Health is down. Heart is still pathetic. Work is becoming mechanical and dreary. All else, nothing better really.

Then Saturday came. Tetris gave my heart a chance to smile and hope again. Sunday catch up with Him and some other friends upped the ante. And in between, rest kept me company. Good days just came about and I thought that’s it. I guessed, for work, none’s in store for me yet. Anyway, one can never have too many blessings, I thought to myself. With the current state of things, one or two is actually very good enough for me.

And then work rocked my socks off earlier today.

Life indeed is a roller coaster. I can never ask for a better thrill at this moment. I’m putting my hands in the air, throwing all my cares to the wind and enjoying this ride.

*Hopefully I can make separate posts about the things mentioned above, when I can actually go in more detail. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to though. Sucks to be lazy like me. But yeah, whatever.

Taking a quick glance at the small piece of paper on my hand before crumpling it and throwing it away, I noticed that only three items were accounted for so I went back to my counter to pay for the overlooked item. You see, I never cheat on any of my purchases, however cheap or costly it may be. This is one of the very few (only as of now) principles I live by consistently. Everything went fine –another honest day chalked up.

But then, as I was walking away, I saw the nearest watchman kind of smirk at my cashier lady. I realized then how my good deed could have made her look awful. I mean, I’m sure that was an honest mistake on her part and I don’t have any problems with that kind of mistakes whatsoever. But then, my and the business’ take on this are probably treading very different routes. To me, it was really nothing. While to the, let’s say, store manager, it may be one x mark on the lady’s performance.

Now I felt kind of sad with what happened. Had I ignored the slip and walked away from paying for the missed item, everything would go on like nothing’s happened. But because I did not walk away, I served the Corporation (let’s just use this term for the grocery business because it’s cool that way) right and possibly made the Individual (the cashier lady or any employee for that matter) look bad. Well, I know that what I did was the right thing to do. But thinking about the constant battle of the Corporation vs. the Individual, I cannot help but want to side with the latter –because of me being part of that set in my own workplace. With that in mind, now I don’t really know what to make out of the good deed I just carried out.

Oh, well.

I’m not sure if I made any sense but that’s that. It’s 3:28 AM anyway.

Feeling better as I then had the whole three-seater all by myself, enter this smallish but seemingly brusque guy. In an instant, I wished for him to not choose to sit in my area just because (1) I just got the seat all for me, and (2) I didn’t want to sit next to a potential irksome person again — yeah, I’m judgmental that way, who isn’t anyway. But alas, he walked towards where I’m sitting, stood by my side and started to mutter (at this point I’m expecting rude) words to let me know he’s going to sit beside me.

To my surprise, this seemingly sketchy character turned out to be a very polite man. He asked me if he could take the empty seat beside me with an unexpected courtesy, even calling me “Ser.” The whole time, he was all courteousness, addressing the conductor with the same level of respect.

This made me smile deep inside. And by “this,” I’m referring to the fact that he was so respectful and all that, and not that he called me “Ser” — I’m not that shallow, you see. I mean, how common it is for a guy his looks (okay, judgmental again) to be that courteous? Heck, it actually (well, in my point of view, that is) has become highly unusual for anyone this day and age to be that well-mannered in settings like that. Even I am guilty of this from time to time.  This thought made me feel a little ashamed of myself. Moreover, it made me feel, one could say, sad about how most people ended up losing the basic manners like what the guy has shown.

To kind of make up for this, and as a sign of regard to the gentleman, I will emulate his actions. I will try my best to be that respectful all the time, even addressing people “ser” or “ma’am” whenever possible without any discrimination or bias. In this way, I can make the world a place with one less rude individual — me. It maybe nothing much but it will be something significant to me and possibly to the next “ser” or “ma’am” out there.

This is good, I think. I seriously hope I can do this consistently.

I will change the world — my world at least. Let’s go!

PLEASE GROW UP!

Okay. Time to go back and get a few more minutes of sleep now that that’s out.

Officially, I hate where I am right now. I’m stuck. And I’m stuck real good.

While the people around me are going on with their lives, getting better, stronger, faster or whatever by the minute, I’m just here slacking my life away. I’ve been putting off everything to later, like all the supposed blog posts here – I currently got four or five in draft. It’s like I’ve put my life on hold or something.

