pet peeves:

people on facebook who love to put (at least) three (3!!) long paragraphs of messages in their status. i'm not sure what they're trying to drive at, but what i am sure of is that they want to exude the idea that they are so opinionated and that they are very learned.
But if they are so smart, they should know better. They would better off starting a blog than posting long status messages. Blogging is still the best way to get one's advocacy straight that posting them as status messages where it gets forgotten and gets thrown aside by other more catchy status messages.
(They can't, they won't start a blog because their writing skills cannot go beyond writing lengthy status messages. which is so tragic.)

so Keith said that is why Twitter is much better choice because it only allows, what, 140 characters? but then you can be overwhelmed by a million hashtags. (however, i'm like a superfan of "Jesus M. Christ" and the "What the Fuck Facts" on twitter. i read them from somebody else's account. like keith's for example.)

same with instagram. fucking hashtag. it does not even have a phonetic equivalent.

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

I've been out and travelling for the last 7 days. and before that, buried in tons of work in preparation for the tour. it was that stressful, arranging travel for 14 adults who work for the government. the red tape is amazing. everything was decided on the last minute. but i will write more on that when i find time. 

in the mean time, here is something for the very important internet news that everyone should read about. this is a direct copy and past  from WIKIPEDIA.

----

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261 or H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.^[2] Presented to the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the PROTECT IP Act.^[3]

The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.^[4]

Proponents of the bill say it protects the intellectual property market and corresponding industry, jobs and revenue, and is necessary to bolster enforcement of copyright laws, especially against foreign websites.^[5] They cite examples such as Google's $500 million settlement with the Department of Justice for its role in a scheme to target U.S. consumers with ads to illegally import prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies.^[6]

Opponents say that it violates the First Amendment,^[7] is Internet censorship,^[8] will cripple the Internet,^[9] and will threaten whistle-blowing and other free speech actions.^[7][10] Opponents have initiated a number of protest actions, including petition drives, boycotts of companies that support the legislation, and planned service blackouts by English Wikipedia and major Internet companies scheduled to coincide with the nextCongressional hearing on the matter.

The House Judiciary Committee held hearings on November 16 and December 15, 2011. The Committee was scheduled to continue debate in January 2012,^[11] but on January 17 Chairman Smith said that "[d]ue to the Republican and Democratic retreats taking place over the next two weeks, markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act is expected to resume in February."^[12]

please check this site for more on that.

desktop, literally.

Desktops are an interesting bunch. I've seen a handful of blogs and forums posting pictures of member's desks and i'd say that --wow---desktops are a totally different world. Like they have a psychology of their own different from the owner.

We have only a couple of desks at home. One is a drafting table converted into regular desk to hold a mishmash of things. It was my husband's drafting table from architecture school, a very heavy table made from scrap coconut lumber. Sometimes my 4 year-old use it as an inclined plane to jump start his toy cars and send them flying across our bedroom. And i am always guilty to use it as a place to put my hair clips and my end-of-the-day trash that i take out from my pockets. It drives my husband crazy. He said that THE desk is not supposed to hold hairclips, especially when they easily tear HIS onion skin-like tracing papers.  And also because it has too many things on it already--his aging computer, his film camera, his junk art fixed lamp, his T-square (complete with the strings that help it slide back and forth smoothly), 3 of his countless sketch pads, numerous ball pens ON the table placed in a way that they do not ROLLLLLLL (because it's inclined and it can't hold a pen stand unless it's a fixed, screwed pen stand)--yes, some are felt tip (or at least the calligraphy pen is).

The other desk is like a public desk. It houses the desktop computer that is free for everyone to use but only after my husband has given his permission. Sometimes, my siblings' (yes, my siblings live with us) stuffs would find their way on this desk. They would often end up in trash bins--the real trash bins. You see, even the use of this public desk is highly political. The desktop computer on this desk contains the CAD and sketchup files--yes, they are the ones that pay and see to it that there is food in the fridge and that both my husband and I are able to drink beer at the beer places at least once a month.  With the basics of survival secured, i could easily feed by addiction to cheap white wine using my own money sans the guilt.

And have i mentioned I do not have a desk at home?

but here is a picture of my desk at work:

yyeah, and at work all i do is surf the net and read online forums. there's practically nothing in my organizer as my calendars are blank. but there's a libeskind book there (that is the property of my husband--i dunno how it found its way to my office desk) and some list on post-its, none i've done yet--NOT!!!

As you can see, it's relatively clean and free of piles of paperwork. I made sure to include only the side of my desk where it is still--YES!--clean. If i tilt my camera a little to the left you'll get the picture of HELL. In there, there's at least 10 watershed reports that have been trying to get my attention for the last few weeks. I tried so hard to give them some but it doesn't help. They do not decrease in number. In fact, the last time i checked they were about 5 and now they're 10. I should really get the stuffs on my desk to practice some family planning--or a population control method that actually works.

But no matter, i love this desk.

In fact, in my last four years of significant development work, this is the only "true" desk i ever had. In my previous project i had to content myself with heavy, weather-worn, wooden desk. It was about the same age as my grandmother and I think it really wanted to retire. I felt sorry for the desk. The desks in my other short shots i never really considered MY desk, as most of my engagements were short-lived. So short i didn't get a chance to put ugly valentine's day stuffed toys and pollen-exploding flowers on them.

And i think that any respectable, rational, clear-thinking, intelligent person should never stuff her office desk with ugly stuffed toys and pollen exploding flowers from boyfriends. Reports that give you visions of hell, maybe, because that's what the office desks are for. And i because, man, your boyfriends deserve some privacy, too. (Yes, desks are ours to use and use freely to express our individuality, and the expression of individuality are sometimes overdone that the lines between what's private and public are blurred. think: facebook.)

