4 Things I’ve Learned from Riding the LRT/MRT

1. There Will Always Be People That Will Prevent You From Getting Your Way. No matter how near your goal seems, you always have to go through a lot of obstacles: people and their baggage. Be careful not to step on any toes, because doing so only fuels a person’s resolve to prevent you from passing through. Proper footwork and learning to dodge in and out of their way is the only way you can reach your goal.

2. Being Nice Doesn’t Always Pay Off. No matter how many times you say, “Excuse me, excuse me” not everyone will pay attention. They will keep their stance and won’t budge. Not everyone has a good side you can appease to.

3. Good Deeds Kick Ass. This is somewhat contradictory to the previous statement, but there are times when you’ll get more by giving something up. If you’re sitting down while a pregnant woman or an elderly person is standing up, be nice enough to let them sit instead. Not only will standing up get your nearer to the aircon, a sincere “Thank You” is enough to make your day.

4. Be Patient. What they say about opportunity knocking only once isn’t true. Sometimes letting something pass you by will pave a way for other opportunities to come along. If you’re not in a rush, wait. Save yourself the pain and aggravation of hitching the first thing that comes your way. Something else will come, don't worry (unless of course, that was the 9PM train, which, in that case, you'd better run and catch it! Ü).

Mmmmwah!

Labeled

I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of this joke before: “If you’re smart but have no money, go to UP. If you’re smart and rich, go to Ateneo. If you’re rich but stupid, go to LaSalle. If you’re irrelevantly rich, go to UA&P.” How true is this generalization of the people who go to these schools?

Coming from one of the colleges stated here, I can’t help but agree with whoever wrote this joke. For almost five years I studied in a university filled with pompous brats satisfying their caffeine fix at Starbucks, who prefer to ride a car towards Jollibee instead of walking the 3 blocks. I was in a university that designed a curriculum for CCS students that had 18 units of Psychology instead of Calculus (Logic Formulation). For fuck’s sake, we even cancel classes during the UAAP season, because most of the students cut class to go to Araneta in order to cheer for freakishly large men bouncing and shooting orange balls through hoops.

I'm not saying that all students from our university are stupid and shallow. There are a select few that I respect more than anyone else I know - well rounded individuals who I feel could possibly change the face of their respective industries. I was in the College of Computer Studies, a college known for producing alienated nerds. So thankfully, I was able to meet a greater number of genuinely intelligent people than rich kids who managed to pass their subjects by making pa-cute to the professor or to unwitting classmates who would thereby allow them to copy an assignment. I knew someone who’d flash her cleavage to our professor whenever she asks for a favor. She was my friend only because the “special treatment” our professor gave her rubbed off on the people she hung out with. It’s disgusting and it’s against my principles, but hey, that’s the way it works.

Yes, there are a lot of people who give the university a bad name. I once met this fellow graduate at Accenture once. He was all airs about the fact that he got an offer from Accenture, and how we was being called up by a handful of other companies he had applied to. At first I was impressed, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut so it eventually slipped that he was only getting into companies because his dad, who's a major exec at a bank, was referring him to his "connections". Pfft. So much for the impressive accomplishments of our university graduates. Here's another one: I was walking from the jeepney stop to a school gate one day. It was drizzling, but only as hard to require one to walk briskly. When I got to the gate, I saw a student on the edge of a covered sidewalk, waiting for her driver to pick her up. A van drove up and stopped about 2 feet away from the girl. I expected her to approach the car, but instead, a maid – uniform and all – stepped out of the car with umbrella in hand. She had to assist the girl into the car. I suppose she was afraid walking a distance of 2 feet under light rain would soak her. Would she begin to divide and separate upon getting hit with a drop of water? Jesus.

Now that I'm feeling the negative effects of being a graduate of our university, I wish I had shoved these two people onto the road, or at least insulted them for being so grandiloquent. They're the type of people who give the university a bad name. They should have studied somewhere else.