And now, I feel that I’ve dug the rut so deep I don’t know how to get up. I am so behind I have not the faintest idea how to catch up or even where to start. Somebody please save me. Get me out and get me out of here quick. I seriously wish that life is that easy. That an actual somebody would just come tomorrow and help me up and out of this. But yeah, life is no fairy-tale or movie. I know that however badly I wish for that help, nobody’s going to come. It’s just me. And no, I’m not turning all emo and saying I’m all alone in this world and blah blah. I’m saying only me can get me out of all this. And I got to really believe that.

Too bad at this very moment, I don’t think I can. So I guess the only thing to do is to sleep on this. And hope that maybe tomorrow, I wake up with stronger faith in me.

Oh my sweet hope,
cradle me tonight as I sleep.
And tomorrow, wake me
up from this bitter slumber.

Well not really. I just had a couple of bottles but I’ve got to say I have significant “tama” at the moment. It’s actually a very interesting experience for me, since it’s the first time I got this kind of drunk that everthing seems to be in fast forward. I feel like I’m very much hyper right now. And it’s actually amazing how I’m now being able to compose this blog post.

Anyway, so going to the happenings before getting drunk, it’s a very fun day. I got to get together with two of my best pals after so long, and got to meet the cool special someone of one of them. Moreover, we talked about business opportunities which is a very welcome change for me, given how I’m feeling currently kind of jaded at work, given all the stress and doubt the new project assigned to me is causing.

And before that, for the first time, I, and my body, felt great after my physical therapy session. A side story/explanation, I’m having back spasms, I think, lately that’s why I’m going to PT sessions lately.

–

As mentioned in my preceding post, I left the office very late then. And true to what I said there about starting to be anti-social, I declined to a couple of invites to spend the night out with some friends.

(Though those groups of friends most probably won’t get the chance to read this, I’d like to apologize for taking rain checks for quite some time now without good reason)

Instead, I had (very late) dinner at Italianni’s in Boni High with GraceD, one of my very good friends, my closest actually, in the office. We’ve been trying to hang out more lately since she’s leaving in a few days for New York and we probably won’t see each other for a long long time.

(I’ll talk about her and her transferring to the Big Apple on a separate post, before she actually leaves. Well, I hope so)

We ordered chicken salad, crab-meat pasta and four-cheese pizza. I definitely enjoyed the salad and pasta. But the third was a totally different story. You see, I have a taste for quatro formaggi pizza. But I was certainly not a fan of the resto’s said pizza. Theirs was very bitter tasting. It took me a bite to know for sure that I’m never going to enjoy it. I thought to myself, what an unlucky order. I was kinda sulking because (1) I wasn’t able to enjoy my four-cheese pizza, and (2) that’s 500 put to waste (hey! 500 pesos is 500 pesos). Good thing, GraceD shared this sentiment which lead us to deciding not to eat the pizza nor take it out altogether.

After finishing the salad and pasta, I asked for the bill glumly. The waiter might have noticed me sulking over the pizza (or the lack of it!) as he gave us the tab. And we confirmed our dissatisfaction as we instantly opposed the second he brought up the idea of taking it out. And boy was I so glad of the next things he said. Basically, he asked me to avail their resto group’s membership/loyalty card for practically nothing (it’s Php 1500 actually, but other than the discount you get for your next purchase to their restos, you also get a gift certificate of the same amount), plus throwing in the pizza for free! I said yes without any reservations. The thought of not paying for the most disappointing pizza (so far) had me hooked. Now you get how much their four-cheese let me down. So, we only paid for the pasta and salad and the card, which as said, was virtually for free. And, weird it may be, that made me real happy then.

So, it became a very good night after all.

And still, we chose to not take out the friggin’ pizza.

–

By the way, the membership/loyalty/discount card is called the Bistro Frequent Foodie card.

Picture not mine, of course. Hey, free advert here!

Go get it, quick. Pretty good deal!

Today is the last working day of the month of July. End of the month equals submission of our monthly utilization report in the office. Being the lazy ass that I am, finishing and submitting the said report at the last minute, as usual, I’m one of the last to get out of the office.

