Not arrogance, just simple fact

People say it’s wrong to resent. To be honest, I’ve never been a resentful person, not if you count when incident in elementary where I wrote “I hate D and V very much” over and over again in my diary. You don’t become resentful overnight. It draws from a series of slides and snapshots from life, builds up steam like a locomotiove, and eventually explodes in your face. The funny thing about is that it can start from the most mundane of reasons.

Groceries, for example. I’ve always done the groceries for my family ever since I started working. It just happened. One day I had my paycheck, decided I wanted to have hotdogs for breakfast and from then on, it was so. Admittedly, I wasn’t doing it wholly out of the selflessness of my heart. It was also partly vanity and partly self-validation.

The hardest part about groceries is seeing it all disappear before the next paycheck arrives. Yes, groceries are meant to be consumed, better gone than left over, blah, blah, blah. But seriously, can’t we all practice a little self-control and go easy on the consumption?

Ok, so I wouldn’t feel so bad if I could see my groceries being a part of the great circle of household economy. Groceries feed person, person gets healthy, healthy person does housework, I come home with groceries. See the beauty of it?

In health insurance, you give some and you take some. It’s not all peaches and roses. You invest time looking for genuine health insurance leads; you invest your hard earned money in it and wait for the returns. It’s a sacrifice but one voluntary makes it, knowing that something is worth it at the end of it all.

Anyhow, I’d really rather not be a miser, twisted and shriveled up with resentment. But it’s harder and harder to be all generous and nice when you come home and see dirty dishes all over the kitchen sink.

Sturm und drang

I've always believed in my ability to stare into the eyes of the deadline monster, make it back off and crap itself. Unfortunately, the head honcho of all deadline monsters decided that enough was enough. The ickle beasties came back with a vengeance and totally obliterated my pride into pixie dust. I'm waging a losing battle, my report already settling on its 2nd day as an overdue and pending failure.

I've always been particular with meeting deadlines. My English teacher in high school ingrained in me my future work habit with her philosophy: I don't care how you do it or when you do it. Just as long as you have it when I ask for it. Campus journalism at its coolest.

At work, I carried this philosophy to heart. My bosses know better than to bother me with futile requests for updates. I'd lounge all week before getting into frenzied action, but I always manage to deliver so, no harm done.

Modesty aside, I have not missed a single deadline prior to this failure. Nuh-uh. Never mind that I sometimes submit my report at 11:59 in the evening. The point is, it got there a minute earlier and not a minute later.

It's official. Deadline is here to bite my ass.

I don't know what happened to me this time, though. I guess one can blame the amount of stress I had last month as the reason for the gaping hole in my brain. I can blame the rotating power interruptions for breaking my work momentum. All valid reasons, but in the end, I blame myself for lacking the discipline to see my assignments through the day. I rely too much on procrastination-induced adrenaline to come up with thinly disguised bullshit to pad out my assignments.

No more of this. Beginning today, here's the new world order, so brain, shut up and pay attention:

• Lessen internet hours. Surfing, games and movies will be limited to at least two hours of your 8-hour working day
• Once you have an assignment, start on it. RIGHT AWAY. No more tomorrow bullshit from you.
  
• Articles for editing can only sit with you for a maximum of two days. Chop them fast and quick, then it's off to delivery
• Go to work earlier. Take advantage of the morning peace to work on your stuff
• Run maintenance on your computer. You can't keep blaming it for being slothful all the time without you doing something about it
• Avoid bring home tasks. You're suppose to do work at the work place, not at home.
• Try beating you past performance. Dazzle the bosses even more
• WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL BLOGGING? FINISH THE DAMN REPORT ALREADY!!
  

The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by ants

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, musing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women – brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul – this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction – paperback summary, One Hundred Years of Solitude

I won’t pretend that I have completely understood this book. I’m a hundred years too early for that. I’ve already had an idea of how profound this book would be when I bought it a couple of weeks ago, after a friend told me that this was a “deep” book. And indeed, reading it is like drowning in a sea of humanity, a humanity infused with such realism and emotions that you feel that they might walk out of the page, alive and sentient.

The one thing that is undeniable with One Hundred Years of Solitutde is the power and beauty of its prose – lyrical, magical and evocative. I'm still stumped by the sheer beauty of the book's words.

What I did understand from this story is essentially this – one can never run away from his family, from who he is. Like the indelible ash crosses of the Aurelianos, blood ties are the ties that bind, something that only a divine being can erase and obliterate. History only serves to repeat itself, in a loop of endless repetitions until time and fate put a stop to it.

The story of Macondo and the Buendía’s is also the testament to the duality of solitude – peaceful and destructive at the same time, its crushing heaviness made palpable by the extraordinary lives of the Buendías.

Storytelling is a gift and Gabriel García Marquez has that gift in overflowing abundance. I can’t wait to read another one of his books, and it can’t be too soon.

