post mortem

I figured this had to be the chance to get out of the rut I got my self into. I’ve been working in a call center from across the street where I live and I’m not particularly enjoying the job. Do I see myself going in for another night’s shift? You have got to be kidding me.

Kat had been telling me about a company in Alabang where she is currently working at and had talked to me into trying it out with them. I was stupid enough to walk right into the other company where I was supposed to apply. I arrived at around 9 am, armed with a Number 1 Mongol pencil, a hastily made resume, and with all the guts I could muster. I practically know nothing about the mess I was walking into (again).

I was told to wait in the reception area where other applicants sat. The first few tests were a breeze. There was a speed typing exam combined with listening skills and all that crap. The works. There was vocabulary, math skills. Elementary. This should be easy.

Then came my first interview. This guy *Jayson was asking me if one of my major plans this year was to get married. Man, who are you kidding? I should probably get me a sane doctor first. He was asking if I were a Catholic. He is a Mormon. (Okay…) Probably the sanest part of the interview was when we found out that we both like Incubus. Well he said I was interesting. I instantly saw myself perched in a golden cage in some bald quack’s aviary. He was kinda cute anyway. One of those twenty three year old guys climbing early into the corporate ladder with some Jason Mraz crummy in their stomachs while having surfer’s illusions stuck on their heads. He said he was giving me a high score not because of pity. Because what? Because you found me interesting? (There goes the birdcage again…)

*Angel was the next contender, I mean, the next interviewer. She struck me as a severe, point-across Clarice Starling type who would shoot Evelda Drumgo from across the street given the opportunity, her guns sticking all over the place without a hint of smoke in them. I needed to be careful and watch myself. This woman could knock you down in instant, before the whistle blows. You would probably be dead before you know it. I was told to relate an incident where I had needed to use my convincing powers to get someone to change their opinion about a certain thing. For as long as I can remember, I have spent all my life trying to change other people’s opinion about me. I was always told that I came across as uncaring, alienated soul who couldn’t talk about anything except the last time a comet hit the earth that killed all the dinos walking on the planet and how they got served for dinner in the palaces of Olympus. So I had to tell her of the bathroom story. In that story, I have succeeded in convincing a couple of uncaring, thick skinned housemates to please, please clean the bathroom for once. Well I’m still working on it until now. That’s just one of those lies I told them. A couple of years ago, during a teaching stint at a Catholic school somewhere in Bulacan, I had to devise a plan to get a group of rowdy, perpetually yapping fourteen year olds to put up a Ramayana play in the hopes that they understand the concept of that fine piece of literature by acting it out. I told her the play was just great. But the fact is, I only had succeeded in making two gays in my class onto an asinine, largely tedious, almost completely absurd catfight because both wanted to play Raksha (that demon princess who was Ravana’s sister).At least that had added a little spice to the campus’ atmosphere of sulfuric holiness and weedy sanctity. And I’m not blaming the institution. It’s probably the same reason why Jesus never married in the first place.

I was interviewed last by *Mickey. She was a fair-skinned fragile looking thing who would offer you a cup of coffee if you walk right into her living room (or so I thought). She had to ask me the generic questions. Would I care for collections? Why do I prefer inbound Costumer service? Could I work for the back office? I said yes. Backed it up with lies. More lies. Lies. Lies. Lies. I couldn’t care less if my nose was ten feet long it could wipe out all of the baby powder she’s had since birth. I’m so good in this thing; I could offer you a crash course for 299php a night, 0% interest in twelve months, no finance charges and your first year’s annual membership fee for free. She told me to wait at the reception area.

Waiting in the reception area was like sitting in for your breast exam’s results. It could be good or it could be not so good, but you are well aware of the fact that the lumps are there. You are the doctor. You did your best. But there is got to be a post mortem. Tell me all about it. I wasted my waiting hours fidgeting over my phone which was dying by minute (I forgot to charge it) and flipping over a Thomas Harris book I brought with me. I had known this moment would come. I was trying to concentrate on the page where Starling was reading a letter sent to her by Lecter when I heard my name being called. My heart was beating wildly I felt like it was lodged in my throat. I managed to croak a feeble yes when I approached the lady who would read me the gods’ verdict.

I heard her say”…you had passed the exam.(fireworks erupted in my ears) but we don’t have a schedule for training until next year…(the fireworks died in an instant, replaced by a sudden thud of sickening feeling of collapsing any minute)my mind screamed-“you have got to be shitting me…!!!). I couldn’t exactly tell if I smiled back at her or if I was able to mumble a thank you before I went out but I vaguely remember fumbling for a pack of cigarettes in my handbag the moment the light of the day struck me in the face.

