tie talk

this was another comment i posted on vivaglam's blog last year:

call me too western-oriented & old-fashioned, but ties = professionalism. that's why i always make the effort of wearing a tie, even in the office where it's not necessarily a requirement. heck, i've wanted to wear a tie ever since i was 7 years old, i was that much of a dork :-B

of course, it's not only wearing a tie, but also how one wears the tie (or the shirt in general). a guy would look sloppy & won't belong if the shirt's too untucked and the tie's too long or too short. it has to be just right. the proper wearing of the shirt & tie can mean the difference between a security guard being mean to you or being all polite.

what's the point of all these ramblings? a tie serves as the halfway point between a plain long-sleeved shirt and a suit/snazzy barong. it's not as high up the ladder, but you're getting there.

(i think this is also related to swipe's post about business attire, but i had only read about them a few weeks ago...)

idiotic idiomatic idiosyncracies

i was reading bambi's dispatch from the land of milk & honey when i remembered a similar incident happening on my side of the family:

we were going around the swap meet @ LA when there was a pinoy seller of goods (whom we had previously met) who approached us:

seller: uy! kayo yung mga torres diba?
us: ah, hindi...
seller: oo, kayo nga yung mga torres! pinakilala na kayo sa amin!
us: hindi po, iba po pangalan namin
seller: oo! kayo nga yung mga torres! babalik kayong pilipinas pagkatapos ng bakasyon nyo dito!

ah, tourists!!!

pen prose

this was originally posted as a comment in Vivaglam's blog:

I also have this affinity for nice pens, but not at the Mont Blanc level. I remembered the first good pen I treasured was the Macky parker pen. Oh sure, everyone in the pilot class had one, but it was better than those P5 Uni-Mitsubishi-CSA pens they sold at the bookstore. That is, until I found out that each Parker refill would cost around P60, at that time a hefty sum that would strain a P50-P70 daily HS allowance. I checked with Office Warehouse this week and it's now up to P120.

Still, I yearned for the day I could get a personalized Parker pen (vanity the primary consideration). I tried to have the Macky Parker pen engraved, only to be turned down by the National people (you have to buy the pen from them first). Due to plain stubborness, I kept on asking them intermittently for about two years. Finally, I saved enough for my own all-silver Parker pen, complete with inscription! Unfortunately, all-silver Parker pens are less sturdier than their mestizo counterparts, so this pen conked out in less than six months (the clicking mechanism got jammed).

So now, although I still have around two or three engraved good pens (given as gifts over time), I prefer a Panda pen, since one Panda has always lasted me for months, if not years (unless it gets lost). I would prefer the clicking Panda, since I seem to have acquired from Macky that annoying pen clicking habit.

torturous trap

picture this: you're a respected member of the business community, having a wealth of experience behind you. you can keep on serving your company or retire peacefully.

then the president knocks on your door to ask you to work for her.

you say, i'm happy here, i know what the government's like, please don't drag me in this mess.

she implores, please, for your country's stability, and the ultimate clincher, for the good of the country.

you think about it. what have you done for your country? put some scholarships? paid taxes properly? organized corporate social responsibility efforts? batted for corporate governance & accountability? nothing compared to putting up bridges that lead to nowhere, like what local legislators have done.

but you say, what the heck, i'll do it. but i have to have complete control of my scope to do my job properly.

she goes, of course, of course.

you are confident that she will support you, and the support of the president will definitely give you headway for your change management.

you also forget that being the president, she is a political animal first and a doctor in economics a far far second. she will do what it takes to survive. even to take a credible business leader like you to prop her failing state.

your priority is to change the government. her priority is to survive, in the hopes that she can change the people. but in her quest for survival, the tactics she takes undermine any impetus for future growth.

she assigns people as a sign of political debt payment. the people she assigns is not even comparable to you, to even complement you. they're just there so that the people she owes her political life to can milk your office dry.

you protest behind the closed doors. but she is the president. she can do what she wants.

you leave in disgust.

now, see the people around you. the professionals are leaving and the people with connections stay. it's because the professionals know that this scenario will play over and over and over and over again.

