs. So instead of putting all the resources into sustaining the growth of call centers in the country, the government should instead exhaust all means in localizing industries in order to generate sustainable employment for the 31 million unemployed Filipinos.


Araullo adds that students should always view call centers as an option until basic reforms are put into place. "Students should not be ashamed. It's a decent job. But then they have to think, be curious and be open to the potential that they themselves would be the key to in initiating positive changes in the future."Bulatlat

Largest call center in the world opens in RP

Filed Under: business process outsourcing (BPO)


MANILA, Philippines — More jobs are up for grabs in the local business processing outsourcing (BPO) industry despite the global economic slump, according to a leading call-center company.
Marife Zamora, Convergys vice president and country manager, said demand for BPOs in the Philippines continues to rise as Filipino call-center agents are known for their proficiency in English and for their good work ethic.
“2009 is a banner year for us. We have opened five new centers and we know we will overachieve our forecast of 20,000 employees by December. We believe next year will be another great year for us. Business has really been burgeoning,” Zamora said Thursday as Convergys opened its 12th and latest call center site at Glorietta 5 mall in Makati City.
“It’s really a testament to the quality of delivery of people here in the Philippines. Filipinos are really a talented lot,” she said.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was the guest of honor at the opening of the Glorietta 5 site, Convergys’ largest call center facility in the world, making Convergys the largest BPO company in the country in terms of employee headcount.
According to Zamora, local BPO firms will remain highly dependent on call center services, or so-called voice services, despite the global shift toward higher-value added “non-voice” services.
Call center services account for the bulk of BPO services in the country but typically require less-skilled workers for which clients pay less.
By contrast, India, the global industry leader, has developed a deep pool of non-voice workers that specialize in providing highly technical services likeaccounting, engineering, programming and design services, among others.
Convergys’ forte
Asked whether Convergys would join the industry shift toward higher-value added services, Zamora said the firm’s forte continues to be in the field of “customer management services” (CMS), which are mainly call center operations.
“What we plan to do is strengthen our CMS. That’s where the Philippines holds a leadership position,” she said.
She said 90 percent of the company’s employees are involved in call center operations, while only 10 percent are involved in “back office” services like accounts receivable management.
Carl Handy, Convergys senior vice president for human resources, said the demand for call center agents will remain strong, despite industry predictions of a lessening dependence on them with the advent of greater automation.
“At the end of the day, there will always be [call center] agents. We don’t see agents going away in the foreseeable future,” he said.
The company’s second site on Ayala Avenue and the 12th in the country, the Glorietta 5 center was started in 2003 and began operating in April. Its other sites are in Manila, Cebu, Bacolod and Sta. Rosa, Laguna.
Attached to shopping center
This is the first Convergys site that is attached to a shopping complex. The facility has a total floor area of 17,000 square meters. It has 2,041 seats which could be ramped up to 3,500 to accommodate future client demand.
With the new facility, Convergys said it now employs 17,500 BPO workers in the country, making it the largest call center employer in the Philippines.
It will soon add another 300 seats at its UP-Ayala Land TechnoHub site in Quezon City, and inaugurate a 300-seat site in San Lazaro, Manila, early next year.
Convergys clients include US-based firms involved in financial services and banking, telecommunications, information technology, pharmaceuticals, and the retail and e-commerce sectors.
Equal opportunity employer
Zamora said the launch of the 12th Convergys site also indicated that the company’s clients from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia preferred the Philippines over other countries like India, its closest competitor in the BPO industry.
She said Convergys is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate with regard to age, gender, religion and physical disability.
“So if you have friends and relatives who need a job and have a good command of English and are computer-savvy, we’re hiring,” she said.






By Daxim Lucas, Allison Lopez
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:28:00 10/23/2009

Agents are very important in a Call Center industry

Call center agents are the core assets of call center firm. They provide customer support services. They directly interact with your customers and offer good relationship to them. A call center agent must resolve all customer queries. They must know more information and must learn to check all issues and solve them.  Their goal is to provide excellent customer support service via telephone, email or web-based transactions.  At present, Call Centers not only respond to phone calls. They also search and quote information, take comprehensive and correct orders and messages, accept and transmit faxes and emails, and make it definite that the right person got the message.