Well, unless you live to work--which, is a completely different matter--then you should have a fridge and a pull-out bed installed in your desk, and if space would allow, a dresser, and ironing board and a closet. and something to hold the washing machine, too.

eh.

and i present: the desk at home. 

Mother Studies (# 0.1): Freedom

and what it truly means.

I contemplated on not going to college because I wanted to be free. At 16, I wanted to get a job so I can leave the house and live away from the noise, the rules, the endless criticisms and guilt of being a dependent in my parent’s household. My teenage confusion and my parents’ conventional, small town ideas did not really mix well.

But I didn’t and had thoughts of suicide. For peace of mind.

Then I had a kid and got married, got myself a job that pays the rent and I started, though gradually, embracing the thought of actually leading my own life. I’ve always thought that money—a stable flow of money—is all that it takes to get a life.

I’ve got a place that I do not have the right to anything. I cannot even decide who should live in it. Or what my mother should or should not put in it. my mother turns it into a warehouse and I am not supposed to complain about how her garbage takes up so much living space and how it encourages the rats and cockroach to breed twice as much as they ordinarily would, because that would make me a very difficult, unsupportive daughter. And having to live with my mother’s garbage is not even enough to repay all the money she spent on me. In a Filipino family, only a daughter’s life can pay for all the hardships her parents went through raising her. I never knew how true it was until this time. There are days when I feel it’s too late. I’m done. I’ll forever be my mother’s slave.

Buying a house of my own is one possible option I was given, but it came with a condition that the house must be big enough to accommodate my mother, my father, my unmarried siblings and my mother’s garbage. And my own family. Or I can just tell my kid and my husband to get a tent and camp at the garage. It would be a decade more before I could afford something spacious enough to fit all those. Because if I get anything less I become an ungrateful daughter who prefer to abandon her parents and siblings in need. Honestly, a nagging, screaming mother is the last thing anybody in the world wants.

And because as family, my mother said, we have to stick together until death.

What if my husband’s parents demand the same? What do i do? Cut myself in half? Lengthwise or transverse-wise? I wonder.

I’ve got a son I can’t even help plan a future on. HELP PLAN, take note, NOT DECIDE. I think it is the saddest and most tragic thing an old parent could do to a daughter with a family of her own—decide on his/her grandkid’s future on his/her own. Or concluding on her/his own that she/he has a better way of raising her/his grandkid. It is even more tragic if the grandparent was treated the same way by her/his own mother or in-laws years before.

I guess history really does love to repeat itself. It’s like it has a default factory defect. Whatever factory produces this history repeater should start closing down, otherwise it will just repeat one mistake after another. Imagine having a history gattling gun. Could you?

I planned on ending this family tradition in my time and give my kid the freedom that he deserves because I DO NOT OWN HIM. and so should ALL parents to their kid.

But how could I give? I do not even have it.

1 pesetas advice.

The facebook phenomenon is one of the hip things I’d (gulp) admit I enjoy to be a part of. Photography is another, but I will not consider myself hip. I was tempted to add running but I’ve long been off my daily runs to actually consider myself “in” in the hip runners crowd. And also because I never owned any of those singlet things. And also because in the 10 years I ran, I never joined any single marathon, except the fun runs at school because during the time I was actively running, it was never hip to be a runner. Mountain-hiking, I also tried joining when I was in the university but I was too poor to be a regular member of those mountaineering clubs. My parents, my father especially, never supported any of those seemingly expensive hobbies. Funny thing is, he would also shop at brands which shirts cost at least 4 figures. A shirt costing more than a thousand pesos is always classy to a working class.

So what then, is my point?

As my ABD said, facebook is an image-building tool more than it is a social networking tool. It is in facebook where we build identities to show to the world what we want them to believe we are. Just look at how people would compose 3-sentenced arguments to expound the links they share, if only to show their level of, well, intellect. I am not pure, and as I said before, I enjoy using facebook so do not take this as an anti-facebook tirade.

At one point in my history of facebook use, I exploited all its free speech privileges to show to people how intelligent I am. Or how elaborate my taste in architecture is. What led me to discontinue this habit was that, my endless postings of clever musings to catch people’s attention, only gave me more than all the crappy responses I could handle. At the end of the day, I find myself lacking the cleverness I had at point 0.

As my friend Liby also said before: “Dapat ba talagang maging maingay?” (Should we really be loud?) It was one of the best thoughts I’ve read on facebook. (But this is not to offend the fighters who literally make very loud noise against tuition and oil price hike; noise to uphold human rights and our sovereignty. I think you are doing us silent types a favor, keep them coming.)

I suppose tact, (second only to common sense) is also very difficult to find amongst facebook users as it is only comes with age (but as for mature people without tact, don’t ask me for an explanation) and with experience. A set of tactful and sensible friends will also help but not if one does not listen to them.

Facebook helped spread the word on the RH Bill and everyone talked about it. Everyone, at least, knew a fraction about it. By the time it became super hot news, my newsfeed was completely flooded by each and every of those one claiming to know more than the others, each one trying to be more eloquent than the other. These everyone became half-assed RH Bill lobbyists, and the whole charade ceased being impressive. It made me wonder if they’re for real. If, in real life, when confronted by a wife or a husband who prefers a childless marriage, would they really apply the principles of RH Bill, or even just the basic freedom of choice?

