it’s bliss

i wish i was nocturnal…

so i can accomplish more things

so i can watch more movies

so i can read more books

so i can climb and do more strengthening exercises

so i can do my finger therapy regularly

so i can lounge around in the house for longer hours

so i can sit on my bed, cuddle underneath the blanket for a longer period without falling asleep

so i can talk with more friends

so i can worry, think, and analyze as much as i want without fear of being an unproductive zombie the next day at work

so i can enrol in more classes/workshops

so i can study other languages

so i can take in more work (and rake in more cash, hehe)

so i can help out my college org

so i can contribute more to the climbing community

so i can provide services to out family business

so i can hop onto more blogs

so i can type in more words

so i can spend more time with my family

so i can satisfy more needs

so i can meet more expectations

…

to whoever influenced me to keep on wanting to do more, God, right now, i just don’t know whether to say thank you or no thanks. i just feel like such a burdened mess–unable to prioritize, unable to satisfy, unable to succeed. i’m always running after time, running after sleep, rushing between one place to another, just hurrying hurrying hurrying. i feel like a failure, like a loser, always needing guidance, needing advice, needing understanding, needing special treatment. i don’t know what to do with myself anymore.

hell, whatever happened to less is more?

i wish we can fast forward to tomorrow.

hard to believe but, like you, i, too, am tired of talking. of thinking and figuring things out. of finding the best words to explain my point of view. of understanding your point of view. of locating the middle point where we can see eye to eye. of accepting the differences when that point of agreement is undetectable.

i know you’re tired of hearing me talk, and i am tired of hearing my own thoughts as well. my chest is heavy and i’m just feeling plain vulnerable.

but as long as things are left unclear, my mind will not rest.

it will not rest because i know if they are set aside today, or buried in the sheer excitement of getting back to our comfortable day-to-day routines, they WILL NOT simply fade away. they will be silenced, that is true. they will be forced to hybernate. but only until the day when their brother- and sister-issues are born. and when they are born, they will wake up the buried issues and join forces. and i tell you, when they’re all awake and ready to fight for their survival, they will not be easy to set aside.

these tiring conversations will benefit us in the long run. that is my belief. but since i can no longer say these things to your face, i write them here to save myself another drenching explosion.

I’m feeling giddy. I’m feeling excited. Gosh, could this all just be because of a prospective job that i don’t even know if i’ll get?

I’m one to avoid talking about things I’m too excited about, things that I want so bad, because I fear the disappointment that may come with the failure to meet my expectations. But shucks. It’s 2:20 am, my night didn’t turn out as planned (but turned out great anyway), i felt sleepy driving home, i spent the first 30 minutes (after arriving in my house) lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, yet i’m awake, and i’m blogging, and i still want to do something more!

Weird, weird. Truly weird.

I feel like blabbing–and so I am.

I wish this is the sign of a bright future, of the rays of an up and coming yellow sunrise, the dawning of a new day. I haven’t felt this kind of excitement in a while. It’s different kind of excitement. Similar to when I was starting to climb. When I was so aware that I was getting into something new but familiar. When I knew that the coming days, weeks, months and years will be affected by what I was getting myself into. That feeling was so vivid. And it was good. Because I felt no fear, no anxiety, no hesitation. I was in a state that other people may refer to as "all out"–just ready to go, ready for whatever is thrown my way.

I hate to preempt whatever is in the near future that’s getting me giddy. Here comes my logical self scratching ever-so-lightly at the back of my mind. Of course it’s completely possible that this giddiness isn’t all due to that job-i-want-so-bad right now. The feeling can be completely physical. A chemical reaction in my system of some sort. If that’s being way too sarcastic, well, then it can be a lot of other things that’s happening in my life. Maybe it’s cos my contract with my current job is coming to a close and I’m just relieved that it’ll be over soon. Or it can be because things are taking a more positive turn in the family business, and the new and interesting responsibilities i’m tasked to do. Or it can be the x-games on May.