In their competitive environment, call center agents deal with their client's inbound, outbound call handling, back office support, email, chat support, and technical help desk support. Most Call Centers help to modify services according to their client’s needs to guarantee that they are handled efficiently. The qualified and good experienced call center agents give services 24/7. Customers are addressed and helped by friendly and polite professionals.

Call Center for the Blind

A call center which will only employ blind persons had opened here in the Philippines last October 20, 2009 at the ATRIEV's Training Center for the Blind in Quezon City. The project will be presented at the APEC Conference in Singapore in the mid of November 2009.


This will help disabled people to cross the digital genre. The call center facility will have 8 training rooms, 3 desks alloted for outbound calls, adaptive hardware, and customized software that will assist the needs and abilities of a blind. This is called "refreshable Braille" which allows totally blind individuals to provide customer assistance while listening to the client on the phone and reading the responses in Braille. At present, there are 6 totally blind, low vision, and sighted graduates who are being taught as trainors in Taipei, Taiwan where the headquarters of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Digital Opportunity Center (ADOC) was located. The call center is a project of the Adaptive Technology for Rehabilitation, Integration, and Empowerment of the Visually Impaired (ATRIEV) Inc. and ADOC granted the funds for the feature. ATRIEV is a business that pioneered in computer training for the blind in the country. The Resources for the Blind, National Council on Disability Affairs, Philippine National School for the Blind, and the Department of Education also helped in this activity. This organization also offered IT-related training for the unsighted in the last 15 years. They use a "screen reader", a software application that converts text to speech and provides screen magnification. On-the-job training (by using voicemail transcription) is also provided by ADOC to its qualified IT-related training graduates, in partnership with Gallop IT Solutions, a local transcription company. [via gmanews.tv]

What is a Call Center?

Today call center is one of the most promising industry of the Philippines. Now what is a call center? A call center is a physical place where customer and other telephone calls are handled by an organization, usually with some amount of computer automation. Typically, a call center has the ability to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, to screen calls and forward them to someone qualified to handle them, and to log calls. Call centers are used by mail-order catalog organizations, telemarketing companies, computer product help desks, and any large organization that uses the telephone to sell or service products and services.

A call centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace for call centre agents, with work stations that include a computer for each agent, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration (CTI).

Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue retailers, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centres. Examples of this include help desks, retail financial support, and sales support.

A contact centre, also known as customer interaction center is a central point of any organization from which all customer contacts are managed. Through contact centers, valuable information about company are routed to appropriate people, contacts to be tracked and data to be gathered. It is generally a part of company’s customer relationship management (CRM). Today, customers contact companies by calling, emailing, chatting online, visiting websites, faxing and even instant messaging .

Now what industry is more promising than a call center industry?

City of Lights

Quezon City for me is a city of lights. Look at this beautiful city hall at night. There's a yellow light emitting at this huge building. During the day you can read the message it says. I like my city hall very beautiful and impressive!

Read Minds

Yes, you can read minds. Maybe not like Mel Gibson in that silly movie, "What Women Want," but you can learn how to get a better idea of the general state of mind and receptivity of the person in front of you. The following is just one of the techniques for mind reading.


Watch Those Pupils To Read Minds
A persons pupils get bigger when they are aroused, interested and/or receptive. If you look into his or her eyes and see those pupils growing large - it's looking good for you. Basically, big pupils (unless it's just dark) mean a person likes what they see.

Try this experiment, and you'll understand how immediate this effect can be. Go right now and look in the mirror at your own eyes. As you look at them, imagine a sexy man or woman you are attracted to - in whatever way would turn you on. You'll see that your pupils get bigger in just seconds.

Actually, if you love to fish, they may get big just thinking about a lake you love. Anything you like to look at can make your pupils bigger. How do you use this knowledge to read minds?

