M.A. in office equipment troubleshooting and routine pc tinkering

Wonderful. I have just gone through a few friendsters' pages on my friends list and realised I'm connected to a lot of future doctors, lawyers and top corporate execs who've probably utilised their parents' investment on high tuition fees more efficiently than I. An officemate once expressed the same sad sentiment, telling me, "what we've done for the past 4 years while our batchmates were studying to be professionals was to hone our photocopying skills!"

I feel like I'm an illusion of success sometimes. My student pals tell me I'm lucky to be working in a mulitnational company and earning stable income, and truthfully I am grateful to God that I do have this job that pays me well; yet I always get to thinking that I may have not gone through college at all and still be able to perform my tasks in the same level of intelligence I'm in right now. Is a regular baccalaureate no more than a ticket to employment? Perhaps the only help it got me was to pass the entrance test...

Others go on to glaze my job with the prestige it appears to have. Believe me, there is nothing glorious about it. The parties and the special projects with the head of the company that I have previously covered are icing on a cardboard cake...though they were experiences that were a delight telling to family over dinner (to make them feel I'm doing an excellent job). But it is a long way to go before I really move up the corporate ladder, and it's disconcerting to find that there are some who get up there (or at least make more progress than most do) just because they're good at answering written tests but seems to lack the personality of a good leader. The company's closed-minded culture isn't helping either; one's prowess is dictated by conformity to age-old standards rather than the initiative to analyse why such standards exist or the boldness of ignoring such absurd control measures.

My first 3 years in the company I work for have completely turned my profile around. I was no longer a "people-oriented person" due to inexplicable and emotionally-destructive attitude differences; I was now seen as a technician who knew how to unjam papers in and change the toner of the photocopier, a computer whiz who knew how to install updated software before the I.T. guys could get on the elevator (heck, some of these so-called I.T. support guys even ask MY help in making programs work!), and as a credit card for the dept's expenses like birthday gifts or lunch take-out.

Despite my trooper attitude, though, I haven't come across those people as the "reliable" kind. This could be because I almost always fail to meet deadlines and shun assigned projects altogether when I don't feel like doing them. My, I'm becoming more spaced-out than my boyfriend! And I don't do it with the same "charm" that makes it more of a novelty than a flaw. For the longest time, I was attributing such light-headedness to departmental prejudice against me. Until I bombed at my new post at the branch.

During my 8-day leave the hidden mistakes and unsubmitted docs came into full view, and not a few clients were disappointed because of my oversight. Hopefully this won't hurt my good rapport with my new officemates and my boss, too...

Otherwise, I should file for a year of absence and start ironing out my life in the Himalayas.

Or maybe I should get that law/med degree.

bubbles in my thoughts

I'm feeling quite gloomy tonight. I had a drink and too much pizza with my officemates after work today because one of them had a bad day and wanted to go somewhere before going home. We shared a few laughs and a few serious moments and went home feeling normal naman, but somehow the grim atmosphere caught up with me when I found no one to talk to because everybody's asleep or out.

Maybe I should start writing to amidala. I don't understand it; we were never close but we're part of the same college group that still goes out once in a while...she appears to have a lot to share with me but we never get the opportunity to talk. I even wrote her on multiply and asked if we could catch up on each other during the next group dinner -- alas, that dinner turned out to be a 2.5 hour beerfest since my aunt had her lunch party extended to suppertime and I couldn't exactly just leave the house, being the dutiful daughter/niece that i am (though i did lock her out of our shared bathroom when i forgot to unlock the door on her room's side...*giggle*).
so i didn't get to talk to her again....how sad.

---break----

just finished writing to amidala on multiply. medyo malungkot yung post pero at least i finally got to let it out.

yay! green guy is home! he texted me this afternoon if i wanted to watch a movie in eastwood after his shift but it was just too late...hmm. maybe he got to ask scooter girl. ano kaya pinanood nila?

i'll sign out now to find out!

my mom is slowly opening my door...

