Now, I am not sure if I should take this as a compliment or an insult. First, I am too poor to be coño; secondly, I do not want people to think I am coño; third, pang-masa kaya ako; and fourth, I speak advanced Filipino, my vocabulary of Filipino might not be as good as my Dad’s but in comparison with kids these days, they scratch their heads sometimes.

Then, to be asked to say something incorrectly, because I sounded konyo could be (a) ang galing ko lang mag-English; (b) pinagti-tripan ako; (c) binobola ako; (d) makita kung natural din ako sa sablay na English; or (e) all of the above.

So I smiled and said okay, and another smile, an no i-speak.

Letse! Sa Internet lang naman ako talaga English ng Ingles, and my webhost would not like that, too (TOS issues).

When I started this job, people were mostly speaking English, maybe because it is a BPO and we are going to be working with transcripts, so a good grasp of the English language is a pre-requisite as opposed with the English of those awful people na nakakasabay mo sa jeep na English ng English, and you just know they work in a call center. I think you can just tell whether a person is a natural speaker (I think based on the casualness of speech, even if he has an accent) or a wannabe (na gusto lang magpa-sosyal).

So back to when I got the job last year. People were all ispokening dollars. So I did not talk much. Even in my first call center, when people in our ACE class were CC veterans, I chose to be laconic coz I am scared to talk with my very obvious plebeian accent, that no amount of training could fix. Three years later, I still have serious issues with “TH” sounds. “Three trees,” anyone?

As I was saying, in my current job, the non-CC job with a lot of people good at speaking English, I preferred to not speak too much. There was even this girl I asked, with my most jologs elocution, “Pwede ba yun?” or something like that. And she answered with this perfect intimidating English.

After that, I chose not speak to her again. Kasi English, eh. She turned out to be the best trainee in our batch, who is nice, but later resigned to study.

There’s this other girl at work, who I spoke to in Filipino and answered back in scary-perfect English. It sounded natural, to be fair, and I, again, chose to avoid talking to her. Kakatakot. Anyways, this girl is weird. She’s pregnant and her belly is huge now, but she can wear high heels, like really high and the thin types you see on Hollywood actresses. She wears it like she’s on sneakers and SHE is HUGE.

After time, I thought my English has reverted to my college English minus the awful influence of call center training that I think is wrong. I mean French, British, American, Australian people have their own accent, so why can’t we? I was proud that I can now say “motion” as mo-shonn as opposed to moe-shun (the one with schwa [?] pheonetic).

Yesterday, my supervisor told me she thought I don’t speak Filipino. Really, I sometimes think I am walking two dimensions, randomly. Our office is weird sometimes.

Just logged in after some time, the elections was a disappointment, not that I was expecting different… but since I started voting, I hate what the outcome was always.  It actually made me cry, seriously. I hate all of them ALL OF THEM. Sana magkaroon ng convention lahat ng politiko sa isang lugar at bagsakan nawa sila ng BULALAKAW.

——

Today, I rendered 2 and a half hours of overtime, working on another lousy transcript. I don’t mind working for 8 hours without rest, O just don’t like OT’s. I don’t like it when people are leaving and you see strangers from the evening shift sitting beside you. Then, the thought of being in line for an FX ride, today 40 minutes, then the hour-ride home, cramped in an awkward sitting position with stinky people.

I can endure that if I have the knowledge that I can spend more time sleeping, reading, browsing the Internet and stuff like that. I have hardly no time for myself anymore. And I love my ALONE times!

Your supervisor tells you to not compromise the quality of my work. I say, “OK.”

Anyways, sitting there, irritated and cranky, I try to relax, take deep long breaths, stop thinking of anything home-related… it works for a while then I get angry again. Repeat: relax, take long deep breaths,  stop thinking of anything home-related…. repeat as necessary.

Then, ARGH. I will throw another tantrum, step hard on the computer pedal that controls the audio, stomp my feet on the floor, a thud can be heard despite the concrete floor, grunt, say foul words beneath your breath. Then go to the usual mantra: stop thinking of anything home-related…. take long deep breaths… Relax….

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I ignore.

“Are you OK?” asked another supervisor-in-charge.

“I an OK,” I say, no longer able to manage a smile.

IT IRRITATES ME WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME IF I AM OKAY, WHEN IT IS OBVIOUS THAT I AM NOT OK, AS IF THEY WILL DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

I do not know if I am going to be regularized by February. I have some absences and my performance isn’t exactly what you’d call stellar.

But if I do, and if there is some sliver of hope that I am to be regularized, I need a friend. A friend that gets it, a normal friend.

