Hi! My Name is Gabby!

Hola! Buenos Dias! My name is Gabby, and I’m a freshmen student at college. I’m currently taking up a hospitality course and majoring in Hotel Administration, It’s my second semester here and I’m loving every minute of it. One thing that defines me as a person is that I’m a very goal-oriented person. I’m not afraid to take risks and I want to be my own boss.

When I first went into college in the University of Asia and the Pacific, I had no intentions of working in a hotel or anywhere near the hospitality industry. My plan was to be a successful entrepreneur at the time. I still keep that vision in me whilst having the passion for this industry. When I transferred from UA&P to Enderun, I was absolutely clueless about everything they were talking about. To know a bit more on the industry, I started using my dad’s connections and with the amazing technology available to us now I started “googling” it on the web. I learned a whole lot from the people I meet everyday who taught me a thing or two about things I needed to know about this. From that, you can well see that what determines me as a person is my drive to learn new things, no matter how clueless I am about it I try my best to know about it. So basically, I had immersed myself in the industry. Just like any other thing I do, I immerse myself completely in it and familiarize myself with it. You could say that I’m the type of person who won’t stop until I’m satisfied with what I see. I have the will and means to be the best and I know someday I will be the best.



I’d have to thank Enderun for helping me develop a passion I never thought I have.

Wham in your Face

Hungry I am, coming in from my culinary laboraty lecture. I rush down to the locker room and change to my civilian attire. I think of a cool place to eat nearby, but I'm still too burnt out from kitchen class to think of any. So i decided to hit up the nearest mall near school, which was Robinson's Galleria. I hurry to get my car from the basement and go straight to the mall. Parking my car near the Mr. Quickie booth, I walk through the hallway of the mall and decide to go and see the food joints near the theatre being the movie fanatic that I am. I look at all the signs of the yummy looking joints, but this one particular one hit me, It was called 'Wham!', and wham indeed.
Wham offers delicious grilled burgers with big twister home-made fries that look scrumptious with a coke light, If of course you're in a diet. I ordered the double whammy with chees, a large coke light, and twister fries. Yummy! I couldn't wait for to get my burger because I was so hungry. I was so happy when I got my fries and gobbled it up quickly that I nearly choked eating it. Wham is indeed a specialty burger, you get your money's worth for it. It has a big juicy meat patty, some slices of tomatoes and some helpings of greens to go with the delcious burger. It's definately something I would to go to, where you can get your money's worth. So if you're up for a short drive to bring your family for a nice burger lunch, I definately would suggest Wham! See you there.

A Traditional Chinese Christmas

Five aunts and three uncles from the first family. Not including their kids and

Their grandchildren. My family is big, loud and just plain fun to be with during the

Holidays.

Christmas is always something to look forward to in our home. The younger ones get more pressies. While the older ones slave in the kitchen cooking their specialty dishes for noche Buena. A favorite specialty dish in our home is barbecue that the men have mastered. Its really simple, they take slabs of meat, grill the for fifteen minutes maximum on charcoal and it tastes really nice. The aroma fills the entire garden of my granny’s ancestral home where we hold our Christmas celebrations often. Everyone has their own tasks and assignments. For instance the wives of my three uncles would be in charge of dessert, while my aunties would be in charge of the meals. The Christmas hassle is the best part since people start to remember that they forgot something in their houses. It’s hilarious since they’re all so stressed out yet they can feel the warmth of the season because of everyone being close together.
Beer is an important part of our family tradition, and is every form of alcoholic beverage that makes the women all red and giggly and the men sweaty and louder. We drink beer with barbecue alongside my grandmother’s famous potato salad and coleslaw. Indeed it is the season to add more jelly in the belly/
That’s why I love the holidays, I can well do without the excess fat I gain from it but it brings me together with my loved ones with great food and heavenly like desserts. I enjoy and look forward to the company I get from it every Christmas. Happy Holidays everyone!

