New building, new woes, and my knee buckling

Today is the first day of our transfer to the new building, WCC. New building meaning the main building that's a lot prettier than BOTT haha. This building is right smack in what I call the office central, which is where most BGC corporate buildings stand side by side. So yeah, it can get crowded. And hot. And annoying. Here I made a pros and cons list of working in this new building because just a few hours in and I already badly miss BOTT hahaha. Despite it looking drab and old, it's pretty peaceful on that side of BGC. It's more open and green, and I can walk around without suffocating. Anyway here you go:

Today's favorite thing 

 

Here at WCC...

👍Pros:

• Beautiful lobby
• Cute office interior
• Better monitor mounts
• Feels more active and engaging
• Free parking with license plate recognition 
• Highlands Coffee right within the building! And Jollibee!
• Food is nearer
• Landmark is just across haha
• Seating cubes are open, no partition. I'm putting it under pros for now cos so far I don't hate it hehe. 

 

👎Cons:

• Fewer parking spaces. Literal first come, first served. Guard doesn't assign slots unlike BOTT so you know right ahead if there's a slot available.
• Nearby pay parking areas are too crowded. BOTT has pay parking in the building itself so when I run out of free slots I can easily find another one. Other parking areas include Stopover and the big open parking that's two blocks away.
• Back to the bad parking areas. Three Parkade is so ugly and tight huhu and it's the nearest parking alternative. It's almost VRP tight but made worse because it's darker and more crowded and the scaffolding flooring shakes. I hate it. If only slots free up within the start of my shift that would be great but I had no luck earlier.
• It's so hot in this area. As soon as you head out of the building, it's hell. It's car fumes, building exhaust, and people's sweat. They're what make up BGC. I can leisurely walk two blocks around BOTT but here I'd probably die on the first turn. I'm kidding, I survived walking around earlier, it's just too hot for my own sake.
• Traffic in and out. I'm faced with more traffic coming to and going out of the office. More stoplights and lots of going around one way streets. I miss how BOTT is so easily accessible any time of the day. 
• Smaller comfort room. BOTT has 6 cubicles and a very loud exhaust that makes it easy to hide your business (aka #2) hehe. They also have better tissue and a stronger hand dryer lol. Here at WCC, there are 4 cubicles all in front of the short sink area (2 sinks only), tissue breaks off too easily, but hey lighting is better? Haha

 

🦵 Oh my knee

It's been a while since my knee last buckled. Considering I'm very careful of it now I didn't think it will attack again. I thought I was regaining control of my right knee, building better support and stronger muscles. But earlier as I was comfortably seated eating dinner, it buckled painfully. I was in a middle of a call with my husband so I had to drop and snap it back. Boy did it loudly click back in place. It was less painful than before but only because I addressed it as quickly as I could. Anyway. I'm taking note of this day. 

Okay meeting's over, got to go! 

[Sample letter] Request for cancellation of CTS with Ayala Land Inc.

Here's a template for the letter we sent ALI regarding the cancellation of our CTS for a pre-selling unit. We're doing this to cut losses and get at least 50% of our payments back.

For more details on our refund journey, read here: [Ayala Land Inc.] Cancellation of CTS / Refund under Maceda Law / PD 957 - a timeline

---

[Date]

[NAME OF PRIMARY BUYER]
[Registered address]
[City, Zip]
[Registered email]
[Registered mobile number]

Request for Cancellation of Contract to Sell and Refund under Maceda Law

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to formally request the cancellation of my Contract to Sell (CTS) for a pre-selling condominium unit located at [Property name] – [Unit#].

Over the past [X] years, I have completed paying the downpayment through post-dated checks, amounting to [PHP XXX,XXX.XX].

Due to ongoing financial constraints and our inability to secure a buyer since [month] of this year, I am no longer in a position to proceed with the purchase. As such, I respectfully request the cancellation of the CTS and a refund of at least fifty percent (50%) of the total payments made, in accordance with Section 3(b) of the Maceda Law.

I understand that the law entitles buyers who have paid at least two years of installments to a refund of 50% of total payments made, excluding interest and penalties. I am prepared to comply with any procedural requirements you may have.

Please consider this letter as my formal notice of cancellation. I would appreciate a written confirmation of receipt and the next steps regarding the refund process.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I hope for your kind understanding and cooperation.