Worrrrrk

"So, are you happy with work?" Jeni asked me yesterday while we were sitting at Food Choices G4, resting our tired feet.

"Not really...."

Before anybody goes preachy on me, listen to me first. Yes, I know it's only my first week, and most people would say that the first week of work is always the hardest, so technically I shouldn't jump to conclusions so early. Technically, I'm OKAY with work. Emphasis on okay. The office is fine, the weekly allowance I get is fine, and getting my brain to work again and learning a new programming language is the best part of it. The part I haven't grown to like about work is me.

I have this gut feeling everybody in the office has labeled me as that "high-maintenance girl" because I graduated from a private university known for having not-so-bright students from affluent families. Since I'm unfamiliar with the entire Ortigas area, I got lost commuting to work twice (see short narrative below). When I recounted this funny story to one of my officemates, he said sarcastically, "Iba kse talaga pag laging naka-sasakyan e." I couldn't say anything because he had bought me a cigarette stick, and retorting to would not only be impolite but also be a bad move, especially when I'm still looking for stable friends at work. So I pretended not to hear him and bit my tongue. And that isn't the only example where I feel I've just been insulted because I came from that university. In any case, I'm shutting up now.

When I wake up tomorrow, it's going to be Monday... and the start of another week of work. I'm looking forward to Friday already, because that's when I'll get my allowance and probably meet up with someone *wink*. I'm excited about modifying the Powerbuilder program we made last week though. And the optimistic voice in my head is telling me things might be better this coming week.

Here's to a hopefully good week ahead.

***

Day 3 of work, Day 1 of commuting to the office. Once I got off the MRT, I was instructed to walk towards the Shaw flyover between Edsa and San Miguel Avenue. There'd be a lot of FXs loading passengers there, and all I had to do was pick any one because according to my dad, they all passed in front of PSE. All the FXs and Jeeps there had different signboards, and being the paranoid girl that I am, I decided to play it safe, and asked a manong which FX passed in front of our building. He said that only the Pasig jeeps passed by there, so I hailed one. Instead of making a turn at San Miguel Avenue, the jeep went straight ahead. I didn't think much of it because I was still going in the general direction of Ortigas Center, and I thought maybe this was just an alternative route. 5 minutes into the ride and PSE was nowhere to be found. 10 minutes later the jeep was under some gigantic overpass heading towards Makati. I kept calm throughout all this, but when I saw a sign saying "Thank you for keeping Pasig City clean and green. Please come again," I freaked. I got out of the jeep as soon as possible and crossed to the other side, praying for an empty cab. Thankfully there was an FX with the signboard "Tektite", so I hailed it and got on. 20 minutes later I was in the office, a couple of minutes before our shift started. Whew.

I'm walking to work next time. It's not that far anyway. Ü

Rantings of a Techno-Phobe

How much technology is too much technology?

Case #1. I was able to catch a segment of Star World's Wierd TV that featured the future of taxicabs - an automatic navigation system that doesn't require a driver. It looks a lot like the cars shown in Minority Report, and all you have to do is get in, punch in where you want to go, then swipe your credit card to pay. Upon implementation, it's supposed to decrease gas expenses and time and aggravation brought about by heavy traffic. At a meager 1/3 the cost of implementing a rail transit system, it's going to revolutionalize commuting as we know it.

Case #2. About a month ago, I was reading a science and technology article from Yahoo. Robots, it seems, have branched out from simply being lab assistants to caretakers. There's a teddy bear robot that babysits and a nanny robot that gives massages to (and probably even changes the diapers) your grandmother who lives far away. Whatever jobs that people themselves can't immediately handle can be passed on to robots, who might even do a better job than the humans. It's convenient, it's time and effort saving, it's efficient.