as a consuelo de bobo, the people with connections left here hail you as heroes, send home your dollars, your dinars! we'll waste it even more!

and it has become so pervasive that no one is left here to improve our society. it doesn't even have to be a concerted effort; just decent acts of following the law will bring us further ahead. but no, we don't even have that!

she is here to make sure she survives her political onslaught. once she's removed, it'll still be the same power-grabbing game. of course, politics the world over involve power play, but here it has reached a disgusting point. the politicians have become too greedy, both in money & in opportunities. the illustrados have no outlet to express themselves; a structured professional development is overtaken by the appointment of a mediocre superior. even in the world of entrepreneurship, the gutsy illustrados are being eased out by the child-of-politicians who have unlimited funds to enlarge their businesses.

and the politicians ask why we're in this rut? grrr.....

margaret's memory

it was 1995, the second official day of my college life, and it was 7am. the block was still cursing our luck for getting such an early class. and then, an old man enters the room, asks if this was the COMM 1 class TFQ (i think), then proceeds writing this poem on the board:

Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

he then says, "memorize this entire poem, complete with the punctuation marks. you will have a quiz on this on friday."

thus we were introduced to fr. alfeo g. nudas, s.j.

almost every week we were introduced to a new poem to memorize, mainly shakespearean sonnets; plus "elementary" rules on grammar. 7am of every meeting, on the dot, we would have our quizzes on half a sheet of yellow pad (he didn't believe in using the blue book).

yet, despite our initial fear that he would be a punisher prof, he in fact won us over with his unexpected remarks ("all the boys sitting on one side must be gays, while all the girls sitting on the other side must be lesbians; there is only one normal pair in here [ton & ging]"), self-deprecating humor (clutching his chest when someone pointed to him as "old"), and his low yet melodic voice ("good morning class, good morning")...

he was already an old man that time, probably around 70 plus. as i've mentioned before, he might have died in these past 10 years without me knowing it.

what's the point of this post? i just want to honor his memory as much as i can.

population proposition, preposition, and postulation

i haven't made comments previously about the current "graying population" issue, but i've been wanting to say this for a long time:

a general trend in industrialized nations is that social security is becoming too burdensome for the younger generation to support their elders, because there are more elders living longer while there are less younger people to support them (either through direct care or through indirect cash payments). as a result, not-so-industrialized countries (e.g. bambi's republic of bagoong) are sending young 'uns by the droves to care for the graying population.

what disgusts me is what the church says about this phenomenon; that God is punishing these nations because of the birth control policies they practiced in the past decades. and that now the old people are also paying for it by not having enough young people to care for them in their old age.

(this caring-for-the-old viewpoint is especially true in the province, where couples give birth by the dozens in the hopes that one of their offspring would care for them when they grow old; an insurance concept. the problem is this view necessarily limits the potential of the offspring, thus subjecting them to the limitations of what their parents have dictated for them to do. but i digress.)

this shift towards increasing social security for the old is a transitional shift. essentially, the industrial nations have experienced a baby boom from the 40s to the mid 60s, then afterwards they practiced responsible parenthood, where less babies were produced. in addition to better medicine, the now-old parents outnumber the succeeding generation, thus burdening the younger ones.

in a score or two, this will balance out, with the rates of population increase leveling out, so that the reduced social security would be enough to support the future older generation.

how about the republic of bagoong? i guess the nurses would be welcome back here, albeit on a lesser salary.

(as for the title, i just liked using the big "p" words after "population," since it was hard to find an alliteration for "population paradigm shift")

a crack in the calendar

it's a friday night and i'm still at the office.

normally, i'd be going to bambi's and making tambay there until 10pm (watching encantadia & sugo). now, i can't. she's abroad for 3 weeks and i suddenly have nothing to do.

my sister also went abroad for a week; it's just perfect timing that they're both gone now.

i try to rack my brain on what i used to do on weekend nights like this one, before bambi came along. let me see...

