Mar 2008

Ok, I went on introspective mode halfway through my “me” time. Took the Lenten season to de-stress. I’m having the shortest vacation weekend of my 1st quarter of 2008. It’s funny what a quote can do for your mind and not to say your mood.

I was reading through my Stewie’s blog and came upon this little gem:

“Life is a series of departures and arrivals”. So apropos. Life has been good to me this year. There were a few bumps and bruises due to me not getting what I want, but I’ll chalk that all up to bratty-ness. I departed from my mental state of continuous disappointment last year and arrived at the state of mind that I can honestly say makes me happy. I am generally a happy person. But thinking back on Q1 of 2007, it was all so screwed up and confusing that I am counting my blessings this year.

What is this insight going to do for me? In adult learning, to get the buy-in of participants you would have to base the delivery and methodology by preparing to answer the most basic of question when composing your catch phrases. The question is: WIFM. What’s in it for me?

If I’m going for the macro level I would say that I am now arriving at the time that decisions have to be made that would change the life I lead. Nothing drastic. But if I’m going to base it on one Trainer’s Kabala reference, everything that happens in the future is based on decisions made in the past. Makes sense. But he goes one-off and says his belief is, once the die is cast, there’s no turning back. Not that I believe in that crock-a-shit. I was never a fan of “Pre-destiny”. But it does make you think.

Life has been a series of misadventures that in retrospect I am a bit embarrassed. I have arrived to this conclusion after reading my offline journal. (Yes, the one that’s hand written and would burn the instant I die.) I have been the brunt of all good things and I think I wasted so many opportunities in my 30 years of existence. One glaring excuse is my habit of being afraid to commit. It stems from thinking there might be something better around the corner. Now, I’m at the corner. And believe me, there is nothing better.

Now I am thinking of taking a plunge into the abyss. I am now telling myself to commit. Commit to take risks and make mistakes that I have consciously put on my path of self-realization. On a micro level, a start to this resolution would be to decide what things need to be done at this moment. I am not going to enumerate it for your viewing pleasure but I am listing it down in my mind.

One thing’s for sure. I am now taking over my life. I will no longer be a victim of misconceptions, miscalculations and misadventures. I am now mistress of my destiny. Trite, but true. And if I make mistakes along the way, I am going to change my delivery. I am not going to be a slave to pre-destiny. What’s in it for me? No more late nights (or in my case early morning) deliberation with myself. No more what ifs. No more needing “me” time to think about where my life is going. I’m taking the bull by its horns and plowing through the crowd.

Ok, now done with that…. On to other things. I was browsing through my friends’ blogs that I haven’t really had time to look at these days. Gawd, some of them got maudlin in old age. It’s all doom and gloom. Or worse, it's full of platitudes. What happened? It’s like mid-life-crisis-meets-quarter-life-crisis-and-i-want-to-kill-myself-now entries. I know were all supposed to mature as we grow older, but it was never written anywhere that we needed to let go of our fun side. I know we all have bigger responsibilities now, but it was never stated that we needed to sermonize our way to meeting it. It’s just plain mind boggling and disturbing. These are the folks who used to know and say that we can take on and solve anything that are thrown at us. (With panache and while wearing high heels too.) It’s sad.

Anyhow, that’s it for the meantime, have a happy Easter Sunday everyone. May you and your family be blessed!

I swear ang hina ko talaga sa Whodunit and The Who moments. There’s this one officemate of mine whose blog is feeding my inner pagka-tsismosa. He blogs about the great moments of PS history. Pero not on the work side, but on the juicier things. (Kaya di ko masabihan tungkol sa confidentiality thingy that they are lately imposing sa office eh.)

He talks about who’s sleeping with whom, who’s screwing who and who’s being screwed. The only thing is, it’s all in code. Sometimes feeling ko he aims to frustrate. (Love you Buquee!) At akala ko marami akong alam. Hahaha! He has surprised me time and again. And the funniest thing about it is, he doesn’t confirm. He just puts it out there, people talk, and then when I ask him if it’s true, he gives me his trademark naughty smile that seems to say “mamatay ka sa kaiisip.” Hay.

