Rambling

I just finished reading Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. Literally my head hurt, but it was enjoyable, like any other Murakami’s books I’ve read.

This is the paragraph that caught my attention:

“Hoshino found Oshima an appealing young man. Intelligent, well-groomed, obviously from a good family. And quite kind. He must be gay. Not that Hoshino cared. To each his own, was his thinking. Some men talk with stones, and some sleep with other men.”

***
There’s a pending topic I’ve been wanting to blog about for months. Sometimes I forget about it, especially whenever I’m having a writer’s block and I couldn’t think of a topic to blog about.

I’ve always wanted to write about how I tend to keep a lighter for months. By lighters, I’m referring to the cheap, plastic, disposable Cricket brand. Most of the time, I only throw my lighter at the garbage bin by the time of its natural death -- its fuel ran out. Most of the people I know can only keep a lighter for a week at most. They sometimes forget it somewhere or lost it. It’s known that lighters often get lost during drinking sessions. Me? I rarely lose things. But whenever I do, I lose big time. I still couldn’t forget the sting of losing P500 a few years ago or the time I misplaced my plastic lunch box.

I guess because money became important for me. On my first job, I thought of money lightly like I’m bound to get some every 15th and last day of the month. It was my stay at my second job, where I experience the highest highs and lowest lows of my career and personal experiences, that I became conscious of my own spending. And with that, I decided to take really good care of things I own to the point that instead, for example, of buying a new pair shoes, I’d rather have them repaired. The only spending that I still haven’t managed to tame is the money I spent on food. A huge chunk of what I earn goes to food, watching movies and having that regularly massage from blind masseurs at the mall. I go with this logic that with second hand experiences I derive my inspiration to write.

***
My “My Documents” in my hard drive has been a mess for months. I decided to organize the essays I copy-pasted from the blogs I frequent and some of the documents I’ve written myself and God it was both painful and therapeutic.

It was painful and tedious. Sorting out hundreds of .doc files, reading, skimming them, checking them if any one of them was still worth keeping or deleting. I used to have a bad habit of copy-pasting essays without writing down the title and author in my word document. I only realize now that if I did post those entries here on my blog, it’ll be plagiarizing.

I remember I did a clean up with my previous blog entries a year ago starting with the first entry I ever wrote in Taglish. It was a painful process as well but at least I managed to clean the essays I wrote out of sheer teenage angst and deleted those essays that can’t be salvaged. I know it’s kind of Orwellian but at least I’m comfortable knowing my previous blog entries like 4-5 years ago is now less embarrassing. I’ve always thought that if I ever become a real published book author, there’ll be people bored enough with their lives to backtrack everything what I’ve written starting when I was a college student.

It was therapeutic because the neurotic in me likes everything clean. Even with my personal files, I want everything neatly arranged. There were essays that I easily remember who the writer was like Limp Bwizit. Even though I can’t remember exactly the titles of the essays where they came from, I can always put a “Quote from Limp Bwizit” should there ever be a need to use it in one of my blog entries. To those essays I can’t remember where I got them and who the exact author was, I deleted them even though I know what they’ve written is good and I can find a use to quote them in one of my blog entries. I just didn’t want that risk.

Here are some the essays in my hard drive that I like to re-read from time to time.

- Undergraduation, How to Do What You Love, Taste for Makers by Paul Graham

- Faces in The Crowd by Sean Uy

- Of Winning (I know this is not the exact title but I just have to name this one) by Limp Bwizit

- Road Blues by Karl Kaufman

- Random Quotes he got from Che Guevarra, Rainier Marie Rilke, et al. by TJ Orosa

***


I finished watching the third season of Ugly Betty. For me, it’s probably the best season they had since its first run. I don’t want to explain the story. You just have to watch it. The reason that this show has a special place in my heart is because Betty Suarez’s story is pretty much the same as mine’s. Same goals, dreams, set of shady characters in the background, minus the love affair and multiply the family issues many times more.

