stuck

what else could i say? i am underemployed and i get no way out. or so it seems. heck with this department. really! i just couldn't pack up my bag and "'lock the door!'-(sir, wag po! wag po!)-'i said lock the door when you leave!'"

helplessness. pressured by boredom. my camera, the only companion that makes my professional life easier to bear, is broken. my laptop, that makes my personal life exciting, is obsolete, slow, big, uncharactered. my office - rants, rants, rants, rants to the 10th power.

i am stuck. simply put. the end.

more than words can say

going away

i oftentimes dreamed i was going away, but after receiving a txt msg from a friend one morning, i found myself in deep realization that no, i am not going away, and that i am now left alone.

the txt read: she has now tendered her resignation effective in one month. she will soon leave for the states (or txt to this effect).

i was speechless for a moment. why now? why her? other than her, all have now left to the other side of the pasture. and literally, yes, i am now left alone. the speechlessness was more because i am left alone than of them going away.

why are they going away? answers could vary from the simple to the complicated. now it dawned on me there must be something here that pushes them away. each one has his own reason of leaving. simple or complicated, that doesn't matter anymore. the fact is they have left, and are leaving.

so this boils down to me being left alone. shall i hold on to my dear philippines? shall i blind myself from the clamor of the greener pastures on the other side of the fence? but what if where i am now is greener than i thought? what if their stories, untold, speak of struggles in the rat race?

ambot. mauli la anay ako ha balay.

NEO Journey

i have watched the matrix trilogy, but never really had an understanding of it. except for the few days past when a video clip - part of the matrix movie - was used as a visual aid in the discussion on paradigm shift and transformational leadership during our national coaches training on the orientation course for the newly elected officials in los banos. a day after this training, i became part of the training management conducting the same thing to our provincial coaches from regions 6, 7 and 8 in cebu. this sort of echo training made me understood more the essence of that particular video clip. came the training for our field officers in our respective regions where we used again this material. the clip was all the more getting appreciated as we played it from one venue to another. now, my hands are full as most of our field offices invite me to be their resource person on this particular module on the conduct of the real orientation course. my hands are full in giving meaning to this clip, each discussion paved way for a deeper understanding of the message of that video clip.



and what is the video clip all about? and why, of all clips, this clip? first, here is a backgrounder to answer the why. we will tackle the dialogue of the clip, second.



NEO stands for newly elected officials. the term, perhaps an afterthought, refers also to the name of the main protagonist of the matrix movie. the framework of the orientation course for NEO (which the character in the movie exactly describes the general apprehension of our newly elected officials) focuses on the 4 S's (written down as 4's), and forms part of the ladder from from 2007-2010, one term for the elected officials, aptly termed as the NEO Journey. one s is one module about knowing the State of local governance. this module presents the situation of the local government unit, the jurisdiction of the NEO, i mean, officials. right after this, the discussion on knowing one self which tackles the leadership skills of the officials. the journey steps up to discuss the strategies or the future roadmap for development of the local government. and finally, (i forgot na).

(i can't finish. i will just publish this to remind me that i had once attempted to write about my insights of the work i handle... tinamad na, nakalimutan...bahala na si batman.)

noise of my hometown

biliran mountains

not so much of the place but of my childhood that i certainly feel nostalgic about when i visited my hometown very recently. fast rewind to twenty-five years past when i was very young, active, playful. we owned the street infront of our house from afternoon to late night, specially when the moon was up. i was usually the leader of one team playing patintero, hide and seek, and name the game, we played it. ours had very difficult game rules. it was more combative but fun nonetheless. even the hide and seek required the whole town as our playground, running to the mountain, to the cemetery, and yes to the beaches where we usually frolic after or before the game. the place we didnt take notice of, but the childhood lingers in all memories.



biliran beaches

twenty years hence, and almost 2 years of not coming back, i went home to see the place. i still got to see the beaches all around but i knew i was looking for something else. the only difference now is that i take notice of the place, take pictures of it, but i could no longer capture the noise and the laughter of the children who used to play around.

