bad way to start the day

Had breakfast with some co-workers after work. On the way home, while we were inside of the taxi just chatting, when we were about to hit the curve to my stop, one of my office mates, asked me something really personal; which totally threw me off. This of course, totally ruined my mood. I hate it when this happens. I hate it when people cannot recognize when they are being nosy. If they do, which I suspect this person did, they still continue to tread all over your personal space; just to satisfy their useless ,self serving curiosity. I blubbered something stupid. Situations like this when they occur, reaffirms my beliefs that I'm better off alone.

the events that led to this burst of happiness

I resigned from my job. This has been a dream of mine for the longest time. The amount of strife I have to endure at work has become unbearable. The only thing that kept me there was I had to earn a living; also, the benefits that go with 2 years worth of tenurity. You don't really want to bit*h and moan too much about work, because at the very essence of it, goes that work enables you to earn a livelihood. It allows you to pay the bills, it puts food on the table, it lets parents send their children to school; it also gives children the opportunity to give back to their parents by reversing the role of who brings home the dough! Besides, I don't think work was ever intended to be easy, that's why it's called work, and not going shopping hahaha! - maybe, it becomes a little easier if the work you do involves something that you love, or if you learn to love your work!

Anyway, the decision I made wasn't taken lightly; to put it simply I just couldn't do it anymore. I've become physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually drained. You never want to reach a point where you don't have anything left to give. I think many a- melt-downs happen this way. I was seconds away from it too! Luckily, I had sense enough to recognize when enough was enough.

Pretty soon I have to start working again, but just for this brief moment in time... Let me enjoy this...freedom. :)

Almost a year later....

It feels good to be back here. It feels like coming home, it’s been so long since I've written anything that is not work related. I've finally reclaimed my old blog, been wanting to do so for some time now, never could find the time to do it, until today. I've noticed a few things have changed around here, in keeping with the theme, my blog gets a new look. I really like this template; it sorta fits the mood of where I’m at in my life these days. I wish I were tech savvy, and could just generate my own images, and customize my own templates, but I’m not, so this would have to suffice. heck, I don’t know what I’m talking about..

I just laugh when I see the stuff I've written here, I'm not sure if this is me anymore. Always, there's going to be a side to me that's a vogon poet, but some of the stuff here are pretty hilarious. It's nice to have something to look back on to gauge your progress as a person. I wish I had never stopped writing, or maybe could have left myself some occasional memos and notes- maybe that would give me some insight as to where I was at the time, and now, where I think I’m going . This sounds incredibly self- important, but the beauty of having a blog is you get to say what you want without having to be self apologetic about it. Part of the reason I didn't want to write was because I didn't like where I was in my life, and I just didn't want to relive it in pause mode. As well as, I didn't want anything that reminded of how incredibly awful I felt all the time. But I don’t feel so bad these days, so I don't mind writing.

There is something so incredibly empowering about the practice of giving yourself the freedom to speak your mind. In that sense, blogging gives the writer a higher purpose than just venting your frustrations in life. In my case, blogging helps me clear my mind, and reaffirms my beliefs that somehow my inner sense of self is intact. I find it incredibly hard to express my intent through the actions of everyday life. I feel incongruous with my body, and how I am in every day. I act and say things all the time that has nothing to do with who I am as person. But these gestures at any given moment save me from drowning. The physical world and my mind don’t synchronize perfectly. I'm always aware that somehow I am acting out a part, where this is leading, and why I'm doing it, somehow defeats me.

i have a dream

.........I'm going to be brimming with light and positivity. Life is too full of sad people sleepwalking in the street. This is not a though that my mind is uttering, this an inner hope not to give in to what is not light. Life could be good.I could feel it........something has to wake up inside before the light closes, and the world falls as sleep.