1. do nothing but watch TV at home
2. go to batangas on friday night, to return on sunday afternoon
3. go watch a movie with my sister
4. if really desperate, attend the rusty gym at the utility company, where no one else use it except for my gym-obsessed friend and some other gym dudes

i guess it's like what i heard about Flowers for Algernon, where the mouse (sorry bambi) was subjected to a stimulant (i think) and the mouse (named Algernon) became more intelligent; then the scientists took the janitor played by matthew modine and made him drink the drug to make him a genius. unfortunately, Algernon died because of the drugs, and this might make matthew modine die as well. i think he refused to stop the drug, because of this:

he has tasted greatness already; he can't go back to being what he used to be.

tick tock, time tremors, & tantrums

(warning: severe self-pity post ahead)

i'm going to celebrate my 10th anniversary of my 18th birthday next week. trust me, it's better than thinking about it as my 15th anniversary of my 13th birthday, or worse, my 28th birthday.

i really feel indifferent towards my birthday. it just reminds me again how little i've done so far. sure, i get to treat my family, officemates, my various kabarkadas, bambi (of course), etc. i don't really mind treating them out, but lately it's getting to be more expensive. but that's not my main beef.

i'm looking at my parents' marriage contract, they were both married at 26. and my dad was already in the forefront of his career by 28; heck he already had an asthmatic toddler by then (me). and here i am, still living at my parents' house rent-free (although paying for some minor utilities expenses), and will live in a house that my parents will primarily pay for. i guess that's the curse of being the son of a great man; it's quite a struggle to even peep out of his shadow. i guess that's partly the reason i didn't want to follow in his career path; i didn't want any more additional comparisons that i already subject myself to.

(it doesn't help that he started in the service at 21, which was quite young even for his batch; whereas i had grade 7, a 5 year course, and a board review that made me start work at 24, which is old for my batch.)

then i look at my contemporaries to see if i could see a pattern. i do; it's not the good one. since most of my contemporaries went to audit, they were able to go around the country and even the world, and because of the training, they even landed succeeding jobs that made them travel even more. and they have supervisory & managerial positions.

i look at my non-accounting contemporaries, and they have supervisory & managerial positions and travel around the world too.

of course, by the very nature of my job as a number-cruncher, my ass is planted on the chair to crunch numbers. in addition, i still maintain my aversion towards auditing.

still, it doesn't remove the fact that i'm still dependent on my family, i still am not even starting my masters, a number of my friends are married & have kids, and my work responsibility is only slightly better than when i first entered the work force.

on top of that, i'm 28.

28.

2 x 14.

most advice columns would say, don't keep up with the joneses, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, love what you have, live with what life has dealt you. but i've always felt that that's a defeatist approach to my situation.

i guess if one's stuck to the same process day in and day out, one loses track of time so much that you miss certain deadlines, certain opportunities.

i don't want to be satisfied. i want to do something.

what's the point of this post. i don't know. now i do know is that i have to take a bathroom break.

this sucks.

(as an aside: amando doronila, my favorite inquirer columnist, has been grilled at the commision of appointments for his appointment as ambassador to benelux. this also sucks.)

random ruminations

i thought about reacting to jamby's reaction to the repealing of the Oil Deregulation Act, but she's expected to do rather ditzy things, so i didn't find it in my heart to diss her today.

another idea was to comment on the gloriagate crisis. nothing in the past couple of days made me change her mind about what happened before and up to the point she almost lost the palace: she cheated, but the opposition's a worse option. anything now is just noise.

bambi's leaving soon, so that kinda brings me down. 3 weeks. well, i'd save up on the usual boyfriend expenses, but i'd still be making long-distance calls, so i'd still have some cash outlays. oh well, i'll miss her, and i'll really be happy when she comes back. of course, it'd be better if i had pasalubong!!! (hon, size 9.5, black shoes!) :P

business news? work news? just passing me by. i'll post something again tomorrow, with perhaps a more readable bent. :P

directory of deliverance

maybe i was too charitable when i took this test...

