if you go paperless with Citibank

Yesterday, I received an email from Citibank: “Important Advisory on Paper Statement Delivery.”  It talks about a change in the billing process where, if you prefer your statements to be sent to you via snail mail, then you get charged PhP25 every month!  The amount looks small but if you add it up, that’s 300 pesos per year.  If you ask me how I feel about this change, I really don’t care.  I’ve gone paperless with everything that can be electronically delivered, from utility bills to payslips, to insurance policies.  Aside from saving the environment, which is very important for me, going paperless also spares me from clutter, and the digital copies allow me to save/archive them for years to come.  It also makes searching for details from bills faster/easier. 

Here’s how I organize my bills:

Here’s an excerpt from the email of Citibank.  I think it's a great email, but it would have been more helpful if they included some instructions or a link to a website showing how to enroll in e-Statements.  

Thank you for staying enrolled in e-Statements. By being enrolled in Citi e-Statements and e-Advice, you also enjoy security, speed, and FREE STATEMENT DELIVERY for all your accounts.

We wish to inform you that beginning September 1, 2017, customers who are receiving paper statements for their credit card and/or bank account will be charged P25 for every statement delivered to their mailing addresses.

May we also take this opportunity to remind you to ensure that your registered email is up to date and that your mailbox is not full so you can receive the e-Statements on time.

if you don't have eczema!

Around four years ago, I started having rashes on my left arm.  They were initially just red and itchy, then later on, during extreme hot or dry weather conditions, they started "bursting," looking like wounds.  I ignored these at first, and assumed it was sunburn.  They came and went with every change in weather condition.  I would put Green Cross alcohol on the affected area or exfoliate it briskly with my loofah and Safeguard.  Then there came a time when the itch became pain and it was unbearable.  I figured it was time to see the doctor.  And so I did.  Her findings I found unbelievable at first and I thought maybe she was just trying to make money out of that checkup.

The dermatologist at Makati Medical Center (I forgot her name.  Sayang, she's a good doctor.  Good because she sort of healed my skin problem and because I finally know how to treat my disease)  first asked me the usual questions - do you have allergies, did you eat seafood, did you get an insect bite, did you come in contact with animals, etc.  Then the medical questions - are you taking any medications, for what are they?  Do you have a family history of skin diseases, have you had this before.  Physical checkup came next.  She inspected everything (yes, all of it) and then said, "My dear, you have eczema."  I didn't know what it was at that time; I just heard it many times but didn't care to research about it.  So I asked where/how did I get it and she said it could be hereditary, otherwise, the cause is unknown.  She then asked me how/what I've been doing to relieve myself of the itch or the pain, and she raised her voice when I told her I used alcohol!  "Good lord," she said.  Apparently, everything that I've been doing has been aggravating the situation - I keep my skin dry and this is exactly what eczema is all about.

• Exfoliating your skin daily is a no no, it causes your skin to flake and it removes the skin's natural moisture.  
• Safeguard as my daily bath soap has been drying my skin.  (It is a good anti-bacterial soap, but how "dirty" could I be to need it every day?)  
• My heavily scented lotions (hello, Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works) irritate my wounds.  Downy fabric conditioner on my clothes rub into my rashes.  
• Alcohol dries and raises the temperature of my skin.  
• Scratching the affected area (is stupid) opens the wounds further and causes bacteria to enter.

All these things - they damage your skin.  Oftentimes it's a compliment when people say you have sensitive skin (because it sounds so mayaman LOL) but NO.  It's actually hell to live with sensitive skin due to so many restrictions.  So how did I go about my eczema episode?

Eczema will always be there.  Once you've had it, you can and will never get rid of it.  You will have attacks every now and then but you can mitigate the effects or lessen the inconvenience but it will be forever on your skin.  Too bad.  I now have three resident diseases:  eczema, amoebiasis, and diabetes.

First off, she prescribed a bottle of ointment that had her name on it.  I assume it's her formula because it didn't have a name on it.  But damn, it was expensive, PhP 1,950 for a 30mL container.  I had to apply it after bathing and before sleeping.  She told me I can just come back and buy it again from her if I needed to, but in my mind - thanks but no thanks, your "cure" is so expensive.  Now that I know it's eczema, I know there are other options.  Thankfully she also gave me some other pointers:

• Do not exfoliate everyday.  Once or twice a week is fine, and when you do so, refrain from rubbing your skin as if you were sanding wood.  (Liha versus kahoy LOL)
• Do not use Safeguard as your daily bath soap.  Use any of the following soaps.  What brand you choose depends on your budget:  Dove for Sensitive skin (green white box),  Ivory, Cetaphil, or Physiogel.  
• Avoid using anything scented on your skin - lotion, cologne, perfume - especially on the affected area.
• Avoid using fabric conditioner (Downy, Vernel, Del, Perwoll, Surf) on your clothes.
• Try to use mild detergents for washing clothes.  
• Do not scratch your sick skin!  

That afternoon, I went on a buying spree:

• I bought Dove Sensitive at a Mercury Drug Store.  Hell, 80 pesos per bar?!  You're kidding me.  
• At S&R, I got Aveeno Baby lotion for eczema.  400+ pesos for a 200 mL container.  Dang.

It was frustrating!  Given how huge my skin surface area is (go figure why LOL), my eczema required a huge "maintenance" fee.  I had to think of other options.  