I found myself smoking alone outside the building. This isn’t exactly my turf so I it suddenly hit me that I have to text Kat and ask her how to find my way back home. The good news is, my phone just died on me. I guess the moral of the story is, don’t forget to bring a panda ball pen at least if you are going on an interview. And be honest. Be totally honest. Remember to leave a whole load of lies at home when going in for an interview just because you hate your current job. At least you’ll be bringing your sane self with you, anywhere. One will never know a crime has been a crime until it was too perfect. :D

the stink

bawal mg-adik. this has been the principle i was trying to hammer my brains with in the past few days. but as always, i could never cling on to my own words. it's about 1am and you're probabaly wondering what the hell am i doing here. beats the hell on me too.

right when i woke up around 7pm, going to work is the last thing on my mind. yeah, this isn't the first time. it happens almost each time. it's like a sick cycle carousel's manic partition that divides my senses between sanity and deadening lethargy.

i am planning to get out of that hell for maybe a week now. no, actually, it was never planned. it just hit me. i have to get out.the thought has been carving few morsels of hope in my mind severla montyhs ago. it finally took shape -it got real, maddeningly possible when a major cardiomyopatheticshit got me. not that the deasease was the major reason. i always had the nagging feeling that i'd grow like a stainless sanitized mold here right from the start.sometimes you've got to listen to your instincts. another 15 months dwindled away without me getting into anything.

apples abherrin sidwhanni was right. stop with the alibis. i always blames parts of me, but not the entire me for not finishing this, for not meeting that, or for getting there late or from coming here drunk. truth is i am a very selfish person.

right. it's the kind of thing that nobody would ever admit. a daughter would never admit that one of the reasons why she helps out the family is because she woudn't want other people to think that she is an ungrateful bitch who forgot about everything her father did just so she cud finish college.

a guy may send his girl flowers not because he intends to brighten up her shitty day but because he wanted the girl to think he was damn sweet and caring and what shallow ego he has.

a father may talk about politics with his son not because he wants to share what he cares about the world but because he wants the sin to think how great he cud be someday because of the kind of father he has.

your professor may give you extension for a report not because he knows you are flunking his class because but because back in his mind and deep down his shitty ego, he was thinking how considerate he cud be with poor poor students struggling to meet his 'standards'.

every one of us, wether we care to admit it or not, we're all bastardly selfish. we may think that we are doing it for others but it always boils down to our selfish selves. i am writing this blog now not because i want somebody to realize the trash everybody fails to realize. i woudn't give a damn anyway. this is about me being selfish.it's the selfish self i see in others. its the stinky selfishy-ness everywhwre.

i remeber a freud concept back in college which says something about the human being instinctively selfish during infancy. maybe we never did outgrow this instinct. you may think that you are doing this for others, but the world always revolve around you. at the end of the day, it's just you and your shitty you.

i am noy blaming my job. i am not blaming my college degree. i am not blaming my view of things, my concept of fun, or my discretion betwen evil and good.i am not blaming anybody.

i not putting the blame to anything this time. it's this shitty me. the alibi does not suffice the reason. it is not, and will never be, justifiable. it's gonna start with me.

i'm taking out the fish off the frying pan.i'm gonna start SEL-ling baby. i guess i don't know where to start., but this time, it's on me. saken n to tsong!

yn kc...

i did promised a continuation of my previuos entry about the ehaed's disspaointing reunion concert. la tlga k sa hulog eh. right now, i am itching to post pictures of me and some high school batchmates little reunion last night sa moa but the computer at home quit working so right now, i am at a shabby little computer shop in the mercy of loud and pathetic online gamers who think they sound cool by shouting too many blasphemies while literaly shmocking themselves online. talk about male hormone getting unsightly by the minute. i guess nobody realizes how geek they are until somebody reminds them about it.

anyway, we did meet yesterday. me and some high school freinds at the sm mall of asia last night. amalia, who told me all about the little reunion, couldn't make it because of a covenant something they have going on at their church. i guess they have to herd a lot of goats who wanna make it to the elysian fields. i wouldn't even pass for a goat. i'm a dinosaur. god would definitely send me back not to tartarus, but to the denver era where our kind rule. if i were to choose, i'd rather be back in the roaring twenty's. deppression is going on and all, but people sure know how to have fun.

so there, there were eight of us who made it last night. joyce ferrer was there.so was rizalina urbano,jeffrey urbano and his gurl marife, theodore san diego , jeffrey bueno and felix lam. and hell, noboy failed to remind me how fat i was back in highschool. how geeky i looked with those pair of glasses i wore and how everybody thought how saintly i am. taena. matindi. i guess you know what the joke is. we had beer and all. wento wento . wentong lang wenta. at siempre, ngenge n naman akong umuwe.kakahya

it was fun i guess. pramis guys, d n ko uuweng basag sa susunod. bka kc isipin nyu, ginugulangan k kau sa taxi.wahehehe(paraparaan...)niweys, theodie, jeffrey, tenkyu ng madame mga parekoy!!!cnsya n

c madam auring at ang e-heads

it may have been too late to add a blog entry about that sickening frustration we've had after what had happened during the ehaead's volatile and dangerously skeptical "reunion"concert . the hell. it may have been ages ago. but we're there would be another anyway, so i heard from hope(less)ful followers. (aus lng un kat.kasama k dun)so i decided it wont be any harm. nobody would want to waste time on my pathetic orny little blog entries anyway.(wushu)

i can't blame madam auring. it was never her fault. her marrying any loser forty years younger than her ass doesn't have anything to do with what has happened.problem is, whenever i anticipate something really big to me like this, i always dream it wouldn't come true.

