JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

Things have made a different turn of events, and it seems that things are getting close for me. Currently I'm trying to scrape off every resource money I could get my hands on and things are not going well on that plan of mine, Apparently on the part of the "Human Fallibility" issue on were they're not paying their debts back.   For the moment, there's a possibility that my stay here in the Philippines will be prolonged for another month, given that dad's operation is scheduled somewhere on the third week of May (way far too long than initially intended). Worst part is that dad is going to be confined earlier and at least two weeks before his said operation, I'm not exactly sure if we do have both the manpower to maintain daily task here at home and at the hospital.   Another problem that resurfaced is the pressure coming in from my current shipping company telling me to report soon and take the medical exam ASAP. I'd report back as soo...

Congratulations   !!! After being here in the Philippines for more than a month, I am now officially broke (though technically I'm not). It may seemed to be all of a sudden that I have spent 70 thousand pesos in just roughly half a month but money goes really fast these days if I'm not careful in spending it wisely - well I did spent it wisely for the most part and that technically I still have at least more than 20 thousand pesos in savings (which unfortunately I couldn't use at the moment given that I lend it to my younger sister). In spite of this , believe it or not I am happy that I am broke compare to the time when I have all the money and working at sea.   For the moment , The only thing that is holding me back in being at sea again is the licensure examinations. I'm still very much hell bent committed in taking that exam and getting that piece of plastic card as much as possible, That card for me is vital and is the key to my retirement on this god f...

Finished up my latest business on my seafaring career, and just finally got another copy of my transcript of records that will be released on the 25th of April - No thanks to my beloved School PMI colleges . Wasn't really hard in getting one really just simply have an affidavit of loss and four hundred pesos and that’s it. I went there at about 1pm on Monday and immediately proceeded on the registrar room now relocated at the new building of PMI campus and prepared my affidavit of loss along with my old seaman's book as an I.D. , I didn't wait too long on the line in the registrar and when I came up I was asked by the staff on which date did I made my TOR (transcript of records) a BS. I said I couldn’t remember the exact date but only the year which is 2012. It only took her a couple of minutes to check on the school records before calling me back and giving me instructions to fill out the form and go to the accounting office for payment. Went to the accounting office in...

      Haven't you noticed how star bucks has taken the place of megamalls , theme parks and fast food chains ? .today star bucks spells gimmick .Suddenly everyone is mad about coffee and is willing to spend a whoing hundered bucks for one tall mocha frappe or one Grande iced coffee , everyone claims its different, its something to die for .Instead of catching a nice flick at the cinema, the Filipinos new idea of fun is to voluntarily park their buns at the cafe shop and gulp all the caffeine they can muster. No one knows exactly why star bucks has become the hot spot , when what they serve is just a foamed version of cheap coffee you buy over a typical grocery store for crying out loud .Oh try pointing this out to star bucks fanatics here and you can expect getting lambasted-to- death on how little you know about coffee .get ready with the answers like "duh! star bucks isnt just coffee ! they're ground beans and processed chocolate and skimmed milk !what do you ...

As for the moment things are not going pretty well on my vacation, and within a short span of a month I am having now difficulties in managing my remaining money left. What's worse is that I'm not exactly sure if I can keep the commitment of taking a licensure exam.   Can't really imagine that I had blown off 70k of my leave pay within only less than a month but despite that I had no regrets in spending that money since I used it for the greater good like buying much needed equipment for my next work onboard a ship and repairing some things on the house. Marina Requirements for COP Anyway Shortly after my BTU / BTR seminar, I came afterwards on my next objective "The SDSD" seminar. Which I took on march 31st , the SDSD seminar was a totally big joke and I even wonder why this is required at all in the first place. Anyway the good thing that came up during the seminar was that I found out some info on which medical centre I would take the basic PEME for the COP and...

Taken during our fire fighting exercise on the seminar, Im on the far right side in the picture Updating my documents have already started , I hope I accomplish it soon. First off i found out that BTR / BTU seminar is just only good for two years and will only serve as a remedy to the near obsolete SOLAS / BST certificate that i had. In other words i will unfortunately will take another full course seminar of BT (basic training and successor name of SOLAS / BST) within two years time after this. Now the big question is i should have taken the full course instead rather than op on this. The BTU seminar started at around 27th Thursday march, The first day was mostly lectures , not that thing that should be taken seriously. I nearly got late though given that i overslept on downloading too many PC games in torrents. During i was at the training centre in PNTI when i accidentally saw one of my enemies onboard cape tallin , it was "Bull Frog" . It was no big deal though and just s...