The issue of compromise

After one month on the job, I'm beginning to truly understand why people say that you should get a job that you love to do. Do what you love. Love what you do. Now I realize that it sucks to be stuck in a place, with an activity, that I don't love.

I decided to take the job I'm currently in for good reasons. I want to expand my network, develop my speaking skills, yadda yadda. I'm a firm believer of discipline, of growing, and I was thinking that it's time to develop another aspect of my personality. (Plus the interview went really well.) But sometimes, I think I've been "sales talked". Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the trust and opportunity being given to us (yes, I can see the bright side), but it just wears me out sometimes. And it's not even because the work is already hard.

I'd like to be able to get up every morning and look forward to going to work.

I'd like to be able to sit at my desk and not wish that 5pm would come already.

I'd like to be able to work in a place where my boss will literally have to drag me out of the office because I love my work too much. Hahaha, okay, that's stretching it a bit. But you know what I mean.

I don't want to think that I'm stuck, if only because the first job dictates the rest. Some people believe that. I don't. I don't want to. It's not denial. I just refuse to be boxed into something simply because it's the hole I found myself crawling into.

The problem is, I'm not sure what I would really love to do for the rest of my life. In the meantime, I'll just stick it out. Maybe I'm underestimating my work. And I just have to figure out what I would love to do next.

My wonderful Saturday

The past few days, I've been thinking of so many things to write about. But whenever I get home, I just wanna eat dinner, plop into bed, and sleep the night away. They're mostly realizations that struck me about work, and I'll probably write about that another time.

So last Saturday, my high school friends and I celebrated a sort of post-graduation dinner. I know it's super delayed, but hey, the LaSallians only graduated last month. It was a fantastic idea to get together (and eat at an expensive restaurant and split the bill 5 ways!). I have never talked so much in the past months! It was just wonderful to hear "laughter" again.

I've actually been looking forward to Saturday the whole week. Yesterday morning, we headed over to Town to watch the Fab Five. They were terrific! They are so funny, and Kyan is soooooo much hotter in person than on TV. TV doesn't do him justice! It was a really fun way to spend the morning. It was pretty crazy too because we didn't have stubs for the seats and for the book signing (darn Powerbooks!!! I even bought 2!!!). But thanks to my mom's negotiating with the ushers, one stranger was kind enough to spare us extra stubs, and she got my book (well one only, but it's okay) signed. Sigh, what I would have given to get up on that stage and be inches away from Kyan and Jai! Hahaha.

It's always great to be with my high school barkada. Maybe it's because we rarely see each other. Like maybe 5 times a year, when we get together and really talk-talk and laugh and just...be. So there's definitely that "i miss you" element, well, for me at least. I could count with ten fingers the people who I can be with without pretenses. Like really be myself. I don't know if it's because we grew up together (well, sort of), and experienced a lot of pivotal moments with each other (gosh how dramatic), or something else. But whatever the case is, I'm just glad that I've been so blessed with people whose presence is just such a comfort to have.

Well, I gotta go prep for tomorrow. I think it's time to switch bags. Plus I'll sleep soon. Toodles.

The twentysomething "crisis"

So the post-college phase of my life continues. I refuse to call it my "step into the real world" because seriously, aside from the fact that I couldn't have possibly been living in a fake world throughout a decade of schooling, I'm still finding a way to snap out of my cavalier sense of things. Well, some things, at least.

The only sort of temporal happiness I've gotten so far was receiving my first paycheck. It feels liberating to have money (for the first time. Haha). Suddenly, entering stores isn't such a "lonely" (for lack of a more appropriate term to how I truly feel) thing, because I can actually buy things now, instead of just staring at them. As for the rest of my work, I am only beginning to taste the very hem of the "real world" (fine I will refer to that term for what philosophers would otherwise call the workaday world). Not very fun. Most of the time I'm still groping for reasons I can't disclose.