when i was in the kindergarten, i dreamt i didn't make to our class christamas party because i forgot to wear knee socks and i had to go to school barefoot.

when i was in the first grade i dreamed i wasn't named the calss' first honor and my mother got so furios she spanked me so hard that i broke a spine so i didn't make it.

when i was about to graduate from my elementary class i dreamed i got beaten by some monster who chased me from a cousin's house down to our own house until i fled to our school building, and that i had arrived after the graduation ceremonies.(i did got sick with tigdas so i had to attend the gaduation with swollen cheeks, puffy red eyes and rash all over my skin. i looked so helish the district supervisor wouldn't come near me, even if i was the class valedictorian)

i dreamet i didn't make it to my first prom because the principal sudenly announced from a speaker on the schhol quadrangle that only skinny girls with dates are allowed to arrend the prom-forget about dating your fat cousin.

i dreamed about not being alowed to graduate in college because of pending libel suites and that my father was kicking me out of the house for not letting the dog in.(we almost did get sued with a libel case when i was working for the school paper, we just got lucky our professor was there to save our asses.the dog who was in my dreams was killed by my party uncles.pinulutan na)

i dreamed of flunking my first job interview.(there was no interview when i got my first job. they were desperate for a teacher.they had no choice)

i dreamed i didn't make to the binyag of my first inaanak beacuse their house caught fire. (i almost didn't make it. i was too beaten with a hang-over my mother had to feed me instant noodles while i convince her that i am not a drug addict)

everytime i'm having a big day. like a coming birthday. or a job interview. i always dream i would never make it. i never had any bad dreams before the reunion concert. i didn't gave my self a chance to sleep before i met with kat and xandee on the way to the Fort. it was 9am when i left pangasinan for manila aug 29. i only had 5 hours of sleep the night before because my mother and i had a lot to cacth up with. (madame siyang sermon) i arrived at cubao at around 3pm.(akalain m) i jumped off the bus carrying a plastic of tupig the bus conductor on my ride to boni thought it was daing. lintek n.manung naman eh.mamamasahe naman ako eh. to top it all off, wala p kong tiket.AMFtlga

i had to go to a natl bukstor for the ticket. siempre, la n naman akong pera. what the hell. this is the concert.THIS IS THE REUNION CONCERT. everyone has been dreaming of this.went home. forgot to take a bath.had to eat. had a fight with kat for a while. had to think if i had to take a taxi on the way to the fort. have no money so i decided i'd had to have peace with kat. so there.she and xandee had to sermon me for arriving late at sm makati and for smoking while waiting for a taxi. yaan m na. lage naman eh..2m n lang ung katuloy kc gutom n k

chicken feeds and fertilizers part ii

so there. it is this part where i wanna a hum a few scraps of korn's "down with the sickness" or something from pod's "sleeping awake". just to feel the drama you know. or maybe i got too drugged with too much bart simpson philosophy that i couldn't even get myself to hold a grunge.sucks. taena naman

kat was right all along.henyo ka tlaga.the problem is, i was making it all too complicated until i got too confused with the flaws of my alibis and i started forgetting all the scraps of humor i had put in the first place.not the wrong person kat.not the poor thingy's fault.don't put all the blame sa kawawang nilalang na ito.nasagasaan lng.imagine a cat ran over by a ten wheeler truck in the middle of the street on a broad daylight. brains and guts in all the wrong places. blood and fur and nails scattered all over. gee, i wish the poor thingy's pride is not as shattered as this.

i just wish it was never this easy. eh ganun eh. dpat ba kong makonsyensya?

ngiiii

chicken feeds and fertilizers

and then i realized it could come to this conclusion. nothing would have hit me harder than the fact that we play it too hard sometimes that when we come to get what the punchline is, having stitches on the side while laughing like a stoned hyena could really make us sick. man, it almost made me throw up.
and talk about hallucinations, it just hit me so hard than when i realized how severe my cerebral damaged brain was thinking all along, i had to puke out to my senses to finally understand how sickeningly bad the joke was.not that it would appeal to a prankster'sind of sin, but it was ridiculos. f_ck. i couldn't even spell it right. probably because the word stinks too much of understatement.
well i thought it would have been hard to admit it was wrong. and i probably woud have even fantasized that my nerves could never had endured the guilt.hell, i even ASSumed i would have been too guilty.

we're good. i thought it would have been better if i explained it to you. or maybe asking for your forgiveness may have worsened the lie. maybe it IS better that i let you think that way.anyway, we're square.