First, watch for changing of pupil size to know if someone is interested in you or what you have to say. Shrinking or pupils generally mean the person is not interested. Be careful to note if light in the persons eyes is causing the shrinking pupils, or if a darkening room is causing the pupil enlargement.

Besides judging the general level of interest and/or receptivity to you, you can use pupil size to go a little deeper into a person's mind. For example, during the course of a conversation, you could describe various scenes or delve into different topics, while watching the persons pupils. Suppose his pupils shrank at the mention of skiing, and got huge when you described a beach you like. You can be fairly certain they would like the Bahamas over a ski resort.

One thing about this little mind reading trick is that you can easily test it and refine your technique. Practice and read minds with a friend whose interests you know already. Just watch this or her pupils as you describe various places or even ideas. Try getting them to visualize, by saying something "Remember how that car of yours looked," to see if that gets a bigger pupil response.

Watching a persons eyes doesn't have to be limited to checking on that pupil size, though. Just by watching where those eyes go, for example, you can learn a lot. Notice what kind of women a man looks at. Is he paying any attention to the game on the TV? Does he seem bored or interested as he looks at different things? Reading eyes is a good start to reading minds.

Note:

This was excerpted from chapter 7 of my ebook "You Aren't Supposed To Know - A Book Of Secrets." Chapter seven continues with explanations of how to read minds from various eye movements, and how to subliminally influence people. You can use the link below if you want more information.

Custom Search

Christmas is in the Air.

Finally!

I just want to share this diary of my friend seems so cheesy....

He called last night. I have been trying to reach him days before I made a decision and his phone is always unattended, I even thought he changed number already. Then three days after I decided, he called. He asked me how I am, and I said I'm doing good. I felt awkward. I felt butterflies in my stomach. I so badly want to tell him that I missed him so much and that I am so glad that he called, but of course, I did not.
Then I told him. Silence. About a minute passed until he said, "Ah, talaga?". Then he laughed. I did too, but tears almost fell down my cheeks. I won't forget him. Not ever. But I also know that I have to move on. I can't always be like this - waiting in vain. And I am happy with my new life, I really am, and I have no plans of hurting other people's feelings just because of him.
Letting go - I learned it the hard way. I may still think about him, I may still miss him, but all of it is a process. Doing it all at the same time was torture. So now I'm taking it one step at a time.
I can honestly say that I am happy with my new life - my days are now brighter and I now have another new set of friends that I can turn to anytime, and a new bestbuddy!!!
This person once told me that I've been through a lot and I deserve better - well, I am better. And I am sooo sooo happy. =)

leave? stay?

Of course I get tired. Especially if you are doing the same thing over and over, deprived of sleep and getting dependent on CosmoSkin and Conzace to prevent yourself from looking so stressed out and freakishly way older than your age.

I have been doing this for more than a year and a half. I've had my share of irate and kind customers. Crazy ones. Rude ones. The soft-spoken ones. He's right, I've been doing this for more than a year and I am so good at it if I would just avoid being so childlike and refrain from being the team's happy-go-lucky agent. As per my team leader, I am wasting the opportunities I can get with the personality that I have.
Maybe he is right, but lately, I really am not motivated anymore.
I can say that it is a good company. Convergys is one of those truly stable companies in the country. They have good credentials, they have great benefits. And the pay is waaay good. At my age, I am lucky enough to be earning way more than graduates and those with more work experience. You know that feeling, when somebody asks you, "Where do you work?" and you proudly say "Convergys". Because honestly, it is not easy to get in.
There are the ups and downs. I have been blessed with three amazing mentors and great friends with each team that I've had. There is the avail season, starting from January to March, where the avail time can last for as long as 20 minutes - meaning you're being paid to browse the net illegally, chat with your seatmates, eat on your workstation, or walk around the production floor, pretend to get free coffee from the machine but in fact trying to spy on your crush. 
There is the dreaded NFL season, where calls are on queue, literally lunok lang ang pahinga, you're always out of breath, upset, stressed out, pimples popping out of your face, and paos na by the time the shift has ended. The postshift - where over and over you'll be told what to do to meet and exceed the stats.
It has been the same, for the last year and the half.
Part of me wants to try something new, tempted to follow those who left, and say goodbye to my team. But part of me wants to stay, because I have a family here.
I am so confused. But right now, I need the patience, and the strength to stay where I'm currently at and think - really think before making any decisions which I may regret in the future.
Sigh.