[One weekend, when our friends and I gathered, we laughed at the most “’trying hard’ to be articulate” one. We’re tactful enough to keep the jokes to ourselves. But yes, that is right, it’s a cruel thing to do. But as this Matt Damon character in Syriana said: “It’s not racist when it’s something positive.” The same way, it’s not cruelty when we get a good laugh out of it—OH, Gad, I’m so sorry. Delete, delete, delete. ]

It’s the same thing with this green thing. Allow me to make a little diversion here. When we were young, my father would often tell us about throwing things in proper places (yeah, those were the days) which resulted in our early conversion to what was then a seemingly new religion called “environmentalism”. The conversion surpassed its rocky  superficial stage and I carried the environmentalist habits up until the present, exemplified primarily by my disdain for impulsive and unnecessary fashion shopping.

One of the things my father lectured was to not burn leaves of the trees (as I would later learn that open-burning is prohibited as per RA 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000) because they decompose easily  in no time can be used as fertilizer. He also taught us to not the importance of trees, animals and insects because in maintaining nature’s ecological balance. Up to this day my parents maintain an organic garden (literally organic, meaning, when a fruit of vegetable gets rotten, they just throw it at the corner of our backyard and wait for new plants to sprout. In few months, they will be harvesting fruits of these plants.) And because we are environmentalists we’re not supposed to throw things away unless they are beyond recognition from what they originally looked like. What I mean is, we were green even before green was in. it was just our way of life. (But, alas,  we lost our father to the glitzy stores of SM City and to his newly acquired purchasing power.) And now that it is really very very in, HIP is probably the more appropriate term, to be green, every person, even the top-ranking consumerist calls himself “green.” People easily buy that, too.

Again, what is my point here?

My point is, runners who pretend to run to promote/advocating green/er environment cannot even contain themselves from their running shoes shopping spree. Most of them would throw away their barely used trainers in favor of the hipper models. So where’s the green stuff there? Musicians who advocate earth hour organize earth day concerts, where the amount of energy they consume from all the lights and their high-powered gadgets is equivalent to at least a month’s worth of earth hour. (I am tempted to concoct an excuse that these musicians are just color-blind.)  Mothers who pretend to be so green and use wooden toys forget that the act of buying these hip, green toys actually fuel the need to manufacture MORE wooden toys. And you know where this kind of thing leads to. My friend gifted my kid a small wooden toy before, as a token of our friendship. I didn’t hold that against her as she is not the type who will buy a ton of wooden toys just for the hell of it.

I remember chancing upon the green episode of a local talkshow aired by the university channel. In that particular episode the show interviewed an architect who markets himself as the “Green Architect” because he makes, well, green buildings. (But are not buildings supposed to be green as a default?—says Keith). He arrived at the topic of electric consumption, said that household’s monthly electricity bill about PHP12,000-15,000. It’s a little heavy on the pockets, he said. And his solution? Install solar panels. That way, he says, you lower your monthly electrical bills. There is something very very wrong with this proposition, this way of thinking. Frankly, one doesn’t become an environment warrior or green hero by mere conversion of his/her energy source. One becomes so but using electricity sensibly. More so, you do not become green by converting all your 10,000 plastic wares to 10,000 wooden wares when you can live by just using 5 of them.  

The sad thing is, most of my friends in facebook subscribe to this idea--the end-of-pipe solution: change of energy source, change of type of material, change from leatherette bag to katcha bag. It should be outlawed and it should be made known to everyone that pop environmentalism is for idiots. 

I believe that the greenest thing to do is to live a very simple, basic life, and I don’t mean live like a hermit. That’s taking “green” too literal and too far out of context.

And again, because facebook is into image-building, many users will actually be falsely led into believing that their facebook friend is something that he is not. So be very careful of what and whose ideas to subscribe to, in absence of further reading, most especially in absence of the knowledge of the fundamentals of the issue being raised. After all, there is no such thing as facebook university.  

Just my 1 pesetas worth. 

On taking offense

University degrees does not warrant education. Some people get so many degrees yet they remain stupid, culturally insensitive, bigot, and possibly xenocentric.

I have encountered a handful of these kinds of people, the worst of which was a very close high school friend. I am not directly in contact with all these people anymore, and if possible, I try to avoid being in contact with them in the future. I get rabid around them.

Being in a state-funded (or at least, partially) university does not help. I feel even sadder to hear that people whose education was funded by the people’s taxes have the gall to look down on their country, on their city. Yes, just because we didn’t have starbucks does not mean we’re lesser people; or just because we didn’t work with the whites or have white bosses does not make us unaware of international current events and global opinion.

I chose to work in the country because I know that it needs me here. My want to stay here goes beyond my family being here, my friends being here, my source of happiness being here. I love this country and I want to make it better.

The reason why I took up urban and regional planning is because I realized the power that planners have to make or break a city, a town, a country. I took up urban planning in hopes that my diploma would at least attract the attention of hometown’s local government and hire me. I was not after getting a six-digit salary, although i know that that is not impossible. I wanted to work in my hometown’s planning office because all my life, i’ve never seen my town move forward. Yes, there are big houses now—my neighbors who used to sell fish at the market now has a mansion, thanks to their kids who work either as seamen or land-based OFWs, domestic helpers, caregivers, or CAD monkeys. But we’ve lost our beaches to coastal slums, things that were never there 10, 15 years ago. The houses in my towns got bigger, I’ve seen families acquire cars, but I cannot deny that my town remains to be one of the best sources of MAIDS. Yes, MAIDS.

I’m never happy when I hear that.

My town is a microcosm of the whole Philippines—we’re known to be the best source of housemaids.

My point is, I don’t fucking care about YOUR international experience. My point is, if all Filipinos think like you do, we might us well turn ourselves into OFW factories and stop living as Filipinos. After all, it’s the dollars and the snow and the international experience we’re after, not a nation that moves forward and finds an identity, an identity not dictated by foreign aids and YOUR international experience.


