howling at the moon

The entry on my
planner for this coming Friday reads: “CRAZY DEADLINE.” Tons of stuff to read,
not to mention write, in order to make Crazy Deadline.  Don’t know where to start. So what do I do? De-stress
for a few minutes by writing blog update.   
* * *
Work
conversations:

 (First day of
long holiday. Person A’s mobile phone rings. An officemate is on the other line.)

Person A: “Hello. O bakit?”

Person B: “Hello, kumusta ka na?”

Person A: “Hindi mo ko tinawagan para kumustahin ako. Anong
kailangan mo, pababalikin mo ba ko sa opisina?“

Person B: „Ikaw
naman,hindi ka man lang marunong ng
small talk, kinukumusta ka lang e“

Person A: „I
don’t do small talk. Bakit ka tumawag?”

Moral of the
story: Don’t mess with a person’s long weekend.

Person A: (struggling
with Photoshop intricacies) “Pucha, magulong buhay to a.” (after a few
minutes, finally manages to get the effect she wants) Yehey, yess!

Person B: (ume-epal)
“Wow galing! Paglaki ko, gusto kong maging katulad mo”

Person A: “P_ta!”

Person C:  (naki-alam pa) “Pwede
ba, Lunes pa lang. Sa Huwebes na
kayo magpatayan!”

This coming
Friday really scares me.

* * *

Okay, that
was the last time you will see your inbox cluttered by “Rina has just updated
her Friendster blog” messages. Whether
or not I have updated my blog, I know it does not necessarily mean that you
would want to know about it. I just
couldn’t turn that feature off, that’s all. To spare you the bother and me the embarrassment (of posting completely
nonsense entries and having it automatically announced like some breaking
news), I would rather post my nonsensical babblings here, and you’ll never have to
bother yourself about it ever again.

Unless for some
sick weird reason you do want to bother yourself with it, in which case,
well, feel free to visit

it’s the beginning of a two-day workweek and you know what?

cue james brown…

I feel good! (tanenananenum…)

never mind the pile of work waiting next week…
never mind that i haven’t gone to the gym in a couple of weeks and have only been averaging once a week since i joined up…
never mind that for some weird insane reason i have to read up on taxation (as i told a co-worker, i didn’t exactly sit down and list my reasons for not going to law school but if i ever did avoiding taxation will probably be somewhere on that list)…
never mind that my desk looks like a hurricane went through it…
never mind that the summer heat is really here in full swing…

i feeeel fine!  (tanenananenum…)

wala lang, he he….

Endured a couple
of hours’ summer heat a couple of weeks ago (but not after a looong, sumptuous
lunch at Galileo. fresh mozzarella,
mmm…) browsing at the Powerbooks
warehouse sale to crave my, well, admittedly lately dormant zeal for reading.  Picked
up books as I went along, then sat down with abby and jaypee as we painfully went
through our respective stacks, knowing we’ll have to leave some behind because,
well, we just couldn’t afford to spend that much money (don, with much
discipline, took two science fiction books and stuck to them).  At the end of this gruesome elimination process,
my final Powerbooks warehouse sale harvest consisted of (my apologies for not
linking to wherever it is I’m supposed to link these books, I just don’t have
the patience to go through all that):

1. The Name
of the Rose by Umberto Eco – I still remember the well-worn UP Main Library
copy that I read in college. Just thought it’s time for me to get my own copy

2. A Short History
of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson – in which I’m currently learning just how
marvelous the universe is

3. The Talented
Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith – again, one of those books I’ve been meaning
to get for a long time but never got around to until now

4. Bridge of San Luis Rey – a well-intentioned buy, which I got for the
simple reason that I remember seeing it in some sort of best-novels-of-the-21^st-century
list, and the blurb seemed interesting. Plus it was cheap, he he

5. Rules of
Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis – a steal at P79, but I can’t really say I enjoyed
reading this one

 A free copy of “Bergdorf
Blondes” came with the loot, which I read in one day last weekend. As early as
the second chapter I could see where the thing’s heading.  I miss Bridget Jones.