Redemption

I hope I can find it in myself to forgive.


I am normally a happy-go-lucky person. I am very impulsive. But sometimes, being too risky has its disadvantages.


Here I am now, in more pain than I have ever imagined.


I know I have never done anything wrong, I have given my best and showed who I truly am. I never asked for anything in return but at least I expected respect.


I am now back on track. I am happy because I have my friends. I am happy because love has given me a second chance. But the pain is still there.


Sigh.

Battle Royale

It was a class of 42 students

It is the team of 11 individuals

There was a beautiful couple who jumped from a cliff, refusing to participate in the game, afraid to risk dying or living apart

There is the beautiful couple who are being pushed over the edge, refusing to give in, afraid to be separated

There was a class representative who bonded with several girls until doubt and fear got caught in the bond and eliminated them all

There is the team leader who has a close bond with the team but a web of restrictions is impelling contamination to the bond

There was an incomplete transferee, one devoid of emotions and feelings, first one who decided to participate in the game, a monster

There is the unneeded trensferee, the flint of emotions and feelings, the first one who decided to change the rules of the game, the nightmare

It was a class of 42 students. There were only 2 survivors

It is the team of 11 individuals ... and counting

Finally my Starbucks Planner is Here!!!

The wait is over! Now i have my own Planner, After many buys at Starbucks now i have my own planner for 2010. I know here in the Philippines this is like one of the luxuries in life. The coffee is somewhat expensive for an ordinary Filipino like me, but since i promised to myself that i will get my planner no matter what it takes. Now i can't wait to see 2010 and write some of my plan each day ahead.

Claim Your 1 Million Guaranteed Real Visitors!

Christmas starts in Ber months here in the Philippines

Smokers!

I went to SM North skygarden for my usual  starbucks. We had VGH at 1:30pm after much waiting. I grab my cellphone camera for me to shoot this gruesome cigarette burning on this bin.

Fruit in Season

I went to Sm Hypermarket North Edsa for my groceries. I happen to pass by on their fruit aisle and the fruits there looks delectable. I grab some and here you go. My dessert for the day. Yummy!

Sticker hunter from Starbucks

Few stickers to go and i will have my 2010 planner from Starbucks. It's been weeks now since i started collecting stickers. This year, the Starbucks holiday tradition returns with a Limited Edition Starbucks Coffee Philippines 2010 Planner, available in 3 different textured and designed covers reflecting the unique stages of the coffee bean. Starting November 4, you only need 17 stickers to redeem a planner. As in previous years, every redemption comes with a donation to the continuous relief efforts for the Typhoon Ondoy victims and to SparkHope – Starbucks flagship program for early childhood care and development in partnership with UNICEF.

crazy little thing called LOVE

Love...
One of the most complicated mysteries of life. People say that it's a natural phenomena and others would say that it can be scientifically explained. But can love really be propitious? Or is it just another one of the greatest disappointments made to destruct one's pride or ego?

Here's the common scenario:

Two people meet up > They can flirt > They can even have sex > Become friends > Spend some time seeing each other > Relationship getting deeper > Finally realizing they're falling in love with each other > Commitment/Non-commitment > Other one cheats/leaves > The other becomes miserable > He/She decides to move on and eventually the cycle will start all over again...

Being in love is like entertaining hurts and disappointments. It's about being ready to risk everything for that single person to whom you could share that thing they called "genuine happiness". Getting hurt is just a part of it, but sometimes you'll realize that part of being happy is getting hurt. I know it's hard to understand because it's too intricate...too complex. But I'm sure to those people who have fallen in love and still falling in love knows how I feel right now.

