dreams are nice, but they are not reality. reality is hard; bite it harder.
thank you ninong nikko, ninang ten-ten.
i WILL follow your advice.
time to bitch up.

THE GREAT BEYOND: SEOs and other stories

i'll be flying off to singapore by tuesday next week, and i've started creating a path for extra income that i could generate while i stay in the merlion city. recently, i was accepted as a home-based freelance email writer for an online content provider. this is my first venture as a PAID freelance writer. my first assignment came last night at around 6:16pm. and of all the topics that i had to write on, i got the most wicked of all: sports. LOL

***
i've never been much of a sports buff, and you'd wonder why. my dad was a former varsity player for Don Bosco Academy during high school in Tarlac City and for FEU during his college days. He was also a reservist for the swimming team and did tandem boxing.

with all the sporty things my dad did during his bachelor days you'd think his first borne would catch up. well, guess what: i didn't. i never took a liking towards sports. it felt brutish to me, especially because i got bullied in grade school by jocks and all other boys who were either into basketball or was a member of the boy scouts. yes, i was one of the taller boys in class, but my body frame was flimsy and feeble because i was often rushed to the hospital due to some complication or allergies.

i didn't spend a lot of time outdoors. since i was the firstborne nephew in the philippines (i had an older cousin who was in san diego, california), most of my then bachelorette aunts bought me books, indoor games and some betamax tapes (ah, the beta max. but that's another issue, este blog) of popular cartoons in the 80s. i took little affinity to playing sports, since people thought of me as the homebody type who read a lot, knew a lot, but couldn't shoot a ball. i was stereotyped as a nerd. and i guess because i didn't like to socialize much, i accepted the label.

ten years after formal elementary and secondary schooling, i never got over the indifference towards sports, finding little time nor effort to get involved in it other than those forms that were set indoors. i tried wallclimbing and weight lifting for a while. i took a liking towards cross-country cycling too. but all these passed, seeing that in the end, the bad memories of sports haunted me even more.

*** FLASHBACK

it was a typical day in gym class, and we were playing volleyball. sadly, it was a one-on-one exercise. i was in my googly glasses and my opponent was a school varsity. you know what happened next. humiliation 101. and then there was a time i was walking along the school field with friends, and lo and behold, a baseball hits me right on the noggin. this happened twice. sometimes i would start thinking that people intentionally hit me with a baseball, or a volleyball or a basketball. i was an ostracized yapping nerd who found no solid clique. i was a drifter. now you know why i hated high school.

***
and so i write my first SEO article today. my due is monday, jan31st. can i complete all five? i'll have to try. sayang ang raket. but i'll have to muster more than words to make sure i can write what i need to write. sports has always brought bad memories of bruises, both for the elbow and the heart. heaven help me.

still here. hey.

THAT THING WE ALL NEED TO DO

i was watching some television yesterday and i chanced upon a cool new TVC. this new ad featured five tips to a better life. i would like to expand on these five tips.

TIP 5. HAVE A FRESH PERSPECTIVE. i'll be leaving in less than a week, and i guess everything else would be fresh when i arrive at the airport there - new people, new country, new customs, new jpb (hopefully). but to be quite honest, i'm starting to have some difficulty creating a fresh perspective about myself and the path that has been chosen for me. it's been what, three months, and i still find it hard to accept that i would never teach anyone in a formal setup ever again; well, at least not in the philippines. finding a fresh perspective is starting to be a source of anxiety. but i'm trying to cope. at least now i know where all the throatiness is coming from: stress.

TIP 4. DEFY GRAVITY. if by gravity you mean the status quo, i believe i have. now the kids from the blue school are texting me ever so often, especially the freshies, saying that things have started to feel very awkward between them and the teachers and bosses who were left behind to do all the work i used to do for them. bragging aside, around five people took over all the tasks that i was relieved of, when they asked me to leave. five people. now that i'm trying to start a new life, i've met another fork in the road: do i perform in mediocrity to avoid the hassle, or do i perform better than what is expected of me and risk getting noticed too much and get into the same trouble all over again?

