the "busy" bee

funny how a fat "income" can turn your life around--literally. it's one word that can make me turn cartwheels in high heels. no matter how plainly defined the word income is --flow of wealth-- no adage can make man's love for money disappear (money can't buy me love; the root of all evil...).

i have spent 3 whole days job hunting with friends. it was so tiring! the part where i had to find the right pair of platforms to complete my corporate look made it more arduous. of course, you have to make a good impression. in this department, i know i have matured. i keep a decent collection of pencil-cut and A-line skirts (below the knee). solid-colored shirts are a hit. whites and navy blues are indispensable to achieving a classic look.

spontaneity is the key to impressing the HR assistant who would most likely spend the whole 15 minutes sizing up your wardrobe, and the next few hours waiting for you to mispronounce a word or mix-up your grammar. if you're into memorizing, make sure you don't force the lines into your sentence unless they're really relevant. otherwise, you'd end up sounding like a parrot mimicking a talking glossy magazine (cosmopolitan, metro and...uhm good housekeeping perhaps?).

it's like explaining yourself to a shrink whose license has just expired. personality tests are usually given by top corporations with money to spend on risograph machines. why do they even bother? we all know how inaccurate the results can get considering the allowance for "honesty" and the freedom given to an applicant (precisely to manipulate his scores and yield a psychological readiness to perform the job). where else can you get a rating of 10 for accountability and punctuality? oops, i'm way too cynical for this type of blog entry :) so i'll just end this paragraph by confining the downside of psychological evaluations to factual errors.

marvin (muyot), the willing victim who drove us to ayala's very busy streets, was too excited to notice the speck of ketchup slime on his collar and hear the pitch of his own trembling voice when he got up to follow the voice that came from the empty hall that led to the spooky interview booth. it was like a silent battle...really! the villain lurks behind the transient office walls and slumps on the black leather chair once you reach the threshold to his own office space--the space that says "i hold the key to your future". but in reality, he is the same small guy who got a beating from the campus bully in 3rd grade.

our only reward after 3 grueling hours of waiting for our turn to be interviewed was the much awaited FT (food trip). the idea of spending way too much on milkshakes and dinner--without actually feeling guilty--can calm an anxious interviewee's nerves like no other. but nothing beats dad's tinola...more than the soothing prickle it sends to my nerves, the fact that it's free does wonders to my grief-stricken career as a happy job hunter with a big appetite.

i'm so glad to be home! :)

the humble bee

i am a fairly odd godparent to chino, cris' nephew, Cj, ibeth's panganay and joaquin, jonas' only son.

i know my responsibility goes way beyond giving pakimkim and gift-wrapped toys, though these are usually the things that they expect from their godparents. it's something i wish filipino culture would go easy on. wisdom should replace battery-operated cars and machine guns.

...and so the saga begins...

if i were to leave something behind for my inaanaks, i would filter my best bottle of sand granules and trap only the hardest earned lessons in my hand before everything trickles to the ground, neglected.

i'd tell them about h-u-m-i-l-i-t-y.

the greatest lessons in life are those that are learned the hard way. although our parents give us the best pieces of advice, we remain accountable for our own actions, especially when we get past the age of 9--the age of discernment.

i got my humility lessons that "fateful day"... i was 29 and clueless.

my mom said, a simple show of arrogance will bring your reputation to eternal damnation. people will brand you as "the arrogant neighbor" 'til your last breath, and you wouldn't know of it until you realize, the same group of people, belonging to the noveau riche circle, graces your lavish parties and raids your cocktails, while the people you truly care about are out attending your family reunion.

life is unfair. it can turn bad luck into good fortune and good fortunte into misery. it's not coincidence, it's fate. once you generate a considerable amount of knowledge, or anything tangible that is worth getting envious for, people will start scrutinizing your new lifestyle. one wrong move would earn either an approval or a stamp on the forehead that says "snob" in green ink.

so how do you go about living a blessed life without losing your patrons? by being humble and discreet. what with the number of awards your son or daughter has won in oratorical and essay writing contests, he/she would have enough legacy to rub onto his/her own children--your grandchildren--but not enough audience to make any sincere remark about how great your kids really are, and how much they're looking forward to seeing them succeed in life.

there would always be room for bitterness...and this is startlingly exasperating.

people are just so hard to please! but pleasing others should be at the bottom of your list. you should know that people would only positively and genuinely react if they've seen you at your worst. but it's good to have self-assessment as part of your quarterly (if not daily) routine. in this type of evaluation, nothing's more worse than realizing that indeed, you are the arrogant, egotistical, rich and famous man they despise.

so next christmas, i'd tell my godsons about humility, and hope that they would not look beyond my wisdom and frisk me for hidden goodies after the sermon :)

keep the faith

here is a beautiful prayer sent to me via email by my aunt, sr. tita pamplona...

"Lord, this is the last day of an old year. I stand before you like a piling under a wharf that has gathered unsightly barnacles and debris. Lord, today, clean out my life and make me fit to walk into a new year, clean and unencumbered. Scrape from my heart the burdensome barnacles of all my botches and bungling. Strip from my life all the unbecoming garments of pride, arrogance and ego. As a gardener, O Lord, pull from my life today all that is unbecoming; all the weeks and months of worry; the roots of resistance; the burgeoning briers of bullheadedness and the vines of vexation.

Before the New Year arrives, disinfect the dirtiness of my deeds, destroy the detestable, destructive debris of my life, clear from my agenda all that is mundane, mediocre and moldy. Peel from my spirit, O Lord, all the layers of lewdness, lusting and lying. Scrub away, O God, all that is sullied, stained, septic and soiled.

Repaint today, O Lord, my faded walls; restore just now my voice; unstop my tongue to speak your praise; wash away the haze that I may see you lifted up. Remove from my life this day, Lord all that is small, rebellious, obstinate and unsurrendered to you.

Sweep out of my life all that is unimportant, unnecessary, unnatural and all that is ugly. Clear my mind of all thinking that is negative and unproductive. Breathe into me the fresh breath of your Spirit and rib me with the steel of your courage to face the New Year with a dogged determination to stand at the center of your will all the way through. Give me eyes to see beyond the physical, ears to hear beyond the audible, hands to touch hurting people, feet to speed to those in need, eyes to see those opportunities Lord that you see. Lord, I pull the shade on an old year and raise the shade to a new one. Grant me wisdom to walk with you and NOT LOOK BACK EVER.

Amen."