I have written so many things about this and that in the past, and mentioned very little about my children. It is not that I don’t like to write about them, I simply want to protect their privacy. Now, being proud of my eldest son’s achievements, Kathleen’s good grades in Gymnasium and Gillian’s positive progress in Kindergarten. I felt an urge to write something nice, but not about them personally. It is a poem I found somewhere, a very meaningful one and it’s about how to take a child.

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The trouble when you are living abroad is - you have no relatives within your reach. Kong meron man, nakatira naman ito sa malayo kaya hindi rin posibling hingian ng tulong na kailangan mo. Haay naku, bakit nga ba ang buhay ay napakomplikado. Before I started going to school, everything was settled perfectly. Gillian started going to Kindergarten from morning til noon and I don’t have to worry about his lunchbreak and lunch dahil ang Kindergarten na pinapasukan niya ay may Tagesstätte day care din. We are paying €380.00 a month for both KG and day care. It’s quite expensive, but NRW Nordhein-Westfalia region has a very different computation compared to all other regions here in Germany. The monthly fee is based on the gross income of the primary breadwinner. Here in this region, the Kindergarten is free of charge if one earns less or don’t earn a penny at all. Nice huh? But then, the institution will get the money from the big earner. Sounds unfair, but we have no other choice because we are living in a welfare state. Well, Germany is in general a welfare state, but this particular Kindergarten Fee regulation is not practiced in a richer regions. Oh, medyo napalayo ako sa topic but I have to mention it because it’s part of this issue.

Okay, so we thought everything is settled what Gillian concerns. Until yesterday evening, there was a meeting in Kindergarten, and the major discussion was about the closing of the day care due to lack of personnel and that the government is saving therefore they can’t hire addiditonal staff. Whoa! I just can’t believe it. The head staff has given us the new schedule which I find impossible. This matter does not only concerns me but also to all other working mothers. How can I possibly pick up my son at 1:00 P.M when infact my classes is until 3:00 P.M? I felt so helpless about this. Buti sana kong sana Pilipinas ako, I can immediately hire someone. Or I can ask a relative to do this for me. We simply have no one to ask a favor here and I don’t feel comfortable of the idea of hiring a person who is completely a stranger to us. What a shit!

Now, we are thinking of inviting my mother to come here and stay with us ’til I’m done with my studies. It’s not final yet…but I can’t think of another solution.

It was simply a matter of time. This site got hacked. I don’t exactly know at what time it occured because I was still able to visit here early this morning before I left to school.

Thanks to Cheh. If not because of her, I wouldn’t be able to notice it that soon. She called me few minutes after I arrived home. Sounded very upset, she asked me if I know that my site got hacked. I immediately turn on my pc and went to my site to see what’s going on. Gee, the site was really hacked by an airheaded person from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I don’t know how he managed to get my FTP password, but he was able to login there and changed my index file (see image on the top left), so only the front page got hacked. I started to think, all in all, I’ve been pretty lucky over the years. This site has been up for over 2 years without a major hacking. Not too bad I figured. But still a pain in the ass though.Well, getting hacked is never fun but it keeps us on our toes.

And to you dear hacker, whenever you read this (I don’t care if you don’t). I want you to know that I am a very particular person. So next time you hack my site, better find or design a better looking index file. The one you used to overwrite my own simply looks so awful and disgusting. It just shows you have no taste at all. Oh dear, are you aware that it reflects to your poor personality? Du armer Armleuchter, du tust mir richtig leid :(. I know you are craving for attention. So here I am, writing some words just for you. Here is my hand, also reaching out for you. Hold it, and let me walk you and guide you to the mental hospital where you ought to be…

Die Qual der Wahl - The Agony of Choice!

I am currently using the very nice Gallery2 of Menalto. It is a great open source web based photo album organizer and there is even a Wordpress plugin available called WPG2, it embeds Gallery2 within Wordpress. Gallery2 has a bunch of great features, but I am not really using most of them.

I was quite happy and contented using Gallery2 the whole time until one day, I found ZenPhoto. Compared to G2, Zenphoto is a ‘feather-light weight’ application. Here is a quote of how the developer described his work.

Zenphoto is an answer to lots of calls for an online gallery solution that just makes sense. After years of bloated software that does everything and your dishes, zenphoto just shows your photos, simply. It’s got all the functionality and “features” you need, and nothing you don’t. Where the old guys put in a bunch of modules and junk, we put a lot of thought. We hope you agree with our philosopy: simpler is better.

Don’t get us wrong though – zenphoto really does have everything you need for your online gallery, and you’ll even stare in awe at some of the innovative innovations we innovated upon. Here are some of the wonderful things about it: Continue reading here.

I installed it on my server for testing and learning purposes at first. Besides of that, I have waited until Zenpressed was finally released. Zenpressed is also a Wordpress plugin similar to WPG2. It has the function of adding random or latest photos/albums on the sidebar and blog entries and most of all, site integration. Months had passed and due to my busy schedule, I have completely forgotten this plugin. If not because of one of my clients who asked me about a user friendly gallery software, I wouldn’t be able to remember about it again or not soon again.