Because I saw that the Aveeno I bought is "for babies," I deduced that eczema is probably a "thing" with babies.  I asked my mommy friends about it.  They recommended Elica.  Though expensive, it only costs around 400+ compared to the 1,950 pesos from the derma.

Elica

I also researched that eczema is aggravated by dry skin so I searched for fragrance-free skin lotions and moisturizers (thank you, Google).  A few brands came up: Physiogel, Cetaphil, Aveeno, and some others.  I found my Aveeno baby lotion to be effective, so when I saw that Aveeno has a scent-less moisturizing lotion, I grabbed it.  It's a lot cheaper than the "for babies" variant.  The 500 mL was being sold at S&R, 2 bottles for PhP 1,149 (it even had a free travel size pack).

Aveeno and Dove.  I don't have a photo of Dove Sensitive, and I'll have to explain to you in another blog why those are the Dove variants on the photo.

I also chanced upon Cycles detergent for babies and started using that to wash my clothes.  I couldn't avoid putting Downy on my clothes, so I just lessened the amount I used and avoided using long sleeve clothes for these come in contact with my skin.  

A few months after, some of the rashes disappeared and the itchiness was gone.  I kept on using my eczema busters.  Elica was my immediate solution for the eczema attacks during hot and humid days. If you have eczema, you can choose to follow the path I took, but if it doesn't work for you, please visit your doctor.

Meet my twin - Eczema - on regular days.  

if you avoid eating at Watami MOA

Ed and I have eaten at Watami MOA (Mall of Asia) for several times now and we haven't really had a successful attempt at having a wonderful experience.  Yesterday was around the fourth or the fifth time, but on all those past instances, we have kept on coming back, hoping that "they have probably improved by now."  After all, we've been diligent at providing feedback through their test hotlines.  In Filipino, we call this: "walang kadala-dala."

I can tolerate the location, the state of the restaurant, and the seats we had.  The resto is facing the Manila bay which meant humidity as if you were on the beach, and the sun's glaring rays in the afternoon that makes you squint when you look to the side of the ocean.  The seats and tables were sticky and the lighting (well, yes, I already said that) was really bad.

Now let's go to the quality of the food which is the last straw for me.  We ordered:  Watami Salad, Assorted Skewers, Watami Special Deep Fried Chicken on Hot Pan, Clams cooked in Stone Pot with Japanese-style sauce, and steamed rice.  Pardon me for the photos; we were too hungry but in my disappointment, I opted to take photos and planned to write a blog about it.  (Oh yes, that's how I frustrated I was!)

Clams cooked in Stone Pot with Japanese-style sauce.  PhP 195.  
Ed tells me it's good but I didn't like it when I tasted the soup base.  (This is a biased opinion from me because I've never liked clams.)  Ed thinks it's too pricey for the regular taste.  He counted around 10-15 pieces of it and there was nothing else in the soup but that and the soup.

Watami Salad.  PhP255.  

The first disappointment of the day.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to take a photo of it untouched.  (As I said, we were already starving!)  So here I'm going to show you... Expectation versus Reality.  

What's on the menu (Expectation.)  

What was "left" of it after mixing the salad and trying to look for the "other ingredients" in the menu (Reality).  The first "subo" was already meh.  It was just like eating leaves... yes, leaves only; and they weren't even crispy anymore.  No dressing, not even vinegar (if vinaigrette was too much to ask!)  Look closely at the photo, you couldn't even see the hint of mayo.  Their menu says it came with "tuna mayo."  They did put in a scoop of tuna with mayo and then that was it.  I kept on telling Ed that maybe they forgot the dressing.  He got annoyed so he asked them if this is really how the salad is served.  The server said she'll get us some dressing.  We got a bowl of ranch dressing but even that by itself wasn't tasty.  

Assorted Skewers.  PhP 385.  

This one wasn't that bad, although, again, for the price we paid - I would have eaten more at Nanbantei.  This dish had one piece of every item on the skewers list:  chicken liver, chicken wings, pork and enoki mushroom, beef & spring onion roll, and chicken thigh.  They all tasted the same but my favourite (well, the only one I liked) was the chicken thigh.  Ed liked the chicken liver (his favourite part of chicken).   The sauce was sweet and nothing else.  Nothing special.  The pork tasted weird, but maybe it's the combination that caused that.  I would have wanted it to be bacon + enoki; it might have been better that way. 

Watami Special Deep Fried Chicken on Hot Pan.  PhP 375.

This wasn't such a disappointment, thankfully!  (Or maybe because there was nothing else for me to eat.  Haha)  It was sour, probably intended to be like orange chicken or lemon chicken, but the taste was so overpowering; you could no longer taste the chicken.  For price, still a bit expensive, but I'm not that concerned.  I liked that it had lots of onion leeks because it offset the sour taste of the dish.  I wish they also lessened the flour on the chicken.  

I no longer took a photo of the rice, it was standard Jasmine rice and it was OK.  A bit pricey at PhP 60 per cup though!

Service wasn't that good either, but I'm not so surprised.  It's always been like that at Watami every time we go there.  Although the servers were attentive to what you needed, the time to be served was a bit longer than expected, considering there was only three to four tables occupied at that time.  

I'll never ever return to Watami again nor recommend it to friends or family.  It's so stupid to commit the same mistake for the 5th, 6th, or 7th time.  I hope the management proactively and aggressively ask for customer's comments or feedback and act on these accordingly so that they can improve their service.