Not that I hate the people I hang out with, they’re actually very nice to me. But it sure would be nice to hang out with someone, male and heterosexual, for a change.

A co-worker once said that men in our company are either gay or ugly, they then look at me and say that I am an exception in that category. Now, they have changed it. The men in our company are either gay or geeks. I think superior geeks will shudder at the nature of our jobs. But seriously, I dont see many geeks here, maybe they were all transferred in the evening shift. But it sure would be nice to hanging out with some one different.

Yesterday, I confessed to Meow that I am beginning to talk like them. She was surprised that I said Gora so casually. Hahaha! It is not wrong to speak Gay Talk but it doesn’t really suit me. I don’t want to say all those stuff in normal conversation. They are beginning to rub off on me. NOOOO!

I want a friend who likes fantasy and cartoons. Someone who smokes and drinks. Someone who have a sense of humor that is similar to mine. Someone who does not fornicate with men. Please, please, please…

Now, I am able to earn 300 pesos for five 500-word articles. Not very much, I know.

I downloaded way too many eBooks. I want to read them all, but I can’t due to my job. I badly need an eBook reader, a really cheap one.

My laptop is working against me. I need a new one. But I love this one, still.

While I was looking for Peter S. Beagle stories, which is hard to find in bookstores, I stumbled upon something about a Last Unicorn rave. Geeks know how to party. See This.

Three rooms of music and fantasy! Why aren’t there parties like that here?!

At work, because earnings season is over, there is very little to do. Many of us are helping out with the Christmas decorations yesterday. The theme for our department is Santa’s factory. They are making a big deal about it. There is a contest for it, and the Asians Equity department always win.  Let’s face it, as creative as we Filipinos are, if pitted against a group comprising of Koreans, Chinese and Japanese, we stand a small chance (I think it’s a cultural thing) plus they earn a lot more money than we do (just think of their budget — big). But who knows, with the effort they are giving into it… Baka manalo kami.

Yesterday, I was doing letters. We already made letters to Santa. This time, we did it in foreign languages. It would have been fun if we didn’t need to cut it out. I asked what the flap (see image below) is for? Nobody really explained it to me. Nobody could. And I, having the weak personality that will suitably fit in a communist country where everybody just followed (partly because I am too bored and I don’t want to do the exercises we’ve been subjected for the past four months).

Between that, I was asked to help out to make Styrofoam windows. The types you see in churches.I don’t know why they have to ask me for help. I did some drafting. Drafting, something I have not done since High School. They want to make it as if to look like stained glass (and they used cellophane). I would have been more impressed if they could have made patterns on it like Madonna and Child or something like that. But unfortunately, they only have red and green for colors and they don’t have time or maybe he skill for it.

Back to my letter writing, that is interrupted by the fake stained glass. I am content on writing and since nobody among us really understand many languages, I have letters asking Santa for unreasonable things like new parents, people dying a painful (but very slow) death, a new job, complaints from whiny spoiled children. Some I searched the Internet because I need to finish 45 letters. I have them translated to Spanish, German, Hindi, Catalan via the help of translate.google. I enjoy writing the Arabic and Hindi but not the Chinese or Japanese ones, I’d hate the real Chinese people at work seeing it due to the unreliability of the translations and my poor replication of their special characters.

And it is a good thing that I have multiple handwriting due to the years of experience making forgeries of parent’s signatures in my youth (I do it for myself and some people in class).

Then we saw the humongous ribbons. I was not bothered by it but it seems some coworkers do. I am just here to write my evil letters to Santa. They are quite pretty unless you know the content (there are a few that actually  are innocent), I still insist I have beautiful handwriting. I was happy to even do a letter to Santa from the notorious Inday.

Thos humongous ribbons were not really that pretty. When my almost friends asked our gay co-worker how relevant it is syempre kabadingan! Okey. He was too preoccupied by his stained cellophane window (which turned out rather nice). He is trying to compete against the atrocious Cathedral window some other people did.

The ribbons were like three feet wide and they hung it with nylon thread above each other (see image above). The color scheme doesn’t really compliment each other. But I couldn’t care less. On with my writing Santa letters, it was fun until I got tired.

I heard that the other department is putting snow on theirs. Goodbye prize.

P.S.

Visit meow’s blog. She’s starting to blog again.

I am trying to cheer myself up, I have always been a loner. Maybe it’s pressure. With training at work, we are left to work independently with minimal supervision. Kaya siguro ganoon kakaiba yung exams namin dati. Voicewriting is tiring. We are left to practice and everybody is practicing because EVERYBODY  needs to practice and it is not like High School and college because we need to be really good because we all want this job.