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

canteen comedy

(warning: some segments of this discussion may be exagerrated)

scene: citibank tower canteen

bambi: (in full PMS mode) haynakunakakainistalagayangnasaopisinanamin!
lee: bakit na naman?
bambi: ekasilaginilapinapatugtogmga100xadayyungisangkantalang!
lee: which song?
bambi: hay.... yung kanta ni kitchie nadal, yung wag na wag mong sasabihin. i swear if i hear that song one more time, i'm gonna strangle that guy who sings it...
lee: (belts it out, concert-style) WHOA-WOH-WHOAAH-WOH, WAG NA WAG MONG SASABIHIN....
bambi: AAAARGH!!!! (flips out, jumps up the chair and strangles my neck)
lee: *urk!* na *urk!* hindi *urk!* mo *urk!* nadama *urk!* ito *urk!*... (mental note: call up aubrey & nancy later)

=========================

after bambi lets go of my neck

lee: uy, it's past one na, i have to go (makes the shrug-shake head action)
bambi: ayaw ko pa! want to stay with tihort! (stomps feet while sitting down)
lee: madami pa akong work, i have to go (makes the shrug-shake head action again)
bambi: ayaw! ayaw! ayaw! (pulls down hat so that it covers her face)
lee: hmm... (stands up and hides behind bambi)
bambi: basta! (raises hat up, expecting lee to still be in front of her) tihort? tihort? TIHORT LEFT ME NA! WAAAAH!!!
lee: (snickers, then pokes bambi's nape)
bambi: anakngpatingpuchasinoyon!
lee: mwehehehehehehe! akala mo nawala ako no? mwehehehehehehe!
bambi: (mental note: bribe brad pitt's maid to meet brad)

pogi points

atty. argee guevarra writes for business world & is a very high-profile lawyer for his age (he's affiliated with sanlakas, a left-leaning group, and he has represented the oakwood leaders). of course, he stands out for me as the writer of "pogi points", a specific point system that determines how "pogi" a guy is. the last time i read about this was in my freshmen year at diliman. of course, some items are outdated (it's been 10 years!), but it's still a great laugh!

here are argee's pogi points [with my comments in italicized braces]:

=================================

For a more contemporary understanding of how to score pogi points, I devised a system of prescribing pogi points to male accessories and any other attribute which might significantly contribute to a guy's gross human worth, exempting any facial distortions.

THE TRANSPO - Driving a car to school which is automatic 10 pogi points.
Chaffeur-driven 20 pogi points.
Subtract 5 if the rinky dinky type that regularly breaks down when going out on dates at Jollibee. [a Kia, a non-souped up box-typ Lancer, my orange-then black-now orange Celica would qualify for this; i don't know if there are still Geminis rolling around though.]
Add 10 pogi points if brand new.
Add 20 if it is a Japanese car and 50 if it is either a Benz or BMW. [so no points if it's an Opel or a US car? how about Ford gas guzzlers?]
A Porsche is disqualified from earning points because anyone who owns one automatically becomes a Richard Gomez clone.
No pogi points for those who carpool or who ride the jeep. [how about the FX?]
Plus 30 pogi points if you ride a mountain bike to class because green is "in".
If its a BMX or pedicab, minus 50 pogi points.

THE PEDIGREE - If the family name is associated with politics, add 10 pogi points.
If its a Marcos or a crony sounding name, subtract 50 pogi points (ill-gotten rep). [does erap count?]
If the lineage could be traced to a Spanish friar, add another 10 pogi points (tisoy muy bien!)
If its a taipan sounding name as in Sy or Gokongwei, add 20 pogi points.
No pogi points for ethnic sounding family names. [ouch! He3x!]

THE ADDRESS - A Makati address gets an automatic 5 pogi points while an Alabang address an automatic 10 pogi points.
If in Makati, Dasma, Magallanes, and Forbes, plus 20 [pre-The Fort condos],
San Lorenzo Village and San Antonio Village plus 10,
Bel Air plus 5.
10 pogi points for New Manila, Greenhills and Valle Verde.
No pogi points for those who live in Corinthian Garden because it's the popular address of corrupt Marcos generals.
In Q.C., 10 pogi points for residents or even dormers of Xavierville, La Vista, and Ayala Heights. [a true-blue bias? :>]
"Gilage(as in gilid ng La Vista) people", minus 5 pogi points.
No pogi points for Looban, Gagalangin, Calumpang, San Andres Bukid, Fairview and Novaliches residents.