I'm now beginning to understand the dilemma of the quarterlife crisis. Such balderdash, I originally thought. Yes, there is that series of strange emotions that twentysomethings reading this will understand and relate to. But I never really thought that it would be so serious, so pressing, that people who make sniglets actually had to give it a name! I'm understanding it with clarity now because it has gotten to that point where it simply isn't just a cliche anymore. There is that need for constant self-improvement, yet, there is also that desire to do something you love. When these don't exactly fall within the same pie, what must be done?

The times we are living in contributes to this strange twentysomething "crisis". Really, it's just one of those phases, like puberty. A crisis is like, a house getting burned. Anyway, to continue. Can you imagine the 15th Century Europeans aged 20 and above going through this? Of course not. Their paths would have been set by then! The women will be married and rearing children. The men will be running something, depending on their social class. It could be a country, a business, a lab...whatever. Then again, it probably isn't fun to get married at 14. I can't imagine when their menarche could have possibly started, if they can have children at that age. It must have been a pretty strange developmental cycle. Infancy-childhood-prepubescence-adulthood. They just skipped the whole adolescence and pre-adulthood stage, and that to me, means they skipped a whole lotta lessons (or heartaches, depending on how you look at it). This whole pressure of "establishing a career" (really, a career is just a path. whatever happened to spontaneity? that was how the road less travelled was discovered!), and the difficulty of "finding a job" or moving from one job to another, or shifting from one career to another.... yadda yadda yadda. Is it not an awful lot to expect a 20 year old fresh from college to have his entire life mapped out? Exactly. Hence, the quarterlife dilemma. The thing is, some of us want to take our time to discover what we really should be doing out there. Experiment. While we see this as enriching, the world may not think of it that way. In fact, they might think it is awfully standoffish of us. Unfortunately, the external forces would rather we hasten the entire process and just get on the next train, while knowing which train we're definitely supposed to be on.

I don't know how this entry came to be. The words just sort of popped out. I guess it's just an accumulation of my frustrations. There are things we shut off or at least turn volumes down because of our inability to see it as part of our horizon. But what if it's the right path to tread after all?

Will and Grace

The very first "I-miss-being-a-student syndrome" hit me today. Classes were suspended and I wasn't in my bed. What's wrong with this picture? Ho hum, such is the life of the yuppie (and all other working people). It's sad to think that for the rest of my life, from this point onward, I will no longer enjoy class suspensions (aka snuggly days) during the snuggly months of July and August.

What a terrible, terrible thing.

So, there I was sitting at my cubicle the whole day, trying to dodge thoughts of the rain, some hot Swiss Miss, noodles, and my nice bed. It's a good thing I don't have my own window. I really needed a hug today (such is the effect of the rain), it's so sad, I had no one to hug. I miss my roomies.

An interesting thing happened to me today. Before I went home, I got exposed to the very real world of... let's just say non-heterosexual dating. It was mighty strange, to say the least. I didn't witness it firsthand. I just saw well, the avenues, photographs, and then some. I always had this notion that (the non-cross dressing) gays here are different from Western ones. Apparently, borders really don't do much. Whatever's on US TV exists in this country too. So, yes to Will types, Jack types, and yes, Andrew (from Desperate Housewives) types. I seriously thought (credit it to my naivete) that those types of relationship only happen in the Western hemisphere, reserved to the cooler grounds.

Apparently, the third world has got them too. Newsflash, Cam!

I guess I always knew it existed here. But I figured it'd be like, a miniscule 1% or something. Talk about a newsflash.

In love

I just had to blog the second time today. Despite the winds, the rains, the traffic, I braved the storm just to [finally] watch Superman Returns in Town (and of course, to hang out with dear Rach). It would be really ridiculous to fill up this entire entry with sighs. A gazillion sighs just wouldn't do it. You know, I think even if the movie was horrid, I would still love it because of Brandon. And he even has a hot name. Like, Brandon is a name for cute guys (vis-a-vis Wentworth. What kind of name is that for an uber hot guy, eh?)... Anyway.




I don't want to talk about the effects (how superbly amazing they were--and I hear they were done by a Pinoy, I don't know how true that is, or which parts of it) or the storyline (a balanced mix of different genres to keep each type of audience entertained), or the slight miscast (Kate Bosworth as Lois? Really??). But oh is that girl lucky, she's dating Orlando and gets to play opposite Super Brandon! Agh, I must sound so tacky right now. Hahaha. I just... I'm on Superman high.