What never ceases to amaze me about the human race is how we are faced it a problem and solve it with an even bigger problem. Technology was developed in the name of convenience: it was made to help an individual with his/her workload so that he/she may have more time. But instead of people relaxing, spending time with their family, and having fun, we have people who use the time saved to take a lot more work. Then we do scientific studies on stress and aging and burning out, and take medicines to enable us to function within the same routines that we had. Besides these problems on a personal scale, we also have the issue of unemployment - like how the amount of people willing to do work is significantly greater than the amount of work available.

Think about the two cases I previously mentioned. Did anybody give a thought to the cabbies who will get laid off thanks to the automated system? Sure, cabbies out there have a lot of problems: they might scam you and drive you around unnecessarily, they might stop in the middle of the street to pick up a passenger and cause traffic, heck, they might even smell. But the thing is, driving a cab is their source of living; and given the problems, shouldn't we just impart some discipline on individuals involved? Put a GPS on the backseat so the passenger will know where the heck he's going, give a ticket to drivers to pick up people in the middle of the roads and people who hail cabs in the middle of the road, or give the cabbie complementary soap or car freshener. And what about those individuals who leave their loved ones with robots? These people shouldn't even be allowed to populate! If they can buy a robot, they ought to be able to afford hiring a competent babysitter or a caregiver. Besides, they ought to have a little more respect - their mothers carried them for 9 months, what's a couple of weeks of visiting and spending some time with them?

Am I saying that technological development ought to stop? No. I think it's just misplaced. There are a lot more problems out there that need attention. We ought to focus on more pressing matters - like solving world hunger. Geneticists could develop meat and vegetables for cloning, and engineers could find some way to deliver these things to hard-to-access areas. Frankly I don't know, but there's got to be a solution out there. ^_^ On a more personal scale, it all basically boils down to getting our priorities straightened out. Technology really does offer a certain amount of convenience, but we should learn to invest the time and effort that we save into more important things. We should learn to put a higher value on ourselves, on our loved ones, on our fellow human beings. Because after all, who'd want to miss that interesting conversation with a cabbie? Seeing your kid walk their first step? And most especially receiving that warm hug from your mom?

So turn off your computer, get up and get some exercise. Or go to the nearest park and hug a tree. Or call up your sister. Or text your friends and go watch a movie. Or tell your toddler you love them. Or hug your parents. Or you can think of some way to solve world hunger.

I'm Fine, I'm Normal, I'm Healthy

Great. I'm three days from becoming a corporate slave (and an adult nonetheless) and suddenly my employment is put under threat by this stupid, stupid heart problem. I was hoping there was just a mistake in Clinic #1's diagnosis, but it turns out Clinic #3 got the same findings as well. Clinic #2 didn't mention anything, Clinic #1 said I had "cardiomegaly" and Clinic #3 pronounced "mild inflammation of upper right ventricle".

Okay, so I might just have a big heart. Can I help it if I'm so loving? But jokes aside, I don't feel anything. I'm perfectly healthy. I swim three times a week, I walk around a lot (malling is a more strenous than people think), and I could probably go back to fencing if I wanted to. I eat my green, leafy vegetables, and get the daily recommended amount of beta carotene. I have never experienced chest pains, besides those I felt post-breakup. My heart is definitely in its right place and it's beating just fine. The results of my ECG back me up.

The problem with Clinic #3, which will ultimately decide whether or not I am employable, is that they weren't able to get a second opinion regarding Clinic #2's ECG results. Oddly enough, for a well-known clinic such as theirs, they don't have a resident cardiologist. So here I am, worrying whether or not dbSoft will consider my ECG results sufficient enough to shrug off my enlarged heart.

Tsk.

On a much lighter note...

Here's two people who are definitely abnormal. Despite their *gag* good looks, it seems something's missing "up there".

Richard Gomez (actor/model/full-time idiot) - I only respect him because he's a fellow fencer. Other than that, I think he's the ultimate representation of how the entertainment industry produces more idiots than people who can actually act; and how the system will ultimately bring about the downfall of our country. Don't believe me? This jackass is an athlete but apparently didn't know that purposely hitting your opponent on the head isn't allowed in any sport. He also endorsed FPJ, and once announced on Startalk that since the administration, despite the years of knowledge and experience in politics, wasn't doing a good job, we should simply replace them by electing someone who knew nothing about it, to get a fresh perspective. Now he's facing tax evasion charges. Hah! Buti nga.

