I Begin Anew

I'm coming up for air from this pool of resentment,
Resigning myself from an upset past.
Slicing away these remnants of pettiness,
I'm peeling away the dead skin of the past year.
I begin anew,
Not with a clean slate,
But with a repertoire of lessons learned.
I begin anew,
Not completely different,
But not totally the same.
I begin anew.



© Jadie Nimenzo, 2013. All rights reserved.

Who Likes Being at Their Worst?

There’s something not quite right about “If you can’t accept me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.” Taken into this context, to me it sounds like a flimsy and ridiculous excuse when we've been atrocious to someone – a lover, a friend, family. Subscribing to this particular paradigm apparently leave us entitled to be cruel and generally shitty to people, especially people you care about and share the same sentiment towards you. It’s almost like a get out jail free card.

There is also a tinge of selfishness. I can’t imagine taking meanness from anyone in stride just as I don’t expect anyone to take crap from me. We cannot assume that people will understand why we are (to them) inexplicably sad or angry or negative. It’s not how relationships work. Everything connects and ripples. We have to remember that it is never only about us and our immediate world.

Another thing: (over)acting the victim and victimizing other people because of it. Imagine the worst thing we are capable of. Would we want to be at the end of that?

Granted any circumstance, there is no reason to be colossal asshat for an extended period of time. I mean, what if our worst is just such a piece of work? We can’t expect people to stick around for that. Sometimes we have to own up to our actions and deal with what it leads us to.

Think about it: our worst can trump our best. It wouldn't matter what else we did, how much we apologized. We can’t rewind time and we end up living with the consequences.

Maybe we should try being our best even at our worst. I’m not sure how that will work out but really… who likes to be at their worst? I know I don’t. 

Name Days and a Wasted Holiday

9.13 AM

It supposed to be a holiday today. No work. Supposedly. I had to bid my free day adieu and grudgingly prepared myself for work just four hours earlier. Yes, I did take my time. Yes, that is indicative of how much I do not want to go to work today.

Of course, there is a legitimate reason for this mandate of our beloved company: it's event season and we've got three happening simultaneously this week.

Do I understand that reasoning? Yes.

Am I gonna be a dick and still want my holiday? Yes.

Am I still gonna try to work at my fullest capacity when I get to work today? Yes, and hopefully I'll get it all done early so I can bug out of there by 3 PM. I've got my bestie's birthday to get to.


1.49 PM

She had developed a nature of abruptness. Or perhaps she had it all along; I was just none the wiser. At times, talking to her makes me feel like I've offended her version of ethical sensibilities. And I may have -- once, long ago, and I've tried to make it up to her, really.

But one gets tired of trying to get into another's good graces and I thought, 'Does it really matter?' I decided that I had done enough penance. What else can I do if they can't get over the whole thing? I don't think it makes my apology any less honest. Some people just can get past anything to see the honesty.


4.51 PM

I just snuck out from work.

It's not as if I can't leave at any time I want today; it is considered an overtime work day. It's just people tend to frown upon you leaving early when they have to stay behind and finish whatever work they have to do. Apparently, tendering overtime even when you don't have to is a way to show solidarity.

My rule: If I finished my work early, I get to leave early.

The rest of them can suck it up.


12.53 AM

The bestie's birthday party was epically hilarious.

We were a group of people, virtually strangers, connected through one person and we were all sitting and conversing with ease, an outsider would've sworn we all knew each other for years.

I enjoyed that seamlessness. I wished it could always be that way with new people I meet. But, alas, I'm much to introverted with strangers. I love those rare special cases though. It gives me hope in my capacity to connect.

To the bestie, Happy Birthday! My fondest thoughts to you always. 10 years of friendship, good and bad faced with a bond stronger than ever. Here's to another decade more and beyond.

Walang umayan.