I may be young to discuss all this love talks but I know to myself that I've experienced enough to define love but I'm still struggling to unravel love's true mystery and I could only hope that one day I will be victorious.

Haven't you noticed? People can get hurt and still they choose to fall in love over and over again. This is because of one definite reason: for them to be happy. But soon you'll realize that loving isn't just about your personal happiness...it'll always be the happiness of you both...and to some, it'll be the happiness of the one you love alone.

It's good to be in love...but do you know the greatest feeling in the world? Let me tell you....

"The greatest feeling in the world is to love and be loved in return..."

It's Just A Matter Of Growing Up.

I've had my share of ups and downs - been there, done that. I made mistakes. All people do. But the important thing is to learn from those mistakes and know how to stand up again. Paulo Coelho was right. I learned that you have to take risks, otherwise, you wouldn't understand the meaning of life fully. Though on the other hand, taking risks is not the only way to do it. You need to set goals, you need to have a gameplan. Looking back, I realized how childlike, how immature and how irresponsible I was. How overly eager to try out things, how impatient I was to get things done, and most of all, HOW MUCH TIME I'VE WASTED ON NONSENSICAL THINGS, AND MISSING OUT ON EVERY GREAT OPPORTUNITY THAT CAME MY WAY.


So I learned...


...that above all, God and faith in Him is the most important.
...my age has nothing to do with how I should think and behave.
...TRUST IS THE KEY TO A HAPPY RELATIONSHIP.
...everything takes time. Patience is a virtue.
...you have to see everything as a blessing. And be thankful for it.
...people come and go, it will hurt you deeply, but on the bright side you'll know who's real and who's not.
...that no matter how dysfunctional your FAMILY is, they would always be worth your love.
...if I had not took this one great risk, I would never be this happy. With all the help of prayers, guidance, and soul-searching, I finally came to the conclusion that if I let this pass - I will be left with a thousand what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. I know my faith in God and the goodness of people will help me all throughout this journey. In the end, in case it wouldn't be a happy ending, it would be nice to know that I got what I've always wanted - and more.


Live. Laugh. Love. Pray. Forget the pain, never hold grudges, hold on for your own happy ever after.

BOB ONG'S QUOTABLE QUOTES

I stumbled upon some of the messages of Bob Ong in the net. Here you go.


“Kung hindi mo mahal ang isang tao, wag ka nang magpakita ng motibo para mahalin ka nya..”

“Huwag mong bitawan ang bagay na hindi mo kayang makitang hawak ng iba.”

“Huwag mong hawakan kung alam mong bibitawan mo lang.”

“Huwag na huwag ka hahawak kapag alam mong may hawak ka na.”

“Parang elevator lang yan eh, bakit mo pagsisiksikan ung sarili mo kung walang pwesto para sayo. Eh meron naman hagdan, ayaw mo lang pansinin.”- Hahaha Sabi naman ni Juan tamad, “Babalik at babalik parin ang elevator, kaya mas maganda na maghintay ka nalang”

“Kung maghihintay ka nang lalandi sayo, walang mangyayari sa buhay mo.. Dapat lumandi ka din.”

“Pag may mahal ka at ayaw sayo, hayaan mo. Malay mo sa mga susunod na araw ayaw mo na din sa kanya, naunahan ka lang.”

“Hiwalayan na kung di ka na masaya. Walang gamot sa tanga kundi pagkukusa.”

“Pag hindi ka mahal ng mahal mo wag ka magreklamo. Kasi may mga tao rin na di mo mahal pero mahal ka.. Kaya quits lang.”

“Kung dalawa ang mahal mo, piliin mo yung pangalawa. Kasi hindi ka naman magmamahal ng iba kung mahal mo talaga yung una.”

