stories from the middle earth press room

i know i'm not bobo but when it comes to math, my world turns upside down. i don't know why. all my life i think i've been having troubles with math.

maybe because i wasn't able to memorize the multiplication table. maybe because i wasn't taught how to do finger math (never figured that one out) nor the abacus, something the east asians are so good at.

maybe because i was traumatized by this gradeschool teacher of mine who threw books at anyone who commited a mistake when solving fractions of the board. she shouted at anyone who committed mistakes with numbers. she calls math laggards bobo. maybe i could trace my abhorrence and fear of solving math problems to her.

to make matters worse, i even had her for a tutor. really, an honor student who needed tutoring in math. it was only later that my mother realized that SHE (the teacher) was the real reason why i fear math. too late. tsk tsk tsk.

since then my math grades went downhill. math has always been my waterloo. i was supposed to take the philippine science highschool entrance exam in grade 6 (when everyone at school then was about to take it, especially the honor students) but decided against it later when i admitted to myself my math grades would not earn me a passport there. my other grades were really good (esp. my science and english) but math -- baah!

then came highschool.

i wanted a brand new start so studied diligently. i even managed to top one math periodical exam. IMAGINE THAT! i thought i finally got over my math-phobia.

then second year came wherein we had to take up two math subjects. gusto lang nila advanced kami. brutal school ko. my troubles again resurfaced. because i knew i'll be drowning again in my own shit, i often went to the faculty room and consult my math professor at that time and did extra exercises for extra credit so i can salvage my near-death grades. thankfully my math subjects stayed above 80.

third year, we had to take up three math subjects...wala lang, brutal highschool ko. ah pocha gusto ko nang mamatay nun kasi puro math na naman. pag nagsosolve ng problems sa math, pag malapit na ako, nagme-may-i-go-out ako para maligtangan ako. elemetary pa lang ganon na drama ko. everytime i go in our math classes, my stomach did funny twists inside of me. sa gandang kapalaran, napako na ang grade ko sa 78. me isang quarter na red mark ako sa intro to college algebra. basta di na umkayat ang mga maths ko sa 79.

hire na naman ng tutor nanay ko.

fourth year, dalawa ang math ko. yung ibang henyo sa amin (sa amin kasi me advanced math classes, yung mga nilalang na sinuwerte sa talento sa math) nagtake pa ng calculus so bale tatlo ang math nila. ok na ako sa dalawa lang, thank you. i opted to take computer science instead. at least mga binaries lang ang poproblemahin ko: 100101010001010101000101010000010101011110000.

dahil pahirap na nang pahirap ang buhay ko with math, napako ang grade ko na naman sa 78. sa statistics lang ata ako nagka-81. anjan pa rin si tutor. hay nako, buti naman tanggap ng mga magulang ko na hopeless talaga ako sa math kaya di na nila makuha pa akong pagalitan. alam nilang useless.

siguro naawa na sa akin yung teacher ko (alam naman nya kasi siguro na di ako bobo talaga, di ko lang talaga maintindihan ang sin/cosin/tan), pinartner nya ako sa isa sa mga pinakahenyo sa amin sa math para sa paggawa ng exercises. nahila naman ang grade ko pero syempre most of the time sya ang nagsosolve for X. sa awa ng diyos eh nung magcollege kami, yung partner kong yun eh nag-advanced placement exam ng math at freshman pa lang kami exempted na agad siya sa math 17 and 36 kaya pagpasok pa lang namin first sem math 37 na agad siya kaklase nya mga third year na. cum laude siya ng chem eng. saya noh?

math 11, dos ako. not bad. buti na lang tamad teacher ko.

para sa math 14, naghire na naman ng tutor nanay ko. hirap na hirap pa rin ako. para makapasa, nag-finals ako. 3 points away from failing the subject. kumbaga ang passing 55, ako eh 58. whew! tres. halleluiah!

stat 1 (o stat 101 sa ibang campus), i took it up during summer para dun lang ako nakatutok. atsaka may rumors na mas madali ang stat pag summer dahil madalian at di kasabay ang mga stat majors. hehe. pasang-awa ako. tres. dinasalan ko talaga yang tres na yan.