Coolies

A very hot day in January, I’m up in Greenbelt three with my pals eating lunch in Cascada. I decided to try an interesting item on the drink list that was called “fruit punch”, it’s really creative and a different sirt of punch aside from any of that I’ve tasted before.
“Wow” were the only words I could mutter out after my first sip. It seemed like a sweet sangria skipping the alcohol. It had slices of different fruits that complimented its sweet and tangy taste. Interesting garnish like basil leaves and maraschino cherries were added as effect to make it more appeling and very tasty at the same time. It’s the perfect drink to get on a hot lazy Saturday afternoon lunch. It keeps you cool and you have yummy fruits to munch on as a dessert after lunch.
I definitely loved the fruit punch in Cascada, I’m sure to go back for another one of those drinks sometime soon. So if you’re up for a nice lunch with family or friends go get your car from your garage, drive up C-5 all the way to Makati Road, and make a right turn up on Ayala to see Greenbelt 3. You’ll definitely be sure to get your money’s worth and a tasty cooler for you/ So what are you waiting for ? You know you want one. Cheers!

Taglish: Code Switching

Thesis Statement:
The negative effect of code switching has contributed confusion to the English speaking environment of the Philippines.

Outline:

I. What is Taglish
a. The definition of Taglish
b. How Taglish started
c. Negative effects of Taglish
d. Why Taglish leads to confusion
II. The English speaking environment of the Philippines
a. When and how long English has been taught in the Philippines
b. English in the business world


Taglish is the switching between two languages, namely Tagalog (from the Philippines) and English, the universal language of the world. Taglish is sometimes called code-switching in the English world. There are words in English that cannot be expressed in Tagalog, likewise for Tagalog. Taglish has evolved in the English speaking environment of the Philippines to say what they mean.
According to the business environment, Philippines rate three in the English speaking countries of the world. This is a good thing for the economy of the Philippines yet we still face the fact that we still code switch between English and Tagalog that leads to confusion. Taglish can cause confusion because we don’t know whether we are speaking in Tagalog or in English anymore. This is very important whenever talking to people who do not know one of the two languages. They will get confused.
Taglish has its benefits to the Filipino society by being able to say what they mean yet, whenever they get used to it too much, they use it whenever talking to people of different cultures as well. This is a bad thing to get used to because it makes other cultures look down on the way Filipinos speak and it makes us confused on whether we are speaking in Tagalog or in English anymore because of the mixing and code switching of various words to mean what we say.
Warped words and words that are grammatically incorrect makes it bad because it confuses the people. Confusion on the usage of words is a bad thing in the English speaking society of the Philippines. It murders our language and the English language as well by code switching and making it seem that this word belongs to the Tagalog language yet it is not. Yet fact remains that Taglish cannot be controlled. Taglish is quite annoying because of the slangness it brings to our asian influence. The westerners have been here and have brought their way of speaking as well to the English speaking community of the Philippines. Through this, it has evolved on us having our western influence which is a good thing for us in a way yet has negative effect on us too.
On my thoughts on Taglish, I need opinions of other people as well so I had asked some of my friends from school how they felt about Taglish. One of my friends said that Taglish is a very cheap way of speaking. It degrades our way of speaking. I agree with my friend on her thoughts about taglish, yet again we cannot change the fact that Filipinos do indeed code switch between languages.
English is taught here in the Philippines as a major subject. Philippines follow American and North American English in Grammar yet has a touch of asian influence. Thus this influence leads to taglish, otherwise known as konyo or (coño). Taglish or coño is the slangness brought about by mixing two of the languages that is present to our society. Hilarious examples I have heard from people are things like when they feel something bad in their stomachs they would say, “na-fa-fart ako” or meaning “I need to fart” or another coño expression I heard when I was still in highschool was “ I will make tusok tusok the fishballs okay ?” which means that he or she will just pierce the fishballs from the pot.
The school I am currently studying at is located in a business district with lots of call centers. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity of using these people as my experiments and carefully analyzing them. They truly speak good English and they sound American. Sure enough, these people are graduates of high school or college and they are well equipped with good conversational English yet they still have the problem of speaking in a cono way and using taglish.
Taglish cannot be totally expelled from the English speaking society of the Philippines but there are certain preventive measures. We can start using English everyday and focus on making our lecturers enforce straight English and straight Tagalog only to avoid code switching.