Bubbles Paraiso (model) - During a promotional event for Fila, she was asked by the Philippine Star what her favorite color was (see April 15, YStyle section). Her reply? "Pink, because it's the color of my room." If anybody understands the logic behind that, do tell me. I'm still trying to decipher what the hell she meant.

Untitled

don't get up,
don't turn off the lights
i want to savor every second i spend with you.
our lullaby will be the beating of my heart.
i'll wrap you in my arms
so you won't have to be afraid.
and i'll whisper in your ear the poetry of my silent sighs of love.

ANSWER ME

What makes your life worth living?

Blogs of Note (or Not)

It all started with me googling 2005's Lotto results (why, I'll tell you soon). I got linked to Technobiography. Think PDAs, Cellphones and Pasa-Load adventures. Pretty funny guy.

After browsing around that blog, I found a link to GMA's Extra Challenge. And consecutively, Darna.

Who would have thought there'd be blogs/online communities for these shows?

Kung may blog ang mga Kapuso, meron din kaya ang mga Kapamilya? After 5 minutes of searching, I came up with nada. Good, considering I'm not a fan of the Fantaseryes and Koreanovelas they've spawned (let me just say I don't believe in ABS-CBN [hmm...maybe I'll write about that soon]).

After reading some entries about Darna, parang nai-intriga na rin ako.

Halata na bang closet Kapuso ako? Hehehe!!! ^_^

I Feel Like...

...someone in the desert, walking and walking and walking around, looking for an oasis. I found a small one yesterday, but this morning I woke up and it was gone. No more trees, no more water. Just sand and the blazing hot sun above me. I walk around looking for the same oasis, but I can't find it. A day passes, and another, and another. Pleasure is now a distant memory.

I see a clump of small trees in the distance. I keep walking and walking towards it but I never seem to get close. I run with all my might but I'm still as far from it as when I began. I fall on my knees and breathe heavily and watch the illusion fade away.

I'm tired. I'm lost, hungry and hopeless. I can't see anything except miles and miles of sand. No sign of relief, no sign of anyone coming to help me. I give up hope and simply lie down on the sand, sigh, and wait for death.

My depression knows no bounds. :(

Unsatisfied

6 days a year
at 2 hours a day.
(Comes to) 30 out of 8,760.

5 times a week
at the average of 4 minutes a call.
20 minutes of talktime.

Once a week,
3 hours; 2 hours uninterrupted.

It's more than most people get.
But I was never content.

Now I have nothing.
(Still unhappy)

Once Upon A Time...

Hansel and Gretel


Their Lost Brother Juboy

and


The Evil Witch

The Rain is My Element

I love the rain.
There's something about the soft pitter-patter on the roof and its sickly sweet smell that calms my nerves and never fails to stir memories in my mind.

Grade School. All I needed then to get a perfect day was rain. I remember getting up at 6AM, expecting the regular routine of going to school. Waking up to the cold wind and seeing sheets of water gliding across the window automatically directs me to turn on the TV and eagerly await the cancellation of classes. Upon hearing the announcement, I run out of my room into the dining room to tell my mom, who, by that time, has already made breakfast. I spend the morning lying in bed, watching cartoons I never get to see and eating warm, freshly coooked longganisa.

First & Fourth Year High School. I especially loved rain when I was in high school for 2 reasons: 1) classes were cancelled, so I was excused from being late, and 2) getting stranded, which meant spending part of the day with my friends. One of my friends in the early years of HS lived in San Juan - a great distance from the school. The jeepney she had to ride home was the very same one I rode to get home. So when classes got cancelled and both of us were already in school, we'd ride the jeep together and spend the rest of the day waiting for sunnier skies, hanging out here at home, watching TV.