***


I also finished watching the fifth season of Entourage and my favorite characters are still Ari Gold and his admin assistant Lloyd. Because of some stupid shit Vincent Chase did with Medellin, he was in a “movie limbo.” It was fun watching him without the self-indulgence.

***


I know it was bound to be bad but I did watch All About Steve anyway. It was like the masochistic in me just had to see it as due to some immature reasons Inglorious Basterds wasn’t able to make it in the local cinemas. I guess I have to resort to pirated DVD copies again.

Everything about the story was wrong like plot and character development. This one is in the same category as Fame -- throw it in the toilet bowl. It’s the reason I didn’t watch 2012 and Law Abiding Citizen. They were crap and I do listen to the movie critics except for comedies. I lower my standards for an Adam Sandler or a Ben Stiller movie.

***


I was hesitant to watch this as I’ve heard Katy Perry’s live performances and they ain’t good on You Tube. But to my surprise, being there personally was a different thing. I came late and I intentionally missed Jed’s and Christian Bautista’s performance. I’m not sure if Christian Bautista was there, I know Jed was. By the time I arrive it was already Arnel Pineda singing some the Journey songs. The group of high school girls in front of me who dressed up was laughing at his songs. I think most high school and college kids around me didn’t appreciate his songs and was polite enough to clap every time he finished. Yes, it’s a feat to be noticed by an American band and become “famous” because of You Tube and sheer talent. It’s kind of sad that The Journey is a has-been band and Arnel Pineda needs to sing songs which will fit today’s standards and not live on by the scraps of the former glory of that band. Sayang.

I did make some notes on my cell phone which is pretty much the summary of how I find Katy Perry’s concert in Manila, Philippines. “Stomach content: a small pack of peanuts and banana chips and a glass of coca cola,” was the first note I made. I woke up at around 5pm because I just came from a drinking sessions the morning before after shift with some office colleagues from S-2. I got out of house at 6pm and I knew I’ll be at the venue an hour late by 9pm. Like when I was a college junior on a hang over, I rode the bus to SM Mall of Asia with a pounding headache while eating a small pack of peanuts and banana chips. The dinner/breakfast I had at home was so bad I gave up on it after a few spoonfuls. The glass of overpriced coca cola I got to drink by the time I arrived at the concert venue. I remember, on my way in, one of bouncers advised me to “deposit” my bottle of Ralph Lauren perfume. “Pabango lang yan!” I exclaimed. (It’s just perfume!) I know claiming deposits after a concert is too much of a hassle that I was willing to fight to the death not to deposit anything. An event organizer approached us and settled our mini commotion. He allowed me to bring my perfume in. The probability of me throwing it like an empty plastic water bottle in the air (which is common at any rock concerts) was next to zero. Who in their right mind would do that? I remember I was the only one smoking in our area. I had to step back to smoke to avoid people around me from getting second hand smoke. The group of high school girls near me went a few steps away upon smelling my cigarette smoke. I’m so used to people smoking left and right and not just cigarettes at rock concerts that I got a bit annoyed when I didn’t see anyone smoking, but the crowd here isn’t the same type I made a mental note to myself, I just have to get along with it.

“She doesn’t know how to dance,” my second note in my cell phone. I did try to compare her concert with Lady Gaga’s but she was more of a guitar playing type wearing a pink two piece rather than a girl who shakes her humps on the stage. My last note was “Big inflatable strawberries, lipstick and a giant cat name Kitty Purry.” What she lacked in performance, she compensated with props. There was a song she sang, I sang my heart out and the people around me started looking at me weirdly, which was Use Your Love. And now I can’t help myself singing “You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys…”

Sandwiched

The transition of my work schedule from October to November sucks. However, the time I go in and out of work for November is much better than October, but having Tuesdays and Wednesdays off is really not worth celebrating.

For the first week of November here’s pretty much how my week will go:
Oct 31-Nov 1 off
Nov 2 go to work
Nov 3-4 off.