...to tell me I should be helping out with the household chores. my aunt from australia has been in our house for about six days now and she's hosting a lunch party here; trouble is, we are maid-less and i had to skip my greenhills thing with shenzi to show my mom that i'm not insensitive (mind you, the reason i'm staying home is NOT really to help but to act like i'm willing to).

you know, sometimes i wish i weren't the dutiful, dependable daughter my parents think i am. that way, i'd have an excuse to skip chores, leave the house on a whim and be back at dawn like my brother. and hey, mom doesn't love him any less despite his "unreliability". on the contrary, i think he's even her favorite. i just hate it when she speaks in her forever-nagging tone to oblige me to help out -- i mean, come on! she dismissed my dad's request to have a breakfast party at home with his friends last july because there was just one maid to do everything, and now, she's on all fours for her sister who wants to brag OUR HOUSE to her friends ?!? naman.

she's been really twisted these past few days. mind you, within this month 3 household help have left us, and her constant nagging and complaining about inefficiency didn't really sound too tasty for them to stay.

at kung kailan naisipan ko nang magsulat saka siya papasok sa kwarto ko...maybe i should take a day off from work to remove my glass doors and replace my locks. i think i could do it. maybe it'll be my little project this season....or maybe i could call tim and ask him to teach me how to do carpentry stuff -- or did he only mention he had a friend who knew how? oh well. i've got a lot of reasons to call him anyway so i guess i should get in touch with him pretty soon. non-issue guy naman siya kaya ok lang.

hmm. should go out now and do something in the kitchen. i'll just think about the big chance of seeing p this afternoon (i invited him over tutal binawalan na akong lumakad ng nanay ko, ergo, the lakad will come to me!)...and that's reason enough for me to not get pissed today.

wraps around my heart

(cont'd from this crazy love of mine)

last friday i told p i set up my own blog; he reacted by saying, "wow. a journal. that anyone who's online could read..."

2 months ago that would be what i exactly felt about blogs -- but then again i figured i had a choice to disclose my blog to other people or not (of course, shenzi is a given), and i'm writing for myself and not for anyone else. di ko na pinatulan at baka kung saan na naman mapunta yung usapan.

we went to the cemetery today (which was surprisingly hassle-free, traffic-wise), and p and i didn't get a chance to talk to each other because he was on duty at fabella hospital. i wanted to call him and tell him about the newest family issue but i figured it would be better off to keep silent on stressful matters because his day is definitely stressful enough.

then i remembered what he said about overblowing problems before arriving at a solution, and i figured, maybe it's situations like these that he'd appreciate not hearing about anymore because it's a dead-end problem that one cannot act upon in any other way but passively (i.e., just wait for the other party to provide a solution for it). and i think about the times when i'd ask him if there was anything that bothered him, regardless of gravity or urgency, to which he'd respond negatively or say that he doesn't want to bother me with matters he could easily handle by himself.

of course, at times i'd feel isolated when he doesn't share his problems, but i haven't really gone beyond the surface and appreciate his efforts at minimizing creases in my life. come to think of it, if he told me every sad hospital story, we'd both be feeling so helpless and worthless and go further deeper into the muck of despair.
sus. ang bait pala nung ginagawa niya...

oh well. i should express my gratitude soon.

this crazy love of mine

I was at Coffee Beanery with my officemates for an after-work break and one of them noticed I didn't appear too jolly today. I said it's my PMS that's giving me the blues and oftentimes this gloominess gets me into long, seemingly petty but nevertheless critical arguments with p. I don't know how it starts but I'm definitely aware that it usually occurs around this time of the month, and, sure enough, it happened again tonight.

It started as plainly as a rundown of events that happened in the office/hospital, complicated by a stream of extremely corny (and unacknowledged) jokes from me that got me tired and irritated, and finally resulted in a heated battle of best (or worst?) one-liners we could ever hurl at each other. Well, I really did feel bad after about 5 moments of painful silence just because he didn't react to any of my jokes, and, I kid you not, it really came one after the other. Ang kulit ko kasi, akala ko mababawi ko at mapapatawa ko siya after the last corny anecdote -- but nooo!!! He didn't budge!!!

I fully understood that he doesn't have to laugh at my jokes and it doesn't follow that he's not happy with me if I'm not funny at any particular time that I'm trying to be (phew ang gulo ko), but it DID hurt that he didn't say anything at all (I was expecting even a sarcastic laugh or a "Nye, corny" comment). I felt like a senator auditioning for Saturday Night Live. And just a few hours ago I was with a bunch of people who hee-hawed at whatever outrageous idea came spurting out of my mouth!

