Karaoke

As an icebreaker, we decided to take the class out for KARAOKE this weekend! Unlike the US, they have entire establishments dedicated to karaoke and people actually love to sing in front of each other. Come to think of it, I apparently do to. I was told I had the mic a lot. Oops! =)

But the party didn't end there! I wanted to dance so the crew went with us to the nearest place with live music....the Hard Rock Cafe. Now, I must take a moment to explain that the Hard Rock Cafe is the local hang out for the Americans and when we got there, they were dancing like fools on the dance floor doing some choreographed dance that I've never heard of. I didn't join them right away, because I really didn't want to be a part of the embarrassing display of American's, but rest assured: There was music; therefore, I did not sit still for long. I gathered the girls and danced the night away.

But we still weren't done! Next stop, BO's Coffee Shop, because that's what everybody does at 2am, right? No pictures were taken at the coffee shop. My apologies. =)

My Philippines Bucket List

Boracay

American Cemetery

Eat Balut














Buy pearls














Intramuros, Oldest district and historic core of Manila













El Nido

 People watching

 Pongas Falls, Sagada, Mt.Province

 Buy knock-off bags











Taal Volcano

Swim with whale sharks in Cebu

GO TEAM!!!

Today the teams had to do teachbacks for the different types of policies. They all did a fantastic job and I'm already amazing by their understanding of the material. 

Team Awesome!

 Team Ferrari!

Team Wrecking Balls! 

Team BA!

Carry on my wayward son

I live my life in song. For those of you that know me, you know that I randomly break out in song with just a word. Today, Ryan said Carry On. I've been singing Kansas ever since. It's a good thing we're taking the class out this weekend to do karaoke. We told the class we were taking them out and they went nuts! All but 2 of our agents have agreed to go and I am stoked! I think I may have to sing some Kanasas...or maybe some Gaga. I won't be making the same mistake as last time I did karaoke. There will be no Neil Diamond. Perhaps I'll sing All of Me? I'll take any suggestions in the comments. If you suggest it and I sing it, maybe a video will even find it's way to my blog.

Weekends are weird...

At the moment, I'm bored in my room because it's 3:45am and I'm wide awake because I'd normally be working right now. See view below:

We did, however do a few interesting things this weekend. Ryan and I went to Resort World, which is a mall and casino. I won pretty big in pesos!

On a side note, the Philippine Peso looks like Monopoly money. Please also note, this is not nearly as much money as it looks like.

Ryan and I left for the casino at about 9pm and were back by about 1am. I can't speak for him, but I took a nap about 3 and woke up in time for the sunrise.

We decided at about 10 we were going to head to Greenhills Mall. This is really more like a flea market. So Ryan, Bryant, Dave and I all piled into one little cab and went on an adventure.

The office

These are the view from the 10the floor of building 4 where our training room is.

These are the donuts from J.Co Coffee that Niv, the training director, brought in for one of our meetings. They are every bit as amazing as they look.

Magic has been traveling to and from the office with us, but be hasn't really be out on any adventures yet. I'll keep you posted on her adventures.

Our classroom. Magic is keeping watch on Ryan.

I finally got a picture of the Famous Belgian Waffle stand. Sooooooo yummy! Next post I'll get a picture of the actual waffles. It's 5am here right now and this is really making me want one. 

Our building from down the street.

Work...I guess that's why we're here

Work has been interesting so far. The United Health Group is located in two different buildings in at McKinley Hill City Center in Taguig City. (I think I got that right. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong) We are training in building 4 on the 10th floor, but the competency and meetings are all held on the 4th floor of building 1.

As you can see, we're working really hard.  This is one of the conference rooms in which I attempted another group selfie (don't tell the group, but I'll be initiating many more of these). Ryan is on the other side of Candice, but I still need practice at my group selfies so he's not in it. I would have made another attempt, but somebody important walked in right after that. Ooops!

Candice and I had time for a selfie of our own though! This lady is a hoot and half, by the way. I can already tell she and I are going to have a great time together. We already had a whole list of adventures to go on (with others included of course). 

These adventures include, but are not limited to: 

Swimming with Whale Sharks in Cebu.

Massage by a Python at the zoo

Boracay Beach

**Please stay tuned for further updates on these adventures**

I have also learned since my last post that the creature sent by Carla actually does have a name. Magic.