Yes, Jonabelle, that is my point.

FIN.

For want of a better presentation.

today i attended a presentation on road traffic injuries. 


it would have been a perfect project with perfect concepts had the consultants have better grasp as to why they are actually engaging in things that are out of the boundaries of their expertise. for one, i did not see any transport planner or traffic engineer or road safety expert in their team, and yet we, the participants were supposed to be taught on how road injuries are prevented. 


(DO NOT, first of all, and again, DO NOT present a stat table straight from SPSS pasted in MS Excel, complete and unedited of all those permutation shits that only a statistic can understand. i say, DO NOT present this to a general public meeting. This does not only come from me, but from my Mr. Senor Statistics Professor. You will only look like you only want to drown them in details but don't actually know shit.)


and no, road injuries are not CAUSED by non-wearing of helmet, or by non-compliance to seatbelt law. we abide by the helmet and seatbelt law on the premise that if ever we DO MEET AN ACCIDENT, we will suffer from injuries that will render us severely handicapped, much more, dead. but non-compliance to those things do NOT, i repeat DO NOT cause injuries. 


take the example of wearing shoes. we wear shoes because we want our feet protected. we do not want our feet to be accidentally pricked by thorns or cut by sharp objects but would the non-wearing of shoes cause result to a bloody cut on your feet? 


i wish that the presentors had consulted first with road safety experts or at least made themselves aware of things regarding road safety because dude, road safety is a safety issue. you do not want to mislead people on matters concerning their life or death.  


(i do not understand why a bio statiscian is explaining a road safety perception survey that took counts of people not wearing helmets or seatbelts and asking them why they're stupid not to wear so. a statiscian, i can understand--any statistician can do statistics, but a BIO stat? what difference does that make?)


it doesn't help that this study is trying to anchor its framework solely on the fact that people who here drink and drive--or at least that's what i am getting from one presentor. come on, lindsay lohan does that all the time. people in the city do that all the time. do not try to make this an isolated case, you presumpter! first of all, the percentage of people who do that is too small compared to people who overspeeds, to infrastructure that would fail the road safety audit or to the fact that people here resort to habal-habal for their main mode of public transport. i would like to think that given those three major issues, we could anchor a road safety/road traffic injury framework there. blackspots, as a term, was not even mentioned. 


i do not know how community participation can be encouraged or solicited through IEC, advocacy and meetings. in my experience, community participation can only gained by allowing the community to feel that they own the project. "sense of ownership", anyone?


Before i could lambast the presentation in my thoughts, just before the session closed, a better presentor took over. although he did not present the project framework and the rationale for frontlining this project (when it could be better given to other agencies who are expert on these issues), he was able to assure me (not directly, of course)  that at least somebody in the team knows what they are doing, stuffs on road safety, and that somebody in the team has actually worked on projects of these kinds. and he mentioned blackspots. (ahe ahe)


i am not an expert on these matters. i am not even a transport planner but dude, i've heard and read better; i do know when i'm being fooled. 




(actually, never mind. never mind what i said. it's just that the invocation was that mass produced prayer-for-training song sung by josh groban and some church-sounding family name woman singer. i wish all training opening programs will just concoct their own prayer and stop using the damn song. it's not funny.)

ED.u.Cate.

A teacher friend, ABD, just sent his whole class outside. I thought it must be the 2-hour brown-outs. I was wrong; said it’s not PECO-related but brain-da related.

It’s is just not the only but one of the many whines I would often her from my teacher friends: students just getting dumber and dumber.

(News is…there’s a budget cut for the state universities. I wonder where that will lead us.) 

I wish to present a listing of valuable statistics on the decline of Philippine education but I still don’t have them.

One of my bosses, a former university professor, says the same. Teaching post-bacc is getting to be more and more frustrating because each year, students, she said, seem to be getting dumber and dumber.


What about us? In what spectrum of dumbness do we belong?

Then again…perhaps it’s where we are really heading? (If you googled for “Philippine education+students getting dumber” you’d get links to articles not only talking about Philippines dumbness.) Who knows what the teachers complained about me, or my batch perhaps? – students getting lazier to edit because of MS Word spellcheck and grammar auto detect? And how about the students, decades before? And the ones before? I’m wondering what the Egyptians or the Incans would complain when they see us now. Maybe laugh at our buildings and the atrocious planning? I’ll give them the liberty because after all, the Burj Dubai is really nothing compared to Machu Picchu.

Sending students out do not help, ABD knows that but sometimes it’s really too much. Either that or a heart attack. I will choose sending them out. Better to preserve ABD than a class of 30 morons. 

On to another friend. He helps students make their papers readable. He’s rather amazing, this friend of mine, because he’d actually allow himself to be subjected to such torture. He does it for a pay of course, and frankly, the pay is chicken feed compared to what these dumb students are subjecting him to. On some occasions where, I’d help revise a chapter or two, sometimes he’d beg me to help him. revising requires a lot of mental preparation. To prepare, I’d scan the first page, pencil in hand, to see the extent of work I’d have to do. Seldom would I encounter a paragraph, more so a sentence, that does not need any form of revision. And patience is a virtue that I always try to keep but standards is something else and before I lose them both, I’d resort to revising the whole first page. It doesn’t end there. Eventually, the decision would be to revise the whole chapter. It's no use revising a chapter what can be more clearly explained in 2 paragraphs (because the remaining 80% of the chapter is pure trash--apparently there's too much copying and pasting that happened).