Clusterfucks and Fuckers

Tuesday, 08 October 2013

7.53 am

The morning started early enough that I feel confident that I won't be late. Of course, that is entirely at the mercy of unpredictable traffic. Some days it feels like the world is making way for you. Then, there are days that make you question getting up that morning in the first place. In those days you find yourself on the van's worst seat possible. Your seated next to some schmuck who likes to spread himself out in an incredibly cramp place and the driver is a disrespectful twat who likes to swerve and drive like a maniac. Those days you're sure the driver is trying to kill his passengers.

I guess it's pretty obvious that commute to work isn't something I enjoy. Can you blame me though? It's mostly fearing for your life and invasion of personal space.

Today, however, is a better day. Nice seat, considerate stranger for a seatmate, and so far the driver seems okay. Traffic seems amicable, too.

Should I take this as a sign that it's gonna be a good day?

Nah. Experience has told me that's not always the case.

Unless this is the day that I get to meet his sexiness Tom Hiddleston, the jury is still out.

So far commute is going relatively smooth. I might hazard to say that I may get to work by 8.30 am, friendly road forecast permitting.

9.12 am

One of the main issues I have with work is people overstepping their bounds. It seriously rubs me the wrong way, even if you tell me that it was done with the best of intentions.

With full vehemence I say fuck that noise or I will find a way to fuck up your shit.

I have my responsibilities and I try my damnest to make sure I keep up with them. Even if the workplace is an absolute clusterfuck right now, I always give my best at what I do; I've tried doing subpar work and it just wasn't in me.

To the meddling punk ass bitch at work:

Don't make me feel like I'm not doing a good enough job by trying to take over work I'm responsible for. You don't see me in an arms race and gunning for your job. Sit your ass down and mind your own business. You are the very last thing I need to be dealing with.

1.57 pm

A friend from work and I decided to head out of the office for lunch. We were due for a change of scenery, even if for just an hour and a half.

Conversation consisted mostly of the woes of work. We both had ideas of how things could change for the better. We discussed worries and ideals that we're sure most people at work would agree on -- silently or otherwise.

Call it ranting, but we were due for that as well.

It is clear that change is needed but how do I spark it when I have no means? It's easy enough to dream of having things my way. Just the same, the whole situation isn't just about me. There's a bigger picture to consider; one that affects all the lives connected to it.

So I resign myself to focusing on what I can control: my responsibilities and doing right by my work.

6.30 pm

More conversations followed for the rest of the afternoon. Work, people at work, insufferable people at work. It wasn't the work itself that erodes patience, kindness, and consideration. It was people spreading toxicity.

Blame it on the stress if you must but rudeness is inexcusable. Take it this way: if being disrespectful is frowned upon on children who, generally, are still grasping the concepts of propriety, what more with grown, fully functioning adults?

Making an example from what happened just before I left work: if a colleague humanely asks for you and your group to tone down your voices, it would be a kindness for you to consider the request and deliver. To answer derisively is criminal on my book. I don't think quietness is such an incredible mole hill to climb.

Perhaps people need to go trekking up the heights of their massive egos to get over themselves.

Today's moral: Don't be a cunt. No matter how bad your day is.

Music, Sentiment, and Attachment

On the way home from work today, I was listening to Florence + The Machine’s Over the Love. The song is four and a half minutes long and for those minutes, listening to Florence Welch sing about love separated by distance real and metaphorical, I was somewhere else.

The second the song began my thoughts ceased all together and the music just poured into my mind, like clean water to a parched throat. There was that jolt of electricity and I was taken away from that cramped van and teleported into a world where all that mattered was the beautiful blending of voice, melody, and emotion. Every sound that came out of my earphones just lifted me up and I transcended my being at that moment.

The song just took my breath away and my heart just wanted more. It had all the elements that make an epic song and I was just so content to stay in that world the music created for me and just as wished that it wouldn't the song had to end. 

The obligatory replay was done and the song still had the same effect. That’s when I knew I would get attached it. 

