Wake Up! : Starbucks Black Iced Tea

Since I was having heavy eyelids the entire afternoon, me and my officemate grabbed something to wake us up. We ended up at Starbucks Coffee along F. Ortigas Jr. Road in Ortigas Center. It's located at Emerald building beside The Orient Square, where our office is at.

It was thanks to the Php 300 gift certificate my officemate had as a reward for perfect attendance. We bought two Grande Iced Teas and two Honey Glazed donuts which amounted to the same amount as the GCs.

There were two kinds of iced tea, the barista said. One was the black tea and the other was the passion fruity one. I forgot the names. He said that the black tea has caffeine in it while the other has none, but possess a tutti frutti flavor. Well, my officemate tasted the fruity one and remarked that it is somewhat sweet. That leaves the black tea to me. I should say that the caffeine was masked by the usual black tea flavor and it turned out to be a unique blend which is really delicious. The honey-glazed donut's taste is similar to the honey-glazed donut of Krispy Kreme. Dunno if they buy the donut there. *peaceout*

I would recommend the iced tea for those who are seeking for a unique flavor. So far today's snack woke me up ang gave me energy to work once again. Thanks to the GC and to the caffeine! It was a great first time experience!

Day 1: MVC 4 Highlights

For the last 2 hours what we did was discuss how ASP.NET MVC 4 works. There was no coding yet since our Visual Studio solutions has no MVC 4 template. Our trainor created a sample MVC project and we explored how the structure of MVC differ from that of ASP.NET web forms. And gosh, there was a lot.

MVC 4 does not contain physical files. Unlike in ASP.NET web forms, the codes locate the .aspx files. Let's say I'm at the home page, I want to go to the About page. Therefore, I must have a page called Home.aspx and About.aspx. In MVC 4, these are not needed anymore. The pages are represented by methods in a specific controller. If you notice in a MVC website, there is no .aspx extension in the url. Instead of http://localhost:1111/Home.aspx, you have http://localhost:1111.

We also created a CRUD (create, retrieve, update, delete) functions for the sample project. MVC 4 provides a quick way in generating a form view for the model by using the @Html.EditorForModel() helper. What you need to add is the save button for the transaction.

Tomorrow, we will be creating a project from scratch. Let's see how it will work out. Gladly, we have pork barbecue for lunch! Yippee!

ASP.NET MVC 4: It Is So On!!!

Photo courtesy of Google Images
Our office announced last week that the training department will be conducting a week-long training for ASP.NET MVC 4. Well, being one of those who are hungry for new technologies (when I say hungry, I am really into learning new stuff especially if it concerns my expertise) I am one of those people who signed up. It is also stated that there will only be 8 slots for the said training. Even if I am currently engaged in a web-based project, we're not using MVC 4. That aspect may minimize my chance of being engaged in that activity.

But God is really good. He granted me the opportunity of attending those 5 sessions starting today. Being the only girl in the room, I didn't feel awkward at all. What I'm after is the knowledge I'll be having after a week that will definitely be a great addition to my skill set. From this day forth, I shall inject MVC ideas in my little programming repository.

Every session starts at 11 in the morning and ends at 1 in the afternoon. Free lunch is served but it doesn't necessarily mean we're studying while eating. A break is graciously given to us trainees. Before and after our training session, we are back to our usual developer lives. As for me, I will be working on our project's release this week.

In a separate blog post, I shall give my IT readers some of the things I learned in every session for the whole training. Yes, you will also learn what I learned in there.

For the developers and aspiring ones out there, happy reading! :)

SNSD: Make You Feel The Heat

From the J-Pop culture, I am now familiarizing myself with K-Pop. I decided to listen first to the songs SM Entertainment. These are the songs of SNSD, TVXQ, f(x) and SHiNee to name a few. Then, here I was already fond of a single group: SNSD.


Photo courtesy of Google


So Nyuh Shi Dae, best known as Girls' Generation, are composed of nine pretty and model-like girls who are talented in dancing and singing. They are YooNa, YuRi, Seo Hyun, Soo Young, TaeYeon, Sunny, Tiffany, Jessica and Hyoyeon. They popularized the songs Genie, Oh! and Mr. Taxi that was later became a hit not only in Korea but here in the Philippines as well.

I saw the SNSD fans from the first KPop Convention I attended. I can say that they are really certified SONES (hardcore SNSD fans). They dress and dance like them. Dance covers are the most common maybe because it is easier to do than sing their Korean songs which for us is pretty hard to pronounce.

Speaking of songs, SNSD has different versions of their music. Since their popularity reached Japan, they created a Japanese version of their songs. Also, they have an English version of their song The Boys.

Recently, they released the music video of their new song Paparazzi, which also has a dance version. Watch it below:

Drawing Epic Detectives

Finally I had my hands to the stories of the greatest detective in the world - Sherlock Holmes! (and the drawing book!!)


I've been looking for the first volume of the complete stories of Sherlock Holmes since last year. But everytime I go to the bookstore, I only see the second volume. Thanks to my friend, Sienna, who asked me to go to the bookstore with her. I finally saw my most-awaited volume. Despite my tight budget, I bought the book to the thought I won't be seeing it ever again.

Well, hello weekend! It's time for the most epic detective stories ever!!! FANGIRL MODE!!!

Music of the Night in Manila!

I am one broadway enthusiast. It gained my interest since I was 13 due to my exposure to stage plays. Thanks to my dad who is often invited to act in these performances. This is also the reason why I wanted to enhance my singing abilities. One of my dreams is to perform in a stage musical.

Photo courtesy of Google
To name one of my favorites, it is Phantom of the Opera. I first watched this last 2004 as a movie. Then I searched the Internet for the original one.

Little did I know that it will soon be here in Manila. The Cultural Center of the Philippines will be showing Phantom of the Opera on August to September this year. It will be at the CCP Main Theater and tickets are distributed by TicketWorld. Ticket prices range from Php 2000 - Php 7000.

Oh how I want to watch this. Let me just look for someone to come with me to listen to the music of the night!

Summer Over

Photo courtesy of Google
I knew right then and there when I left the house that summer is officially over. It was raining hard. The news said that there is a storm coming so we must expect wet roads and worst, floods.

However, it is already anticipated that this time of the month will bring the drizzles. That's why I'm pretty much contented on what I had for summer even if its just a simple swimming getaway.

Oh well, time to bring your umbrellas!