Gosh, I really don’t know. But I just feel weird. I’m awake. I’m not angry (even if the night with Miel didn’t go as planned). I’m not guilty (even if I missed my brother’s gig). I’m just….giddy.

**************

On an entirely different note, I’m sensing a state of stress in all of my friends’ blog entries. Parang everyone’s so depressed! Siguro dahil ito na yung panahon para ma-stress. People are at the point in the jobs when they’re already regular and deep into their positions, and in the back of their minds they’re thinking, Shucks, I’m really working. This is what I’ve been doing for the past so-and-so months. Yet I’m still alive, I keep adjusting, I keep tolerating it. I can live with this, I can pull this through, this isn’t so bad…BUT IS THIS WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE?

And that is, my friends, the question that haunts everyone.

…

Grabe, parang multiple crossroads pala ang hinaharap ng tao sa buhay no. I never knew.

…

Good luck na lang sa akin pagdating ng next year.

A newspaper clipping I’ve kept for so many years already. So old that the paper’s crunchy and yellow. Ran across it while sorting through my room’s pile of papers, keepsakes, and more papers. Thought I’d share it with you.
———————————–
Road Maps
By Herminio Santos

    When I was a senior in college, one of the sophomores approached and told me that she didn’t see the point in being in college. She said that students are ill-equipped after graduation because there’s so much they don’t know. Most of the time, they even end up pursuing careers different from their college course. “Give me one good reason to stay in college,” she challenged.
    I know what I had to do. I had to sell college to her. Just look around you, I said. Can’t you not help but be curious of the club outings, the sprightly teachers, midterms, and student rallies? You’ve got people to meet and clubs to join. Tons of opportunity.
    While I was talking to her, I wondered, did she believe me? Apparently she did not, because she quit school a semester later. Maybe I should have said something she cans sink her teeth into, instead of a flimsy lecture on “tons of opportunity.” But at that that time, I had a most disturbing question in mind: Did I believe me?
    As a child, I thought that adults had a blueprint of life, that they not only knew what to do in any situation, but also knew what to do next. Never thought they were perfect, but they lived in a world different from mine, one which I could not enter.
    Not yet, at least. For I figured that through proper schooling, I’ll find little road maps to the province of adulthood, learn how to read it, and once learned, set off into their world.
    My expectations of college, therefore, were high, for it was there where I hoped to get the ultimate road map of life. That one which will show me how to do things and where to go.
    I’ve had my doubts about college. Though I never seriously thought of quitting college altogether, but lots of times I got fed up with studying impervious, irrelevant equations.
    During one of these times, I came across a quotation in an old Readers Digest. Since then, at the start of every semester, I wrote in my journal, and in all the logbooks of the clubs I was a member of. It’s by William J. Cory, and it’s something I value because it gave me a purpose to persevere in college. It says:

“You go to great schools, not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits
For the habit of attention, for the art of expression
For the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts
For the art of indicating assent of dissent in graduated terms
For the art of working out what is possible in a given time
For taste
For discrimination
For mental courage and mental soberness”

    And so it is. That it’s not just memorizing facts and equations because knowing all possibilities in this world is impossible, and that expecting someone to teach us everything is expecting too much.
    In short, college does not give us a road map to life. In college, we learn to write it ourselves.

And I thought we all went to Market Research.

Okay, that is an overstatement, especially since my Thesis Partner went into a totally non-research career. But I really thought we’d all somehow, at least, dip our fingers into the world of Market Research, even for a short bit, to have some practical application of what we slaved over for four years of our lives.

Personally, I got a little discouraged with Market Research, especially with all the OTs and field work that I read about in everyone’s blogs. Call me picky but something bigger that was burning in me was the desire to taste what it was like to be working in big, multinational companies. Yes, I know I wrote an entry on why I didn’t want to be in a big corporation and all that baloney, but kindly blame this indecisiveness on post-graduation perplexity. Henyway. I don’t know if it’s just the dreamer or the radical or the egoist or the greed in me that was running my actions, but I wanted (a) multinational and (b) good training experiences, which should explain the choices of my applications…

Alas, my job hunting began. I wouldn’t even say that I’ve hunted tediously as it was all done over the Internet. But in the several non-market research companies I’ve submitted my resume to, as well the ones I’ve been eyeing, to my surprise, there were sightings of batchmates whom I thought pursued the field of market research.