That’s what epically good music does to people – you get attached to it. It is not really a sense of ownership to the song but rather with sentiment and value. Good music is just able to evoke those kinds of feeling because often they reach a place in you that very few things are capable of. Its intangibility allows it to sneak into the crevices of your being and find that piece that it just fits into and it just makes sense.

It doesn't matter what you listen to, there are always songs that bring you somewhere else and you forget everything in those minutes where the song just flows from your player, to your ears, and to every part of you, and those moments are important. It’s a reprieve from the present and we all need that sometimes. Music is one of the things that help me cope when I'm sad, stressed, angry, or when I just want to get away from the world for a while. It's my remedy. 

DISCLAIMER: No copyright infringement intended. I take no ownership of the image, video, and music used in this blog post. Images, videos, and music found on the internet are considered for public use unless explicitly dictated otherwise.

Thoughts on Education and Career in My Life and Times of 23

The first thing I ever wanted to be was a scientist. When the concept of “what do you want to be when you grow up” was introduced to my young, impressionable mind I gravitated towards the field of science and, even if I’m not a scientist now at 23, the subject still sparks that interest and I often wonder how my life would've been if I had chosen that path in the many crossroads I had encountered in my past. But then again doesn't everybody wonder this exact same thing?

I wanted to be different things growing up; I think I did quite a few career changes in my youth and most of them were variations of that scientist dream. I wanted to be a biologist because the science of life seemed like this vast adventure that I would never get enough of. There was also a time I wanted to be what I called then a “snake scientist” and further research (through books because I had no concept of the internet then) gave me a name for the profession: Herpetologist. Perhaps the interest began when I watched the first Anaconda movie, but snakes just fascinated me. Suddenly I was pouring over books about snakes and for a while I was content to reply that I was going to be a snake scientist when asked what I now realize is quite a complicated question to ask a child.

Delving away from the recurring theme, I also wanted to become a teacher and at some point a librarian, reasoning that it would be an apt career for someone who loves books as much as I do.

The science theme made a comeback as high school rolled in. Sophomore year I wanted to became a zoologist. A broader field than herpetology and at that time I had developed a growing interest in animals and I just thought it would so amazing to work with these creatures, knowing more about them, and perhaps discovering new species as I progress in the career. But the whole scientist thing and all its variations were never realized because unbeknownst to me computers would take over my interests.

Everyone takes Computer class here in the Philippines; I don’t know how education systems work in other parts of the world but we have Computer class. In high school that meant basic programming languages and we had Visual Basic, HTML, CSS, and some others. I did really well in Computer class, so well that I became convinced (disillusioned) that I could rock it out as a job and that I would do so well. Demand for Information Technology graduates was very high as the industry was booming and I was told that the pay in that line of work was very substantial. Those reasons and much prodding from my mother I became set in taking up Information Technology for my degree. There I was, making what I now see as a misinformed choice because I was under the impression that I had a deadline in my decision-making and if I didn’t meet that deadline then things would fall apart.

High school is very crucial, I think, here in the Philippines where the culture really values education, especially higher education, and when I say education I mean attending an institution where you supposedly get said education and the more prestige this institution has, the better. If you don’t go to college or drop out of school, you will be identified as someone who will get nowhere in life, which I think is a ridiculous school of thought because college isn’t everything but more on that later.

High school is one of those crossroads I mentioned earlier. This is where you choose what you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life as far as career goes and there is a stigma if you don’t do so well in the face of this period in your life where decisions seemed like everything. If you are set and sure of the path you are going to take and you know that you will see it through the very end, that everything is crystal clear, then good for you and also lucky you. This is not the case for everyone. Most people have a harder time with this. Some people like me ended up with a choice that they regret but when picking between Road A and Road B it seemed like I had chosen the best path.