His resemblance to Christopher Reeve is amazing though. Where has this guy been hiding?!! The match is as perfect as Daniel Radcliffe for Harry Potter. They're like the out-of-nowhere perfect finds!




I can't believe some people think Toby Maguire is hotter than Brandon. That's just insane.




But yeah, ask Rach, I think out of all the females in the audience, I swooned the most. Haha, I win! =p


Ugh, this is an embarrassing entry. But hey, you don't see guys like that all the time. =) So cut me some slack ;) This has made enduring the entire workweek soo worth it.


______


I got to hang out with Rach here at home afterwards too. She took back
her album of crazy condo pics, which I fortunately got to scan before
she took 'em. Aww I miss the good ol' days. I miss 1003 (and the water
heater at a weather like this!). All the changes are just so
overwhelming! But the entire album just took me back to my 19th birthday. I still had short hair, they had this sweet surprise lunch for me, I had a birthday cake surprise at 7am, we were making all these crazy faces... And some random pics from sophomore year when Rach and I were taking them for our French albums. My gosh, time flies so fast. I guess it really is difficult to just enjoy the moment sometimes. Like, it takes an afterparty before you realize just how blissful some of those past moments were. That's an amazing thing about change, no matter how irritating it can be, it has an upside too: it makes you realize why you didn't want things to change in the first place. And most of the time, it's because things were really, really, really good. Not because you don't want to grow up.



My LSS for the past few days has been Breaking Free from High School Musical. Some of you might think it's so juvenile of me, but I've always been a Disney fan. It's pretty cheesy, I know, since this one stars people, not just those classic cartoons. But I don't know, for some reason, it likes getting stuck in my head. As if I don't hear it enough on TV because of the ads, I heard it in the music store before I went home. Three lines stand out. Two of them are unbelievably true. And the last one is just a really good reminder. See, there is something to these kiddie-slash-tween songs.

You know the world can see us


In a way that's different from who we are...


There's not a star in heaven that we can't reach.

Beloved weekends

Ahh, thank goodness for weekends! Well, my second week of work has officially ended. I would have blogged a lot sooner, but our DSL was out of service for more than a week. PLDT has really bad customer service, it's too bad Globelines isn't available in our area. We would have replaced them a LONG time ago. It's also a little bit refreshing though, to just feel that "disconnect" from the world when I was at home.

So, how's work? Well, as of press time, I'm not exactly enjoying it yet. I'm hoping that that'll change in the very near future. I'm still adjusting to the keyboard changes, actually. Haha. I miss Bailey at work. Terribly. But at the back of my mind, there is still that thought of, what if I waited just a little bit longer... If ACNielsen suddenly calls, the heck, forget the 6-month bond! Hahaha. It's not that the opportunities I have here aren't great, they are, and despite all the shortcomings, my co-workers say that it is a good learning experience, which is really what I'm after anyway. I'm just finding it a little bit challenging to mesh with some of the people. They're not exactly the type that I got accustomed to being around with. And no, I will not elaborate on this. All I can say is, I probably won't last here for an entire year. If they decide to redecorate, maybe I'll reconsider. Hahaha.

Oh well, being where I am right now is a pretty great test, and I am still grateful. I just keep in mind that we create our own opportunities.

I badly miss my friends! I miss my college girls, my high school friends, I miss Char! It's been a really long time since I've had a "substantial" conversation. I miss that.

I'm already counting the days til my very first paycheck! Haha, I'm so excited! I'm already thinking of my first big purchase, and my birthday gift to myself! =D I think I'm gonna have a hard saving. I actually can't wait for my 21st. I can't wait to spend it with my friends. I'm also excited for my birthday gift from my mom (I already know what it is!).

Well, I'm gonna have early lunch. Been listening to a lot of radio in the office the past weeks. I am embarrassed to admit that Paris Hilton is actually not a bad singer.