This monthly (lackadaisical) tradition of mine has been eating up all my month-end Fridays. I should really stop slacking and try finishing those reports ahead of time. This is so I can get my butt out of the office early on these occasions and be able to enjoy Fridays and month-ends as I ought to – whooping it up out there in the social world just like how a young happy bachelor like me should.

Well, not really. I noticed lately that I actually enjoy going out or partying significantly less than idling at home or in the office. I’ve becoming more and more anti-social these days. And weird as it may be, I’m kind of liking this better. No hassle. No worries. No (or minimal) expenses. No hangovers. No nonsenses.

I’m acting like an old man. But what the heck! Acting old or young, is not really the issue here. At this moment, I’m enjoying life this way. And that, I believe is what truly matters.

Some picture I got when I searched for "evaluation". Definitely not mine. Just wanted to have a picture here. Haha!

DISCLAIMER: This is my blog, so I can put whatever here. Details below may not be true in real life. Anybody can dream.

The month of July means performance evaluations.

I just had mine earlier today.

And as I expected (KAPAL!), I got excellent marks.

So I’m very pleased. Because good scores and great comments mean better salary increase and percentage (at least that’s what I’d like to believe). Now if only they also mean promotion, this would be a perfect world!

But oh well, nothing’s perfect. Maybe next year!

Now, I just hope I be able to keep things up,  especially considering the new tasks and challenges ahead. And I’m really looking forward to salary increase and bonus times!

YAHOO!

I read from a friend’s friend’s blog just recently that our creativity quotients diminish immensely as we grow old.

This was probably the case on my last post. Yes, the one with lame excuse for going inactive on this blog for a little more than a year. Right? Alien abduction and all that rubbish –I know I could have come up with something better. But oh, well! It’s done. It’ll be a waste if I try writing a better excuse. I guess I could just say it was the rust from my long blogging hiatus –oh great! another excuse right there!

Anyway, to veer away from making another excuse, I decided to bridge with short facts the missing year and a few months from the post before the post before this post to the post before this post. Digs? Hahaha!

Off we go.

The last things I were talking about then were the work opportunities and the girl I was dating at the time.

As said, I got a number of job offers back then. Of all, two options made my short list: (1) a Management Trainee position in a telecommunications company which would’ve paid me big bucks but bonded me for at least three years; and (2) an Actuarial Assistant position in a Retirement consulting firm which would’ve given me a crack at my not-so-serious-at-that-time dream job but offered me a lot less monetary compensation. I was torn between money now and career in the future at that time. Fortunately or unfortunately, something came up prompting me to turn down both offers and bum for the next three or four months. When my roller coaster of a life was fixed back then, I ended up getting another shot at the Actuarial job. And fast forward to now, almost a year later, I’m happy to say I’m still at this job and I think I’ll be here for another year or two at the least.

The other thing, the girl I was dating, well, that didn’t quite go as well as my career has gone. After dating for a month more, just as I was starting to acknowledge that I’ve already fallen for her, she went on and broke my heart. But for good reason, I think. And on hindsight, I thank her and the universe for that. I choose not to expound on this thought. Let me keep this one. Just know that, looking back, I was happy and she was happy then, and I’m happy now and I’ve no reason to think that she’s not happy now as well. And that’s what’s important, everybody’s happy! Too bad we weren’t able to save our friendship after everything. Ganun lang talaga ang buhay. And hey, we never know, maybe someday we can rock the world again as the cool friends that we were before. Kung hindi man, uulitin ko, ganun lang talaga ang buhay!

And there’s your two truths. All the other things are not as interesting. I’ll just blurt them out just for the sake of bridging/updating:

I turned a year older;
I passed my first Actuarial exam;
Then there’s Christmas;
Oh, and New Year too;
And in between those, my childhood friend and first ever crush who migrated to San Diego came home;
And we had an epic yuletide vacation;
Then I got regularized at work;
And then I failed my second exam;
Then there went the stressful months of April and May at work;
And then I moved from Katipunan to Mandaluyong to be nearer the office;

And alas, we’re now!

Speaking of now, now I got to go to sleep. Because there’s work tomorrow, and I think I’ve already achieved this post’s purpose of updating. And either I’m too lazy or I really lack the creativity to think of a better way to end this, so I’ll just use the need to sleep as an excuse in abruptly ending this post.

So good night, world! Until my next one, which hopefully won’t be filled with excuses but with a lot more creativity.