In S-2, whenever the initial schedule for the next month has been set, there’s a mass hysteria among the employees in filing leaves because of the very limited precious slots. Approving of leaves is done on a first come first serve basis. November will be much more chaotic as most people would want to have a Dec 24-25, Dec31-Jan 1 off or leave. If not, they would do everything in their power to be on “leave” that day. Based on my experience last year, whether one’s leave get approved or denied, they absent themselves anyway and they’re not even scared of any threats of repercussion from the management. Our department in particular has the highest attrition rate in whole of S-2 for reasons that would need me several blog entries to cite. We have people resigning every week. For every 10 trainees they get, only 3-4 toughies would stay for a period of 6 months time or longer. Since the people they usually get are highly trained, have good communication skills and some are certified by various meritorious IT groups, they can get jobs as easy as they go online.

I was caught by that so-called filing-of-leaves hysteria. I usually file my leaves strategically but I missed something for the third week of November. “Naka-ligtaan ko, shet,” I said to myself. I’m going to have another sandwiched week by then.

Nov 14-15 leave
Nov 16 go to work
Nov 17-18 off

I don’t have any issues with attendance. It’s the reason I’m off the radar with S-2’s management. But having a sandwiched schedule is a strong temptation not to go work and it’s quite obvious when you call in sick the reason I never do so. The fact that I’m in night shift makes it more of a challenge too. But what the heck, “Bahala na si Batman.”

***
One of the comments I received as a writer when I partially represented Rapiers: Twin Fangs in the local fantasy fiction community is my obvious limited reading experience. When I was in college, I read books during free time and I was a “book worm” compare to the people I hung around with. But I shouldn’t dare make a comparison because the people I was around with, up until now actually, when I was in college didn’t read for pleasure. Some didn’t even care to graduate but that’s another story. I guess the amount of books I read isn’t enough for me to make a quality story.

Then again, I started reading books with very weak narratives/descriptions such as Paulo Coelho’s and Mitch Albom’s. I partly blame National Bookstore (insert a smiley here) for focusing too much with bestsellers. I must also admit that when I started writing Rapiers: Twin Fangs when I was a freshman in college, I was thinking of Final Fantasy and other console-based role playing games. It obviously showed. Now, I’m the painful process of catching up, learning and steering away Rapiers: Twin Fangs from becoming a Final Fantasy fan-fiction.

I should also consider my reading stamina. I tend to miss out descriptions and narrations whenever I get bored. There are times I only half-understand a book upon finishing. It’s the reason I’m re-reading some of the books I’ve finished. I now focus on the narratives used and I want to appreciate a well written paragraph whenever I see one. I’m blaming my short attention span for focusing too much on dialogues and pictures back when I was playing RPGs like crazy when I was in high school!

On the other hand, another challenge I have with reading is that books are freaking expensive. I remember when I was in college, I only started buying books when I started receiving allowances as a part of the school’s official student newspaper. It was my junior year. In my first job, I bought books almost every pay day but my bad reading habits when I was in college continued. I believe I only half-understood 2 out of the 3 books I purchased and read. With my second job, I don’t know why I didn’t buy any books and it was for almost a year I didn’t produce/write anything. Here in S-2, I returned to what I used to regularly do and I’m reading books again. But due to the (literally) costly mistakes I made between mid 2007 to mid 2008, I only buy books when I really have some extra money.

I bought a couple of books, a Haruki Murakami and a Raymond E. Feist. The first time I read Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance, I didn’t notice it. But for the second time, because I really want to understand the story, the room he described in Dolphin Hotel and the Wolfman himself were in Linkin Park’s Papercut music video. It’s probably one of the reasons I like Murakami. I tend to look for and find Linkin Park in everything I like.