It was a different case when I was in fourth year. During senior year, I had Foods (Cooking Subject) scheduled every Friday for four hours plus - 7:45AM to 12NN (then another hour for lunch). There was a month whose Fridays got cancelled because of the rain, but the announcements weren't made official until lunchtime. So just imagine the Fridays my classmates and I spent at school - we'd go to class at 8AM, cook until around 10-11AM, spend the next hour eating, clean up, and head home for a semi-long weekend. I remember one particular GREAT Friday - classes were canceled around 9AM, and some of my classmates didn't bother to start preparing the ingredients because they counted on leaving early. As soon as the announcement was verified, around half of my classmates had left - except for majority of my groupmates/friends. We begged Ms. Ortega to allow as to continue with the planned recipe because we weren't going anywhere (we didn't have school bus service, so technically we were stranded). She allowed us to do so and we ended up having the entire kitchen to ourselves, casually hanging out, cooking (twice the amount we had to prepare, hehe), playing around during the clean up, and of course - eating (like one big happy barkada/family) together with our teacher. We finished around 12, and by that time our sundos were already at Gate 1, ready to take us home. ^_^

First Year College. College classes were rarely canceled on account of the rain, so I suppose that's why I only have one memory of it out of the four-five years I spent at school. Being a member of the fencing team, I had a varsity jacket - one I proudly put on at the first hint of rain. I wore it for the first time on that day (oh joy! oh rapture!), and spent a couple of hours parading it around the campus (kapal ko 'noh? Hehe. But really, I was just walking around, looking for my friends). After I had found them, we spent the morning walking around campus and hanging out in empty classrooms and the building lobby. In the afternoon, our friend who owns a car arrived at school, and we drove off to the mall.

X. Stranded on a street corner which was surrounded by mid-calf-deep water. Not being able to get a ride home because all modes of transportation were full. Him skipping his 8AM class so we could meet (it was going to get canceled anyway!). A fogged up car, and finding him drenched outside McDonald's waiting for me.

Moments of Depression. These moments are probably the most important out of all my memories related to the rain. There were a lot of times when I was depressed and - as melodramatic as it sounds - I walked home in the rain. I never had rain and tears rolling down my cheeks at the same time (Sheesh! That'd just be corny!); I just walked, head hung down in deep thought, trudging my way home. If I was feeling down but wasn't outdoors, I'd hear rain falling in a while. I'd go out of my room and look out our window, smell the familiar scent of rainwater. Kinda like the way I'm doing now.

***

A lot of people see rain as a mild depressant; I find it somewhat the opposite. Rain is... therapeutic for me. In the same way that people need someone to sympathize with when they're down, I need rain to just fall for me. Not exactly to empathize, but simply fall to the ground - to serve as the silent listener to my infinite melancholy, and perhaps to remind me of the better days I have spent with it.

On New Blogs, The Itch in My Throat, and Harrowing Experiences

I said I'd resist. I started this blog promising myself that I won't be like the other bloggers out there, posting mundane stuff like how their day was, how bored they are, and what they and their friends talked to on the phone. I want my posts to have substance. But I'm feeling quite chipper right now, so allow me this indulgence.

I created a new blog for the uhm... daydreamer-slash-writer in me. I decided to try a different blogging service (tabulas, if you want to know), and all I can say is that I'm glad I'm using blogger for this (my personal, semi-serious) journal. Tabulas was pretty complicated, there were a lot of stuff I didn't need... like communities. Tabulas is more of an online diary. The structure of the webpages were cluttered, the templates weren't attractive, and the coding of the design templates were messy.

One thing I learned with tabulas, though, was that there were a lot of Pinoy bloggers out there. And if by lot, I mean A LOT. You can check recently updated blogs from the main page, and at least 13 out of the 16 listed were owned by Filipinos. And all of them seem like preppy high schoolers. Riiiiight.