“Hindi porke’t madalas mong ka-chat, kausap sa telepono, kasama sa mga lakad o ka-text ng wantusawa eh may gusto sayo at magkakatuluyan kayo. Meron lang talagang mga taong sadyang friendly, sweet, flirt, malandi, pa-fall o paasa.” -

“Huwag magmadali sa babae o lalaki. Tatlo, lima, sampung taon, mag-iiba ang pamantayan mo at maiisip mong hindi pala tamang pumili ng kapareha dahil lang maganda o nakakalibog ito. Totong mas mahalaga ang kalooban ng tao higit sa anuman. Sa paglipas ng panahon, maging ang mga crush ng bayan nagmumukha ding pandesal, maniwala ka.”
“Minsan kahit ikaw ang nakaschedule, kailangan mo pa rin maghintay, kasi hindi ikaw ang priority.”

“Mahirap pumapel sa buhay ng tao. Lalo na kung hindi ikaw yung bida sa script na pinili nya.”

“Alam mo ba kung gaano kalayo ang pagitan ng dalawang tao pag nagtalikuran na sila? Kailangan mong libutin ang buong mundo para lang makaharap ulit ang taong tinalikuran mo.”

“Mas mabuting mabigo sa paggawa ng isang bagay kesa magtagumpay sa paggawa ng wala.”

“Hindi lahat ng kaya mong intindihin ay katotohan, at hindi lahat ng hindi mo kayang intindihin ay kasinungalingan”

“Ang pag-ibig parang imburnal…nakakatakot mahulog…at kapag nahulog ka, it’s either by accident or talagang tanga ka..”

Finding your LIFE PARTNER.

I was checking out my best buddy Rachel's Multiply account when I found this article she posted on her blog.

GOLDEN RULES for finding your LIFE PARTNER.

When it comes to making the decision about choosing a life partner, no one wants to make a mistake. Yet, with a divorce rate of close to 50%, it appears that many are making serious mistakes in their approach to finding Mr. /Miss. Right!

If you ask most couples who are engaged why they're getting married, they'll say: "We're in love"; I believe this is the...1 mistake people make when they date. Choosing a life partner should never be based on love. Though this may sound "not politically correct", there's aprofound truth here.

Love is not the basis for getting married. Rather, love is the result of a good marriage. When the other ingredients are right, then the love will come. Let me say it again: "You can't build a lifetime relationship on love alone"; You need a lot more!!!

Here are five questions you must ask yourself if you're serious about finding and keeping a life partner.

Question #1: Do we share a common life purpose?

Why is this so important? Let me put it this way: If you're married for 20 or 30 years, that's a long time to live with someone. What do you plan to do with each other all that time? Travel, eat and jog together? You need to share something deeper and more meaningful. You need a common life purpose.

Two things can happen in a marriage: (1) You can grow together, or (2) you can grow apart. 50% of the people out there are growing apart.
To make a marriage work, you need to know what you want out of life!

Bottom line; marry someone who wants the same thing.

Question #2: Do I feel safe expressing my feelings and thoughts with this person?

This question goes to the core of the quality of your relationship. Feeling safe means you can communicate openly with this person. The basis of having good communication is trust - i.e. trust that I won't get "punished" or hurt for expressing my honest thoughts and feelings. A colleague of mine defines an abusive person as someone with whom you feel afraid to express your thoughts and feelings. Be honest with yourself on this one. Make sure you feel emotionally safe with the person you plan to marry.

Question #3: Is he/she a mensch?

A mensch is someone who is a refined and sensitive person. How can you test? Here are some suggestions. Do they work on personal growth on a regular basis? Are they serious about improving themselves? A teacher of mine defines a good person as "someone who is always striving to be good and do the right” so ask about your significant other: What do they do with their time? Is this person materialistic? Usually a materialistic person is not someone whose top priority is character refinement.

There are essentially two types of people in the world: (1) People who are dedicated to personal growth and (2) people who are dedicated to seeking comfort. Someone whose goal in life is to be comfortable will put personal comfort ahead of doing the right thing. You need to know that before walking down the aisle.

Question #4: How does he/she treat other people?

The one most important thing that makes any relationship work is the ability to give. By giving, we mean the ability to give another person pleasure.

