why i stopped updating this blog

Lots of reasons but bottom line is I eventually got tired of talking about myself.

on a quicksand

Arrrrgh. This is one of those times when I wonder if what we have here is nothing more than a mean game of hypocrisy. It sucks. And it hurts. And it's frustrating. And it doesn't make any sense. And it scares me.

Because it could just as easily happen to me. Taking the wrong turn. Making the wrong choices. Ramming my head against the wall.

Because I am just as sinful. If not worse.

Please Lord, increase my faith, because where I'm standing on is much worse than shifting sand.

hooked! =D

on this

miserable thought of the day

(while on a bus)

How many more butts does my shoulder have to rub against before I could finally get home? *sigh*

sana meron ako nito

1. The Complete Idiot's Guide to FOREX Trading

2. The Complete Idiot's Guide to TIN Application (Pinoy version)

3. Utak

kadramahan ng isang bagong saltang uring manggagawa

I don't know if I can honestly say that I like my new job. I'm currently working as a web content writer/BPO slave and I have to churn out five articles a day for a foreign exchange website. So far, I've only been able to hit the five-article target once and I think two of them sucked big time (the other three were my usual mediocre crap hehe). I still have to work on writing at a much faster rate.

On the plus side, I learn new things everyday and I'm thankful that I'm assigned to a challenging topic (forex markets) which I know little about. So I have to do research and get my neurons to work and try to distinguish legitimate information from online trash. Oh yeah, all research have to be done online and that makes me miss the good ol' books and the stuffy smell of libraries.

Right now I'm doing profiles of countries which are major players in the global economy. I learned that the Swiss eat more chocolate than any other people group in the world and that their currency is historically the most inflation-resistant and that, instead of fighting over the majority of seats in parliament, they have this power-sharing scheme among the political parties (screw nationalism, I'm moving to Switzerland! =p). I learned that Italy has had about 61 changes of government since 1945 (that's an average of one new government per year, and we're complaining about political instability?!). I learned a new economic concept (as well as a new French word): dirigiste which, as practiced by France, involves private ownership but a heavily government-regulated economy. Despite these tidbits of knowledge I accumulated over the past two weeks, I still get frustrated at times because I feel like I'm only seeing the surface of the things I'm writing about and I don't have the opportunity to dig deeper. Like, why do Italians change governments every so often? Or is their a significant causation between high consumption of chocolate and economic prosperity?

The point is, I feel like I'm producing shallow articles and merely adding to cyberspace garbage. There are lots of times when I'm just rephrasing stuff from wikipedia and I hate myself when I do that but I don't have much of a choice because I have to submit 400-word articles at the end of each day. Sell-out would be a nice description of my current state.

So why did I take this job? Well, I called the Inquirer to ask if I still have a shot at working for them even though I was delayed for more than a year. I was supposed to apply last year as required by the scholarship contract but the thesis disaster happened and I got stuck in the twilight zone. Anyway, the HR person I talked to said they'll just give me a call. It's been three weeks and I still haven't heard from them. Either they completely forgot about me or they plainly just don't want me at all. I'm betting on the latter.

And here comes this BPO company offering me the website writer position. The pay is not bad. And I'm still traumatized by the Inquirer's apparent rejection so I didn't dare apply to other media organizations. I feel like I'm not yet ready for mass media and I have this paralyzing fear that I'd mess up. Self-esteem problems basically.

So I took the website thingamajig job and told myself that at least I'm still in the writing business, working during the normal daytime hours and not endangering myself to leukemia in a call center graveyard shift.

Another plus: there's minimal human contact which perfectly suits my socially-challenged personality. Well, there's the boss who communicates with us through instant messaging but he's on another time zone anyway so it doesn't require so much relational effort. There are occasional chats with officemates but that is easily kept to a minimum. There's really nothing wrong with them. They appear to be functional, well-adjusted individuals, of course, with the usual flaws inherent to humanity's fallen nature. I'm just my usual psycho self who takes more than the normal time to adapt to a new situation and a new group of people. So they probably see me as "masyadong seryoso at suplada" which is not surprising since that's practically everyone's first impression of me since kindergarten. No kidding.

So let's see how this new job of mine will turn out. I think I'm going to be in the forex website for a while so I guess that's a good thing. I just hope I could do a much better job at this. The boss is more concerned with article length and the presence of keywords (i.e. forex, foreign exchange) to make it search engine-friendly but I'd also like to deliver accurate, well-written pieces that people could find useful and that I could actually be proud of. I don't know if I still have hope of being a half-decent journalist someday. Right now, I'm just concerned with trying to make the most of what I have so that I could at least still live with myself.

bye bye bahay toro

If all goes according to plan, I'll be moving out of the student center this weekend. It's been a great year living here, sort of like a Big Brother house minus Kuya's annoying voice and the disgustingly contrived love teams. These are some of the things I'll definitely miss.

> Ate Armi's gourmet cooking
> Ate Jojee's version of classic Pinoy dishes
> D-na's "provincial" dishes complete with alugbati and kalabasa
> cooking sessions with Kuya Bryan
> katayan ng spam at armour treet
> watching American Idol in Kuya Caloy's room
> Paula-bashing while watching American Idol
> late-night talks at the dining table
> weekend trips to Cherry and Circle C
> Grey's Anatomy, House, and movie marathons
> midnight meals
> taking out my mood swings, PMS and otherwise, on Kuya Bryan
> pestering D-na in the mornings
> bashing Kuya Jan's "pinakuluan" dishes
> the ever faithful toaster which has survived more than a few reheating disasters
> fireworks displays courtesy of our rich neighbors
> spying on our rich neighbors
> catching up on the latest antics of the pitbull gang and the friendly neighborhood drunkards (May tinutukan na naman sila ng baril kagabi?)
> the cockroach-killing skills of D-na and Kuya Bryan (waaah! how will i survive in this roach-infested world without you guys?!)
> our very own pansit: masarap habang mainit (angel hair with [not sun-dried] tomatoes sauteed in [not oliver oil] Golden Crown butter)
> Kuya Bryan's basil-ridden recipes and other weird concoctions (food tech to the max!)
> the big messy house with its busted light bulbs, leaky roof, abundant rat and cockroach populations, and crazy but surprisingly endearing housemates who made my one-year stay an amazing, reality TV-worthy experience

I'll miss you guys. *gets teary-eyed*
Ilabas na ang Ian's Best strawberry wine! =D