The picture of perfection is only in your mind

It wasn't until a college friend sent me a text message asking for a favor that I realized that I had become a citizen of the world(wide web). Her favor, which had me digging through my email's archive, began with this text: "Na computer tu ara? ("Are you in front of a computer now?")

Not "How are you?", or "Are you at work?". Just "Are you in front of a computer now?". The question just dared me to answer otherwise.

I don't think my friends ever expected me to be the resident computer junkie. Neither did I. I was one of those people who failed to grasp the significance of Ctrl + S in high school. I never got History of Computing right, messing up COBOL with FORTRAN and vice versa. Nearly all my projects were handwritten. I don't have a computer unit at home, ever since my brother thought it was a good idea to bring our hard drive to school.

It was only when I got my first job out of college that I started getting it. Networks, manga and Crunchyroll. I got my first office-issued laptop, a bulky Compaq, and from then on it was Photoshop, torrents and zip files (cough, porn!, cough). I miss the Compaq badly. Last I heard, they had him back in storage, never having figured out how to sweet-talk him to work. *sniff*

Oookay, so it's not that impressive. Any 15-year-old can do all those stuff better than I could ever hope to. But there are times when I feel that I ought to have an award for being able to do wonders with a computer. Take last week for example. The Outlook was being a pest, I had a deadline, and I only had YM-ed instructions from a colleague on how to configure the damn thing. Besides, I'm a nurse for Pete's sake. Nurses aren't suppose to know these things.

After a few snags, Google here and Google there, this:

Nirvana. Thank God for Google.

So yeah, now I'm a great believer in Google. I use it as a verb everyday. I get pissed off when people come to me for information when they can easily Google it online.

I expect to have more of these moments with my current work. I'm practically an IT professional by association. In a few months, I'll be marking my first year at work and will be logging my 8640th hour in in the internet. Yes, I actually did the math for that.

Despite my hours, I still have yet to become a full-fledged netizen - online shopping, internet banking, health insurance leads, freelance jobs, the works. You know, stuff that will turn me into a total hermit.

And health insurance leads? Everybody needs health insurance. And everybody ought to have genuine leads on the internet.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't have split identities when I'm online. I'm just as awkward as I am in person, still socially inept and retarded.

There are just some things Google can't do for you.

Don't you know you might find a better place to play?

When all the world was a post-it and everything had a deadline, this kept me sane.

Manila, the second act/Getting through the curtain

I was supposed to have had written this post last week. But whatever. I was a wreck when I left for Manila and still was when I came back to Zamboanga a week later. February was an extremely hectic month, with deadlines, rotating power interruptions and fickle-minded bosses adding to the stress of organizing a global launching event.

We arrived in Manila on a Sunday, which is quite lovely since I get OT points travelling on weekends. And that's about the only lovely thing I can remember. Everything went downhill from there. We left a bag full of money, checks and contracts in Zamboanga Airport's departure lounge. The office was closed for fumigation and fogging. We couldn't stay there because, yes, you will die when you stay behind a fogging. The chain holding the ceremonial agong broke. I got stuck inside one of Solair's tiny bathrooms and had to destroy public property to call for help.

Hell starts here.

These series of events did not sit well with my already stretched-out nerves. But as Ms. Cuchie philosophically enthused, better to get all the bad luck out of the system now than later. And that it did. Our launch event was a success. I was tired, hungry and battered beyond functionality but I was happy, more so when my boss congratulated me for a job well done.

Things definitely started to pick up after our event. For one, I could eat again! I stuffed myself with desserts from the breakfast buffet - parfait, chocolate cake, mango crepe, ice cream. Deciding that I had to affirm my dreams of going to Japan, I dared the sushi buffet and ate my first sushi and raw salmon.

RAW.

The hotel we were staying in was pretty posh, situated right smack in busy Makati and just in front of Greenbelt 3. Not exactly shopping central for a pauper like myself. The whole place reeked of eye-candy and, for some reason, smelled of soap. I saw my fair share of stars, Greenbelt being the high-end place that it was: Heart Evangelista, Marc Nelson and Nonito Donaire. Of the three, I was most tempted to approach Donaire, but I couldn't muster the bravado. /wrist

I managed to find an SM, but it was a disappointment. No Comic Alley there. I found Power Books in Glorietta, taking care of my reading needs, but for the first time ever, no anime. Sad, sad day.

Glorietta at night.

I had finally accepted the fact that I was going to spend my last day in Makati alone, when my friend, Penny, managed to drop by despite her busy schedule at work. We made our way to Greenbelt's cinema and did the one thing I was absolutely itching to do, pestering all my classmates in the process - watch Alice in Wonderland. In its full 3D glory. Another giddy moment for me.

300 smackeroos. And worth every penny.

And just like that, everything was over and I had to go back home - not as flashy as Makati, but home nonetheless.

Anyhow, I'm all but blank this week. I've expended so much neurons and dopamine last February that until now, I still can't get my act together. Out of whack until the next trip comes along.

Pretty hotel lamp deserves a photo, yes?