popular passivity postpones permanent proposal

i'm a frequent visitor of the waiter rant blog and he keeps on mentioning jargon from his days as a seminarian & a psychiatry ward guy. one of the more intriguing terms was "passive-aggressive." yesterday, i looked it up at wikipedia and here's what it said:

Passive-aggressive behavior refers to passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to authoritative instructions in interpersonal or occupational situations. Sometimes a method of dealing with stress or frustration, it results in the person attacking other people in subtle, indirect, and seemingly passive ways. It can manifest itself as resentment, stubbornness, procrastination, sullenness, or intentional failure at doing requested tasks. For example, someone who is passive-aggressive might take so long to get ready for a party they don't wish to attend that the party is nearly over by the time they arrive.

Someone who is passive-aggressive will typically not confront others directly about problems, but instead will attempt to undermine their confidence or their success through comments and actions which, if challenged, can be explained away innocently so as not to place blame on the passive-aggressive person.

Some passive-aggressive behavior may result from society's conditioning of individuals; direct confrontation can lead to harmful consequences. For example, confronting one's manager may lead to the loss of opportunities, such as being passed over for a promotion or even losing one's job.

Often passive-aggressive behavior manifests itself in individuals who view themselves as "peaceful". These individuals feel that expressing their anger through passive-aggressive behavior is morally favorable to direct confrontation.

The lack of repercussions resulting from passive-aggressive behavior can lead to an unchecked continual attack, albeit passive, on one's acquaintances.

i then began to think about the situation here in the land of bagoong, binalot, and balot. have we become a nation of passive-aggressive citizens? apparently so, since we're too tired to go up against a very unpopular regime. instead, we disobey the rules, engage in escapist tendencies, criticize all reformers (regardless of the seeming absence of a personal agenda-an exception, i know), or leave the country. then the cycle continues, we become more passive-aggresdive, and this land becomes a basket case.

just last night, i heard more of my batchmates from college leaving for abroad (if they haven't left already). am i the only stubbornly stupid one staying on? am i that complacent, that sold to the system that i refuse to move? am i here because i still believe i can achieve good (if not great) things here, or am i just afraid to take the plunge? and why do i have to leave this land just for a comfortable and luxurious life anyway??? can't i have that life here???

i wish i had a resolution for this, but i don't.

dollar doleout

several of my cousins & their offspring from my mom's side came home from the US just in time for christmas. as the tradition, mom would give away money as gifts. she gave one of my nieces a P500 bill. she looked at it strangely and said,

"i can't spend this; it's not even real money..." (with the "attitude")
mom: so you want dollars?
niece: yeah
mom: here you go (hands over $5)

(current exchange rate: $1 = P53.27)

laughter from the grownups all around; mom just saved a couple of hundred pesoses... he3x! :D

quezon quirk

i got the shock of my life when i saw that i was linked to mlq3's blog, one of the foremost philippine bloggers!!!

then i realized it was one of those random linkages to the right side of his toolbar, for those who frequent his blog i guess... there goes my 3 minutes of fame... he3x! :D

just jessica

hmm, news has it that jessica simpson didn't sign a prenup before her marriage with now ex-husband nick lachkey-something-or-other. that wasn't very smart, but then again, it's jessica simpson... he3x! :P

monthly memories

Copy and paste the first sentence(s) from your first entry of each month this past year. What better way to sum up your year and make a countdown to '06!

JAN

no blog yet...

FEB

i guess that's the inevitability of becoming more urbane, more cosmopolitan: recognizing one's own roots start here in the metro.

MAR

lee: ano ba naman yan??? (angry tone)

bambi: bakit??? (bewildered)

lee: bakit ka dyan nagpark ng kotse mo??? (getting pissed)

APR

at any rate, we went to legazpi city for business, then last saturday, we went to see the whale sharks (butanding) at sorsogon.

MAY

somebody must have forgotten to tell the sky that it's summer and i was in bora, because it was raining when i woke up in the morning!!!

JUN

In my never-ending pursuit for vanity, I have decided to look for glasses that will serve as an alternative to my contact lenses.

JUL

I’m waiting for my own PC to get its act together and save my excel file.

AUG

on my way to work this morning, i was following this huge green trash compactor.

SEP

let me start off with the usual political rant unique to the republic of bagoong, bananas, & binalot: yup, she'll be politicking more than governing now.

OCT

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

NOV

oct 28 - left for US, arrived @ SFO

DEC

i have this cousin who was talking about the home-equity loan concept.

(i kinda cheated, some of these are the next few sentences, since i give long-winded intros...) :P

political pastime

You are a Social Liberal (65% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (38% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

i should be working, but isa's latest post led me to this...

meditating maharajah

picture this: an indian sitting in the park meditating in the traditional lotus hand pose (the fingers forming an "ok" symbol while the back of the hands are resting on the lap).

now picture this: the same indian, in a barong tagalog, and the park's salcedo park in the poshier sections of makati, on a wednesday morning before work.

too bad i don't have a picture of him. then again, even if i did have my digicam at the time, he would've had chased me for disturbing his privacy. now i wouldn't want to be a cause to break his meditation, now would i? :P

tact trumps technical

i've been meaning to post this ever since i got back from the states, but i guess work got in the way again... he3x! :P

i have this cousin who was talking about the home-equity loan concept. basically, if you buy your home for $300T, then after a couple of years the market price appreciates to $650T, you can go to the bank and use the $350T difference as a collateral for a loan. some banks would even give the whole $350T if not a percentage of $350T. he can then use the money for something else, like a car, or in his case a downpayment on his vacation house in hawaii.

this statement got me really riled up, not because of my cousin though, he's really a nice guy. but here's what got me mad:

• he's a pharmacist; he didn't need to be in finance to know these stuff
• he has an option to profit on the appreciation on the market price on his house; we can't even get a house here without being super rich or settling on a run-down house

it takes a certain degree of education to take advantage of these perks in the US system, or on any other system except here in our republic. out there, you go on your own merits, and you succeed. here, we only climb because of our closeness with the higher ups.

of course, the soft skills are important, it's what keeps the wheels of society moving smoothly. but the problem is that's all we have here in this republic. we don't nurture or encourage the skill of building the wheels in the first place. outside, between a guy who's technically competent and a guy who's technically competent and good with people, it's the latter guy. here, you don't even need to be technically competent!

the PhDs of china & taiwan came back because they knew their skills would be put to good use. here, if you retire, you just put your money in; no one would care about the skills you learned. the entrenched elite would rather use up the money than listen and learn about new skills to build the nation.

this sucks.