i just need to let it out of my system

I was sick yesterday so i didn't go to work...why, does this makes me so happy. I just lost so much money in attendance bonus. In a way this makes me sad, because i was working so hard on my perfect attendance ever since i got to training I haven't had one absent or tardy; but yesterday my body finally gave in. Maybe it was because it was then that I finally felt that stress and the hardships of the whole 3 months that I've been working at TP, or maybe because out of nowhere our sup informed us that we all had to punch in an additional 1 hour of mandatory calls... I could barely make it past 8 hrs of receiving calls, now from this day forward it's going to have to be 9hrs!; that really got to me, that was the last straw. The injustice and the crappiness of the whole situation of being an employee, and your whole existence pretty much just getting kicked around...is not cool. I know this is how the corporate world works...but still, I've always known that when I push my body beyond it's limits, catastrophic things happen...I physically break down. It's impossible for me to function, and do my best when I feel like I'm about to lose it any moment now! That's what exactly how I felt last Friday, when I was doing my last hour of shift.


I prepare for work around 6 pm, and up until 8:30 am I was still at work taking phonecalls! That's just too brutal.... Now I feel really apprehensive about going to work tomorrow, what happens is I make myself sick when I'm sucking in my frustration, and woes...like right now. I don't know what I'm going to do about this whole thing, work was hard enough as it was without this additional weight added on myback. I don't mean to *beeech* and moan, but this whole thing is getting to me. I have lost all of my contact with the natural world ever since I started working at a call center. I have not written a poem in 3 months, I probably just have seen two movies since. I'm losing all contact with mah friends and family. Basically what I do everyday is just take calls for the whole day, and when I get home I am dead tired to do anything else...so I just sleep untill I have to get ready to go to work again!!!!!!!! SOMEBODY SAVE ME FROM THIS HOLE I'VE DUG MYSELF IN!

transformation to a human answering machine

It's a miracle! I can't believe I made it past 5 weeks of training and 2 weeks of learning lab where I took 4 hours of calls a day! Last Friday I got my certificate from learning lab, meaning that I am now offically hired by Sprint! What were they thinking?

Anyway, I don't know how I feel about this. Tomorrow I start taking 8 hrs. of calls everyday... to make matters worse, I am coming out of a cold. Crappiest of all crap, last friday we were all supposed to celebrate at a resto for finishing our training. Also, since we all got varying skeds, that means that that was the last time we were gonna see each other. But as luck would have it, I was struck down with a fever. I got dizzy around 3 am... and it just got worse, by morning I was burning up!

So my throat still hurts, and I'm hearing impared because of my cold. I only have 80 percent of my hearing. I feel ambivalent about this. At the same time, I made it this far, and have endured so many hardships throughout, including sleep deprivation, emotional breakdown, robotization, foiled attempt at public relations, and so much more...

So I guess at this point, I'm just going to see where this takes me. I am nervous about tomorrow, and at the same time kinda excited, at the thought of being in a new floor/ and encoutering new people/ being in a new atmosphere. I hope everything works out fine. I hope I get some sleep this morning. Graveyard is a killer....
but night differential is sweet....

goodbye world

Life in a cubicle

Time stops here to get a massage. Seconds after punching in-eternity kicks in. The influx of irrate callers whose tune is synchronizedwith the impending thumping of a baby ulcer inside my womb- just dying to crack through the surface.

Outside of this microcosm of a hellhole,real babies utter their first cry. Families eat their dinner of homemade nilaga & hot rice. Meanwhile exactly at 11 p.m. I go on AUX mode and press the break button, careful not to panic as I race against time. At this precise second as I am clicking the mouse, I am negotiating with destiny not to let another call squeeze through the pipeline, which could take me another 10-15 minutes to finish if I'm lucky! I grab my things in a hurry, and run to the fire exit.

There in the 11th floor of the San Miguel building, I eat my late dinner of one crammy piece of soggy donut, at the stairway. Light doesn't exists here in this strange space, only despair & loneliness. As I mechanically chew on my strawberry jelly donut, not really tasting its warm, dewy, sweetness.