Finally, I got everything what I want and what I need to run a very simple yet dynamic photo gallery. Everything works perfectly fine and I am glad to say that there is software developer like Tristan Harward who is so innovative to create something like Zenpress on his own.

Now fellow bloggers, if you are looking for gallery software that just make sense without bunch of modules and junks. I highly recommend you ZenPhoto. Not convinced yet? I advise you to visit their site and or see my gallery here.

I got it, I got it, I got ittttttt! Naku mahahalikan ko ang buong mundo nito. I have no classes today dahil may appointment ako sa IHK (Industrie und Handelskammer) Industry and Chamber of Commerce early this morning. Hindi ko pa nabanggit sa inyo ang tungkol dito but the multimedia school director told me before to apply for a scholarship which is called “Stipendium zur Begabtenförderung” in english “Scholarship for Outstanding Students”. Nag apply nga ako and had to take an Aufnahme Prüfung
(Exam) last December 4. I passed the exam with 96 points, the minimum points required was 88. Akala ko, kuha ko na ang scholarship dahil nakapasa nga. But then I received a letter which was telling me na nasa priority list na daw ako and that the head office of IHK has to decide about it first kong sino sa 120 scholarship applicants ang pipiliin. Tight daw kasi ang budget so they are forced to pick just 25 students. Kinalimutan ko na actually ang bagay na ito dahil foreigner nga ako and I heard somewhere na first priority daw ang mga local residents. You know what I mean?

Yesterday afternoon, I received a call from IHK asking me if I could come to their office at 8:00 o’clock in the morning today. Medyo duda na ako kahapon but I still refused to believe dahil baka kakaiba ang resulta sa iniisip ko. So pumunta ako doon this morning and a Mr. Tiggellers greeted me with his sweetest smile I think. The night before, nagbiro pa si hubby na dapat daw akong magsuot ng mini skirt, sus naman di ko ugali ang ganyang asta. In the office, he asked me to sit down while he was flipping some documents. Gee, I was so nervous di ko alam where to look. After a few minutes of silence what seemed an eternity, he asked me about my plans, why I want to study webdesign and so on and so forth. Then comes the the moment where he said “Sie sind auf der Liste dabei.” which means you are among the list. Muntik na akong mahulog sa inupuan ko sa gulat at tuwa, ngiti ko eh hanggang tenga or mukhang lumampas pa nga yata (hehehe). Mr. Tigglers noticed my exitement kaya minadali niyang sabihin ang iba pang mga guidelines tungkol sa scholarship and then he wished me goodluck. I thanked him and bade goodbye and hurried home and called hubby in his office and told him about the great great news.

Yessss I made it!!!

Hilong-hilo na talaga ako sa ka iikot at kadadrive lately. Laging naghahabol sa oras para magawa lahat ang dapat gawin. Pati lunch break di ko na makuhang umupo, kaya kumakain habang naglalakad papunta sa kong saan man yong dapat kong puntahan. My eyebags are getting bigger dahil laging kulang sa tulog. Papaano naman kasi, I have to work my clients order at night habang tulog na lahat ang mga sakop ko dito sa bahay. Recently, I sleep at 1:00 A.M or 2:00 and have to get up at 6:00 A.M. So talagang kulang ako sa tulog kaya paligsahan sa paglaki ang aking mga eyebags. I’m just wondering how I managed to stay awake during my classes. Sabagay, learning multimedia is something really very interesting. Yesterday, the school director told us that they are offering a new module which is PHP programming. Since noon ko pa gustong matuto nito, I of course added this to my learning plan kahit super tight na ang schedule ko. Haay, ang hirap ng matandang TH! Minsan when I felt so tired, I can’t avoid asking myself what is it I really want to prove and why I’m doing this at all. Hehehe, the spirit is willing baga but the flesh is very weak na. Jesus Christ, kasisimula ko pa lang na pumasok nagrereklamo na ako. Well, I think talagang ganyan lang kapag pagod…kong anik-anik na ang naiisip. But hey, it never came to my mind to give up. I have to study webdesigning properly for our plan of retiring in the Philippines in the nearest future. Hubby could be a retiree by then, but not me noh. I’m still too young (ubo ubo) to play sitting pretty aging princess ng mga dwarfs. Kaya ngayon palang kailangan ko ng mag gather ng mga resources para sa aking mga binabalak na gimik by the time we are there. In let say ten years bale 55 years old na ako…abangan niyo nalang ang advertisement sa Google na Lola Basyang’s Webdesign And Web Hosting. O say niyo? Vagay na vagay di va? Kailangan ko pang mag-isip ng firm slogan na mag match dito.
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Attention:

To all visitors,

Please be informed that this site was hacked yesterday. My download page still exist but the download site itself, which was using paFileDB file manager and integrated as IFrame here, was completely deleted by the psychotic hacker. I was able to retrieved all the files this mornning but decided not to use the same software again for it is known to have security loopholes (just discovered it today after visiting their forum).
Thank you for coming and I am so very sorry for the inconvience. Please bear with me for I still have to find for a proper and secured download manger for my themes.

Sincerely,

Beng