On a much more serious note, we met our classes today and introduced ourselves. There are 49 agents included 3 supervisors. Almost all of them have previous call center experience (which they refer to as working for a previous account such as Humana, Sirius XM, T-Mobile, etc) and many of them actually have

Registered Nursing backgrounds. We were reminded very quickly that their health care system is nothing like ours. They are all very excited about training with us. The energy in the room was fantastic and I know they are going to be fantastic trainees! We trainers and OJTs are just as excited to work with them.




You should know that we have a Starbucks at our beck and call until midnight!

And we have a 24 hour Belgian Waffle stand, that makes fresh waffles with all                                                                              sorts of toppings, for between 45 and 55 pesos each.                                                                                    That's about 1 US dollar.

Life is good.

Family Outing

We went on a "family" outing today...to the grocery store! Exciting, right? I kid you not, we spent an entire hour in the SMSuperMarket just exploring. Candice and I have been on a mission to find the best meat counter in the area. SM wins. Hands down. No questions asked. The lovely lady at the hotel front desk told us the grocery store opened at 8am. She was incorrect, so we had a half hour to explore a little. We learned a few things on our little adventure. 

1. Rommell had already been out all night exploring on foot. I look forward to hearing more about his adventure, but am baffled as to how he did that in the dark with no knowledge of the city.

2. Rommell advised us that GPS actually works even when you don't have actual cell service! Fantastic news! We will never get lost. 

3. Jeepnies are a lot like buses and even have a Jeepney station. 

4. Even at 8am, it's hotter than blazes here. You think it's humid in Florida? You ain't seen nottin' yet.

5. People will change their clothes any time and any place.

6. They have a dollar store coming. It's called the American Bazaar. I hope you find that as ironic as I do.

Philippines. Day 1.

After what felt like 6 days of travel, we have all officially arrived. Nobody has caught malaria yet.

Day one seems to be all wrapped up in Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The "days" confuse me here, but I'm sure I'll get used to that. We began our travels Thursday; David M came from Pennsylvania and Candice came from Missouri, but we all gathered together for the first time at LAX. I'm sure it will hold a special place in all of our hearts. We finally boarded flight PR103 for our 15 hour flight to Manila at 10:20pm LA time. (That's 3 hours different from Tampa time, so it was officially 1:30am and we had been traveling for 11 hours already).  I immediately fell asleep upon take-off only to be woken up 30 minutes later so they could serve us our first meal of the flight (there were three total). After 3 meals, two movies, and a couple potty break, we arrived in Manila at 4:10am local time. I feel I mention, that 4:10am was Saturday. At some point during our journey, we crossed the international dateline and completely skipped Friday the 13th. Darn. I hope you can feel my disappointment. After touching ground in Manila, we existed the plan, went through immigration, found all our bags after a minor fiasco with Bryant's luggage (all bags made it and only a few items were stolen from Dave W's bag) and finally breezed through customs and out the door where we had the pleasure of meeting 3 UHG employees with bright smiling faces. I think they were just as excited to see us as we were to finally be on the ground. Before loading our luggage Dave W had to get a picture in front of the airport with our little buddy that Carla sent with us. (I don't think it has a name, so feel free to make suggestions)

At long last, Dave took his picture and we were on our way....to watch the sunrise over Manila. What a perfect way to end our travels and welcome us to our new home.

The hotel rooms are pretty fantastic. Thank you corporate for putting us up in some pretty sweet digs. I, personally, am on the 18th floor and have a view of Makati to the left, residential area in front, what looks like water straight ahead (I will be obtaining binoculars to comfrim. Watch for a future post) and then mountains even further out. It's gorgeous!

We met for breakfast after we arrived and had some fantastic food. I had 4 plates of food. For those of you that know me, know how extraordinary that number is. After breakfast, we all passed out and decided to meet at 7pm to start our day. No sense sleeping when we have a new schedule to adhere to. I don't think workforce will appreciate us sleeping all night.

After sleeping through my alarm, I woke up at 6:55pm and ran downstairs. (nothing has changed. I'm still late as always) Susan gave us a little tour and showed us a few important places, like the mall and grocery store, and then we went for breakfast. Dinner? Breakfast? I'm so confused. At any rate, we ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe where we had some good ol' American food and listened to the most amazing singer. She was singing all the current American music and sang it better than half the artist. Nailed it! Candice and I were singing and dancing right along. I'm certain you will hear more about mine and Candice's adventures as we're both ready for clubs, dancing and karaoke.