I went to a Fully Booked store in Gateway mall and my budget was only around P500 and max was P1000. I knew it would only be enough for a couple of books at most. I stopped buying books at National Bookstore. They usually never have the titles I’m looking for. National Bookstore had a crazy 90% discount sale from Sept 15 to Oct 15, but whenever I drop by, their shelves were always empty.

I was looking for either Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (the book that made him popular) or Sputnik Sweetheart. They weren’t available that time. I’ve read a few gay stories and watched gay movies but most of them are made to make you horny, which defeat its purpose, I think. Sputnik Sweetheart I believe is a story between two women lovers. It was written to tell, not to titillate.

There were only three titles for Murakami in the shelf. I did an eenie-minie-moe and I picked Kafka on the Shore. The second book I picked up is a fantasy-fiction. I made a promise to myself that I’m going to start reading fantasy fiction books to pick up the good writing habit. I’m not familiar with this genre and I picked this book because it looked like an easy read. I was choosing between the Prince of Blood and the King’s Buccaneer. For sheer randomness, I picked King’s Buccaneer which is the second part of Prince of Blood. (Amputa!) It’ll be like reading Tolkien’s The Two Towers first before the Fellowship of the Ring. “Bahala na, wish me luck na lang.”

***


As of writing, I’m not finished reading Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, but I’m about 70% complete. It’s like the Japanese Oedipus story. “You’re going to kill your father and you’re going to marry your mother.” For a young boy to be told of a “prophetic curse,” it’s simply unbearable. Most of Murakami’s books have anonymous main characters but this one has a fake name Kafka.

The other story, I haven’t reached a part when the two stories connects because they usually do, is about Nakata. He is a funny and a weird man who admits he’s dumb, but he can talk to cats. Between the story of Kafka and Nakata, I’m more engaged with Nakata’s. I’m bored with stories about adolescent male’s angst and lust. I can’t roll my eyes enough and think, “Been there, done that.”

Of all the Murakami’s book I read, Kafka on the Shore is the most surreal and has the characters that make me laugh out loud. There’s an androgynous “guy” who’s technically a girl because “he” has a vagina but the pronoun for him remains a he, a truck driver attached to his favorite professional baseball team wearing a cap with their name everywhere he goes and became close with Nakata because he reminds him of his grand father, a man who dresses up like Col. Sanders and instead of fried chicken he pimps beautiful “barely legal” college students who quotes Hegel whenever doing “massages.” This must be the type of stories I’m meant to enjoy. I can only imagine what does it say about me.

Urong-Sulong

“Urong-Sulong” (going back and forth) is probably the best word to describe my week. I know I’ve moved on with this particular endeavor I’ve been hinting about in my blog these past few weeks, but a part of me is pissed off with what they did. They shouldn’t have made me feel like I was going to expect something. “Alam mo yun, pinaasa ka. Tapos wala naman.”

I also have another “paasa” moment, which was given to me around September. It’s a good thing I didn’t think about it that much. I didn’t get that excited. It was cancelled lately. A part of me was telling it was bound to get cancelled that I didn’t get surprise at all. At least, I was informed it was cancelled. “But still, nakaka piss off pa rin.”

***
A storm internationally named Mirinae quickly passed by Philippines. It made everyone's annual visit to the cemetery a day earlier to avoid all the hassle and the mud that comes along with heavy winds and rains. It was Thursday I believe when one of my office colleagues made a comment should've the storm be locally named "Soxy," it'll be the "gayest" storm ever. We laughed at the thought of course, but storms no matter how funny their names are not a laughing matter. After storms Ondoy and Pepeng, now everyone's getting a bit overacting whenever a storm's coming. But I don't mind it. It's always better to be overprepared than become helpless.

***


Hurt Locker was a good movie. Admittedly my taste still prefers commercial movies, but I find this one okay. It had great reviews among the critics because it was the movie that had no agenda at hand. The US war against Iraqi insurgents can be such a loaded topic.

The known actors who appeared in Hurt Locker did only cameo roles and the story pretty much revolved around the characters played by three unknown actors. It was a story about “specialists” disarming bombs that were left in the streets or key buildings such as the UN office that is meant to kill a lot of people.

Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) is made to wear a useless protective suit whenever he goes near a bomb/s. To him, it’s like walking with a small pink umbrella against a storm. He disrobes his gear in the middle of his “work,” pulling wires from the bombs and cutting them with precision. He prefers, should it happen, to die comfortably. He throws his radio headset when prompted to leave. He wants to finish what he’s doing regardless of the protocols and the orders. He keeps “souvenirs” from his work, which are wires and fragments from the bombs he disarmed and among the rubbles is his wedding ring. He thinks it’s of similar stuff. His colleagues keep in tab the numbers of days until they can go back home to their loved ones, but he isn’t that excited. My, he can’t be more interesting.

Rambling

The result I was waiting for a couple of weeks now didn’t arrive this week. It only means I should move on. Shet, almost P1000 din ang nagastos ko going back and “fort.” Sayang. (The pun was better written in semi-Tagalog/Filipino. OMG, I can now do puns!)

***
Eon was right when he said that fatigue is the price of living a “full life.” This week is probably one of the longest weeks I’ve had for 2009. I’m glad I’m having this regular monthly “team building” with this certain group of people I’m not ready to blog about just yet. (I prefer to call it a team building exercise rather than a “gimik” with friends to drink and hang out with because we’re now acting more of as a team rather than a group of friends, which is not exactly a bad thing.)

***
That's my tale in a nutshell. Not the tale of how I came to write my novel but rather of how I became a writer. Because, in truth, I didn't become a writer the first time I put pen to paper or when I finished my first book (easy) or my second one (hard). You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway. Wasn't until that night when I was faced with all those lousy pages that I realized, really realized, what it was exactly that I am.

I'm still in that writing-even-though-it's-hopeless stage.

To read the complete article, please click here.

Musical Overkill

This girl emits lesbian vibes. I think she's gay or just doing it to be talked about, which is sleazy.

This song wouldn't stop playing in my head. It's quite catchy like Lady Gaga's Poker Face and Rihanna's Umbrella. Elly Jackson, the singer, maybe doing a "Japanese." (Look at Japan's popular girly boy bands.) Maybe she's just plain androgynous. I don't know. My gaydar hasn't been working lately.

She doesn't deny being lesbian and plays around with pronouns in her songs. I've listen to some and I'm convinced it's LESBIAN or trying convince people it's so. I have nothing against it though.

***

Hmm, Jessica Zafra was right when she said the poster was wrong. It looks more like Drag Me to Hell.

We’re having too many musicals to the point it’s “nakakasuka na.” I agree that Mamma Mia is a “masterpiece” compare to this piece of shit, but it’s way better than High School Musical. My press-release-like answer why the hell I saw the three HSM movies: the masochist in me just had to see it.

Was it worth my time? Bleh. It’s part cheesy, part entertaining like that TV show Glee. If you’re waiting for something important and you need to kill an hour and a half or so, go ahead watch it. It’s not going to be the highlight of your week.

The scenes are too jumpy. It’s confusing. I remember a comment I had with Twin Fangs, “Too many characters spoil the broth.” (I’m working on cutting down the “clutter” characters of Twin Fangs.) The movie’s ending, which was supposed to make you wow with their talent, leaves you unimpressed.

On the other hand, I started watching Glee because I got curious why some of my office colleagues were raving about it. It’s fun but superficial. It’s like the gay version of Princess Diaries. I find the characters too cliché-ish. I mean do every “sector” of society has to have a representative in the glee club? Come on! Glee kicked out Gossip Girl for being the “Bakla TV Show of Year” but it’s not better.

***

I’m still waiting for the result of the “stupid and unplanned” thing I did two weeks ago. I’m going to wait for it until next week. Should I don’t get a result. I’ll move on.

