thank god i am finished with that report that i’ve been working on for 4 months. it has already invaded my life to the point that my thesis was stalled because of it. and what did it gain me?

nothing.

the people i should be affecting were not bothered at all and from what i heard, they virtually ignored me.

i had been snubbed many times but this was the worst. i worked my ass off. put my ass on the line. i did not do it because i can win awards but because i want to make a difference. i wanted to call the attention of those who are in power. and this is what keeps me going, despite the lousy pay. stories like these make me feel alive.

but it seems like my voice is just a small one in the wilderness. because i belong to a school of small fish in a small pond.

—

speaking of pay, somebody called me up yesterday and he was trying to convince me to leave my present job and jump ship. he was pirating me.

i know the pay would be higher—but not that significantly higher. there are employee benefits that are non-existent in my present company.

but i know he is in desperate need. people had been leaving and i think he’s at his wits’ end.

what does the job entail? well, i think i would do field work to cover everything on top of editing jobs. 8 hours a day. no holidays (even holy week). requires me to be glued to my computer screen forever. could not be entitled to a vacation leave for quite some time (company policy). no mentor to speak of. because of the stress i would be experiencing if i take on the job, i think i will never get pregnant.

and Other Half even said it is a dead-end job.

so it seems like i’m already decided that i would stick to my current job.

but what makes me think twice, thrice—maybe a hundred times—is that i maybe i’m making a big mistake in letting this opportunity slip away.

but then again, my gut feel has not let me down so far. i was offered another job around 2 years ago but i turned it down because something was not right deep inside me. had i accepted it, i wouldn’t be here now, doing what i’m doing right now and achieve what i have achieved so far.

what is my gut telling me?

I just turned thirty yesterday. I don’t know if that should be cause for celebration.

My mother had me when she was thirty. She was having problems making ends meet then because both she and my father were just university instructors/researchers with 3 kids. They were also pursuing their masters degrees.

I am thirty but it seems like I’m going nowhere.

Didn’t go to work yesterday. I thought i deserved a “news-free” day so I just spent my birthday in bed. The whole day. 90% of the time I was horizontal. Just reading.

At 5pm I went to the salon for hair and make-up and donned a fire-engine red little wrap dress that made me look like i was a hotdog and drove to makati to attend an awards ceremony. of course, i did not win anything.

then i spent the rest of the night with two colleague-friends at ice bar in greenbelt. they danced while most of the time i just watched. my shoes were killing me and i really don’t dance. plus the only button in my dress just popped out so the only thing that was standing in the way between nakedness and the public was the belt i was wearing. it was wiser to sit and just chug beer.

anyway, i spent my birthday the way closer to how i would want it. the past three birthdays were horrible. i was working myself to the ground, those three years. i couldn’t even enjoy the food that the pr people gave me for my colleagues to feast on because i was horribly busy, filing at least 4 stories.

the years prior to that were equally pathetic. in 2005 i was unemployed so i couldn’t even spare myself enough funds for a good massage. i cannot remember the past years before that. probably they were really pathetic.

i am now thirty but it seems like i haven’t changed: i am still the immature, selfish self i had been 10 years ago. maybe that’s why i couldn’t get pregnant. God thinks i am still incapable of being responsible for another human being who would be totally dependent on me.

people keep asking me if i am pregnant/trying to be pregnant. and when i say yes, we’re trying, then they would ask bakit wala pa. “i don’t fucking know!” i wanted to scream.

people are just so nosy.

found a new addiction: MANGA

for the past month, i’ve been glued to the computer screen until 5 am in the morning reading scanned and translated manga online. i finished samurai deeper kyo (and the manga–which is 308 chapters long–is waaaaaaaay better than the anime) and now finishing fruits basket. i have other mangas in the pipeline as well.

my cousin, potatochips, told me she is worried about me.

i’m turning into a dork, she said.

“we must go out. you are already living in fantasyland. come on, we must go out this week.”

i told her i’ve been escaping to fantasyland for a loooong time with all anime and young adult fiction i’ve been reading.