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ano nga ba ang meron at di ko talaga siya maintindihan?

kasi ako visual akong tao. hanggat di ko navivisualize sa utak ko, hindi ko siya naiintidihan. di ko mavisualize ang math. it's so abstract to me...it doesn't talk to me like biology does. yung economics ko nun di ko mavisualize kaya dos lang ata ako dun. same thing: it's so abstract kasi. ngayon ko lang napagtanto na ang economics is about relationships and math is there just to quantify the relationships or to prove the theories.

but math is math. it's pure abstract to me. i can't picture it like when i visualize a mitochondria or the difference between meiosis and mitosis... sabi ng tatay ko logic lang daw ang math. i'm sorry, wala akong logic. i don't operate in "logical" world.

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simple computations are needed in my job now so i mostly rely on calculators and spreadsheets to do the work for me. mas lalo na ako naging bobo sa math. mental math di ko na magawa. grabe. di ko na maalala ang 4x9.

note to self: train my future kids in multiplication table. enroll them in piano lessons as they say musical training early in life improves mathemathical abilities. teach them chess.

ayoko maranasan nila ang hirap na dinanas ko sa math.

i've been watching NHK channel the whole night. in nihonggo.

ewan ko ba. andami naman pwedeng pakinabangan sa mga taong ito pero pinili pa nila gumawa ng kagaguhan sa mundong ito.

tulad na lang ng "Taga Lipa Are" na trojan/worm na kumalat at nagpapuyat sa akin last year dahil manually ko siya tinatanggal sa computer ko at antagal bago magkaroon ng spyware/adware/antivirus updates para matanggal ito.

eto naman ngayon at napupuyat ako sa pagsa-scan ng lintek na "i love my peanut" malware/trojan/worm/VBScript virus (or whatever you call it) na variant ng "IMGKULOT" na yan na lumalabas pag nagra-right click ka. kalaunan di mo na mabuksan ang drives mo.

so obvious ba na pinoy ang me gawa nyan?! bwiset sha ha. kung sino man kayong author nito, take *this* (alam nyo na, daliri ito).

actually andami na nga variants ng "Taga Lipa Are" eh. may nakita na nga ako "Taga Marinduque" etc. etc. sa mga computers ng isang reputable school. i didn't dare plug in my USB flash disk.

pwede ba, gamitin nyo na lang ang talento nyo sa magandang bagay. believe me, it's not a good way para mapansin kayo ng malalaking antivirus companies at i-hire. kasi from what i've gathered sa mga nabasa ko noon, madali lang daw isulat yung malware/trojan/worm/VBScript virus (whatever you call it) na yun. sabi nga ng isang forum, amateur daw na nagpapapansin.

pano ko natanggal sa akin? nagscan ako sa online scanner ng TrendMicro called HouseCall. then i ran the limited trial ng NOD32 para sigurado. on top of that, tinanggal ko yung "i love my peanut" sa registry ko by running "regedit".

kaya kung sino mang may pakana nito, ang laking perwisyo mo sa akin!!!

here i am again, going through the roller coaster ride that is my career. right now i would just love to lie down and wait 'til kingdom come. or until i rot and die. i'm so tired right now and my boss' displeasure at whatever should have happened but did not happen last night (yes, i was working until 11 am) is adding knots on my back.

maybe i should just quit. and get on with finishing my master's degree.

but then again, this is just (again) one rough patch in my very coloful career as a media practitioner. it's all part of the game.

maybe i'm just soooo tired.

i just had my "talk" with an undergraduate class about my job -- stuff, you know, the one that i've blogged about two weeks ago. it seems so ironic that i was sort of enticing them and at the same time discouraging them to step into the world of journalism and then a few days later i am now also questioning the wisdom in continuing this nonsense.

akala ko matapang ako. pero bakit parang nanghihinaan na ako ng loob? o pagod lang talaga ako? maybe i shouldn't take my job too seriously.