Must Return to Regular Programming

I find you guilty of a crime
Of sleeping in a time
When you should've been wide awake

It’s a blessing in disguise that typhoon Pepeng was a “dud” in Manila. However, it did serious damage in Northern Luzon. Conrado de Quiros said it right when he wrote the alarums for the typhoon was not at all OA, “What was a little OA, or laughably so, was the panic-buying in supermarkets by the middle class (in Manila) -- they are the ones with the cash or card with which to fortify themselves for a long siege -- who threatened to empty the shelves in no time.” I remember my elementary science classes stating the fact that Philippines is in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire. We are vulnerable to Mother Nature’s wrath such as devastating earth quakes and storms.

The song Wide Awake by Audioslave has been playing in my head lately. It’s a song they wrote when Hurricane Katrina devastated the US.

***
I did something stupid, unplanned, I’m not sure which or both. The result of this endeavor might’ve already happened by the time I posted this blog entry. I was planning to do it by January but it came earlier than expected. There are some things I’ve been talking about with my office colleagues but I can’t blog about it as of the moment. I can never be so sure who’s reading this stuff. I’m leaving the paragraph below about the result of what has happened.

I will get the result by next week.

***
I’m starting to think October is a good month for me. Even though I experienced all the bad things in S-2 I’ve never experienced in the all of the companies I’ve previously worked for combined, it was this month I started in S-2. I’ve managed to stay in it for a year. “Nakakaraos pa naman ako.”

I’ve been noticing this pattern for several years now. Things go shitty by July and August then I recover by October.

October is also the month I started blogging. It was a year before 2003, I believe, after I said I wanted to write. Now I’m changing the so-called term regarding what I want to do. A writer is too general and its meaning is too broad. A copywriter who works at a PR firm is a writer. Someone who contributes for a publication is a writer. Someone who writes whether for profit or personal gratification is simply a writer. I used to want a copywriter job or to do production assistant stint for a newspaper or a media group. Given the salary and how much I badly need money, and how I lacked the qualifications for an entry level job in that field because I’m not a journalism/mass communications graduate, I went the “usual” route among college graduates and worked for a call center.

I now have this preference over the term “storyteller.” (Yes dear, like that current toddler milk formula TV ad… lol) I’ve been using it in the jobs I’ve had ever since I finished college. I consider my current job a technical storyteller since I tell technical details to network operations personnel and IT staff from small to large businesses regarding the root cause and troubleshooting steps done with their T1 “circuits” down to doing basic CISCO commands with the routers we managed.

Storytelling is a profession as old prostitution but not as controversial. They could be the early rumor mongers, gypsies, the wise town elders, or was simply a person with wild and vivid imagination and a big mouth. They were the ones who concocted and distributed the stories of King Arthur, the holy grail, from Beowulf and even the local ones such as every “alamat” we can think of through word of mouth and/or the written word.

This entry marks my sixth year of blogging. As a start, I’m dropping the term writer. I want to become a storyteller. I know enough that I still lack most of the attributes that makes one competent in that field but I’m willing to learn. The fact that I continuously blog means I’m still hoping.

Biblical

By the time my current blog entries has been posted, a lot has been said and done about that “baby storm” and the rain that just wouldn’t stop. It brought almost biblical-proportions of flood. I’ve read and seen about disasters striking in the Philippines, but when something happens in your own area, affecting people you know personally and work with, it makes you feel vulnerable. It’s no longer some distant news and event that you can easily shrug off.

The typhoon Ordoy brought out the best and worse in people. Paul Graham was right when he said, given circumstances, people can stand up and do great things together. I’ve never seen this kind of volunteerism and charity among people my age before. I guess it helps that classes were suspended for a week. Students have some free time to spare.

I’d like to be detailed about how some people I know were affected, given what’s happened, and how lucky I am and my family was that we were spared, but a lot has been said and blogged about. I guess prayer helps too, but it’s obvious affected parties need basic necessities. I decided to donate a few set of my clothes (which are in good condition) and a pair of shoes I’m no longer using. I know they are a few sizes bigger compare to “ordinary” people but someone will put a good use to it. I'd like to volunteer and help out, but I'm no longer a student. I have to work.