“come, we must go out. you have to touch base with reality,” she cried.

but i’ve been too entrenched with reality, i told her. day in and day out, problema ng pilipinas pinoproblema ko din. My job requires me to *know* and internalize world and local issues. Everyday I monitor the day’s news on BBC, CNN, Bloomberg and the online news services while getting dressed and/or eating brunch. By the time I get to the office, I am already inundated by local issues and news from around the globe. At night I still need to read my copies of Newsweek and Forbes. When I get home to the province, I read Time.

“Ah yes, your life is already full of “reality”,” my cousin conceded. “But still, you need to get out to escape it and I have to wean you from your fantasyland. I don’t want you to become a dork.”

I am already in chapter 85 of Fruits Basket. I am reading it right now while waiting for tomorrow’s issue to be closed.

it’s only now that i am seriously thinking of applying for a scholarship…to japan. just to get back.

two weeks after ondoy hit, our subdivision was still underwater

material things are inconsequential. the floods have made my husband realize that it doesn’t make sense to buy a P300,000-living room set (we don’t own one) when it can easily be swept away in an instant by floodwaters. he realized that it’s useless to buy stuff that would just be useless when one has to evacuate and be forced to subsist on noodles for 4 days while stranded on top of your house or inside your house. material things just drag you down, make you hesitant to leave and make you blind to what is important in life.

finally, he sees my point of view. i’ve always told him that i don’t get this thing about people being so attached to material things, up to the point that they cannot sleep at night because the figurines inside the glass cabinet may break or fall. or the living room coffee table may get scratched. or counting every piece of spoon and fork in the house lest one may be missing.

that’s not really a happy way to live.

there’s so much to life than flaunting your house, your material possessions and acquiring hordes of inconsequential stuff just to validate your self-worth. the world is so wide and wonderful that it’s a shame to just let yourself be imprisoned by your material possessions. you only live once.

so now we’re selling a lot of stuff. you’ve gotta be liquid these days. purging is good.

i’ve read somewhere that in order for you to live a happier life, dump everything and just pick the pieces that you could fit in your backpack, which you could take with you if/when armageddon arrives too early.

that eliminates your stupid figurines.

i don’t know if those who were affected by the floods would be able to go back to their normal lives again. i don’t know what “normal” is anymore for them. many lives and businesses were ruined by ondoy and pepeng.

as of today, the main mode of transportation in pinagbuhatan, pasig is still the banca. no wonder it took us 3 weeks before the major road in our area became passable. it was only last night that i was able sleep on our own bed after nights of camping on my sister’s couch. this is just a minor inconvenience compared with what the others are experiencing.

yup. still living in a waterworld. reminds me of that apocalyptic movie…similar circumstances: the movie showed that they were fighting for scarce resources; while opportunistic bastards here are taking advantage of our desperate situation. a store here sells a 5-gallon mineral water for P160 whereas under normal circumstances i can buy at least 15 gallons for only P100.

water has not receded yet and remains the same as yesterday. but things have become worse today as i read on facebook that some crocodiles in the nearby park are “missing” (i.e. gone from their cages/ponds/whathaveyou) and subdivisions in the vicinity are warned to take care when going into floodwaters.  a child from 3 houses away from us is still missing. details are sketchy so i don’t know yet if they already found him/her. water at the main gate of the subdivision where are now is still chest-deep.

been trapped here already for 3 days and counting. we’re running low on food. but we’re still very lucky considering a colleague in the newspaper industry lost her house and the only things she was able to save were her kids, laptop and cellphone (yah, a journalist would not part with her laptop). other colleagues came to her rescue and they already bought food, clothes, blanket and searched for temporary shelter for her family.

we’re very very lucky compared with hundreds or thousands of filipinos who are now suffering more because of The Great Flood of ‘09. our troubles are so trivial compared to theirs.

