Monday, November 19, 2007

Dani has a cold :(

She woke up fine yesterday and did her usual stuff. She walked all around the house, ran, laughed, made a lot of noise and still danced to Soulja Boy. During her nap time, I noticed some coughing. And it was during dinner time that I saw she has runny nose. The poor thing. It's not like she was miserable but she won't be able to tell me if she is or if something hurts. Besides, she is only 15 months so medicine is a big NO-NO. After dinner, I ran the steamer while I held her sitting on my lap. She hated it at first but I made her hold a picture of a Honda Accord and we were kind of discussing stuff about it. That kept her mind away from the annoying steam and stayed on my lap for 25 minutes. At about 11:30 pm, she went to sleep. I hope she gets better. She can't be sick on Thanksgiving Day!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Where did Macy's hide the backpacks?!

My mission today is to go to Macy's and shop for a Nike or Oakley backpack. I have this $10 off a $25 purchase coupon from Macy's Biggest One Day Sale brochure from Nov 16- 17. Okay that's two days but Friday is supposed to be their preview day and Saturday is the biggest day. How generous of them. What's great about this coupon is that Nike and Oakley are not included in their long list of "exclusions" which is literally everything in the store. There is a catch though, you can use it only until 1 pm. I can finally buy the Nike or Oakley backpack that I saw just a month ago. It's price was already reduced to $30 from it's $50 original price. I didn't get it then because I was still waiting for it to go down a little more. Besides there were still a bunch of them on the floor so it won't hurt to wait.

Today, around 11 am, I tried calling Macy's to find out how much the backpack is. Why? Because they usually bring the price back up to it's unreduced price when there's a big sale. The coupon will be completely useless if this is the case. Macy's automated answering service directed me to several buttons to push. When I finally reached the Young Men's department where the backpacks are, nobody answered. I kept trying and when finally someone picked-up, it's from a different department. I asked to be transferred to Young Men's but she doesn't know the extension number so she transferred me to the Executive Office instead. A certain Mary answered and asked how she can "exceptionally help" me. She gave me the extension number [in case] and transfered me -- probably her way of exceptionally helping me. I heard 2 rings and then my call got redirected again to the annoying automated answering service. And if I enter the number given to me, it will just keep redirecting me like a loop. I called the Executive Office and Mary answered again with that intention of giving me an exceptional help. I told her of my predicament and put me on hold for over 6 minutes! I thought she was doing something smart like find it out for me herself or something. It turns out, she just transferred me to the manager of the floor who did not pick-up so the phone rang again on her end and was surprised that I was still waiting. She put me on hold for a couple more minutes and came back with "I'm sorry but someone was using the phone and it's really busy in the store and the manager is attending to someone and if you leave your number I'll have the manager give you a call back." Like that is going to happen! So much for exceptional help. They should really just drop the exceptional help crap because it gets in one's nerve when they can't help even a very simple inquiry. I thanked Mary and told her that I'll just go to the store. She was apologetic though, maybe the exceptional thing was also getting to her.

I wasted a lot of time on the phone. It was about 12:30 pm when I left the house. I rushed to Macy's, went straight to Young Men's department and searched for the backpacks. I couldn't find them! I searched the whole floor and to no avail. I asked one associate who told me that they're all gone. They may have sold out. I wanted to slap him [kidding]. I didn't stop there. I went one floor down to where the luggages are. Sometimes they have backpacks displayed on that floor. There were no backpacks around. I guess it's not my lucky day today. I saw a few backpacks but they're not Nike or Oakley. They were Swiss Army brand and [whoa!] so not in my budget.

I went back up to 2nd floor where the ladies handbags are. Maybe there are backpacks there somewhere. Maybe they run out of space in Young Men's because of the massive amount of outerwears on display so they squeezed the backpacks in handbags. It could work too you know. I mean ladies could use some backpacks too. There were none.

Macy's was packed with customers and all registers had long lines except for one -- the cashier in bags. I asked her then if they have available backpacks. She didn't blink and gave me a very confident answer that they're on the third floor. It is now 10 minutes past 1pm -- my coupon was completely useless. I checked it just the same to see if I wasted my time checking them on the wrong floors [I will surely have a fit]. There were backpacks there alright but they were all The North Face and [whoa!] so not in my budget too and it's in the list of "exclusions". I can now officially say that my mission miserably failed. It's all Mary's fault! ;)

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Progress Report Cards

First Grading is over and it's revelation time! All of Yna and MJ's hardwork are summed up in these cards.

Yna, a consistent gifted and honors student, maintained her straight A grades and again achieved a Distinguished Honor Roll Status. Though she struggled with Algebra I and Science getting quizzes that were below 90%, she worked really hard to improve her grades. She'd practice working on several math problems almost every night and every time she'd be sleeping late. She tried several times to ask for our help or to check if her answers were correct, but hubby and I, unfortunately, forgot everything about Algebra. Simply put, we were totally useless. With all the projects she completed, tests and quizzes every week she studied on, loads of homework every night [even weekends!] she finished, essays and book reviews she'd written, and helping out babysitting for her sister [which she calls a strenuous and unpaid job], she rightfully deserved all A's.

MJ's grades are as impressive as his sister's although she teased him a lot about getting most 3's and only five 4's [4 is the highest]. MJ, a 4th grader, is in enrichment class for Math, Reading and Language Arts. His lessons are above his grade level so getting 3's is like getting 4's when he is in a regular class or having lessons for his grade level. I know it's confusing but that's how his teacher explained it to me during our 1-on-1 Progress Report Conference. Maybe they should just add 3E, where E stands for Enrichment, to avoid confusion and to make it more official. Also, during the month of October, MJ participated in the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE). A Growth Scale Value (GSV), a score, of 471 would reflect a higher reading performance for fourth grade students in the Fall. On this administration of GRADE, MJ obtained a GSV of 477.

What can I say? I am a very happy and proud mom. I'm glad to see all their hard work rewarded with hard earned high grades.