but then again i am not the kind of person who takes responsibilities lightly. ayoko kasi na makilala ako na ganun.

there are moments when i think i would be better off as a magazine writer na lang. less stressful than what i am doing right now. or there are moments when i think about applying as a lifestyle reporter na lang. less stressful din.

ewan. it's the PMS thing.

minsan nakakinggit yung kapatid ko. when she was nearing hysteria due to stress (she was handling two jobs, i don't know why because she doesn't have to), she suddenly resigned from her posts and hibernated in our province. she didn't leave my mother's house for 4 months and she would only be forced to step out of the house to buy cigarettes. she watched anime day in and day out and the highlight of the day would be cooking lunch.

i wish i have that kind of luxury.

now, my sister's back in the city and went back to her old office albeit with greater responsibility. she's now a manager kuning kuning with more stress and responsibility. hahaha.

can i just, for one week, be completely out of circulation and relax at home? please? unfortunately i can't. i'm covering for someone who's out there in europe enjoying herself immensely. *sigh*

all work and no play makes luthien a dull dull girl indeed.

i've been stretching -- koreksyon daw, spreading myself too thin this week (but it does not make me thin at all, shucks!) and been working myself to the ground. would be covering for a colleague for two months on top of my regular load since she's somewhere now freezing her ass off in germany for some training (wish to be in her place...*sigh*). my back is aching and my neck and shoulders are made of knotted muscles.

i need some diversion, aside from surfing the net (geeky, i know).

i would be painting!

yes, oil painting. Other Half bought me a set of oil colors (he wubs me!) i'm going back to my original preoccupation, THE original preoccupation i had before i decided i would be a writer of some sort. i'm not really good at it since i don't have any formal training and never attempted to have one. i guess i didn't have the means then in highschool plus i knew i would suck at it. plus there were no ready oil canvases at that time in the province so i was stuck with watercolors. some of them still hang around our house in the province... yes, these are the artworks only a mother could love.

i had always been delusional. i had delusions that i was a visual artist. trying hard. but oh, what the heck! i'm happy when i am doing something "artistic" since i could release my tension and express myself. you could say that writing is still self-expression but really, what i do everyday is far from being what you call an art. my daily writing job is like working in some lab: confined and exact. like science. or something.

that's why i could appreciate my nephews' penchant for drawing stuff with a pencil on a piece of paper. or rather PAPERS. at least they could express themselves. i used to do that a lot when i was a kid. i would do watercolors a lot of times and post them on the door of our old house. until highschool ha. i would copy the artworks of the masters from our encyclopedia of art. my favorite was renoir.

oohh. i'm itching to start now.

since i was immersed with crunching numbers last week, i finally was able to compute how i am "losing" money by just parking it in our savings account, which is only earning us like what? it's so negligible that i could cry. a financial analyst told me to put my savings (technically, our savings) in equities so that our money would grow.

so for this year, since i am already a married woman, i should have financial maturity na. so i have to:

1) invest in a mutual fund. probably i'll choose the product that is invested in the composite index. or i'll have to see the other products. the key here is to buy and HOLD, as the financial analyst told me.

2) try a brokerage firm so i could invest our money directly in some stocks that i know could be worth it. again, the key is to buy and HOLD, unlike some investors who, in the slightest disturbance or volatility, would panic and take out all their investments. ergo, they buy high, sell at a loss. i tried it once, buying a few thousand stocks of a company that has just gone IPO but after two months i sold my investment (kumita naman ako kahit papaano).

3) buy insurance. or a life/retirement plan. no more gadgets for me.