This kind of black market “employment” is not commendable in the university where ABD, paper-revising friend (PRF)and I come from. I personally keep mum about it because it embarrasses me. I do not want to be called a thesis reviser, nor the local version of Recto. But I understand how it works with PRF—he has actually had a handful of “best in thesis” (both masters and undergrad) in his portfolio and numerous network established because of it. He should be proud of this achievement, and of the fact that in all of those things he’s done, he’s virtually made himself a dengue expert, a peace and order expert, a computer science expert, a childcare expert, to name a few. He learns a lot from them, I wonder if the experience is the same to the other party.

Of course, PRF learns from them because that how he’s reared by our university, the way ABD and myself were reared also. We know learning does not end after university education (and motherhood—thou shouldn't be your children’s slaves).

So how do we really make these dumbasses want to love school? How do we make them ask intelligent questions? How do we make them learn to problematize (beyond the “how’s” in getting the latest model iphone or ipod, or the latest in facebook), feed their curiosity, make them go to the library, make them read book other than their text books, make them work on their paper—not by copying and pasting, but, this time, by using their head, when we've practically done everything possible?

Dumbasses and morons, stand up. It’s time you defended yourselves.

dialect tics

This weekend, while discussing our recent personal projects, among others, i happened to mention the "workshop-workshop " that I've participated in these past few months. Liby (he doesn't have a site i could link his name to but i think  THIS will do) grinned. And mentioned something about people repeating words. I was confused there a bit (in short, nag-mango ng 5 seconds) until he mentioned "theater-theater" and the thing i just uttered: "workshop-workshop". Apparently, he found this practice rather weird and i was compelled to explain, despite my obvious lack of expertise in linguistics.

It's not only Liby who's pointed this out to me-- the tendency of Filipinos, if not just Ilonggos, to repeat words( and even names – my nickname is Bimbim, my brother, Dindin). I've been asked by my Japanese boss about this before. Take (ang) saya saya (tagalog phrase meaning "very happy/utmost happiness"), for example. Doubling saya here does not entirely change the meaning of the word--the context maybe? -- and saya can certainly stand on its own. On the other hand paro-paro which, if devoid of its other half would mean nothing (maybe like the funny word: irregardless). The Japanese language, however (as per story of my boss) has a different story to tell. One example is this: Japanese language technically assigned cho-cho as the equivalent of butterfly but one can just use cho and it would still mean the same: butterfly. Tagalogs do not and will not call the butterfly by its half-a-name, paro. We kiniray-a and hiligaynon speakers don't cut the name short to alibang either. Alibangbang. it's always alibangbang. (Boss mentioned other japanese words but of course i cannot recall any of them anymore.)

"Maybe it's a form of humility," I say, referring to "workshop-workshop" and "theater-theater". I'm not trying to say that by using the "workshop-workshop" the writing workshops I've been involved in are lesser in value than those considered by the literature majors the "ultimates". ABD is a wonderful mentor. He's inspired me in many ways than i could possibly think of, and i am completely satisfied by what i'm getting from all of these WS's. I meant to say “workshop-workshop” because I am not gaining any additional scholastic degree from it, nor will I be given additional academic credits. But no, it is not something that I do not take seriously.

And comes the remembering: when we say dugay-dugay (short pronunciation, not the /doooogay-doooogay/, which has a different meaning), we mean "sooner" than soon. Medyo-medyo = lesser version of medyo. I'm not sure about sala-sala, though. But it seems to me that this becomes some form of a mockery to the doer.

Ms. Raj's speech, in my opinion, is a direct result of this language quirkiness of ours. "Major-major" to signify a lesser form of the "major" -- or maybe she meant the opposite?

Gamay-gamay, dako-dako, hinay-hinay, todo-todo, laba-laba, lip-ot - lip-ot – doubling them rather exponentially changes the meaning of the "singles" (imagine: gamay squared), unlike the medyo-medyo.


Hmm…that is really something I should read about.

But then, the listener seemed satisfied by my short, amateurish explanation, and i don't think i'd like to expound further. He got up and went to look for the missing head of his wayang golek.


Fin.

pedestrians are road users too.

Our driver made a comment yesterday that really bothered me:


"Our government sure love to spend millions for a jogging space," he said, reiterating what he heard on the radio earlier.


It was about the boardwalk (not to be confused with the Iloilo Boardwalk complex). The local radio station has been lambasting the local government about not opening that stretch of road to vehicular traffic.

Taking the safe side, I explained that that road is not really supposed to be used as any ordinary thoroughfare. That 2-lane space is in an easement that should not be opened to regular traffic, nor should it be used as an alternate route. AND, I still feel that if there's a way for us not to use easements to build our homes, our restaurants, our stores and our roads on, we should go ahead keeping it an open, free space. There is a reason for it's “non-use”.

Secondly, I don't really feel we need wider roads than the roads that we have now, nor do we need more roads within the city. Circumferential roads, yes, i agree to that because it will largely reduce the need to go through the city as much of our adjacent LGUs are not "safely" connected to each other. Safely, meaning, the roads that connect them are more often narrow dirt roads devoid of street lamps and other road safety devices. It;s even more dangerous during rainy season because pot holes could go as deep as the center of the earth.

Didn't anyone ever think of "regulation"? You know, where you regulate the number of cars on the road, or maximize the use of these cars. And i don't mean number coding because that has been proven ineffective for long term application. High occupancy vehicle. safe, comfortable, convenient and efficient public transportation. walkable blocks--o lazy people won't need to ride a jeep to get to the place they want to go, three small blocks away.

But the driver didn't buy it. He told me, "Why build a road in the first place--if you won’t open it to vehicular traffic?"

"Well, because that road is not a road for that kind of traffic. It's built so that the engineers can conveniently access the area for regular maintenance. It is not for people like you to use," I explained, keeping the last sentence to myself.