metro manila is under a state of calamity. no-brainer.  80 percent of metro manila is submerged in our own filth. pasig-cainta area —where we are—is one of the worst-hit places in the metro. Other Half and i are lucky that the floodwaters didn’t enter the house; it only reached the garage and thankfully the cars weren’t damaged or anything.

our neighbors aren’t that lucky. this was taken this morning.

and some most parts of pasig and cainta are still submerged under water. water level in some subdivisions in our area is already up to the roofs. these floodwaters don’t have anywhere to go as all 3 rivers (pasig, marikina and the floodway) here are already overflowing.

two nights ago, i dreamed about a friend. a very close friend from highschool. she saved my sanity during those years. we remained close even until after college. she was on my speed dial in those days. Other Half and I went to her place almost 9 years ago so that she would get to know him.

but all of a sudden it changed when she became the girlfriend of another highschool classmate. that guy had a reputation waaaaaaaay back for being selfish to the extent he would cut off ties of his gf from ‘outside world’. that reputation didn’t bother me that much until one day i realized i couldn’t reach this friend of mine who used to call me ‘buddy’.

i let it pass. i assumed we were both busy.

but i dreamed of her two nights ago and i woke up really sad. my heart was breaking. i didn’t know i was grieving until NOW.

i am now acknowledging to myself that i was hurt when i learned that she already left for the US to pursue her masters and doctorate in some hotshot university there FROM OTHER PEOPLE. and to be with her bf who was already working there.

and i learned that they already got married when her mom told my mom.

i told myself it was ok, maybe she didn’t value our friendship that much.

but i tried to reach out to her. when my father died, i emailed her and told her that, hoping that she would say something to me…

she never replied.

i uploaded some highschool photos in facebook last year and a lot of my batchmates commented on these, almost making the pages like chatrooms. but there was this photo of us–this friend and 2 other friends–that was bereft of any comment. then one of the girls in the photo commented on it.

then SHE wrote a comment. she said, “it seems like yesterday.”

oh yes, it seems like yesterday when i slept in her room and we tweaked our yearbook. it seems like yesterday when she would tell me about her drinking episodes with brods and sisses, her first kiss, her boyfriends who took her for granted, her heartbreaks, her hopes of getting into this university for higher degrees, swapping books, watching movies in our second floor TV nook…

i checked her facebook account and saw she already has a kid with our classmate/her husband. i would’ve wanted to say something to her but i couldn’t. i am afraid of rejection.

i hope she’s happy. knowing her husband, i know that they’ll not be coming back here. so i guess i won’t be seeing her again.

News magazines and newspapers should think hard about how we would be able survive this changing world.

“Far Eastern Economic Review to shut down in December

The Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), one of Asia’s most respected English-language news magazines, will close in December, its owner Dow Jones and Co. announced on Monday.

“Unfortunately, despite several attempts at invigorating the brand, the Review’s continued losses in advertising revenue and readers are now unsustainable,” News Corp.-owned Dow Jones said in a statement.

It said the magazine, which was launched in 1946, “will cease publication in December so opinion and commentary resources from Asia can be expanded across all Dow Jones properties,” which include The Wall Street Journal Asia.

“The decision to cease publication of the Review is a difficult one made after a careful study of the magazine’s prospects in a challenging business climate,” said Todd Larsen, chief operating officer at Dow Jones Consumer Media Group.

“It has a rich history of pioneering journalism and helped to set the standard for the press in Asia in the post-World War II era when local publications often lacked the freedom to report honestly,” he said.

“Dow Jones is proud to have been associated with the Review and its invaluable contributions to the understanding of the Asia region,” he said.

“By increasing resources into growth areas at Dow Jones, we’ll better serve a diverse group of readers and advertisers across Asia,” said Christine Brendle, publisher of The Wall Street Journal Asia.

Dow Jones said Hugo Restall, the Review’s editor since October 2004, will remain a member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

It said current Review subscribers will be offered a one-year subscription to asia.wsj.com, the regionally dedicated edition of the Wall Street Journal’s website.  AFP”

who’s next?