Crushing Rains and Cockroach Optimism

Everyone who has a blog in the Philippines has blogged about it. That freaking storm was the shortest but it did the biggest damage in Metro Manila. It was like this all over again, but this time I wasn’t stranded on my way home and had a decent conversation and drinking session with an office colleague.

I remember that call I made at work informing I’ll be absent. I had a shift that night and I really wanted to go but can’t. The rain wouldn’t just stop. The guy who answered the phone, who was a manager, asked if I could go at least in the morning and they would “off-set” the shift I was absent because of the weather. They were really understaffed. I heard out of the expected 52 personnel, only 9 came to work. I said I will try but didn’t go that morning.

There was a power outage starting around Saturday afternoon and I couldn’t do anything but stare at the wall. I couldn’t even go to the mall but there were no public transition.

That night it was so difficult to sleep because it was hot and I was perspiring like lechon. By Sunday morning, it was my only off for the week because of that “stupid transition” from my September schedule to October’s, I went to the church before my ritualistic stroll at the mall. It had been months since I attended a mass. In my opinion, I remain a catholic because it’s been in my papers ever since I was born. It’s simply “dyahe” to change religions. In the words of Dr. Temperance Brennan, a character from my favorite TV show Bones, all religions are equally illogical. 15 units of theology from a stern Catholic school when I was in college, what I think of faith and God in general deserves a blog entry of its own.

I was surprised at the priest who delivered the homily. He was good. He did a couple of slippery slope topics and managed to get out of it alive. First was doing good things for the sake of being good. He made references to some politicians running for presidency and he swayed the topic immediately to avoid sounding too “politic-ky” (it’s annoying by the way) and reiterated a very relevant topic which was about the storm and how it left a lot of people homeless and, worse, dead. He made a good point of encouraging people to help in any way they can starting with giving any amount to any meritorious social organizations who help during this kind of emergency.

His second topic was about the church that includes, not excludes. It’s probably the most loaded topic of all. He didn’t dwell in it too much, for the lack of examples I supposed. The catholic clergy in general has never been known to have an open mind at all. But he got away with cheesiness and he almost made it sound like life is like a United Colors of Benetton poster. I was thinking of the line I made in Rapiers – Twin Fangs, which is “There is no evil craft, only an evil heart.”

Speaking of Rapiers, I’m working again in my fifth of seven stories. The part I’m having most difficulty is describing things, which was the biggest feedback I received from this certain set of people who know what they are talking about. My descriptions aren’t picture perfect yet but I developed a tool, which I used while I was doing La Dolce Vita, when I’m having difficulty describing things.

There’s no timeline I’m giving myself. I rarely meet it. I’ll work on my pace this time but the fact I keep on blogging about it means I’m concerned and I want to do it. I remembered someone said to me that I have this cockroach-like determination. It’s probably the weirdest compliment I’ve ever received. Cockroaches can live for days without a head.

Rambling

“Immoralities at call centers…” I’ve heard and read so many stories about it. It’s stupid and superficial to think that call center people has the monopoly of “immorality.” Everyone has their own share of it. Tamaan na ng kidlat ang nagmamalinis. (Let lightning strike on those who claim they’re clean.)

I’ve been working in the call center industry for three and a half years now. A year and a half as an “agent,” eight months as a corporate events organizer and currently for a year now as an agent again. The salary, culture and the ways things done are different, yes. The pay’s way above the minimum. Culture is predominantly Western and it’s a good thing especially for me. I grew up thinking I was raised by foreign TV shows. Jessica Zafra perfectly described it as having a perennial jetlag without actually riding a jet. She knows because her sister works in that industry.