"Because you see,” he continued, “if it is opened, it won’t be subjected to heavy traffic because only private cars will use it. There's no franchise for public jeepney serving that route. It will certainly reduce the traffic congestion in the major roads." 

Says who?

Sex, Lies and Education

It was supposed to be just like any ordinary day: me being constantly barraged by questions I don’t want to answer but is forced to being the one and only slave in the universe of educated people. I have to entertain questions and comments about Kris Aquino and react to every angry statement on GMA. 

But no, this day chose to be different. S/He blurts s/he is disgusted by the way the Education Department makes a lot of fuss about sex education. I braced myself. I know where s/he stands in this given her/his straight Roman Catholic background and his/her deeply-rooted belief in marriage and things related to it. 

“Well, they should.” 

Shit, wrong answer. Instead of ending the conversation I got the biggest look of surprise from her/him. You’re one stupid girl, Rej, how could you forget s/he asked you not too long ago about your family devotion. What?? Don’t the 3-pierced left ear and my lack of holy figure in the desk give away my distaste for any form of organized religion? I thought you were into typecasting? 

“Well, isn’t sex education the role of the parents in the first place?”

HUWAATT??? I should sue my parents. Apparently they shortchanged me, neglecting their primary duty to educate me on sex. No, they didn’t give me no sex education at all. I got all my sex education from 90’s rock and roll, MTV and DH Lawrence.

table manners.

when i eat i want to be left alone.

eating is  a very personal thing and intruding in one's eating routine is crass. pure crass.

that is why when i eat i hate to be bullied to eating this food that i don't want to eat. like pork for example. or beef. or getting an extra serving of everything. I will eat the food that i want to the pace that i am comfortable at. So i wish you'd just stop commenting on how i chew my food very well before i swallow it. so i will also stop commenting on how fat you are and how you'd consumed so much in a blink of my eye.

when i eat, even if we eat together, i'd like you to treat me as a completely different entity and not an extension of you stomach. why does it pleases you so much stuffing me with food? and why does it surprise you when i say i am already full? didn't you ever think my reason for turning down your offer is because i do not want to eat your food?

when i eat i don't want you nagging me to eat some more. or complain to me for the lack of napkin. or for the lack of kalamansi that is already on the bowl to your left, ready to swallow you whole. look for things with your eyes, not with your fucking mouth. why do you always have to do everything with your mouth? are you orally fixated? i'm anal retentive, in case you'd like to know. I don't think we are a good combination.

i don't even nag my husband about eating his eating habits because i don;t want him nagging me about it, too. i don't dump food on his plate, because darling, really, it's bad manners to be dumping food on the plate of somebody who did not ask for it. did you even ask me if i was vegetarian? NO. it's like you just assumed i have a religious devotion because you also have it. all people are not like you. and neither am i.

you know for a fact that making generalized conclusion will lead to a general mistake. unless your study wants to establish conclusions across all culture and ages, but you very well know, too that you can therefore not make specific judgments if you do that. i don't believe in god. i don't to church.i don't believe in marriage and did i ever tell you that? no, because it is rude to talk or ask about somebody's religion, more so, conclude that she is catholic. and knit your eyebrows when she say she isn't.

you're just rude.

please do not make an issue out of leftovers. it's not my fault that i can;t finish what you gave me. I didn't ask for it. you just gave me. you didn't ever hear my NOOOO.

muni muni sa jeep

Somebody yells to the driver of the jeepney I’m riding on that there are lto agents in the next block. They are apprehending erring drivers, especially those who do not follow their simple regulations, ie, wearing of shoes when driving. Quickly, the driver grabs his pair of shoes from under his seat and puts them on. The passenger on the passenger seat next to him helped him reach for them while he carefully puts on the shoes and maneuver the jeepney at the same time.

It’s funny if you come to think of it.

Although it may be a necessary procedure, the wearing of shoes, but the concept is so western and perhaps impractical to our Filipino drivers that they end up with little or no compliance at all.

I think what all these policy makers should do is look into these drivers’ cultural inclinations…or something to that effect then maybe they could then pass a policy that is more attuned and therefore make the drivers more compliant.
I get the jeepney and off and get ready for the battery of work.

the truths.

i was told that the japanese have two truths:

public truth and private truth.

a public truth is something that they will tell you because that is what you want to hear.

a private truth is something that they know is true but they will not tell you because that is not what you want to hear or that it is in contrast to what you believe it. 

telling a public truth does not necessarily constitute lying. similary, keeping a private truth is not also lying. it's a way of saving face and keeping a good relationship. 

I thik we filipinos also have that concept although it remains unnamed. In the office i also do not tell my japanese bosses that their filipino counterparts don't like them because that will ruin the relationship. I just suggest to them what their filipino counterparts think is better, the way that it will sound really good. 

i am also afraid of lying hence, this concept of public and private truths is very convenient for me. When i lie, or when i plan to lie, it usually takes me about an hour or two to make a script and practice it so i cna deliver it well.

right now, the jappy is talking to another jappy (the big boss) over the phone. the big jappy is in japan. the smaller jappy is here, in our little dusty cubicle in the philippines. 

usually, an angry filipino boss would come shouting to the subordinate over the phone and the subordinate would usually be left speechless, except for the sporadic "sorry" or "yes". but the little jappy is allowed to talk. and he talks. right now. 

so i presume big jappy is talking public truths to him. 

after 15 minutes they are done talking.

little jappy approaches me and tells me about their project in mindanao.

i tell him they have to pay me for hearing him out about other projects because my TOR is only for this project. he laughs.

and tells me about work.

public truths are very nice concepts. 

quote for the day:


There's a diffrence between a failure and a fiasco. A failure is merely the absence of success.
Any fool can achieve failure. But a fiasco, a fiasco is a disaster of epic propotions.
A fiasco is a folk tale told to other's to make other people feel more alive because it didn't happen to them.