 
Upcoming long
Holy Week break. Definitely an opportunity to just curl up and read to my heart’s
content. Not bad, not bad at all.

My mind is so full. Pissed off, depressed, demoralized, in
despair. In despair over my lost phone. I torture myself with what-ifs and
you-should-haves. Or, more to the point, shouldn’t have.  Shouldn’t have been stupid enough to use the
phone inside a jeepney, and a jeepney with wide open windows at that.  Pissed off that during those few seconds of
struggle with the snatcher, with your arm hanging out the jeepney window, it
didn’t occur to you to use your other hand, dammit, maybe bash the guy’s
face in, at least grab a handful of hair.  All I did was struggle for a few seconds while
screaming “Huwaaagg!” (I sweat that was what I screamed. So melodramatic)
What I should have screamed, of couse, was “8210 lang yan, bitawan mo na!” but
the struggle didn’t last long enough for that.  My shocked fingers slackened for the tiniest
bit of a second, and it was all he needed, and off he went. 

The phone itself is such an old model it’s so cheap, and I was
able to make my dazed way to the nearest landline phone to cancel my Globe
line, but of course the cost of actually replacing the phone and reconstructing
the directory is the real pain in the ass.  My priority was to buy a laptop, dammit! Every
spare cent was supposed to go the laptop fund! 

And of course, there’s the trauma.  My hands were trembling right after it
happened, and I was walking around half-dazed for about half an hour longer.  From Quezon
  City, I found myself at the Ayala MRT station, where
was almost out of the station when I realized that I should have gotten off at
Magallanes.  It was only after I placed a
short payphone call to Don to tell him about it and let him know I was all
right, and after consuming some French fries (what could I do, I was shocked and
hungry), that I began to recover.  I was
even able to write down all these.

*wipes smudges of bacon mushroom melt from paper*

Basically, folks, this is to tell you that I lost my phone
and to ask you to send me your mobile numbers through email or friendster
message.  I know, I know, most of you are
saying “Oh, sheesh, here she goes again, losing a phone/eyeglasses/wallet/whaterver
like once a year.” Believe me, I’ve castigated myself over it already.

I haven’t figured out when can I get a replacement phone (anybody
out there want to give me one?) and whether I want to keep my number or switch
to prepaid, I’ll let you know. 

In the meantime, I guess, I’ll do what I should have done
long ago and keep a file of all your numbers.

I was just beginning to take in the news of the State of Emergency declaration last Friday when it already brought me my very own state of emergency – calling from lunch, my boss decided that we should release an advisory/briefer on the unfolding developments to all our clients, asap.  That meant that we underlings had to rush around to start gathering the materials and preparing the initial draft of the advisory, find out things like, oh, what’s a state of emergency anyway – get me a copy of the constitution dammit – can we ask for a copy of the proclamation from malacañang (good luck) – what the hell’s going on – and, of course, what does this all mean? For our clients, for the economy, for the people, for the country?

And it was at this point that the beauty of blogging came in (no, this is not an entry about the state of emergency per se, as I will tell you later you can find things on that elsewhere). My thirst for information was fortunately slaked by the TV at the other side of the office, by the heavily-accessed and therefore occasionally down INQ7 website and, more importantly, by the PCIJ blog. The inquirer website provided breaking news, photographs, interviews; beyond that, the PCIJ blog, probably less hampered by the usual editorial processes, gave some behind the scenes insights, preliminary analysis, reference materials (including the much-wanted copy of Proclamation 1017, first as a pdf of the scanned document and later as complete text), even links to other blogs also featuring entries on the developments.  It was just a matter of clicking the ‘refresh’ button to get the latest updates.  The information was literally at my fingertips, and coming at me as fast as I could want it.