TIP 3. GRAB EVERY CHANCE TO PLAY. i've never been the sporty type. the only sports activity i know is cycling and wall climbing. for crying out loud, i got hit by a baseball twice, and several times by a volleyball, on the head, in high school. i keep thinking, when i get there, will i have time to rest? probably. if my brother decides to lend me his 450D so i can do a photo walk at least once a week.

TIP 2. HAVE YOUR FILL. with all that is happening in my life, and that of my family's, i constangtly ask myself, will i ever have the opportunity to have my fill? they say you can't have cake and eat it too. but why can't we? too much sugar might cause a rambunctious lad like to go hyperdrive? and then there's the issue of satisfaction. i mean, when do we stop? do we ever? will we ever? should we ever?

TIP 1. HAVE AS MUCH AS YOU WANT. the thing is, having as much as you want does have its consequences. believe me, i know. but the truth of the matter is, we never know satisfaction unless we get overdosed. pretty much like appreciating peace, unless we go through war first. i'd like to have as much as i want. problem is, there's really nothing much to go around. now, i'm just another jobless guy with uber supportive in-laws, wife and kid who've found time to actually make me feel i'm worth the risk. frankly, i don't have plans of letting them down.

***
as anakin skywalker's mom said in episode 1: the phantom menace, "and now, be brave and don't look back. don't look back."

i believe that after everything that i've been through, there really is no turning back now. not while things are awry back here, no job for me in the philippines at least not in the near future, and there is little worth granted to me by people i used to call peers, there really is no turning back. not even a glance. five days to go and i'm outta here. i'll need all the prayers i can get.

still here. hey.

WISHFUL THINKING AT A TIME LIKE THIS

eight days before i fly off and i start thinking about what it would be like to be there, breathing the air that everyone else there breathed, riding the same metro, walking the same paved roads. would i make any difference? would i be any different from the rest who have trodded the same path?

***
this morning, i received a message from an aunt, asking if it was true that i was flying off to the lion city to see my brother. i said yes. she asked me which terminal i was going through, how much was my fare and so on. and then she asked how long my ticket duration was. i said so and so, and she said, beware of the immigration officers! she told me that i might get into trouble and not pass the gates. she also told me to bring IDs to verify i was a good person etc.

that got me thinking - would i make it just that far? or would i cross the seas and land at 0945 in changi? then she told me singaporeans were racist against people who passed through the budget terminal, since most domestic helpers (househelp) pass through those gates. she told me i might have a rough time and be discriminated.

to ease my anxiety, i googled for stuff about "singaporean racism" and found several. especially towards indians and malays. there were quite a few experiences from fellow filipinos too. to tell you quite frankly, that did not cure the anxiety.

***

i was applying for a job as executie assistant in an arab-run agency in malate early this month. i was thinking if the indonesia gig wouldn't push through, maybe qatar would be nicer to me. i was so fuckin' wrong.

i went up the stairs after the secretary motioned me to come upstairs with her. the arab sat behind this massive table. i had to squeeze myself through the glass table that rested adjacent to the table to get a seat. i sat down and the arab asked me basic questions. after answering, he started bantering about stuff i said, saying i was lying, that i was giving him the moon and the stars etc. i couldn't really figure out the guy.

he said, "after college, you went straight to teaching? what's wrong with you!? after ten years, you are still teacher!? now you apply a different position" he stopped bantering and then called the secretary. she was motioned to call the employer and ask if i was qualified. i said thank you and went downstairs. the secretary asked me my asking price for the job. i said 60k. she went out of the cubicle, called a number and said, "sir, babaan natin ang asking price. 32k lang ang kaya ng employer. ilagay ko napo 32k?" she was going to write it down, but i said no. "60k po ang asking price ko. can i have my passport back?" she handed me my passport and i left the agency.

it made me think. did the guy have a point? 10 years in teaching. did i just really convince myself i was supposed to be a teacher, or were my skills mismatched with the profession i chose?

***
eight days to go and i'll be in another country (if the immigration peeps would allow me to pass through the gates LOL). i wonder if i'd encounter the same types of people there. i hope not. jigs (a former student of mine) was gracious enough to have provided me with leads as to where i could start job hunting. my brother has already vouched for my transport, lodging, food etc (*jumping in pure lunacy).

i hope things work out. still here. hey.