So last week, sa sobrang inis ko, (or likas lang akong tsismosa) I had about 10 folks decode the stuff for me. (I was in training, had nothing to teach anymore for the day. They are all vets. I figured, they would know.) Now I know why it confuses me. Di lang pala account ko yun. I mean, LOB. Meron palang nakahalong iba. I just realized na ang liit ng mundo namin. Ang clannish ko. Meron pa palang iba. Hahaha! Feeling ko, our LOB rules and wala nang iba. Anyhoo, I got some confirmations here and there. But for the most part it’s still like decoding a gawd-darn puzzle. Hay naku, one of these days, I’m gonna kidnap Pumpkin and tell Buquee the ransom is a list of all the codes, DECODED for my viewing pleasure. That’s it!

One thing I realized though, with all the drama of the “socialites-wannabe-posers”, I still love reading Buquee’s blog more. The posers’ problems seem so un-realistic for me. Coke, Gucci and Dollars. I’m lost. At least in Buqeez world, its TMs screwing Sups, Sups screwing agents and agents screwing….hmmm…TMs?

XoXo

It’s that time of the year. My addiction. AI Season 7! I have been glued to the tube for the past 2 months, plus some. Following the auditions, the eliminations, the booboos, the tears, the triumphs. *Sigh*. This is my drug. And I only get a dose roughly 5 months a year. But it’s worth it.

After the last two seasons you would think Idol would have saturated the market of voices that can wow, but this season shows how universal the program is. The ensemble is so diverse this year, in race and music genre, and they are all ready to rock.

There’s one factor missing though. Every year for the last 6 seasons they always had this token someone who's kinda mousy, nerdy or weird in the mix. Not really bad, but deffo not good either. But surprisingly this year ALL the TOP 12 contestants are strong. They have they’re own styles but everyone can carry a tune and sing in rhythm. You’ll notice that during the “critique” portion because most of the comments of the judges are about song choice and performance, not the voice. Maybe they’re finally realizing that “commercial-bility” comes in different packages nowadays.

I am doing fearless forecasts for the past two days since the first elims happened. I think David Cook, Carly Smithson and Michael Johns should be TOP 3. I know a lot of folks would hate me ‘coz I didn’t pick David Archuleta or even Ramiele Malubay who’s a “kapwa” Filipino. Here are some of the reasons:

1.David is not so commercial.
2.David would shoot to stardom anyways even if he gets eliminated next week.
3.David is too cute and too young for the cut-throat world of the music industry.

I am now turning into a mother hen. He just kicks my “mother-ing” instincts in gear. I always wanna cuddle him and shield him from big-bad, Cowell. Just imagine how I felt when he forgot his lyrics. He had this lost look in his face, I wanted to swat the producers who came up with the theme. And I love Lennon and McCartney!

As for Ramiele Malubay. Honestly I don’t understand what went wrong. I saw her during auditions and elims and she had these really power house performances. Then everything went downhill from there. And gawd, I am getting pissed with her attitude. She seems so conscious when she sings. I imagine her asking herself when she’s on stage: “Is my blocking okay?”, “Does my hair look good?”, and “Should I turn this way or that?” Really disappointing lately. She would really need to concentrate more on the singing and just not think about anything. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t know what’s going on in her mind when she pouts at Simon Cowell (!?!?!?). But I won’t be surprised if she’ll be eliminated in the next three weeks if she doesn’t show why we Filipinos should invest our hard earned money texting and calling to vote for her. There are deffo better singers in the group.

Ok. So I’m off to my long weekend. I am planning to hibernate this Friday ‘coz I have been on the go for almost two months now. I need some “me” time.

By the way, I tried reading all the brouhaha with the Gucci Gang and all that stuff. Via and Aubs have been talking about it and I couldn’t relate. (And it's only fair to be updated since Via watches AI just so she can relate to my addiction) But as for the whole Brian, DJ and Celine controversy:

I would rather watch American Idol over and over again.

That’s it. -ISH.