For me, at least, this is where blogging came of age in this country.  The blog has been emerging as a credible source of information of late, so much so that there have been instances of blog content being pirated for use in traditional print media, but here, where the blog became an even more reliable and faster source of information than the traditional media forms, you can see there’s really something revolutionary going on.  Applying it to the PR industry where I belong, it’s part of what Richard Edelman calls the  Me2 revolution, in which the traditional top-down, one-to-many model of communication is now being replaced by “a peer-to-peer, horizontal discussion among multiple stakeholders” (and no, I’m not just plugging it here because my firm is part of the Edelman network).  In the past few days, as I accessed blogs, websites, read blogger comments and analysis, and prepared my own take on things, it definitely facilitated my being a participant in the nation’s collective effort at making sense of it all.

When Marcos signed the declaration of martial law it actually took a few days before he decided it should be worthy of being announced; now, before a president can stick anything like that into a drawer somebody’s bound to get it somehow and post it online.

It’s not just the military unrest, or the posturings of the members of the opposition, that the President should be wary of.  In this day and age, it’s really tricky to fool around with the people’s right to information and freedom of expression, and I hope she knows that.

It’s very difficult nowadays to get our countrymen to feel proud of being a Filipino, given with all that’s happening with the country, but yesterday, the impossible happened. The nation set everything aside (laundry, the jeepney route, yes, even political bickering – just for a moment) and cheered, jeered, cried, placed bets, and generally rallied behind countryman Manny Pacquiao as he slugged it out with Mexican Erik Morales. It didn’t matter whether they were boxing fans or not to begin with, it only mattered that a Filipino was fighting. It only mattered that there was national pride at stake. 

By early morning or early afternoon (depends on which telecast you’re watching, the live or the delayed one), the whole country is rejoicing over the victory, and for a while, everyone was proud to be Filipino (or at the very least, proud of a fellow Filipino). 

"Sana magkaintindihan na po tayong lahat

(I hope we’ll all finally end our differences)." Pacquaio said after the fight, apparently referring to the almost constant discord racking the country. 

Oh, Pacquaio, if only a super featherweight title is enough to make that happen.

I woke up in a relatively good mood today, only to be confronted by four, no, five pimples that weren’t there the night before.  Maybe it’s one of life’s ways of saying, “yes, rina, it’s a monday morning once again.”

***

Scribbles…

Something to be said about the way people come back from meetings… some burst in through the door with some extravagant declaration (“we got the account!”); some just stride in quietly and confidently, secure in the knowledge of doing a good day’s work (“good meeting.”); some walk in and plunge straight into a flurry of activities (phone calls, guest lists, collaterals)… the diversity is remarkable. It reminds you once again that it’s a colorful world, there are stories everywhere, it’s not just people hunched over keyboards waiting for 6 o’clock. If you look closely enough, it’s there. There are stories everywhere.  They could be plotting a serial murder, or a sweet romantic gesture for a loved one.  They could be crying inside, for all you know. Or laughing at you. 

I’m sorry, djop and lem, I just had to post your comments here, they made my day!!!

1. paano naging magaling kaagad si peter sa sword fight? e mukhang mas mahaba pa sa arms nya yung sword nya. matatalo nya si Jadis na sanay na sanay gumamit ng double sword?! unthinkable!

2. at bakit naman super bitin ang role ni susan? para saan naman kaya ang bow and arrow nya kung sa isang dwende lang mapupunta ang bigay sa kanya ni santa claus? at mukhang wala pang 3 metro ang layo ni susan nung ni release nya ang arrow?

3. si edmund naman. itataas lang nya sword nya tapos sisigaw lang siya ng "fire" tapos titira na yung archers. tapos akala nya pagnabasag nya yung magical scepter nung eh mananalo na sila at tapos na ang laban. BIG mistake. ayun sinaksak tuloy siya ni witch gamit yung basag na scepter. yan ang napala niya.

4. anong weapon ni edmund? sword din?