Sincerely,

___________________________
[Purchaser/s name and signature]
Purchasers

---

Many thanks to copilot of coming up with the letter. I just had to give it a prompt. Now if you're sure with your decision and confirmed you're eligible, just email the signed letter to: 

ALI Residential Customer Service
residential.customers@ayalaland.com.ph

It would be best to give them a call beforehand so an agent would be expecting your email already. You may call them at:

+632 8848 5000

Hope this helps 😊

Sick 🤧

Been feeling sick the past few days. Started Thursday, broke into a fever then mellowed down to the usual cough and colds. It's a good thing I only had fever for one night. I'm feeling a lot better now but I also know I could've recovered more quickly had I not eaten a lot of sweets. Thing is, I prepared two fruit desserts for the week that I can't afford to go bad hahaha. So I kinda had to munch through them despite my sore throat. It's my fault really. But my avocadoes and saba con yelo can't wait!!! Huhu.

For today's flu my weapons are:

• Bioflu every 6hrs during fever
• 2x Immunpro vitamin c + zinc daily
• Stresstabs multivitamins
• Betadine mouthwash 2x a day
• Lianhua lung clearing tea
• Ginger and honey tea
• Avoid cold drinks and sweets

I'm fighting the urge to chomp down on the remaining serving of minatamis na saba sitting in the ref but I have to go to the gym tomorrow so I can't afford to feel bad again. I almost always fall sick after eating sweets during recovery. I also need to prepare myself for the drive to work because we're moving to a different building and I'm unsure where to park and where to sit. Just the thought of it gives me anxiety, specially that my office bff isn't coming tomorrow so I'm going solo hahaha. But really, worst case is I don't get parking so I have to park at Landmark or One Parkade. Worst worst case - I don't get a seat, which really sucks cos it means I have to drive back to the other building. Good thing I don't have any afternoon meetings so I have time to spare fumbling about this new routine. I'm already dreading the traffic tbh. There are more stoplights around this new building, also it gets really busy at night so driving out of BGC could be a menace. Oh well, we'll see!

Happy Friday?

It's been a while since I opened my laptop. Sometimes I wonder if I should've just bought a macbook air instead because it's lighter (by 300g 🤣). Also cheaper. It's pretty hard to carry the pro around. Even when I'm just at home lol. Then again I wanted a pro because I would probably need the extra ports and the pro features and also the fan if I ever get too passionate about upgrading my vlog editing skills lol. Who knows, I might start developing ios apps too? It's nice to dream no? Chances are I'll never get to maximize this laptop the way I wanted. What a luxury to be able to future proof myself this way.

A week ago we attended a birthday/dedication party of one our friend's daughter. Jeckie was chosen as ninong, along with the rest of the guys, and one of the wives. And I... feel left out. My husband didn't even tell me he was ninong. I only learned when they were being called for a photo, and I found myself left at the table, with another wife (what a consolation right?). 

That time I was reminded, once again, of my place in his group of friends. That I'm not really a friend. I'm a friend's wife. My husband thinks that because we're married, his friends should be my friends too so that we're one big circle of friends. But honestly, I've never felt like we're one big circle. I'm okay outside, being a friend's wife. That's literally what I am. 

Anyway, I also realized that being ninang was not a courtesy extended to you if your husband is a ninong, but a deliberate decision made by the parents. And knowing them, they must've really considered the roster. Agnostic and child-free don't exactly sound like someone you'd want to foster your daughter whom you just dedicated to God, but they probably knew better, saw deeper. That makes me proud of my husband. And I hope that's not just a courtesy due to their friendship.

At first it hurt not to be chosen, so I promised to know my place. I may have overestimated our friendship. From now on, I'm not going to spend on their gifts, I'll leave that to my husband. I'll stop reminding him to buy them gifts, I don't care anymore, who am I anyway? He's the friend, not me. So petty haha and I'm kidding okay. But as I dwelled on it throughout the party, I realized I was actually jealous that my husband gets to be ninong to kids whose parents he actually cares about.

For the record, I don't know who my inaanaks are. Most of them are pamangkins, from cousins I'm not even that close to. I was just appointed as ninang because it's my turn after my sister got the older ones lol. We may have a culture of choosing godparents based on how much you can extort from them. I don't have any inaanaks outside the family (just one, maybe I should start paying attention to her), which makes me think that I really don't have any friends. More to that, I don't deserve to be ninang.