SOURCES
Virgilio S. Almario, ‘Wikang Taglish, Kamulatang Taglish’, 2008

Roger M. Thompson ‘Varieties of English Around the World’ , 2008

The World is Getting Smaller

Easy and faster access almost anywhere I go now, It’s simply amazing. You can be in different places all in one time without it costing you a pretty penny. The internet is awesomely wicked! It’s fast and efficient.

The internet gives me the comfort of staying in my own home comfortable and snuggled up by my comfortably chair and making google my new found best friend instead of spending grueling hours stuck in a musky old library all day. The internet has made everything more efficient for people. People use the internet for various things like research, relax, or pornography. It has made everything so easy that you just never want to leave home ever again. The internet versus the lameness of our stonage times, like before, we had to to a library for ages to look for something we need that was just a paragraph short. We had to research long hours for people’s opinions and tally results now blogging is easily posted online for people to read as research.

I think the internet is awesome! It’s fast and speedy and most of all it’s cheap. It has free calls and free blogs. You don’t have to pay for much to get published articles and such. That’s why I think the internet is awesome and wicked.

Across All Seven Corners

Hungry much folks ? Well is surely am. I went up for a short drive to Crowne Plaza Manila to meet up with my dad, who has just arrived from Singapore from a business trip. Crowne Plaza is a destination me and my family usually meet up for lunch since it’s only a stone’s throw away from where I live, plus it’s conveniently located beside a mall, Robinson’s Galleria. We decided to eat in Seven Corners, a fantabulous buffet within a small restaurant.

Seven Corners is a lovely restaurant located in the third level of Crowne plaza hotel. They have food from all over the globe with Chef Alcantara as their head chef. Chef Alcantara is their head chef, who had studied and trained in America for his degree. I had the chance to meet and greet him in the most awkward way, when I had dropped my spoon and he had come to me to pick it up from across the room.

Seven Corners is a lovely restaurant that offers different culinary cuisines to thise who like variety. It’s restaurants theme is Mediterranean old world with dark red bricks to give more coziness to the feel of the restaurant. Service is also an important factor in this restaurant, since they have attentive staff that have obviously been trained well and to the bone.

I would definitely tell all my family and friends about the lovely experience I had in this restaurant and I will definitely be coming back again since it is worth it’s price.

A Knack for Service

My family has been here in the Philippines for a long time already. We have stayed in various condominiums, apartments and townhouses. One particular favorite that my dad loves to stay at is our old condominium in Ortigas because of our lovely administrator, her name is Che-Che Cantallier . She has been with us for a long time and always gives us the best quality service. She’s one of the loveliest ladies I have ever encountered and she always does things with a smile. I had scheduled with her an interview last Monday. He has me seated on the chair beside her and we started the interview.
I had asked her a few personal questions first, such as where she had studied at before and she had related to me that she had finished her degree in STI college with a bachelor’s in Computer Programming in two years time. She had told me that computers were her love but she was trained by her job, since she was a part-time working student in an apartelle that had a reception area, that had called for her to be a part time receptionist. After her job there, she had worked straight to our condominium as a receptionist and worked there for the last six years. She had been working hand in hand with the department heads of our condominium and has been promoted to marketing level at some point, yet she had returned to being a receptionist after she had gotten married because of the stress of balancing work and family life at the same time.
I had asked her the common complaints she usually receives when she is in the reception area, and she says when she deals with rowdy tenants that do not care about the other unit owners in the building. I asked her how she deals with problems like this and she says that she deals everything with her pleasing personality and her charming smile. She sometimes says to herself , “Ok lang yan Che, kaya mo to” (It’s ok Che, you can do this). This phrase that she says, really does get her through her rough day. But she told me, that the hardest and most tough part of the day is keeping your cool and leaving a smile on. She had even related to me her story from way back when cheriffer, a kid’s brand for medicine had been released. She was one of the promo girls. She says that it is tough dealing with customer relations because you have all sorts of them. This is the reason that she has two mirrors by her desk to see if “Ok lang ba itsura ko ?” (Is how I look alright ?) so that It will be pleasing to see her for the unit owners.
I admire Che-che’s strong will and seeing where she came from, she really knows how to deal with stuff like complaints and customer service very well. Her passion for the service industry grew along with how her career developed into time. This is truly admirable because not everyone likes what they do, yet Mrs. Cantallier does everything with a smile and once she does it, does it well indeed.