As you near the culmination of high school which starts at junior year through senior year, people (see: parents) put a lot of pressure on what degree you are going to complete and what university or college you’re going to be attending for the next four years. This is taken very seriously because, in my opinion, college is seen as the be all and end all of this chapter of your life. Succinctly put, you have to get into a college otherwise you will become a disappointment. That is the kind of pressure you have in this type of situation and this is the how high the pedestal is for college and higher education in general.

The choice was made and it was Information Technology. I was psyched about it. Knowing what I did then, I thought I was all set and I just had to get through the college and everything else will fall into place. It was comforting being so sure of the direction I was taking. I wanted that security, I didn’t want to be floundering about still trying to figure out things because there was that ominous deadline of when you should graduate college and that it was only acceptable to be in college for four years. I was very optimistic of the degree I had chosen. I genuinely thought that it would be really exciting and so different from all other jobs out there because computers and new technology were fascinating, growing at such an exponential rate and the idea of being a part of that was so appealing to me. Plus, I had this idea implanted in my consciousness that I would make a lot of money in this field.

The first two years of college seemed to fly by. I was taking the basic subjects for my degree and I was focusing on new college experiences and forming new relationships. I didn’t necessarily breeze through my subjects but I could keep up with my studies and my grades were okay. It wasn’t until third year that everything took a 180° turn and I became off kilter. Major, very important subjects became harder to grasp. The programming languages that I thought I was so good at threw me off guard; what I thought I knew back in high school computer class became irrelevant and I realized how difficult it was, that I merely scratch the surface of this monster. Programming, as it turned out, was a beast I was never familiar with.

I was floored. I was frantic. I was becoming conscious of the mistake of not being more careful with my decisions in the past and not letting myself be informed properly of what I was getting into. I was in the middle of my collegiate career and I knew that shifting courses was not an option. It would disappoint my parents and it would’ve meant that I wasted two years, not to mention changing degrees would cost more money. Also, that would mean more years stuck in college.

So I stuck by it and I tried to look at the bright side. Programming wasn’t the only thing that my degree had to offer; Information Technology presented many avenues of professions that I thought I could be interested in. I tried to focus on subjects like Networking and Database Management, which I liked enough but there wasn’t that spark and certainty that I felt when I was younger and dreaming about what I would become when I grew up.

I was frustrated. I didn’t know what to do. I blamed myself for not trying hard enough with my subjects. I blamed my professors for not being able to teach me well enough and get me engaged again in my degree. I blamed my naivety on the whole spectrum of college life.

On-the-job training just made me even more miserable. It made me realize how unsuited I was in this industry I was supposedly getting ready for. It was glaringly obvious to me that I would be in no way involved in Information Technology after I graduate. What was I to do then? I initially had no idea. I fretted so much and I was trying to figure out what to do next. But then the company I interned for actually presented an opportunity for me.

A supervising employee in the company mentioned that they needed a web writer and I thought maybe I could write or in this case web write for a living. I was shocked and excited because it would mean that work and something that I enjoy extremely would be one and the same.  Who wouldn’t want that?

Writing is something I have always loved doing. I did it well and often but really only for my leisure. Sure, I would share my work to other people, family and friends mostly and whoever would stumble upon my blog, but I never considered it as a career path and it seems ridiculous thinking back because I took immense joy in doing it. How I never thought of a career in writing is beyond me and I wished that I just realized things sooner so I could save myself from all the anxiety I went through my last couple years of college.

Graduation couldn’t come soon enough and three months out of college I was working for the company I interned for as a writer. It is not to say that I didn’t have any reservations. Writing for myself was one thing and not having a formal education in it gave me doubts in my capabilities. Yet I found myself actually learning new things as I was working and the fact that I enjoyed it made my outlook in things better. I was growing as a professional and as a person and more importantly I was finding my niche. I may not have gotten a degree in writing but I was gaining something more important: industry experience. I basically took my talent and turned into a worthwhile profession and I try to learn everyday because it will only further my career. I make sure that my experiences are profound and that I interact with people that can impart knowledge; it is important to know more and use that knowledge in the work that you do.