I applied in Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (ISS)–a company engaged in proxy voting research analysis–for the position of Research Analyst, for the simple reason that I’m interested in the topic of corporate governance. Exam day pa lang, nakita ko na si Agnes! Turns out she just started working there about a month ago (at the date when I was taking the exam).

I applied in Procter & Gamble for the position of Management Trainee. P&G because it’s a stable, multinational company which a lot of people say provides excellent training. I receive an email saying I can take the test and asking me about my preferred test schedule. I choose an afternoon schedule and leave the office for a while to take the test, and who do I see there? Frances!

I applied in Accenture because (1) a lot of other people recommended it–my parents and Miel’s relatives included, (2) my dad had friends there, (3) Miel and I had other friends working there and they say it had good benefits, (4) a lot of people say it provides great training. And Accenture is just ubiquitous! I’ve heard about it since college (with a lot of other friends having OJTs there) and seeing their ads on Jobstreet and the newspapers. While walking to the P&G test center, I passed by an Accenture 2-day Job Fair in the Makati Stock Exchange building. As I was chatting with other applicants in the P&G test, we ended up talking about Accenture, and I heard more about how it’s a good company to be working for.

But so far, for me, not a word has been heard from Accenture. And about 3 days after the P&G test, While walking along Ayala, I run into Jenica (looking all sophisticated and Makati-like, i must say! hehe) and ask her where she is working. Accenture pala!

Wala lang. So now, it feels like everywhere I turn, I expect to run into a Comm Res graduate. They (we?) are EVERYwhere.

Now, I’m reconsidering my big "multinational" dreams, seeing how penetrated it is by my blockmates and batchmates. Tumatawid din sa isip ko minsan, si Miel nasa malaking kompanya na, siya na lang ang magli-live ng dream ko para sa akin (hahaha, ridiculous, i know…) Siguro, kahit hindi ko na karirin ang magtrabaho sa Ayala, dahil nakakapagod din naman ang isa’t kalahating oras kong pagbyahe araw-araw papasok pa lang ng opisina. Dun na lang ako sa aking more practical dreams, tutal, mawawala na ang novelty ng pagiging parte ng corporate world.

Sheesh. Someone knock me on the head this time, ‘cos I know that it’s really just the rebel and arrogance in me perpetuating.

My post title is the first thing that came into my mind. Anyway. No point in trying to figure how it relates to the actual entry cos for all I know, my mind is no longer coherent…Just wanted to share that American Idol’s Chris Daughtry had a beautiful performance and I wanted to share his chosen song here in my blog.

Dahil mahal ko ang Fuel. Kaya ako siguro lalong naapektuhan.

At nung binasa ko yung profile ni Chris, aba, favorite male artist niya si Rob Thomas. So no wonder he likes Fuel–its vocalist sounds like Rob Thomas! Even looks like him, except for the white hair!

Hemorrhage by Fuel

Memories are just where you laid them
Drag the waters ’till the depths give up their dead
What did you expect to find?
Was there something you left behind?
Don’t you remember anything I said when I said

Don’t fall away, and leave me to myself
Don’t fall away and leave love bleeding
In my hands, in my hands again
Leave love bleeding
In my hands, in my hands
Love lies bleeding

Oh hold me now I feel contagious
Am I the only place that you’ve left to go
She cries her life is like
Some movie black and white
Dead actors faking lines
Over and over and over again she cries

Don’t fall away, and leave me to myself
Dont fall away, and leave love bleeding
In my hands, in my hands again
Leave love bleeding
In my hands, in my hands
Love lies bleeding

And I wanted
You turned away
You don’t remember, but I do
You never even tried

Don’t fall away and leave me to myself
Don’t fall away and leave love bleeding
In my hands, in my hands again
Leave love bleeding
In my hands, in my hands
Love lies bleeding