I have been getting these really nasty dreams. I guess I am not really built to work in a call center, office or anything that has corporate associated with it.

By the end of the day, my neck hurts, my head aches, my jaws had stiffened and my throat is dry! Tapos wala pa akong kaibigan at wala pa kaming pera!

I kinda miss my old coworkers. Kind of. Hahaha! I guess even if I have very few friends at my last job, they have gotten used to how I am, they just ignore me and when I need to talk, it’s a bit easy to pick things up. Pero ayoko na talaga mag-technical support. But I miss talking to nice customers, those really nice and educated Americans, those that are not necessarily intelligent but are easy to work with.

I have to remind myself that there are much more stupid and unappreciative people in the world.

Last Friday, I was lonely and I want to laugh hard and DRINK maybe. I wanted to talk.

So let me talk about what friends to me should be. Di naman ako mapili sa kaibigan, I am not looking for goodlooking people. Kahit bobo pa yan (basta wag lang nakaka-irita), ang mahalaga lang naman yung nasasakyan ang takbo ng utak ko at tumatawa sa sick humor ko. And of course they should display genuine concern for me (you’ll know just by small things tulad na lang ng pagko-commute and the like).

I have friends, just very few of them. I have plenty of acquaintances, but very few friends. If you don’t get it, we are not friends and most likely won’t be.

I do have a sense of humor, I just don’t find it funny (or even amusing). I know how to have fun, what you think is fun is not fun for me.

Stop talking. Stop talking about things just to make yourself look good.

I don’t hate people, I just find most people very annoying. I might even like them but I get easily annoyed.

Yesterday was better. I miss Meow. Isang araw na naman.

Sabi nila magkaka-friends din ako sa trabaho, yeah, reassuring.

Naglaro na lang ako ng Crazy Planets sa Facebook. Sana sweldo na, I need to cheer myself up.

P.S. Napag-tripan ko lang yung font color to make this post a little bit happier.

We were planning to go to an acquaintance’s birthday but Meow canceled because she wasn’t able to get much sleep. I am a bit relieved. I wanna be lucid for this, and I was. My employment ended last Sunday. I do not miss it. I was afraid the past 2 days that I felt no strong feelings. Have I gone numb? How much of the old me was extinguishedd by working in a call center?

I went there again today, with my bulky backpack, armed with my notebook and Albert Camus to give me company. Seeing them was pleasant but I ask myself if I have established a strong bond with them. I kinda like them… mostly.

I was in that stifling place that was my former employment. I waited alone and doing that did me good. The silence of the empty pantry made me think with clarity. I think and I ask myself if I have grown here and was amazed at how long I lasted there. I thought I’d be gone in three months.

On my FX ride home, I hear the sounds of the heaving airconditioner and the constant motor running. There was silence and nobody talked. Just the kind of lone travels I like. I realize the things I will miss most and wish to do for the last time. And this was one of them, sitting in the unholy hours of night… with freaks, just like myself.

I will miss walking in the dark avenues of Makati. I like my solitary walks, I used to do that lot when I was new. I remember getting into this bad thing with one of the Operation Managers there, and I walked one time until my mind was clear. The cool wind blowing against my face while smoking a cigarette, the smell of the air in those hours when most people are sleep, especially on weekends. I can still remember the smell.

I will miss sipping coffee in one of my favorite coffee shops.

I told myself that in life, I will never have regrets. Regret is an unnecessary emotion. You learn from your mistakes but you should not entertain the feeling of regret. I feel no regret now. I feel free. I feel light. It’s like this heavy chain wrapped around my body was broken.

I am not sure if my next job is better or worse, I won’t know yet but I am excited. I am afraid. Whether I will be good at it, time will tell.

I just signed my contract today for the new job as a voice writer/editor.

Don’t mind the picture, I was looking for a picture with a contract on it (my blog has been mostly text in months). Nagulat ako na isa ito sa mga lumabas. If you were thinking that’s a porn movie. Wrong! Akala ko rin. Hehehe.

It’s gonna be my last few days at work, I feeeeel soooo messed up. I wanted this job but I feel there’s something missing.

Maybe because Meow did not receive a call, we were imagining how it’s like to be wavemates/batchmates again just like old times. Or maybe I will miss my team. Or maybe I want more money (even if the offer was higher than my current salary).

I will leave my team. I do get along with them. I have grown a sick, fond tenderness for them and for all the emotional attachment and separation anxiety, I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THEM! Mga Hayup! But I will get over it soon enough, I am sure.