YEAH.

angelus.

there they go again.

the lady at the cash register stopped at the first sound of the bells from the PA system. she was about to scan my purchase but stopped.

the woman before me also stopped. just after the cashier handed her her change she virtually stopped from her activities, including the SOP counting-0f-change. the guard also stopped from checking the bags of the shoppers and the shoppers coming in, too, unbelievably stopped at the door, as if waiting AND, mind you, patiently. also the woman next to me; she stopped on her tracks, so is the man scanning the magazine. and the woman on the soap/detergent aisle, the couple at the infant's formula section, the cashier at the bakery section, the kid that has been running around, the baby screaming. every one stopped.

it's unbelievable. it's like a clip from the movie superman every time he uses his superfast-millisecond-movement ability.


the chinese businessmen are really talented when it comes to looking for potential things to cash in. Like attracting catholics. after all, if i'm not mistaken, henry sy may be the first to allow sunday masses inside his malls. now they're even saying angelus at 6pm, everyday.

AND IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!

it's close to dinner, the clouds are getting heavier and heavier by the minute, i don't have an umbrella nor do i have a jacket and i've got the office computer inside my non-waterproofed bag, and a partner waiting and getting impatient at the lobby. i'm only paying for a can of toddler's milk, lord, why do you have to make me endure this?


after almost an eternity i rushed to the lobby to find my husband grinning at my recent mishap.


and the heavy heavy rain has come. now we really have to run home.

art. artsy fartsy.

i would have wanted to acquire a record of the drunken conversation that just recently occurred. badly. i would have posted its transcription here.


sad and hurting pieces of conversations. the kind that strips you naked and peels your skin off, slowly, strip by strip. then the bangkero leaves and lets you bleed to death. Bangkero, who i will refer here to a very imaginative name "B", also left one exposed and helplessly vulnerable, considering that in the world he is in, he was at the pedestal. a pedestal built and created for by his own legion of devotees who probably also lacked exposure to battery of criticisms and rejections. their world revolved around their shaky walls of love, sugar-coated adoration and exoticism for something that could closely resemble the sound of ben lee if not for its third world or in politically correct terms, developing countries, origin. or may be not. my world and knowledge are also limited, but definitely not shaky.


B wins. He on the other hand plummeted down to #327 or god knows what rank. When B is drunk and i make him laugh he tells me i've just shoot to #9. then i smile.


B repeatedly railed at him for his subliminal (OR IS IT???) adherence to americanism or american hegemony. he did want -- i felt it, really i did -- to start an intellectual discussion on culture but neither did B nor i want to start it. B, perhaps because he was drunk. i because i only discuss those matters to people i know know how to discuss them. after all, somebody once called me an intellectual snob. but i never were. i'm just the quiet type.

american hegemony. i am reminded by e. san juan's.


truth is, i just really really feel sad for the artsy fartsies and for those who could not live with what there only is. in the case of most artsy fartsy i know, they could not live with what Iloilo ONLY has to offer. I have lived here for more than half my age. My son was born here. He will be an Ilonggo whether he likes it or not.


Iloilo was not artsy enough for Fritz so he left to better his art and his artistic lifestyle. he is 30 years old. never finished his university education. never had a real job. never also had an odd job. does not plan on getting a real job. will take an odd job if it would live up to his artistic expectations. as far as i could remember he mostly lived off his monthly allowance courtesy of his mother who is based on the USA. definitely a trust fund baby who is a baby no more. he hated Iloilo because he couldnt get a taxi home at night. Nobody would stop for him. he looks like your typical rastafarian only that he's not rasta but a dreadlocked 30ish male, mutated hindu-filipino pagan fanatic. he left for manila because manila has everything then moved to davao because davao was big and artsy but also left eventually because he couldn't find confidantes there. he went back to manila because manila has so many books and arts films and art shows and artistic people and his talents and network could definitely broaden if he were in manila. he goes back to iloilo if he is problem loaded. i surmise he'll be back. soon.


Iloilo of course is not and won't be like other places. The reason why any artsy fartsy will not or cannot just pull of a street show whenever or wherever they want to is because Iloilo lacked the anonymity which most places or big cities where these street shows are easily pulled off by other artsy fartsies definitely offer. And they come in big shiny packages. ANONYMITY gives you power to do anything you want. And i mean anything -- and that is the reason why these people do street shows. Nobody really does anything without a reason. Many would beg to disagree but altruism, for example is not giving for the sake of giving -- it's giving to get rid of the guilt for being filthy rich and not having enough stuff to spend money on. similarly, these art guys do not do art for the sake of art -- it's art for ego. definitely you'd rather that other people you are not related by at least 4 degrees appreciate your art and blow up your ego and not your relatives. definitely you'd rather do street shows in places where anonymity is a norm rather than a privilege. definitely you'd think twice of doing street shows in iloilo where you meet a classmate or a neighbor every 10th step you take.


