Abby and Win’s Blog

I’m just about to leave for LAX and fly to Manila. I’m very excited to see my wife. This whole process has been very hard. Imagine being married and not be together. Well the process is almost done. One last interview this coming Friday and we’re off to be normal husband and wife. I miss you baby, see you soon.

Peoples Reform Initiative for social Mobilization Foundation(PRISM), this is a non-government agency that provides counselling for Filipinos going abroad. It is a requirement so I have no choice but to attend it, well its good that they require us to attend. I had my seminar and counselling last Feb 19 at 10am. They conduct 3 seminars daily 10am-1pm-3pm. A limited number of person can attend, around 15 per session. The seminar is very informative, its an over view of what to expect living in another country, the rights and privelege as an immigrant or non-immigrant so that abuse can be prevented as well as government agencies that can help Filipinos abroad. They also inform us regarding the airport guidelines: weight limit of baggage,things not to bring, etc. The counsellors are very helpful so feel free to ask any questions that you need to clarify.

I am done with another requirement, now its the interview that we are looking forward to. Good thing that my baby is coming home to support me. We have been waiting for this and have been praying for Gods blessing and guidance for our successful journey.

Heres the link for those who want to learn more about PRISM and CFO seminar:
http://www.cfo.gov.ph/

I was gathering more things to bring for the interview. One of the things is the text messages on my phone. I’m on my third phone this year (Sidekick2, Nokia E70, and now Nokia N80). It was difficult to save text messages on Sidekick 2 - lack of memory and online interface lacked OS X support. So I only had text messages since I started using Nokia again. Since we text message almost everyday, I didn’t want Abby’s messages to stay in the Inbox so I created a separate folder just for her. And since I wanted to save them, I stored them on a memory card. Now that I want to access them, I noticed you can’t view them by just browsing the memory card on the computer. So I had to use PC Sync software. Again, lack of OS X, I had to wait until work where I have access to a Windows machine. Well I found out you still can’t view custom folders even with PC Sync. You can only view Inbox, Draft, and Sent. So I had to clear my Inbox and moved all 1,500+ messages over so that I can view them. On top of that, if you want to print them, you would have to print a message for every page (1,500+ pages?). You cannot cosolidate a group of message to print on a page. I ended up having to take screenshots and print them that way. To think Nokia would have added some feature to do that - AND SUPPORT FOR OSX - no love for a more stable and secure operating system.

Anyway, after printing out most of the text messages I started to print out some of our Vonage activities. This was fun coz I got to seen how many times we called each other. Here is the activity from May 2006 to February 20, 2007.

My cellphone1 -> Her Vonage: 560 calls

Her Vonage -> My cellphone1: 993 calls

Her Vonage -> My cellphone2: 34

My house -> Her Vonage: 259 calls

Her Vonage -> My house: 106 calls

I was also curious as to how many times she called the NVC (National Visa Center): 259 times. Pretty cool stats. This will be great to show in the interview.

and I will flying to manila to see my baby. Then we have our interview on March 2. I’ve been gathering things to bring evidence like receipts, emails, text messages, etc. This whole process has been long and stressful but alas, the end is near and we can be a “normal” couple - you know, together. I’ve just been trying to finish projects at work before I leave and try to keep busy so that time will pass faster. Well, I gotta continue to gather things and start packing. I won’t have time the rest of the week. Fortunately, it’s a holiday today

It’s valentines day and we are apart but our everyday communication keeps us stronger. Its hard but we are almost at the end of our journey being apart. God brought us together and He will guide us throughout this journey.

Anyways, I am surprised to received 2 dozens of fresh flowers from my sweet husband. I am not expecting it since he will be here in a few days and we can celebrate our own hearts day together. A greeting is good and what i’m expecting but this is better i know, (i’m not complaining at all baby:))

I love the flowers that you sent me but I love you more;)