HELLO-GOODBYE IS SUCH A BORING WAY TO BE SAD.

a friend of mine just texted back when i hollered about the changes i made in the blog. apparently he was on the road with his girlfriend's parents; they just sent her off to oman. my friend was telling me he didn't know what he was going to think of now that his girlfriend was away. that got me thinking too.

***

i'll be leaving in about two weeks and i still can't sleep at night. months ago i told myself this would be the only way to relieve me of the depression i've been festered with for the past few months, after i was asked to leave teaching and was advised not to teach anytime soon. but now that the flight sched is nearing, i've been having more sleepless nights.

now every opportunity to laugh it out with carla is a blessing for me. every hug from grace counts. i feel like i won't be coming back home any time soon. and who knows, maybe i won't come back anymore. i'd like to blame the circumstances for this, but i don't want to. there's someone else to blame for this. and i guess i'm not off the hook either.

***

let's be honest. yes, i still have a grudge against them. they had to press it down so hard that i wasn't much of a teacher, let alone a facilitator of learning. they had me realize i was inefficient, that i was too dumb to involve the kids. i am still bothered that they escorted me out of the campus. i hate them for that. wait. hate is such a conservative word. i'll have to check webster on a more appropriate term.

***

when i leave, i hope things will be better. for everyone. i hope i forget i ever was part of that school. my former logic professor was right. i shouldn't have come to the school in the first place. it was indeed a place where your monsters came alive in gargantuan proportions.

JUST WHEN YOU THINK THINGS WOULD GO OUTTA HAND, the Lord brings sets ablaze a new torch.

***
i went to both batangas state university and to lyceum-batangas today to get certifications for a plan i crafted a couple of weeks ago. after the long queues at the registrar's office of both schools, i went to meet with some former students, and a former VP for a local bank.

armed with tall cups of frappe (with the exemption of the boss who went gaga for hot coffee), we talked about a series of projects that we could do, as a team - mostly logistics, production, staffing and a lot of traveling.

the venture was the creation of a consultancy-cum-outsourcing production firm. apparently, the boss had a large network of international NGOs who were looking for development writers and producers to do their legwork, paperwork and what have you, for them. that got me interested.

the boss was an economics graduate from the visayas, who had a son who was now taking up ABCOMM at DLSL. he is currently working for a micro-finance firm that is based in paris. he also did development work, mainly reconstruction and planning, for pakistan and afghanistan.

***
the venture got me into thinking: why the F*** did i ever stick to teaching when i could have gone to development work right after a few years in the academe? when you look at it, i was only after the confidence that teaching brought to those who decide to tread its path. three, four years in the academe, and i could have gone to the NGOs or the mainstream. bottomline: i chickened out.

***
so where do i go now? i'll have to leave everything behind for a while, find a restive location, and nestle myself in daunting thoughts of realizing my full individual potential. and then i'll hear myself shout these words, amidst all the silence:

damn it, i am not just a teacher. I am a writer, a poet, a production man, a disk jockey, a scriptwriter, a researcher, a damn good cook, a singer, an organizer, a development worker, a community organizer, an events manager, a technical and floor director, and whatever other job i would discover that i could do.

***
i can't wait for february 1.

When all things fail, and you forget to realize why you were actually doing it in the first place, what is it then that you call that instance? Do you call it a random wanton disregard for details, or do you brush it off as a sad circumstance that at the end of the day would clear itself up and actually get fixed?

At the end of a cumbersome day, do we actually take time to look at whether the day went extraordinary for us? Or did it turn out to be extraordinarily ordinary? Time ticks for everyone, and at the sound of the chime, after all of the fuss, we begin to realize that we failed to see the bigger picture, let alone the details of the mishaps which could have been avoided, or the insouciant remarks that could have been dropped, or the mindless tact that we carried all day. At the end of it all, there is nothing more than solace – served on a cold silver platter, beheaded of all connection, of every ounce of significant instance, of each drop of perseverance, of pain, love, suffering, gloating and callous misbehavior. Nothing but solace.