(do you know ninotchka rosca has this really wonderful blog?)


i did not drink enough, by the way, to get drunk. just a bottle of san miguel beer light. B on the other hand took about 1250 ml red horse beer and maybe some more before PF and I arrived to start our session. PF also had 1250 ml red horse. beer and green mango and P12.00 balut and chicharon and later a much cheaper balut, only P10.00, from a kid not older than 10 years old. The lady who sold P12.00 balut said she got so drunk she threw her baby over the bridge. maybe she was drunk when she sold us the eggs. B loves green mangoes and beer. i love nothing more than to get drunk on conversations, and perhaps later, on beer, inside the safe though stinky walls of M while we laugh at the other people's pretensions and false worlds of make believe.

we are so cruel.

postscript

Iloilo also does not have starbucks. AND I HOPE THAT THESE PEOPLE DO NOT COME TO ILOILO ASKING WHY WE DO NOT HAVE STARBUCKS. or a fucking eastwood for that matter. go to hell. don't go to iloilo for chrissakes.

working mother.

i envy those mothers who do not have to go to work every day.

the mother and child sit across me, at 11 o'clock. the mother, young and wrapped in skimpy clothes that bare her legs and her neckline; the kid, a fat boy about 3 eating a plateful of lunch with extra serving of rice waiting to be finished off with the rest of the food in his plate.

i've just been scolded by the japanese boss, complaining that it's no use letting me do the rest of the excel computations since it appears now that he is doing most of the job, having finished almost 70% of the work by himself. Well. On my end, the 6 of the 14 tables that i did won't compute for the saturation rate of the intersections --

GADDAMMMM TRANSPORTATION MATHEMATICS!!!! ----

because the intersections in Iloilo were so varied in all variations that could possibly take place in an intersection. and i have told him about my dilemma and he told me to just skip (skip skip and skip) those tables because he will just redo the formulas. now he wants to know why it won;t compute and it's really no use delegating the work to me. So with the tables he asked me to "ENCODE" after explaining the computations and concept behind saturation rates of intersection in less than 10 minutes in broken english with japanese accent he expects full comprehension and computation magics from the patient but depressed yours truly.

so it's a 5.0 mark for me.

thing is, a fellow japanese consultant who is also a member of the study team recently complained to me that when the big boss instructs him he only understands maybe 10%. he then would ask and big boss would explain again and he would understand 20%. he would ask again and big boss would flare up like a dragon. so he kept on wondering which of them spoke in different language. they are both japanese and could not understand each other. how enlightening.

in that case, i don't think i am the one with A problem.

and if not for the money (which is not even that big), i wouldn't want to be part of this project as i don't find it intellectually challenging, rather depressing and demeaning, him berating me for my inability to understand his instructions -- in broken english, of course. And every time it happens, i think of my situation with much remorse and think of Gogol.

i have to love this job.

trouble in paradise.

i've been hearing about the buzz since last year and was hoping it wouldn't happen but i just confirmed it this week:

our Filipino consultant has resigned from our project.

i was rather sad because for a short time we've worked together during his visits to Iloilo i learned alot from him, academically and 'philosophically'.
i was also sad because i would have to face the japs all by myself now, without a fellow breed who could understand the idiosyncracies that his fellow Filipino have.
I engaged in this project hoping to understand better the career that i'd like to specialize in in the future...but all i constantly learn are the hardships of being a "secretary" and am constantly frustrated by the protocols of the government partners.

I am missing the kind of environment i had working as a staff to my professors in the university (except for the last one, but she wasn't human so it is understandable). I easily understood the quirks of the university people; their being normally abnormal. in the government, everyone wants to be normally normal so they all want to stick with the protocols despite the irrationality and inconvenience it would bring...everything is okay so long as they stick to the paper works and the "textbook" polity.
hay ambot.

well. we are young and we still have a lot to do to change society.

AND I DON"T WANT TO BE A WORKER FOREVER.

exits.

I wrote this on January 8, 2008.

yesterday 5 people opened my office's door hoping it is the way out only to see another office and not lobby leading to a heavenly exit from the dusty and overused Elizalde Building. the same thing also happened for almost every day of the previous weeks, only differing in numbers and in types of people. so early today i did an experiment. before i could start working on my to do list i made a NO EXIT sign to post on my office's door. the "no" being in gray and the "exit" in black, thinking that it would make difference, if at all.
then the clock starts ticking.
surprisingly, the first people that got into my bait were, the stuart (??) couple. foreign videographers who go around Panay to film tourist spots, scenic places and Visayan cultural activities. the husband exclaimed: WHAT? no exit here?? he turned to the door and said, "But it says EXIT--"
"No exit," i said.
the lady, the wife, then said..."Oh, so sorry. it says no exit. sorry we couldn't read the gray ones," she said pointing to my sign.
then off they go.
experiment. experiment.
i need two more of the similar incident in order to change the gray "NO" into the purest, darkest black.

---------------------

after a week, a handful of people still opened my door thinking its the way to heaven (because the old building do looks like hell).
it got me into thinking that they perhaps could not really see the "NO" that precedes the "EXIT".
so i took the A4 sign and traced the "NO" with the red permanent marker and post it on the door again this time with...say, conviction that my sign would work.

PERO WALA MAN GIHAPON!!!!
LINTE!!
WALA GID MAN GABASA ANG MGA TAGA ILOILO HAW?

so i took out the signs again and rearranged them. made sure they are at the eye level.

it's been a week after that reaaranging.

and here is the statistics:

1 woman asked if my office is this certain office. (WRONG!)
1 woman opened the door and quickly closed it back when she saw me. (first time kakita tawo?)
1 old woman opened the door, closed it halfway and opened it again to ask me if this my office is not the way out. (lapit nalang gid. lord help me!!!!)
and notably they are all women. Noted down.

hmm... would a a life size sign of my agency's name across my office's glass windows make a difference?

thinking...thinking...thinking....

and just before i clicked the post button a woman in her ealy 30s (baw malagas gid!!!!) suddenly opened the door, took 3 steps and exclaimed surprise when she saw me. she asked for the exit.

tsk tsk