Ask: Is this someone who enjoys giving pleasure to others or are they wrapped up in themselves and self- absorbed?
To measure this, think about the following: How do they treat people whom they do not have to be nice to, such as waiters, bus boys, taxi drivers, etc.. How do they treat their parents and siblings? Do they have gratitude and appreciation?
If they don't have gratitude for the people who have given them everything; can you do nearly as much for them? You can be sure that someone who treats others poorly will eventually treat you poorly as well.

Question #5: Is there anything I'm hoping to change about this person after we're married?

Too many people make the mistake of marrying someone with the intention of trying to "improve" them after they're married. As a colleague of mine puts it: "You can probably expect someone to change after marriage for the worse". If you cannot fully accept this person the way they are now, then you are not ready to marry them.

In conclusion, dating doesn't have to be difficult and treacherous. The key is to try leading a little more with your head and less with your heart. It pays to be as objective as possible when you are dating; to be sure to ask questions that will help you get to the key issues. Falling in love is a great feeling, but when you wake up with a ring on your finger, you don't want to find yourself trouble because you didn't do your homework.

Another perspective. ..

There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance... It's amazing what you can accomplish when you let go of or at least minimize your time with draining, negative, incompatible, not-going anywhere relationships. Observe the relationships around you.

Pay attention... Which ones lift and which ones lean?
Which ones encourage and which ones discourage?
Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill?
When you leave certain people do you feel better or feel worse?
Which ones always have drama or don't really understand, know, or appreciate you?

The more you seek quality, respect, growth, peace of mind, love and truth around you...the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the front row and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.

An African proverb states, "Before you get married, keep both eyes open, and after you marry, close one eye" Before you get involved and make a commitment to someone, don't let lust, desperation, immaturity, ignorance, pressure from others or a low self-esteem make you blind to warning signs. Keep your eyes open, and don't fool yourself that you can change someone or that what you see as faults isn’t really that important.

Do you bring out the best in each other?
Do you compliment and compromise with each other, or do you compete, compare and control?
What do you bring to the relationship?
Do you bring past relationships, past hurt, past mistrust, past pain?

You can't take someone to the altar to alter them. You can't make someone love you or make someone stay.

If you develop self-esteem, spiritual discernment, and "a life" you won't find yourself making someone else responsible for your happiness or responsible for your pain. Seeking status, sex, and security are the wrong reasons to be in a relationship.

WHAT KEEPS A RELATIONSHIP STRONG IS:
1. TRUST
2. COMMUNICATION
3. INTIMACY
4. A SENSE OF HUMOR
5. SHARING TASKS
6. SOME GETAWAY TIME WITHOUT BUSINESS OR CHILDREN
7. DAILY EXCHANGES (meal, shared activity, hug, call, touch, notes, etc.)
8. SHARING COMMON GOALS AND INTERESTS
9. GIVING EACH OTHER SPACE TO GROW WITHOUT FEELING INSECURE
10. GIVING EACH OTHER A SENSE OF BELONGING AND ASSURANCES OF COMMITMENT

If these qualities are missing, the relationship will erode as resentment withdrawal, abuse, neglect, and dishonesty; and pain will replace.
~


My friend Rache finally found her life partner, after a long search. And with what she's been through, I am so happy for her.

I am only 20. Not yet the suitable age for marriage, but as with most women out there, of course I am already searching for THE ONE. Before, I used to go for cute guys, those that are super fun to be with, has decency, and I have this list of requirements that I now realize doesn't give much importance in a relationship.

Maybe, I've really grown up. Because now, I realize, being in love is not the only key in entering a relationship. A person has to weigh things, pros and cons, compromise, and have a really deep understanding of what he or she is entering. There would be risks. We have to face the reality that THERE WOULD ALWAYS BE UPS AND DOWNS IN A RELATIONSHIP. Being happily in love alone does not ensure a long one.

So thanks Rache for this article. It made me happy. Who knows, maybe - when everything is settled, and I pray to God that it would be - the person I'm currently with would turn out to be my life partner. Ü