Am I earning less than I would have if I had gone the IT route? I can’t tell. But I will say that I would rather be happy and content with a job that pays less than be utterly miserable in a high-paying profession.

Is working as writer all that good? No. No job is without its downsides and it is more important that you deal with unsavory situations to the best of your abilities. I’m not going to lie and say that I have the best job in the world because there are some days I just want to turn in my resignation and be done with it all. But I love what I do and I owe it to myself not to give it so easily just because things can turn sour at any moment. 

Industry experience can trump formal college education. I’m not saying you should take out college as an option but I believe that it is not for everyone. In some careers, you learn more by actually doing the work than sitting in a classroom and listening to a lecture. Experience, I believe, is the better teacher. I have learned more working as a writer than I ever will in a classroom and maybe the same goes for other people in other careers. Sometimes education is not synonymous to learning.

I know that it is not an easy concept to grasp given Philippine society’s stand on education. In other countries, where you got your degree or if you have a degree is not necessarily important; in the Philippines, it is the top prerequisite for most jobs. But just because you graduate from a very prestigious school with top grades and amazing referrals does not mean that you are the best candidate for any job. Just the same, an individual could do what another can professionally only everything he knows is self-taught or learned beyond the walls of an educational institution.

So what’s next for me then?

After all that I’ve said about industry experience and education, it may sound like I am contradicting myself by saying that I plan to go back to school and get a Master’s degree. As much as I wished that it didn’t matter, the fact still remains that if I want to climb the success ladder, I need that piece of paper that tells everyone that I have completed another four years or so of education from a certified university. If want a Doctorate, I’ll repeat the same process. I remain optimistic. I’m better equipped to make the right decisions this time. I have to take care in deciding which Master’s I’m going to take and which university has the best program for it. Unlike what happened when I was an undergrad, this time I’ll do my research and not rush.

In this last bit I would say that everyone should give college a lot of thought. Take care in figuring out if it’s for you or not; the best way to do that is to actually give the old college a try. Before all that, consider what you love doing and see where it could take you professionally. Make well informed decisions through research and asking actual professionals from the fields you are interested in. It is also very important that you don’t let other people influence that decisions you make for your future, even if it is your parents. This is your future career we are talking about; YOURS not theirs.

College and career choices may kick your ass but you’ll be damned if you don’t get back up and find the right path for you. So don’t give up.

Pressure

Blogger's note: I wrote this weeks ago and just got around to posting it now. I've been so remiss in writing and posting. I will, however, make it up soon. I've a few writings done.

If I sniff the air, I get the smell of pressure brewing in the distance. Like a latent storm waiting to rain on your parade. It is this presence you are very much aware is charging towards you but because there is quite a distance between you and it, you put all your faculties into preparing yourself for its onslaught.

Pressure and I are old friends. I'm also well acquainted with its siblings Stress and Anxiety and I've had brushes with a cousin named Insanity. Over the years I've done battle against these ghastly forces and sometimes I win, sometimes I don't. The last skirmish left me wary of myself and what submitting to pressure can do to you.

Now is another battle to be won and frankly I'm a bit nervous. But I think that's good because I believe it will only add to my being cautious in how I will tackle what lies ahead.

Prioritization will be an ally. What is more important to get done? What can wait? Organized ranking will be crucial.

Take a step back and just breathe. Actually, take as much time as you need with this step back business; it is a sanity saver. Take a walk. Read a chapter from that book you've just started. Drink tea. Have something chocolate. Little things like this will help greatly.

Multi-tasking doesn't really help. I say tackle one task, accomplish it, then move on to the next (but, of course, take those step-back moments in between). In the wise words of Parks and Rec's Ron Swanson: "Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing."

Are these foolproof ways of dealing with Pressure and its terrible friends? Not completely and not all the time. But everyone addresses things their own way and these are mine. I hope by sharing them I can help you out in my own way.

So I ask: What do you do in the face of Pressure?