THE HIGH SCHOOL - A high school diploma in the States or U.K., 20 pogi points (lamang sila sa Inglesan).
Any school abroad, plus 15 pogi points.
If an alumnus of any all-boys Catholic school, 10 pogi points.
Basta nakatapos ng high school, plus 5 pogi points.

THE SPORT - If the guy's into soccer, plus 10 pogi points.
Any racket sport (except ping-pong and pelota), plus 15 pogi points.
If engaging in not-so-popular but preppie sports like rowing, fencing, and archery as well as sepak takraw, arnis, eskrima, sikaran (indigenous sports are "in" dahil eksotik) plus 20 pogi points.
For the golf fanatic, plus 50 pogi points.
Polo, 100 pogi points.
Billiards, minus 5 pogi points.

THE LUNCH SPOT (kung saan dalas mag-lunch) - Beach House and Rodic's plus 5 pogi points. [Beach House!!!]
College cafeteria and CASAA minus 5 pogi points.
Trellis, Paseo, Rasa Singapura, SM North Food Center and any resto (except fastfood-type) along Katipunan, plus 10 pogi points.
No pogi points for those lugging a thermos lunchbox and a Coleman. [this would disqualify most of the baon-lugging work crowd now... come to think of it, why were we free to bring only cash for food, but now we have to subsist on baon? it's probably because we're now spending for our own stuff, not relying on allowances...]

THE ORG - AIESEC and its local hybrids that have chapters in DLSU, Ateneo, Miriam, Assumption and CRC [old UA&P], 20 pogi points.
Frats (the Big 7), 15 pogi points.
Basketball, Football Varsity Team and UP Mountaineers, 10 pogi points (mala machete kasi ang dating nila).
LFS, SAMASA, People's Service Corps and Center for Nationalist Studies, plus 5 pogi points because they have a conscience which is now rare among UP students.
Collegian, 25 pogi points (sipsip).

THE SYOTA - If the current squeeze or the former flame is a beauty titlist, an Absolut girl or one of Manila's Loveliest, automatic 50 pogi points. [what's an Absolut girl???]
A campus celebrity or a showbiz denizen, 40 pogi points.
If the typical pretty colegiala, 30 pogi points.
Any girl, plus 10 pogi points.
A mainstay of That's Entertainment, minus 100 pogi points. [ooh, that's nasty]

THE POGI INDEX
Mukhacne (pimple na tinubuan ng mukha) - negative pogi points
Presentable - 0-30 pogi points
Mr. Pogi (Eat Bulaga caliber) - 31-50 pogi points
Gwaping - 51-100 pogi points
Istading (Stud, kung baga) - 101-150 pogi points
Whataguy - 151-200 pogi points
Grand Debonair - 201 and above

[where does Mr. Suave fit in? he3x!]

garbage greetings & diana danaya

on my way to work this morning, i was following this huge green trash compactor. this was around 1.5 times bigger than the yellow trash compactor makati uses. when i tailed it much closer, i saw a sticker on one of its frames:

"UP College of Business"

at first i thought it was an illusion or maybe i read it wrong (it could be "UP College of Medicine", since it also had a black font against a white background). but no, it really was my old college. when i went to the truck's right side, another "UP College of Business" was also there.

at first i felt weird, why would our college sticker be on a trash compactor? but trying to see the good side, i thought maybe it was an entrepreneur from our college, and he wanted to show that he's making it big by hauling trash!

hmm....

=========================

they played that gel promo again on the radio, the one where if you win it, you get diana zubiri's dress. (for those unfamiliar with her, she's the chick who caused the controversy by posing in a red bikini on the shaw flyover for FHM; she's now into acting in a fantasy series and she's ok.) anyway, not only that, but the winner also has a chance to spend a weekend with her in a private beach! upon listening to the details, three winners will be chosen!

i seriously don't know what the point of this contest. i mean, if you do get chosen and since it's a sponsored event, i doubt that you will get any action with diana, especially if there are three of you, so what's the point of spending a weekend with her in a private beach? if you are allowed to do whatever you want, isn't that legalized pimping? weird....