4) revive our buy and sell business.

we have to be financially wise these days. look at the americans, many of them have no savings so they resort to selling their assets -- their house most of the time -- when they need money but unfortunately the value of these assets have gone down together with their economy.

phew. good thing i'm not a shopping-type of girl. (mas mahal nga lang luho ko -- electronic gadgets!) i have to instill discipline and save every centavo i can.

you should too.

i was reading a colleague's (from another paper and another section) blog entry about her airplane experience that could really really make anyone tear his/her hair out -- annoying loud and obnoxious passengers who demanded vegetarian fare from the hapless stewardess constantly.

hah.

i'm not really a jetsetter but i've been traveling quite a lot lately so i may have collected enough flying pet peeves that i could share and hopefully it shouldn't get longer.

i'm not really maarte when it comes to traveling but some things just get under my skin especially when i am sleep-deprived. leaving the house 5 hours before my actual flight would entail a lot of kicking and alarm snooze switching. more often than not, i often get early morning flights from manila, ergo, i am often cranky, hungry and sleepy when flying.

non-stop crying babies. forgive me, i may have a baby in the future and don't get me wrong -- i'd like to have children -- but sitting next to a crying baby the whole duration of the flight would really test your patience. when Other Half and i were going home from bohol to manila after a 6-day vacation in panglao, there was this infant several seats away from us who cried his/her head off from tagbilaran to manila non-stop. the father had to stand up along the aisle and rock the baby to sleep. i feel sorry for the man -- the baby just won't stop. i was wondering whether babies can already develop a fear of flying hence the endless crying. i was also thinking the baby may be sick, therefore, they shouldn't be flying at all. i also fear for the baby's health since he/she wouldn't stop, so it may be dangerous already for the baby if he/she kept on shrieking since he/she may get dehydrated, develop a sore throat or even fever. maybe he/she's hungry (hey you, mommy!) or soiled his/her diaper.

i couldn't sleep because that was the time before i had an ipod or an mp3 player of any form to shut out the ceaseless crying. ipods and other mp3 players are essential tools for a good sleep in a plane.

note to self: do not fly with a baby. as much as possible. if i can help it. if my baby and i have to be stuck in metro manila for two years, so be it.

i had a traveling companion (from one of the trips i had last year) who said he always chose the seats where smoking was allowed. that was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before people became health conscious and airlines then had seperate sections. not that because he smokes but in the smoking section there would be no babies. it's a pompous assessment but that's the way he liked it. i don't know if there was really a time when smoking was allowed but how can i check the veracity of his story? 'nuff said.

worry warts and di mapakali passengers. these are the types who every now and then had to stand up and open the overhead bin and take out stuff 100 times during the flight then hit you with a huge bag on the face only to get a scrappy tissue to wipe his greasy face with.

people who sleep on your shoulders. with spit flowing from his open mouth. who snores to your face. i get this all the time, not only in planes but also in buses whenever i go home to elbi.

people who take their shoes and socks off to pick on their corns, athlete's foot and what have you. yep, got one of those too. this woman was sitting one or two seats away from me during my flight to Hong Kong with my colleagues in August last year. she was removing dried skin from her corn/callous or whatever with her hands or some device. she had smelly feet, my colleagues said.

there's a reason why singapore airlines ask passengers not to remove their shoes during the flight. no, it's not because of smelly socks (but that is also a reason) but rather it's about common courtesy towards the other passengers. they ask passengers to be at least act civilized. don't believe me? go ask them.

people who scream, "mommy, i don't wanna die yet!" whenever the plane hits an "air pocket". i traveled with one gay colleague who kept screaming that whenever our plane hit a turbulence of some sort. we left a stormy manila that time. i nearly hit him with my passport to shut him up but i was across the aisle and i was too sleepy at that time to care. you see, screaming mommy-i-don't-wanna-die-yeat would make other passengers sweaty and question the plane's safety. and to think we were flying on a budget airline (and it doesn't help that the airline has a history of crashing into mountains on a bad weather), which may make other passengers queasy.

talkative seatmate when you want to sleep. yes, they would want to have a friendly chat with you but you were up for 48 hours and the only time you can sleep was during the flight. wouldn't you get cranky and be a snob as well? that's why the ipod was invented. thank you, steve jobs!