I've had this incessant itch in my throat for almost a week. I need to cough to relieve myself. My sister thinks its an allergic cough. But what could I possibly be allergic to? I haven't changed anything significant in my routine. Anyway, my cough's terrible. I actually wake up in the middle of the night in a fit of coughing. The other day, I had a dream an evil troll was collecting my coughs in a sack. No joke.

I'm two weeks away from getting work. Provided the medical exam goes well, I'm going to start working as a programmer trainee for dbSoft. The office is at Ortigas, so I'll be far away from Ge and Jeni. :( On the upside, I'll be able to save a lot from not having post-work movies and Sbarro dinners.

Speaking of medical exams, HSBC called me up last Tuesday and told me my medical results came back "Not Recommended for Employment". Turns out I have cardiomegaly- an enlarged heart. I was hoping for something a little more life-threatening, so I wouldn't have to work anymore and simply wait to expire. In any case, I'm not afraid of the diagnosis, because with my luck, it's probably just mild. I'm off to a doctor on Monday to secure a clearance.

I had one of the worst days of my life last Thursday. I had to get a medical for dbSoft. I first went to the FriendlyCare clinic for a Urinalysis, Blood Test, X-ray, and Doctor's Check-up. I had to give a urine and stool sample. The urine sample I could handle, but the stool! Ugh. It's not like I have a switch that could just turn on and Presto! a small piece of shit. I think I spent 30 minutes just trying. After I had submitted both, the nurse told me she had made a mistake and that I won't need a Fecal Analysis. Aaarrrrgh! I silently cursed her to hell, smiled, and said it was okay. I took a seat and imagined what she would look like with a chainsaw going through her head while she took a blood sample. In taking my blood, by the way, she left a huge purple bruise on my arm.

The doctor's check up was worse. She kept telling me I was overweight (as if I didn't know!). And when she wanted to take a look at my tonsils, she didn't do so until I had said "Aaaah". I also had to submit to a breast, genital, and anal exam. I walked out of her office feeling violated and in dire need of a cigarette.

My medical exam didn't end there. FriendlyCare sent me to DrugCheck, a small, dirty, and dingy clinic one kilometer away. I filled up the form FriendlyCare gave me while the guy at the front desk was flirting with me. Auuuuuugggghhhh! After submitting the form, the guy gave me a cup. Great. I have to pee in a cup again. So I trudged into their bathroom.

And horror of horrors, their bathroom was an obsessive-compulsive's worst nightmare. Imagine yourself in a 3x3 room with a dirty toilet in the center. There was no flush, and the water in the toilet was an icky yellow-brown. There were shit scrapings on the bottom, and the entire bathroom looked like it had never, ever been cleaned. I wanted to cry.

Things took a turn for the worse when my bladder wouldn't cooperate. I told the girl who tested the samples about my predicament, and I told her I'll just pop into the Mini Stop at the first floor. I drank one big bottle mineral water and bathed myself in Isoprophyl Alcohol. 30 minutes later, I went back to the clinic to get the drug test over with. I got out of the bathroom, washed my hands with water, washed my hands with alcohol, walked to the car, and bathed in alcohol again. When I got home, I took a long, hot bath. Then rubbed alcohol all over my hands again, just to be sure.

By the way, in my rush to leave, I accidentally left my ID at the company. I need to go back there next week. :(

My mom has been extra nagging lately. She bursts into my room at 3AM and nags me about staying awake. Number one, I have insomnia. Number two, nighttime is the only time I can use the phone and the computer. Number three, I don't disturb anyone, so why bug me?

She also nags me whenever I go into a fit of coughing. So much for the motherly care. She says something like, "Hay nako, ano ba yang ubo mo. Hindi na gumaling. Ano ka ba?" It's not like I WANTED to have this itch in my throat.

Pfft. Fine, fine. I love my mom. But please.

San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra at the Podium tomorrow! Can't wait to hear them play excerpts from Howard Shore's FOTR soundtrack.

Currently in love with the name Maddox. I'm considering giving my first daughter this name.