the place today, devoid of laughters, brings ooohhs and ahhhs. maybe because i feel i am no longer a part of it, but only a spectator of this natural exhibit. or maybe because as i age, i took another level of point of view. i tell you, i really have never seen my hometown as beautiful as this. as a child, you only take part of the game; as an adult, you now see things around as more than just a game.



tinago falls in biliran

bulan

moonlight sonata

if the sun fascinates me of its shining glory that is new every morning, giving hope to the tired soul, the moon calms me of its stillness in the midst of darkness and its reflection of something glorious. the moon offers itself as a vessel of something better, thus shining on its own in the process.

the moon waits. the moon gives. the moon reflects. that is the moonlight sonata.

fresh-ial expressions

i am all smile, all embrace as i welcome her into my world. such a joyous celebration!

flowers for my nanay

as the earth would have it, these are flowers that were never meant to be given.
as the wind would have it, the gesture of appreciating nanay was tossed to nowhere.
may nanay feel in her heart that one soul down here had in one time fondly thought of her
on mother's day. i love you, ma.

3 takes

take 1. 10-second pose. oooops father was covered, ooooops serge covered.

take 2. timer started. ooh glen was hidden.

take 3. click!

with whatever household props our hands held onto, the best shot of the century was taken inside the small house in san jose. even our dog, serge, strikes a model pose, as if he listened to the directives. it took 3 takes to capture the natural, the fun, the memory of a lifetime. all happened in 10 seconds, one night, when father came to visit us.

bagong bukangliwayway*

*new sunrise

waking up early drags me since i was born (isip ko lang). i am not an early riser, though waking up at 7am is already late for me. that means, i usually wake up between 6 and 7am. waking up at 5am is a no-no for me. usually i feel like losing my appetite if i force myself to be awake earlier than my usual schedule. and feel like killing all moods if i wake up later than that.

ahem, actually the story above is supposed to be in past tense. the waking up between 6 and 7 am was a thing in the past, when the viruses in my body were still young and vibrant. biological clock of the teens, to include the twenteens, clicks late. otherwise, the ageing era of today could not have witnessed such new sunrise when the east opens its rays at past 5 in the morning.

this only leaves me something. to age is actually to venture into a wonderland. to age is actually to witness the morning glory of the east. simply put, to age is to shine.

so today i wake up anytime. i am not bothered. specially if what awakens me is the promise that the sun will rise new every morning.

pirated jumong, prison break, etc

pirated dvd collections

is it in the filipino psyche to accept and promote anything pirated?

after collecting these korean, japanese, fox television serials, i become an accomplice to the crime of filipino psyche, if ever this thing is a crime.

more days than one, morning dialogues in the office beat around jumong, prison break, full house, stairway to heaven, a rosy life, princess hours, jewel in the palace, etc.

example:

mama: my daugher is now complaining i am always watching tv. so i told them, here, you buy bigbang in the store.
daughter: but mama you told me it's not good for my teeth.
mama: no, it is not true. go, buy.
another mama: what i did was to scatter lots of coins on the floor and told my children to pick them up.

why these serials seem to be addicting all of us? one dvd, the pirated one, runs around 16 to 26 hours. i was absent a couple of times just to watch them. one officemate professed the time she was absent was because she watched jumong. another watched til midnight, woke up at 5am to watch again, and was late for work.

i am not talking here of the morality of piracy, nor the popcorn sales of these pirated dvds. i am just simply telling a story of how this captures us, and makes us live once again to the challenge of making the mundane extraordinary.

this gives us a better version of ourselves, of our lives, of our work, of our workplace. will this justify if by now we are an accomplice of this filipino psyche?

mabuhay ka jumong! mabuhay ka scofield!

dirty ice cream

ice cream peddler, airport road

all children's favorite, especially if one lives in the barrio.
when i was young, this was the end-all-be-all of my existence.
the sound of its bell, salivated the ones who heard.
but why we bought even if it was called dirty?
that's child's wonders.
i was not sure why it was called dirty ice cream.
maybe because the process was so raw unlike the boxed ones?
maybe because in the process sweat and all were also mixed?
maybe because it was sold in the street?
all i know was that it is an ice cream.