5. mukhang maganda din ang role ni edmund as a villain in the future, what do you think? pwede ba siyang gawing kalaban ni peter? sa tingin ko in the next episodes ay mas maeemphasize yung rivalry ni Peter at Edmund. Peter being the good guy at si edmund yung villain at magkakatuluyan sila ni Jadis. Go Edmund!!!

6. yung forces of "good" may air force (yung mga griffins, phoenix, eagles, etc.) eh bakit hindi pinalipad yung mga mananagal ng forces of "evil". pinoprovoke pa naman nung isang manananggal si aslan nung eve of the battle.

7. may power of reincarnation yung forces of "good". isipin nyo…hindi sila mauubos. unang una yung muling pagkabuhay ni Aslan. Patay na sya dapat (at kalbo)! Pinatay siya ni witch (kinalbo muna ni dwarf). pangalawa, bawat mafreeze ni Jadis ay automatic napupunta in frozen state dun sa may gate nung kanyang castle. eh kung mag-aabang lang si Aslan dun sa gate at bawat dadating na frozen warrior ay iihipan nya. unlimited na yung forces nya!

8. dagdag mo pa yung magic potion ni lucy na kahit anong wound ay napapagaling. "isang patak lang". parang Joy dishwashing liquid!

9. disadvantaged na talaga si Jadis sa simula pa lang kasi yung mere act na pagpasok sa loob ng wardrobe (world of narnia) nung 4 na kids ay humina na kaagad yung powers nya.

10. nung sa battle naglaban ang mga cheetah at tigers, sino ang nanalo?

11. nung naging apoy ba yung parang phoenix na ibon at pinalis sya ni jadis namatay na ba yung ibon? nagre-resurrect ba ang phoenix na naging yelo? bad trip no, phoenix ka nga, power mo mabuhay ulit pagkatapos maging apoy tapos may makakasalubong kang Ice Queen habang apoy ka?

12. bakit evil forces ang mga buffalos? at wolves? di ba mababait din naman sila? e rhino nga mabait sa movie e…

13. magkakatuluyan ba si Lucy at yung kalahating kambing?

14. di ba pag tinusok mo ng malaking sword ang isang makapal na yelo, masisira din yun di ba?

15. mabubuhay ba ulit yung queen? galing ng outfits nya. biro mo pati yung inahit na buhok ni aslan sinuot nung battle

And that, folks, is how my friends do a movie review.

This time last year I enjoyed a few days’ rest at home while storms raged outside, and was feeling good about it until I learned that the same storms that kept me at home also swept away countless homes and buried more than a thousand people in Quezon and Aurora. 

This time last year I watched in shock the countless images of tons of washed up logs, buried bodies, and cries of despair.

This time last year we spent many late nights at the office, writing statements, doing research, designing materials, as we launched a campaign calling for the protection of our forests.

Today the hastily-dug graves that hold countless bodies serve as silent reminders, good for a poignant All Saints’ Day TV news spot or two, as those that remain still struggle to move on.  Logging licenses are being revived, but then who needs permits when people can just cut trees illegally and get away with it?

I wonder if the children who used to cry at the onset of rains have managed to get over the trauma. 

Could be the decimated forests, could be the excessive rains, could be the sheer insensitivity of people, that caused all that death and destruction.  This time last year, I was feeling the same kind of frustration and despair that I’m feeling now. 

In the interest of fairness and accuracy, it is my pleasure to report here that the little brouhaha on coffee restrictions in the office have been pleasantly cleared up to everyone’s satisfaction.  Our boss clarified that he never issued such a policy and it turns out that it was just some sort of an unofficial advisory from the finance people concerned over the overhead expenses. The boss himself clarified that he’s very much willing to let the staff have all the coffee they want and offered to hook us up on I.V. drip if we want.  So that’s that. 

After that’s been cleared up, one of the staunchest opponents of the coffee rule found out that she’s pregnant, and so can’t drink coffee anyway.  One of life’s little jokes.  That, and the five-day workweek.