I guess call centers has become a whipping boy since it’s new, has the most number of young people in it and has drastically changed the lifestyle of most yuppies in Manila and other cities in the Philippines. It’s “normal” to work at night and “party” at morning. A lot of pizza parlors and restaurants, and other businesses benefiting from it, adjusted their delivery schedules to accommodate the growing number of customers at midnight and really early morning.

In my limited years of experience, call centers, or the whole new set of BPO industry, has been one of the few places that tolerate diversity. It’s an industry where you are accepted regardless of gender, age and whatever “churva” you have in life. Whatever and churva within a sentence sounds redundant. What more can you ask for?

Each field and industry has their own set of perks and “curse.” This is where I am right now. This is my day job (I should call it night job) that pays the bills and gets me going. I guess, like the majority of the young and the restless like me, I don’t want to stay here for long. I know there’s something better waiting for me.

***
I went tsk, tsk, tsk on myself two weeks ago. Because of that mugging incident, I didn’t have a choice but do a “cash advance” with my credit card. The “petty” amount was around P500. I know I’m just being hard on myself. It was an emergency and I really got zeroed. Mahirap na talagang magsalita ng tapos. (It’s really hard to set something on stone). As of the moment, I still haven’t used my credit card on anything else. I have to.

Compensations

"There’s one more thing. I want you to remember, there are compensations in life. There always are, or we wouldn’t go on living. You don’t feel well, now; neither do I. But something will happen to fix that. Do you believe that?" A story of love by Ray Bradbury

(I remember reading this quote from Bianca Consunji’s blog and I think this is the best time to use it in an entry).

I was planning to write how it was such a “drag” to report a petty crime incident to the authorities and how it was my first time to ride inside one of those police mobiles. It was weird and scary at the same time whenever I think of it. I believe I forgot to note, but it’s kind of obvious since I work for a call center, that I work during night shift. My “lunch” time for my current schedule this month falls between 2:30am to 3:30am. The “incident” happened around 3:30-ish. It’s the so-called peak hours of those kinds of activities.

One of my office colleagues is right when he said that a pay day drives the blues away. I settled the debts I incurred immediately. I’m back being super “conscious” with my very limited finances. It’s status quo again and I love it. It’s time for me to really move on.

Speaking of compensation, something came my way and it really made me smile. I think this is not the right time to blog about it.

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October is fast approaching and I’m starting to feel an underachiever, again. It’ll be my sixth year in blogging. People I meet will tell me that I should be happy with I currently have. Yes, in a way, I’m sort of “happy” but I know there’s something better waiting for me. I don’t want to end up to being a frustrated [insert something here] and experience middle age crisis someday because I failed to try at something I’m really passionate about. It’s the reason I’ve been doing shit left and right and failing miserably at times. Sometimes I feel like a struggling actor in Hollywood going in auditions, having a waiter day job, doing B-rated movies and sometimes porn hoping my first blockbuster will come and will catapult me to world fame.

***
I lost my “baunan” (food container) in the office crappyteria (cafeteria). This sounds petty, but I’ve been a bit absent minded lately. One of my colleagues thought it was stolen and he thought it was petty to steal a baunan. It wasn’t stolen. I really lost it. I now think it’s my “karma” for not paying the P70 due in that burger stand when the “holdap” incident happened. By that time, I was zeroed. When my team manager lent me some money, I came back after shift (which was morning) and I did make an effort to pay. The crew said he couldn’t give a change for P500. I haven’t returned to the said burger stand.

I did make an effort to look for my baunan. I went to the cafeteria and the crew told me they didn’t find one. I still consider any one of them as a “suspect.” They can keep it. I can always buy another one. I asked the janitors and they told me they usually report any lost items they found with the security group. I went to the security office and asked if they have a so-called lost and found booth. They asked what I lost and I told them I left a baunan just like that (I was pointing to one of the security guard’s baunan) in the cafeteria. Someone might want to return it. He asked for my name and I said it, he smiled as he remembered something. I smiled back. My name is still familiar with the security group. I’m that guy who got mugged.