So pinanindigan ko na ang sama ng loob ko and I went on feeling bad about myself, and about how I couldn't make p laugh, which proceeded to me thinking that I wasn't making him happy, and me being insecure about how other girls' (i.e. classmates/housemates) jokes merit a chuckle from him. Shallow, yes, but it still mattered to me because I do believe that it was humor that first brought us together. I remember snickering with him in college at a teacher's joke from a previous session, and how great it felt to know we sort of isolated ourselves at that very moment into a world that was exclusively for our enjoyment. We would remember it years after and still smile at the thought. Tonight I began recalling when the last time was that I really make him laugh -- and I couldn't remember anything recent.

Of course it ended with us patching things up -- but only after an hour of sour words that ranged from self-pity to swallowed pride. At the end, p was more exhausted than relieved that it was resolved, and said, "lagi na lang ganito, pinalalaki muna yung problema bago inaayos."

Napaisip ako. Aba, oo nga naman, pinatagal-tagal pa tapos back to normal lang naman. But isn't it in the long process of unravelling a ball of yarn that its purpose is met? We can't go from the first chapter to the last without going through everything in between (including the bad chapters), right? So with that I told him to just be grateful that it's over....

(to be continued)

swing your robe down low

I was listening to Caedmon's Call's Love Alone yesterday for sentimental reasons when a random thought came to me as I paid attention to the lyrics. All this time I thought the song was about reciprocating love to a special person.; it turns out it was about helplessness in a world of pain and suffering (how far off the point could i get?) -- and the grace of God that is essential to keep the world going. I suddenly remembered Amor, one of the scrunchie girls in UP whom I thought I could make a difference to better her future, and I felt a bit disappointed in myself for not being influential enough for her to see her through all her experiences and dreams.

Yet God is telling me through disappointing moments like these that we are all helpless, and at some point, we all get into pathetic situations, which we cannot get out of unless we place complete trust in Him. It sucks trying to be Superman when you don't have superhuman powers to change the world, but there is One who Is.

strangers in every way...

it's such a glorious feeling to know that there's more to discover about someone even after being together for quite some time now. it's like opening your eyes on the first morning of your summer vacation and you catch yourself murmuring "no more classes, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks, yahoo!! summertime, summertime, when all little kids get naughty again; naughty..." -- teka ang haba na ata nun ah.

i watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the second time, this time on dvd at home with p, the only one i think whom i could enjoy watching it with (the first time was in galleria and my friend was complaining about skipping All My Life for this "crappy" movie -- wha?), and, well, i cried all over again at the same scenes, for the same reasons...and i mean i really cried, not only wept, but sobbed and sniffed and wailed!

for a moment, p probably began to wonder why i reacted so much to the film; and my over-zealous justifications might only have reinforced notions of parallel real-life situations that are best left in the dark. perhaps he got the idea and never asked. what would i be able to say anyway if he indeed asked?

apart from the "safe" interpretation that i already told him about, what i gathered from watching the film was a feeling of normalcy after knowing your partner inside and out, which is not as bright as the deliriously exciting first two months of a budding romance, yet not as dull as a routinary morning in a 10-year marriage. it's the realisation that it's not always going to be happy (inasmuch as it woun't always be sad) but it will always be good. both of us won't be putting our best foot forward all the time but it's what will keep us steady.

when we reached a pivotal point in our relationship when we began to measure how far we've gone or if we've become better or worse than we were when we were still alone, i realised that it's the memories that guided my decision to stay. more than the bickering, the dropped calls and the slammed doors, i cherished the stargazing, the meaningful glances, even the way he irritatingly peels a clove of garlic for more than five minutes just so he could show me his progress in his cooking skills. these are scenes i don't want to delete from the tv show of my life, and these are the episodes that guarantee an extension of another season!

4 years to some is a very long time; for others, it's barely the beginning. for p and me, it's getting closer to each other's core, and we're not hurrying ourselves to get there. Ü

always,always running...

..though i'm not much of a runner.

It happens all the time, when I feel like I have all the time in the world to do what I want, I fix my schedule to free up more time, then I "prepare myself" for the event by taking a bath, having dinner earlier than usual, watch tv, then get excited about what to do first, and then, suddenly,

I'm out of time.

Nice, isn't it?

Sure enough, right now, I'm hurriedly finishing this post so I could go to recording. And all day I've been thinking about writing.

And off I go.

er...

this is a test. a what? a test. a what? a test. oh, a test!