these are the reasons why i always choose the window seat whenever i have the chance so there would be less passenger contact and i can have my own little world there. same goes for long bus rides. when i was still thin and very much unmarried then (oh, you get the picture), i always encounter these guys who would always want to have a chat with me and give me those stupid pick-up lines when i ride the bus from elbi to manila or back. what i did (and still do even though i now look pregnant-fat, ergo, not worth the chat) was to stick a pair of earphones from my one hundred-peso FM radio (that was the era before mp3 players then) and pretend to be asleep.

so here are some of the annoyances that i encounter when flying. i may sound maarte but without these things, my flight would have been uneventful and peaceful. i can sleep in peace.

bottom line is: leave me alone, i want to sleep.

i was out of circulation this week (at least out of circulation in my job) since i've been locked up in some freezing seminar room for the past 5 days with professors teaching me the finer (i.e. the more technical) aspects of my specialized job. as in technical like crunching numbers and endless spreadsheets. to be honest, i didn't even know how to use MS excel properly before the training and there i was punching and doing all the calculations for a "project".

on top of that, i still had to write stories. how the hell did i manage that? i don't know. i sneak out of class in between lectures and group exercises. thank God for the bayantel wireless landline (i had my unit changed into a cellphone-type huawei phone so i can carry it with me), i was able to call sources without making a dent on my cellphone load. thank goodness for my asus eee pc since it's so small i can easily slip it in my bag and it is so discreet that my professors didn't know what i was carrying with me whenever i went out of the classroom.

but the information overload and the need to submit stories everyday sent my head reeling. i had consumed too much coffee that would last me a year. i was already a walking bundle of nerves by the end of the training program.

to reward ourselves, my filipino and foreign training classmates and i went to red box at greenbelt to sing and drink the night away. hah.

and now, back to the daily grind.

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THEY DON'T SING IT LIKE THEY USED TO

during our karaoke fest last night, it suddenly dawned on me that there are fewer and fewer good OPM songs and songwriters nowadays. my pinoy classmates and i always go back to the pinoy classics like the ones written/sung by rey valera-sharon cuneta, joey albert-louie ocampo, the ones by odette quesada etc. the pop rock then during the 90s were the best, unlike the trash i hear nowadays with ugly chord progressions, "trying hard" vocals and stupid lyrics. not to mention the annoying april-boy-sound-alike vocalist of a local band. sheesh.

and oh, those never-ending remakes...can't the bands/singers write good songs anymore? i mean, only a handful of remakes are worthy of being heard by the original artists. the rest are sacrilege.

maybe i should go out more and hear those promising bands that play and are visible in the club circuit....but then i am always too tired to go out and do those stuff. geez, i'm getting old.

i was skeptical at first. but when i looked closely, i realized there's something more than meets the eye.

i almost fell in love with chery QQ.


i say ALMOST since my infatuation lasted only a few hours.

last saturday, Other Half and i accompanied my sister to toyota bel-air to check out vios. yup, she's buying herself a new car. so kami ni Other Half, nagfifeeling kami na kami bibili. hehehe. since i already had an experience buying a brand new car (i was the one who went with my mother when we bought the isuzu crosswind), i was the one who was "testing" the car and inquiring about this and that etc. seems like my sister's gonna buy a car after all. within 2 weeks i think.

feeling a little mayabang, we went to check out other car showrooms and the nearest one was chery. we wanted to check out the QQ, which sells at around P350,000 (for the manual transmission model with 1.1 engine). wala lang. but when i saw how cute it was but still it can carry 5 passengers, sold out na ako.

nag-drive test pa ako paikot ng jupiter-makati ave.-buendia-jupiter (i forgot kasi san na ako kumanan before reaching jupiter again). ang gaan ng manibela, maganda ang suspension and it was easy to maneuver because of its size. namamtayan lang ako kasi sanay ako magsimula sa segunda and i forgot i was driving a car, not a pick-up. and mejo malalim pa ang clutch, nahihirapan ako timplahin. aside from the ease of driving a llittle car, the reported mileage was good. when we did a rough computation, my sister and my husband said we can afford to pay in cash. that is, i would have to deplete my "scholarship fund" (for my MA) and our savings (for investment and ebay business). or borrow a little to pay for that car and still keep my scholarship fund.

