Sad Kind of Happy
There's something about meeting old friends that make me both excited and really sad at the same time.
Maybe it's the fun of reminiscing while also longing to go back to those happy-go-lucky times. Or knowing that despite the time and distance you spend away from each other, you feel the same familiarity of being old friends right at the first meeting - again. But then there's goodbye, and the I-wonder-when-I'll-see-you-again moment.
Just like meeting my old college pal, Jenn Salorio-Normand, now based in TX, happily married. Glad we met up kahit for one night before you went back. This post (like a lot of the pictures I haven't posted here or in my forgotten friendster account) is long overdue, I know. But again, like a lot of things, better late than never.
Dinner Rolls a.k.a. Pandesal
It’s always interesting to see Filipinos in formal events, especially when it comes to observing our fine-dining etiquettes (or lack of it). Nino and I attended his cousin’s wedding – both bride and groom were Filipinos born and raised here, but with parents and relatives born and raised in our home country.
So 95% of the guests were Filipinos. And when dinner rolls were served, a whole lot of them around us took the dinner roll, cut it horizontally in half, spread butter on one side, put them back together and took a nice, big bite. Pandesal nga lang naman kasi ang “dinner roll.“
Hehehe. Kakatuwa.
Who's the Boss?
Pag di ka bilib sa boss mo, you get frustrated.
Kung hindi nila maintindihan na writing for a “print ad” na ang dami-dami-daming gustong sabihin will not work, you get frustrated.
Kung hindi nila ina-acknowledge na matagal ka nang nagsusulat, na baka sakali lang, kelangan ka nilang pakinggan dahil alam mo naman ang ginagawa mo, kesa sa kanilang walang previous writing experience nor writing education at dun lang sa kumpanya nagsimula at umakyat sa posisyon nila, you get frustrated.
Pag ang idea nila ng monthly “direct mail” ay sulat, dahil lahat daw ng creative piece na ginawa nila at pinadala sa mga dentista ay flop, at hindi nila naisip na baka yung mismong creative piece ang problema dahil wala namang sinasabi, tapos ikaw pilit mong pinaglalaban na sumubok na magpadala ulit ng creative piece na gawa mo, pero hindi talaga ikaw pakikinggan, you get frustrated.
Higit sa lahat, pag ang sweldo mo, even after writing for seven &*$@# years, eh hindi man lang pumasok sa range ng mga copywriters with no experience in your city, you get frustrated.
Pagpatung-patungin mo lahat ng yan and apply to me. Can you imagine my frustration?
Epilogue
Ako’y isang frustrated copywriter in an “in-house ad agency” (that’s the way my position was pitched to me) who writes nothing but articles for an online encyclopedia, tradeshow invites, letters and more letters. So when we were selling our printer a while back, I made an ad for it and posted it in our company bulletin boards. Pathetic.
3 Months Later
*This post was written a couple weeks back, but never made it online until today...
06.15.2007
I blink my eyes, and 3 months pass. Ano ba, dumaan ba ako sa time warp?
What has gone on since my last post?
- Relatives have come and gone (my lawyer tita and tito with 6-year-old cousin came to visit and stayed with us for almost a month for vacation and their oath-taking as lawyers in NY).
- My childhood best friend, Chandra, has also come and gone – she stayed for over a week and is now semi-settled in Baltimore, MD as a resident in Sinai Hospital. Yes, she’s a doctor and I’m mighty proud.
- We bought a house!!! But it’s not gonna be ready until maybe October (maybe even September) when they’re done building. It’s just a 2-bedroom, 2.5-bath townhouse (by .5, ibig sabihin powder room – para sa mga nagtataka kung ano ang kalahating banyo), very small but cozy. It even has a little space in the back we can call “yard” kahit na it’s just tiny enough to fit a few (2) chairs and maybe a barbecue. It’s brand new, so nino and I have the liberty to design our house, yun nga lang, mas maganda, mas mahal. I’ll post pics as soon as everything is in order.
- We’re preparing to move out – tomorrow. We’re moving to a month-to-month lease apartment -- divorce na kami ni tito ike. He’s moving to a smaller, cheaper place, too, which is best for him. No matter how nice and spacious our current 3-BR apartment is, Nino and I have no need to keep that big of a place, much less that big of an expense. So we’re moving to a smaller 1-BR apartment temporarily, while we wait for our house to be buit. Tiis kami sa nakakatakot na lugar.
- Nino found a job in UCLA Healthcare (kaya kami bibili ng bahay), and since his office is further than mine from our apartment and we only have one car, he drops me off first, drives to his office for 30 minutes and then picks me up after he’s off. The sad part is, I have a 7-hour workday (8AM to 4PM), he has 8 (8:30AM to 5:30PM). So that means, I’m stuck in the office from 4PM to whatever time he gets to my office to pick me up – that’s about 2 hours of waiting every. single. day. Actually, he has been leaving 30 minutes earlier since he started, only so that I won’t have to wait that long, but I still wait about 2 hours because of the traffic. But it’s not all that bad – I get to surf the net, read my magazines, find another job (mahabang kwento ito), go across the street to Borders (parang Powerbooks) and read my chismis (I did that for a while until creepy stalker-material guy showed up), or write blogs like this during my waiting time.
Unfortunately, I haven’t caught up on a lot of e-mails since the day I got about 178 unread mail in my Inbox (that was a couple months ago), and because blocked ang multiply at friendster sa office, I can’t catch up on happenings in family’s and friends’ lives. Bulok na nga ang mga pictures ko sa friendster.
So hopefully, after we’ve moved and settled to our new apartment, I can finally catch up again to present time and get my bearings back.