That sucks right?

My friends come and go. I don't reach out. I lose touch. I let it die. I have multiple circles of friends from the different phases of my life. I have highschool friends, college friends, office friends, then my family (the only constant). When I leave a phase, the circle fades. It's difficult for me to maintain friendships when we don't share the same space anymore. The same classroom, the same office, the same dorm. It's just how I am. I'm really bad at keeping in touch. Should I change? I know it's for the better. Relationships matter the most right? 

I'm okay with who I have right now though. Which isn't a lot. Urgh. I don't know. 

Some Happy Things

Now that I'm in front of my blog I can't seem to remember what to write about. And I do remember wanting to write about a lot of things haha

So let's just do a 10 some happy things!

🍔 Estancia is opening a lot of good restaurants! There's Buffalo's Wings n' Things, Shake Shack, and Yabu coming soon to name a few! Love it! Good variety too. Hopefully they add an Indian restaurant naman haha

💻 Came to the office yesterday despite the rainstorm. I look forward to Monday RTO's because I get to have a bit of a me time and also focus on work better. But most importantly, I need to complete my RTO quota for the month haha. 

As usual I enjoyed walking slowly and leisurely to dinner, where I had hotpot at Sichu Malatang and froyo at llao llao. Same exact things I had the day before. I realized I didn't want noodles in my hotpot. I love beef, vegetables, mushrooms, and the various fish balls. I also love the peanut sauce with black vinegar. Urgh writing about it makes me hungry!

🏠 No luck selling our condo. Hopefully we can exit via Maceda Law or PD 957, so that at least we can get 50% of our downpayment back. Hoping for the best. But quite honestly we've already accepted losing the entire investment. We're more excited with the prospect of not having to pay monthly anymore. So it's either 0 or 50% back, and we're happy either way. The odds are against us. Condo oversupply, low market price, and we're competing with the developer too. Yep, the condo didn't sell out 5 years after pre-selling. Can you believe they're offering 20-30% off on it, with no spot DP? It's not fair. That's even less than the amount we need to pasalo to prospective buyers and we still need to cover taxes and fees. There's no way to get a positive return in this investment and waiting for the market to recover means drowning in debt. We're not sacrificing our standard of living for a condo we don't even see ourselves using. Cutting our losses is the only way. 

This is a happy thing because we're just tired of paying and we're finally over it! Yayy!

📊 I'm learning and loving Power BI! Really love designing the dashboard and learning data modeling ♥️

That's it for now! Happy Wednesday! 

Life lately

↪ Team summer outing was a success, yeyy! Everyone was so cool. We had fun! We played board games that challenged us physically (taco cat goat cheese pizza ), mentally (poetry for neanderthals), and morally (sheriff) HAHAHA. We had so much food. The grates of the grill was pretty cooked so most of my liempo got a burnt crust huhu but it's still delicious. No one died.

Now that I know how to set up an outing like this I'd be more comfortable doing this in the future! It's a learning experience that paid off for me cos now I feel more comfortable with everyone 💖.

↪ Finally I can focus on working on other stuff on my plate. Namely, becoming an expert at Power BI and doing this local automation via Studio X! 

↪ A major case of FOMO led me to follow most of my Facebook friends again, after unfollowing everyone some 5 years ago. It's become a habit of mine to immediately unfollow any new friend because I wanted to protect my feed from their vanity lol. But lately, Facebook has infringed on that liberty by pushing dumb content from equally dumb influencers so I thought I'd fight back by choosing to hear from my friends again, regaining illusory control of what my eyes consume. But really I'm just giving myself more reason to doomscroll. Fine, Facebook you win. 

Now that I'm exposed to a lot of personal posts again, I'm reminded that there are some people that I actually do not prefer to hear about HAHAHA and so I have to unfollow some people again lol #sorrynotsorry.

↪ I have so much to do at work I don't even know where to begin. Hay Lord!

PBI

Haaay. It's been monthsss since I told myself I'll study Power BI but until now I'm not making progress and it's already May and next thing I know it's June already and I promised my manager to deliver this task by then!

I'm doomed!