We find ourselves met, “mentally-filled” be the better word, with myriad upon myriads of discomfort, ill thoughts – dirty ones, at times – or angst, and yet find little remorse to actually amend these on our own (mentally, still, of course). We rant of this and that at the top of our heads, but because of the very nature of being civil (or civilized, as we wish to be tagged), we forget that such thoughts, as innocent as we may see them, would and at times have, taken over our entire understanding of the circumstances that have birthed them in the first place. Funny, the very thoughts we intend to hide, creep outside and translate themselves into the simplest of details – a snobbish look, a demeaning smirk, an indifferent face – and all for what? To incessantly remain “civil,” although everyone knows that you’re but prying on the situation at hand (let alone unconsciously ensuring that things fall out of place so that your plans fall into place at the exact time).

Inasmuch as people would expect this to become a ranting of sort of the squeamishly bizarre quagmire I have beset unto myself, I would like to stop and restrain myself right now. No. This will not be about any ranting that I may still hold upon, or about grudges or angst or ill thoughts I have so wittingly harbored for the past few months. None of those, sad to say. This essay will be about you, and about how absurdly obnoxious you get when you are compounded with the idea that everything else would stir cold, even summer, as she enters autumn and turns to a full stop.

Mindless. That’s how stifled we get. As much as we would like to shout “dumb-ass”at ourselves several times when we spurt out a comment or fling a tweet over the Net that was unprecedented, let alone highly called for, we stop and think, scramble even, to revise, rephrase, and (quite drastically in the event of dire necessity) erase all traces of them. A teacher once said, “When you tell people something, broadcast it to millions, once it’s out there, it stays there.” I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to doubt that teacher. Many have, I guess, regardless of how many sweet thoughts are posted every day. Admit it or not, the sweet thoughts are just another way of saying, “dammit, we miss the way you did everything for everyone, but f*** you screwed it up, so now we have to do things on our own.” Sad, but true, we learn to accept.

In the course of our absurd pursuit to correct the ill-doings that we do, or plan to do, what do we become? Prisoners of the civility of who we really are? Mindless drones following a set of guidelines, so we don’t hurt other people’s feelings, when well in fact we so want to just crush their dreams, and blow their ideas, among other things? I hate you for being the dastardly coward that you are, hiding your true thoughts behind crocodile tears. At the start, people think you actually cared, but guile as we all get, people over-assume, and fail to see the third side of the story: personal vindication, let alone, projection of the mindless and wanton disregard for how people feel when you boss them around like drones.

Silly rabbit, I always say. We believe what we think we should. But wouldn’t it be equally absurd to realize that everything we believed in, turned out to be a lot of bull? (Yes, I quoted that from 500 DAYS OF SUMMER.) If this is so, I guess there really is nothing to worry about then. But the truth is, things aren’t okay. Life isn’t as easy as some rich snotty kid, or some over-aged woman whose having illicit affairs with lesbians or something, might think. No. Life is hard. Life is unfair. Life is cruel. Life has a funny way of making sure we fail at times, laughing heartily on top of a oak branch, tears falling down her cheeks, almost falling face flat on the ground from the rollicking torment that she has beset on us.

No, it ain’t as pretty as we picture it to be here.

Good thing though, at the back of our heads, we have a more solid grasp of this reality. Outside, we just have a pretty picture of making everything fall into place, just so everyone’s happy. But they’re not. We’re not. I mean, who is? I read from a book once, only man knows his true self. That can’t be any truer. No one knows what the other guy is thinking about, except for the other guy, right?

So it all boils down to this: We suck at making people’s lives better, simply because we suck at making ours better. And because we can’t make things turn for the better for ourselves, we rant, in silence, then push forward the absurd understanding of how to pay it forward (which by the way was a great movie). Am I in denial? Probably. Ask me if I was angry, vengeful and obnoxiously indifferent of some people, and I would give you a solid YES. But ask me if I was sure, and I would stare blankly at you, disillusioned still, thinking that I have an obligation to make sure you feel good whenever we talked, regardless of how much I want to shove everything about your scrawny thinking up your ass.

Hey, what can I say? We live to make people happy. That’s what we think about, when all else fails, and she shows up with her fugly humor. Carry on, then. Nothing to see here. At least not yet.

it's the new year.
my last post was march 2010.
that is unacceptable LOL
***
so here's to a new year, a new look
and a new me.
singapore, here i come... in february? LOL