...to be continued

I miss being submerged into poetry, and literature. We're starting product training right now and it's darn hard. When I get home from work, I have to occupy my time by studying and refreshing my knowledge about the things we had learned for the day. The most amazing part of this is that I don't even know if I am going to make it pass training and into the floor. I know it is too early to tell, but it's really hard....really hard....really hard......All together now.

But I plan to give it my best, so as to not waste my effort, and my time that I am devoting to this endevour. Weird sometimes when I see people in the streets, pushing karitons and vendors selling stuff on the side of the streets, I feel really sad. Last night when I got off work as I was walking towards my place there was a raid in the palengke. All of the vendors were scurriying away. Some even left their panindas on the street, so the raiders would not arrest them. People should not be treated in this manner. Sure it's illegal....whatever....but really what about those raiders? are they even sanctioned to initiate this type of action? and bottom line is that most of the time, all they want is to receive a cut on the pay of the vendor, that's why they stage the raids. I mean, it's really seems unjust when you take from the poor. They barely have enough to survive as it is. Sure we all need money..I mean that is why I'm working and not lounging on the beach. But still , when you put things in perspective, and even try to put yourself in their shoes...it's so sad, cause you have to deal with it day in and day out.

I know it happens all the time, and I see this all the time; but I never get use to it. It's a part of my landscape that I do not like, but cannot change. It especially hits me when I've just gotten off from work, and spent a great portion of my day in an airconditioned building, mingling with people in mutilated English. It's pretty hilarious, we're basically all being forced to speak English, though most of us bend this rule. It's pretty funny, when every bone in your body wanna speak tagalog but you say English... It makes you feel really self- conscious, and kinda t.h.

You know, I'm just really stressed out, and I just need to speak my mind, and clear my thoughts. I miss the freedom of having full control of my individuality; since at work your actions and mode of behavior pretty much have to be constricted. So I'm talking all of my frustration out of my blog. At work we are being trained to keep our frustatration and anger in, sowe can give the appearance and reassurance that the customers and his concerns are the most important thing in the world, and that all of your attention and strength as a person should be directed towards solving their problems. Even if in the process they create a lot of emotional disturbance for you, since absorbing someone's cynism always takes a toll on your body. I don't care if it's a personal assault or not, it's never fun to be yelled and screamed at and made a prisoner of somebody else' will.

Anyway, enuff of my long and winding run-on sentences. I'm really tired and want to go to sleep, but my mind is too awake to be put to bed. Since I am a night person, my wildest and most vivid impressions of life come to me at this hour.

Good night world.

I made it through a whole week of training. I can't believe it, I'm still alive- exhausted but satisfied that I did my best this week ...to have fun!! hehehe ...too much fun actually that I almost didn't pass my written test. I studied all the questions they didn't ask! I memorized the 50 states of America- its geographical location on the map, and their abbreviation. But voila! that was barely touched upon. I had a ball during training, laughed the whole time and almost froze to death. The room where they held our training has subzero temperature. I swear I almost turned into a human popsicle stick! The third day I was tempted to use a pair of socks as gloves.

I'm currently in training so I haven't been able to update my blog. Maybe on my day offs I'll be able to recount my misadventures at work!! hahahaha!!! .......anyway, training doesn't mean you're hired, so I'm still not setting my heart on this. I'm just doing my best....to try to have fun and keep everything in stride. Fortunately, I'm not in graveyard yet. But once training is over, surely we're going to have that shift.

Hopefully, once call simulation begins, I wouldn't have a..." may I take your order moment." .