on the way to Trinoma until we got home, i was kinda giddy at the thought of having my own economical car to drive around the metro and i dont have to rely on Other Half to pick me up after an event or going home to elbi without forking so much money for gas. on the way home, all i can talk about are the POSSIBILITIES with my little chery.

when we got home, i immediately checked out the online forums on cars/automobiles.

the reviews were not pretty. some are even horrible.



one buyer initially said that he was happy with the purchase and reviewed the car as if the few niggles were something that can be fixed EASILY. a few months or several hundred kilometers later, the buyer said chery QQ was crap and his wife's india-made suzuki alto was much better.

and reading other reviews made me fell out of love with the chinese-made car. oh well, what can you expect from a car made in a country with questionable quality control "standards". as one forum poster said, it's not worth it if you're gonna risk your life driving the haphazardly manufactured car.

there goes my little car. i maybe better off with suzuki alto after all. but it's out of my budget already. kia picanto is waaaay more expensive than when my highschool classmate bought it (it was just selling for P300,000+ then but now it has ballooned to P500,000!). hyundai getz is out of my reach na rin if i pay in cash. and i have to pay in cash since no bank is crazy enough to extend a loan to someone like me with a meager salary. so in-house and bank financing is out of the question.

eto na lang pakunswelo ko sa sarili ko when i was doused with cold water to cool down my ardour for the QQ: it's a luxury, not a necessity, ergo, i shouldn't buy it. i shouldn't buy anything, period.

once again i am writing a blog entry about globe.

my Globe DSL connection is one roller coaster ride and it has been acting up again since the start of the holiday season (officially december 21). connection is so slow that i want to throw my wireless router at any globelines office nearest my place. can't download anything decent and can't open my yahoo account.

right now it takes at least 30 minutes for my yahoo mail to open and it takes a lot of "refresh" clicks for my blog to open. maybe i should be thankful pa kasi nung september ilang linggo ako walang koneksyon talaga. AT PESTE, WALA AKONG REBATE!!! nagbayad ako sa mga araw na wala akong koneksyon, na hindi ko magamit sya. PI ninyo, globe!!!

i can't open my online photo albums. can't upload my holiday photos because of this effing internet (non)connection.  hah. i'm sorry i'm being nasty but i'm really sick of this horrible service.

hell, I AM A PAYING CUSTOMER AND MY PAYMENTS ARE NEVER DELAYED! what the hell is the rebranding for when the service that you render is still effing the same -- inefficient and slow? you're just fooling your customers. globe should be sued for misrepresentation or whatever legal term can be used for duping customers.

can't transfer to another provider since i am tied to Globe for a year. damn it. there ought to be a law too that prevents service/utility companies from locking you up for one or two years. consumers should be protected from this (mal)practice because this prevents paying customers from exercising their right to choose or terminate a really baaaaaaaad service.

the sad part here is i can rant all i want but nothing will change. i complain to the PR officer (which is, by the way, bad since i'm turning him into a glorified customer care officer) then things will get a little better for a short time and then Globe will be at it again -- rendering uber horrible service. it is one ugly cycle that we have to break. the question is how. now, about that lawsuit...

but again, what can we do when companies are just out there to suck you dry of your hard-earned money and they don't effing give an big F about you and your hard-earned money basta pumapasok na lang sa bottomline nila yung binabayad mo? are they putting it back to their capex? yeah sure, sinasabi nila ganito ganyan yung infrastructure plans namin, eto yung ganito ganyan but bakit parang hindi bamabalik sa akin yung capex nyo? hindi ko nararamdaman? expand kayo ng expand ng coverage pero mukha namang di pareho ng pace yung geographical expansion nyo sa base station improvement or additional roll out ng base stations nyo? baket?

i'm sorry but as long as you give me this kind of effing service, i would continue coming out with hate blog entries, Globe.

i hate you!