summer class

it was my first grad school summer class and the schedule---5:00 to 9:00 pm; saturdays and sundays---made me miss out a lot of fun. but it was well worth it.

composed mostly of MPA with sprinklings of MBA and MAED pencil pushers, my human resource management class was by far my largest. and it would go down in my pedagogic history as the subject where i had the most fun.

my reputation as “terror teacher” precedes me and i love mining it for what it's worth. and so with a long face, i said on our first meeting: “was this the same group that went to dr. omas-as to ask her not to let me handle this subject?”

only the faint rustle of coco fronds could be heard.

“and i gathered that dr. omas-as didn’t agree but instead told you that my bark is worse than my bite; that I don’t flunk students,” i deadpanned. ”well, this much i can tell you: she was wrong!”

twenty-two pairs of eyes darted to the floor just as the coco fronds turned mute. i held the silence for the longest time. then i smiled.

we hit it off from there.

many weekends and laughters later, three-fourths of the class sent me text messages, thanking me for the chance to do a removal exam. and after checking the test papers, i just knew that i’d be making a lot of miserable souls happy.

family day

cagwait white beach at its most pristine.

because my stint with a coal mining firm shortly after graduation doesn't count, my present work is technically my first. and i’m proud of my office despite people's sweeping generalization of government agencies being inefficient, corrupt, or both.

what makes me love my office more is that it values people as, well, people. and this it demonstrates best each time we have our annual family day.

half a full moon ago, we, along with our respective families, had an overnight stay at cagwait white beach. and as always, kids and adults alike enjoyed the sun, the sea, and the sand. really, one can't have enough of cagwait’s allure.

my office always ensures that during our family day, nobody goes home empty handed. and so more than the nice food and an even nicer company, we learned new skills. on the first day, nurses from the Philippine National Red Cross made a lecture-demo on Basic Life Support and CPR. the next day we had a young budding painter, ryan novo, teaching kids basic art lessons.


an officemate doing chest compression on a manananggal.


art-attacked kids.

tired and sunburned, we went home thanking god for making us part of an office that gives us a sense of family and home.

live show

(Alert: you may find this post tasteless and obnoxious.)

Three or four years ago, I sat near the rear of an aircon bus bound for Butuan. It was way past noon when we reached San Francisco terminal, but lunch was still a few kilometers away, at the meal station of Bachelor Express in Jubang.

The bus slowed down at Pisaan, the barangay before Jubang, and judging by the thick crowd across the street, to the driver’s side, it was easy to tell that it was Pisaan’s fiesta. To my side of the bus, there were no houses; only trees dotting the road’s shoulder whose slope poured into a vast, swampy wasteland flecked with water lilies.

The bus stopped and the driver, lugging a dusty bag that contained his laundry, got off and crossed the street.

“To get some clothes,” the konduktor said without looking up from the stub of ticket he was flipping faster than the speed of light.

Everybody groaned while I cursed under my breath. As hunger gnawed at my gut, I looked away, to my right. And that was when I saw him!

On a grassy slope directly parallel to where the bus had stopped, he was crouching like a jockey whose horse was about to jump over a hurdle. From where I sat, I saw that his pants were down and he was holding on to a thick weed to prevent gravity from pulling him into a carabao wallow few feet below.

That his stomach got upset after pigging out was easy to understand, but doing it like a pig was not. I mean, in broad daylight along a busy highway? Well, he must’ve thought that the big trees would shield him from doing a quickie. But then again, the unexpected happens when you least expect it!

Nobody would have cared if he stood without wiping his ass, pulled his pants and walked just like that. But the terrain was such that doing so would make him lose his balance. And so like a Greek statue, he bore it with dignity even if his face was raw meat and his perspiration, kernels of corn.

But it was a credit to the man’s showmanship that not once had he bowed his head. Instead he maintained eye contact with his audience, giving them a constipated smile under a thought bubble that said: “hehehe, inkalasatan ako.” (no translation available, sorry)

Inside the bus, I didn’t move. I didn’t look to see if others were watching the scene like I did.

I felt for the man but I couldn’t help stealing glances. Nervous and embarrassed, he must have tightened his grip because after a while the weed gave, sending him somersaulting his way to the carabao wallow.

Just as his body hit the water lilies amidst an explosion of mud, the bus moved. Then few meters later, to the chagrin of everybody in the opposite row, a laugh broke in unison.

contentment

resty odon, a blogger non pareil who happens to have the same initials and birthday as mine, texted me this morning with this:

"survey lang po. when cn u say that u r contented wd ur lyf? tnx. wont use ur real name."

without giving the question much thought, i texted back:

"contentment is when you don't give a fcuk to what people say!"

but soon as i hit "send," i had another answer coming:

"contentment is when you reach a certain point where you realize that life is not a race and you're not a rat!"

a minute later, i sent this as my final answer:

"contentment is a myth."

self-googling

once in a while i google myself. and as always, results amuse me.

* ZoomInfo Open Directory listed my org as INQ7 (partly correct) and my location, Daly City, California.

* linkedin.com got whatever sketchy information it has about me right.

* Philippine eLib holds a copy of my thesis, The Tulong Sa Tao Micro-Credit Project : An Assessment. (this one really surprised me)

* most of my articles published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer have been posted, nay mangled, by travel sites. obviously something happened in the cut-and-paste process.

* mindanaoculture.com published my very, very crude short story, Manti-anak. i never fail to cringe each time it pops.

what about you, have you tried it?

anong philippine university ba ang bagay sa yo?

Over at Facebook, someone made me take a 7-item test to determine what Philippine University is best for me.

Here's what the result says:



You are a Fighting Maroon/Iskolar ng Bayan! Cream of the cream of the cream of the crop daw ang mga Isko at Iska. Madugo daw kasi ang UPCAT at ang makapasa ka dito ay isang malaking accomplishment para sa isang mag-aaral. True enough, being a UP student is enough to make your parents proud. There are a number of UP campuses nationwide but its flagship campus is situated in Diliman. UP is known for its student body's militant and radical nature---tipong laging nag-rarally at nag-lolobby. Kaya kung sa UP ka nag-aaral, alam mo ang ibig sabihin ng salitang, "tibak". Iskolar ng bayan, ngayon ay lumalaban

oopss....i've always wanted to enroll at the ateneo de manila university. nothing but!

tandag, no longer a city

a good friend told me this afternoon that the supreme court had given its final decision reverting tandag to its old status as first class municipality.

time to move on.