Note to myself: Keep this blog a secret, so that I can badmouth people without any more reservations!

I was with a group of people that seem to be OK, I have a good feeling about them. I think many of them have some loose screws, I think we’ll get along then. There’s this mom there who kinda irritates me a little bit. Too talkative for me. But she seems nice. Not really that pretty. And you know what’s scary? The people I make fun of are the people I become friends with. Aaaaah!

I suddenly miss a friend, she really falls in that Hot Momma category, something I was unaware of for the longest time until somebody pointed that out to me. Talaga?! Well, I thought she is a bit too catty to be hot (pang-cougar pala ang dating, way too many cats in my lives for a dog person). She has always thought of me as a harmless little puppy and she gave me presents when I was working in our old company.

I look really nice. My last 2 ID pictures in my previous companies were awful (both had me looking like some lost and petrified aborigine dressed in modern garbs forced to smile at the camera). So when I learned that we’ll be bringing our own pictures, I had a haircut (something I do twice or thrice a year) and shaved (tamad kasi ako lagi mag-ahit) and dressed nice clothes (something that some people rarely see because my taste in clothes were never exactly fashionable). Now that’s done, I am back to my old distasteful self na di nag-aayos.

———————

PS

I found this link, it’s beautiful. Beautigul Agony. It has different people in the throes of orgasm. It’s not porn but it sure is erotic based on the clip. I wish I could seeMakes me want to feel some agony myself. I wish I had a credit card. See the preview seems so sensual.

I was not supposed to write about it yet but I am in a coffeeshop in Megamall, wasting time away because I hate long lines. I gotta have my NBI clearance.

I gave my sentimental resignation letter that would have made me proud except finding out later in the day that I misspelled taught with thought. And the new job will require me to do proofreading. Anak ng tokwa! Nakakahiya. They gave the acceptance letter for the resignation within the day. Aba! Di man lang ako pinigilan (as if naman magpapapigil ako. Hay)!

It’s not that I hate my current job but I am tired, I kinda liked it for the longest time and part of me still does. I don’t get much rest and it is quite tiresome to be doing the same thing for the past three years (2 of which in a different company but with the same job title). So it is time for me to move on. Besides, the new job is closer. Since working in this company that has the name similar to a taxi franchise, I am always tired. From Antipolo to Ayala everyday, with schedules changing every month and inconsistent per day, I am always sleepy. I do not have time to watch TV anymore. I stopped reading books the way I used to, don’t have time to draw and even my sex drive has gone down (dapat na nga ako umalis)!

Sa August pa naman yun.

Kaya dito muna ako.

So, ayun.

I should not expect too much. I always get disappointed.

I still feel tired and hardly slept last night. Stupid shift changes…

I told myself that I will spend less but I am still weak. I can’t help myself.

We were in the bookstore, I found this box labeled Rudraksha, I was wondering what’s in it. It was heavy, if you shake it, I can hear chimes. It was on sale and 90% was slashed from its original Php 1,000+++. Being the impulsive consumer that I am, despite my tight budget, I bought it.

I opened it and found smelly reddish beads stringed together like a large necklace. I later learned that Rudraksha came  from trees and you can gain spiritual wisdom (sabi ng pamphlet), so I thought this was better than buying other bead necklaces. I don’t know if it is authentic. Pampalakas pa daw ng chakra! Parang si Naruto lang di ba? The chiming sounds came from a bell that came with the box. I still need to inspect it, it has other stuff in it like a yellow scarf with Indian design on it, incense sticks and holder, other stuff that I cannot make out. I should read the booklet soon. I will do some serious meditating on Saturday when we check in the hotel.

My girlfriend thought it looks nice as a bracelet coiled several times when I am wearing a nice T-shirt. I think it makes me look like a spiritual rocker. Something that I am not! The website says it should not be worn as a bracelet.

Oh, well.

I wore it today as a necklace under my sweatshirt, it left a yellowish stain on my tees.

I also bought Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I have read his short stories and loved some of them. Sorry, Chuck Palahnuik. Next time na lang kita bibilhin.

I am reading a graphic novel adapted from Macbeth. Shakespeare was really ahead of his time. The art itself may not be that impressive but the story staying true to the original was enough to make it a fine read.

I wish that I can be able to make time to read. Maybe a month dedicated to catch on my reading, serious reading. That would be in a comfortable, quaint little house where the temperature is nice and cool. I would like that. Very much. Not working for a month… that sounds too good to be true. Ain’t gonna happen.