...ah nevermind, bad thoughts fly away.

oh my! I accidentally deleted my ukay post!!! :(

Somewhere over the rainbow by Judy Garland

This song kills me. It intensifies my longing to escape, and find that land where blue birds fly. The melody and the words to this song captures the feeling of every dream, every desire, every wish that my heart has made since I was old enough to realize the meaning of sorrow. Incidentally, it also has been adopted as a gay anthem. I think it’s the reference to the rainbow that becomes the link. hehehe

It's amazing to me how some special person can summon up their understanding as a human being, artistic vision as an artist, and talent as musician to create a song as special as this one. Maybe he thought of it in his sleep, or maybe this song was written very early in the morning, still dazed from a dream. Maybe he heard the singing of those blue birds atop his window, beckoning him to come out and follow them to that land..."way above the chimney top that's where you'll find me"... Unbeknownst to birds that human like us don't have wings & can't fly.
...actually this song was composed by Harold Arlen, the lyrics was written by Yip Harburg. It was made famous by Judy Garland in Wizard of Oz. Of course, everyone knows that!

This song sounds especially good after I've just returned from a job interview. I am not really too keen on entering the corporate world. But I think I'll be alright as long as I can separate the essence of who I am as a person, and who I have to be when I have to earn my wages. Like a separation of state and religion- it is possible for the two to exists side by side, as long as one doesn't interfere with the other.

It must be wonderful to have a job that follows the inkling of your artistic inclination. During the job fair, I submitted my resume to Philippine National Inquirer! hahaha! The funny thing was that they were not even there for the job fair. I am not exactly sure what they were there for. But they had a booth, so I took the opportunity para mag-epal. So I just walked past their booth, and sheepishly dropped off my resume on the table. The person manning the booth looked really scary. He had the air of someone really important in his field of expertise, the Filipino version of Perry White chief editor of the Daily Planet, maybe?
Anyway, I have a second interview on Wednesday. I think this one is to assess my typing proficiency. That should be a laugh!!!

I don't know if I'm sad or happy.

DALIRI

Sumasakit at namamaga ang aking mga daliri dahil sa kakatype. Kaya ipapahinga ko muna sila. Sana managinip at lumipad sila papalayo dito sa hugis nang aking katawan. Masisiyahan kaya sila sa ganitong bagong kalagayan? Magdiriwang at gagawa ng mga bagong pangarap? Malulungkot kaya ako kung mawala ang kanilang mga mumunting panaginip sa aking mga kamay? Paano kaya ako yayakap, kakaway, o hahalik sa inyong palad kung mawawala ang aking mga daliri, na maghahadtid sa akin sa iyong piling?

I've been living in outerspace lately, that's why I haven't been making contact with mah blog. Here's one of my poems that got hit by an asteroid. The rest landed on Makata.

CLOCKWORKS

TIME like a war monger hungry giant chasing me in my sleep
& threatening to hit me with a giant iron spoon. Last year's dirty white linens still left hanging on the clothes wire where flowers bloom in the backyard.


FEAR like a tingling itch deep inside your skin that you can’t scratch.
I am unable to breath like a disgorged child that almost drowned in the river of Uncle Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Unable to pay his own debt, he cries as he turns into an oompa loompa.


FUNNY how time moves backwards when you're having fun.
Beautiful voice mingling in my head- a helium choir of chipmunks
lost in the skin parade of time.


TREES outstretch to reach the heat of the sun.
Assembled faceless bodies- twigs engraved backwards
from a distance almost mistaken for the lost voice
of angels.


PEACE is a symbol of the doves
A white frayed flag flying in half salute midway to heaven & earth.
When war-faced-painted-children get tired of winning all the time,
all the toys in the backyard go back to the attic to be put a way until
the next baby falls out
Of Sleep
& pulls the trigger

Getting ready for a diaper change.

lapse in judgment

Recently I’ve been beating myself up, haunted by the same mistakes that I’ve been making over & over again. It’s one thing to make a mistake and learn from it, and another thing to repeat the same one hoping that each time there’ll be a different outcome. A positive outcome, your fairytale outcome.

It’s amazing how many follies one can make when empowered by the strength of delusion. For a split second when you are about to make that choice it’s as if your memories don’t exists. As if the past with all its heartbreaks, bad checks, uncomfortable shoes, launched verbal warfare that you regret seemed like a world away. This is just plain idiocy. Thinking you can escape the consequences of your actions, ‘cause in the end you’re have to pay the price like it or not.