WORK GETS IN THE WAYI
my job is killing me.
while other half, my mother and i were driving along south luzon expressway last saturday, some office (that i dread to speak to during breaks and vacations) called me up and asked for my email address 'coz they're sending me an urgent statement.
oh god.
true enough, the story was big (well, in our company president's opinion anyway), that i had to turn on my tiny laptop while cruising the highway and plug my 3G phone to access the net. when i was finally able to read the statement, my laptop gave a warning sign that it's gonna die out on me since i didn't recharge it the day before. all i could do was to send the statement to desk and pray that the boss wouldn't order me to write the story "no matter what".
then i had to call several people while i was in the car to do several follow up and coordinate with central desk. my mind was working overtime trying to compose the story in my head while trying to keep myself from jumping on the roof of the car and do some loony stunts to keep other vehicles at bay and shout "let me pass! this is an emergency, i have to arrive in lb on time! my boss is gonna kill me if my story does not make it to the desk!"
thankfully, the desk called me back and told me they can't run the story since we already ran out of space. i can do the story later for the following day.
that was a huge relief. imagine na lang i would already be a basket of nerves by the time we reach calamba if they insisted that they needed the story. it took us 4 hours to reach lb from makati. the traffic was that bad.
that meant nga lang i had to write a good number of stories that night after arriving in our/my mother's house while my friends were texting me to come over the bar where we usually drink since a friend just arrived from vietnam for the holidays and was already leaving the country again the next day.
i told my bestfriend i was already dying. i had to finish the wretched stories before i could commit to any drinking binge. when i was already through with work, i arrived at the said bar at quarter to 11 pm but they had already gone to another friend's house. i gave them 20 mins. to come back for me but 30 mins had passed ut there was no sign that they're coming back anytime soon that i already gave up and said i would just go home since i was already tired. i drank one bottle of san mig light by my lonesome.
hay. the next day i had to write the story. and spend the whole afternoon at home while Other Half went gallivanting with his friends somewhere out there.
that's the kind of life that i lead these days.
---
2007 has been a roller coaster ride for me. it has been quite different from the previous years since
1) i got married and i am still not used to being called "missus" and have another name attached to the same name i've used for the past 28 years. and finally im tied to one man that i've committed to be with for the next 50 years or so.
2) been out of the country several times for leisure and work;
3) my learning curve was -- how can i say it -- put on an overdrive since i had to learn a new beat really fast and keep up with the old timers (who had covered the beat for at least a decade) while foreign and domestic events have made it as volatile as possible.
4) it was tumultuous at the office since the managemen t decided i should wreck my life by being assigned to that much reviled beat but thank god i stood my ground and battled my way out of it.
5) my ethics has been put to the test
6) there are so my things that happened it 2007 that i cannot consider my life as boring as before prior to my life as an non-journalist
i guess 2008 would be a lot more challenging since i had to finish my thesis for real and have a baby afterwards. i wonder how i can manage that.
while other half, my mother and i were driving along south luzon expressway last saturday, some office (that i dread to speak to during breaks and vacations) called me up and asked for my email address 'coz they're sending me an urgent statement.
oh god.
true enough, the story was big (well, in our company president's opinion anyway), that i had to turn on my tiny laptop while cruising the highway and plug my 3G phone to access the net. when i was finally able to read the statement, my laptop gave a warning sign that it's gonna die out on me since i didn't recharge it the day before. all i could do was to send the statement to desk and pray that the boss wouldn't order me to write the story "no matter what".
then i had to call several people while i was in the car to do several follow up and coordinate with central desk. my mind was working overtime trying to compose the story in my head while trying to keep myself from jumping on the roof of the car and do some loony stunts to keep other vehicles at bay and shout "let me pass! this is an emergency, i have to arrive in lb on time! my boss is gonna kill me if my story does not make it to the desk!"
thankfully, the desk called me back and told me they can't run the story since we already ran out of space. i can do the story later for the following day.
that was a huge relief. imagine na lang i would already be a basket of nerves by the time we reach calamba if they insisted that they needed the story. it took us 4 hours to reach lb from makati. the traffic was that bad.
that meant nga lang i had to write a good number of stories that night after arriving in our/my mother's house while my friends were texting me to come over the bar where we usually drink since a friend just arrived from vietnam for the holidays and was already leaving the country again the next day.
i told my bestfriend i was already dying. i had to finish the wretched stories before i could commit to any drinking binge. when i was already through with work, i arrived at the said bar at quarter to 11 pm but they had already gone to another friend's house. i gave them 20 mins. to come back for me but 30 mins had passed ut there was no sign that they're coming back anytime soon that i already gave up and said i would just go home since i was already tired. i drank one bottle of san mig light by my lonesome.
hay. the next day i had to write the story. and spend the whole afternoon at home while Other Half went gallivanting with his friends somewhere out there.
that's the kind of life that i lead these days.
---
2007 has been a roller coaster ride for me. it has been quite different from the previous years since
1) i got married and i am still not used to being called "missus" and have another name attached to the same name i've used for the past 28 years. and finally im tied to one man that i've committed to be with for the next 50 years or so.
2) been out of the country several times for leisure and work;
3) my learning curve was -- how can i say it -- put on an overdrive since i had to learn a new beat really fast and keep up with the old timers (who had covered the beat for at least a decade) while foreign and domestic events have made it as volatile as possible.
4) it was tumultuous at the office since the managemen t decided i should wreck my life by being assigned to that much reviled beat but thank god i stood my ground and battled my way out of it.
5) my ethics has been put to the test
6) there are so my things that happened it 2007 that i cannot consider my life as boring as before prior to my life as an non-journalist
i guess 2008 would be a lot more challenging since i had to finish my thesis for real and have a baby afterwards. i wonder how i can manage that.
