Caustic Thoughts

Random funny thoughts with a taste of Pinoy and a hint of acid.

No Money In This Book’s Leaves

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I was in the local bookstore the other day looking for Tim Ferriss’ “The 4-Hour Workweek” for some business related research I needed to do. The sales clerk proceeded to ask me if that was “4,” “Four,” or “For” and if that was “Ferriss” as in “Ferris wheel.” Finally, after much swapping of letters that would have lost both of us the national pre school spelling bee, the clerk declared, “It’s out of stock.”

I had my doubts, but I did not request for a spelling rematch. I had decided right away that I had a spare Php 300 because over at the fiction shelf was Miguel Syjuco’s Ilustrado.

Long before I set off to attempt to crack the secret code to earning a fortune online, my interest lay in literature, the kind that pureed your brains, gave you a nosebleed and left you depressed. Not that Syjuco’s masterpiece is anything of that sort, but I’ve only really just started reading it.

It’s been four years since I’ve picked up anything of this sort. Since I had kids, money books made better sense because, for lack of a kinder term, they simplified life in no uncertain terms. Learn what sells and learn to sell or your kids starve.

So why am I cheating on my kids, reading a book that doesn’t teach you how to make money? I’m convinced my uninterrupted running after money has left me dumb and dumber. Soon I might also lose my character.

I’m on a vacation from trying to make more money, at least for a couple of hours, prepared to drown either in my cup of overpriced tea or in Ilustrado’s pages, whichever comes first.

When Time Stops

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It’s unavoidable. Working moms can try to balance work, family and self to maintain some semblance of sanity but there is no defying the natural limits of time so ultimately priorities have to be made. In the mad daily rush that defines a family woman’s life, family comes first followed by work and then self.

That explains why I often get to comb my hair only once a day and not even properly such that only half of all my strands are in their proper place. The rapidly expanding natural life saver around my torso has also been left so seriously unattended that I’m certain I’ll soon develop enough fat to naturally protect me from the cold. The previously allotted schedules for 100 brush strokes and stomach crunches are now dedicated to my hyper active screaming banshees and to extra gigs to make more money that’s just never enough.

That’s just how it is and I don’t resent it. Besides, there are those moments when circumstances force you to stop. The other night, we had to rush my daughter to the hospital and after all the panic had subsided and she’d been given medication, we were told she still had to be admitted.

In a room with no instant internet connection and no way to chat with clients, time stopped. I didn’t complain. Nobody likes to be in a hospital but staying put with my favorite girl in the world watching Bizaare Foods on cable was the best treat I’d had in weeks.

Philippine Classrooms Promote Better Education

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When I was a college OJT, I got the chance to accompany my boss to a public school where he taught values. As he was shedding sheets of sweat, and nearing dehydration, with the effort of exhorting his students to emulate some saintly virtue, several pairs of eyes kept peering from the hallway windows.

I learned later on that the owners of those eyes were part of the class. They were constrained to give my boss’ constipated performance a mandatory standing ovation outside because there weren’t enough seats inside to accommodate them.

Those kids had it good actually. The kids at the back of the class had to risk their limbs performing a delicate balancing act on chairs that looked like they were held together by safety pins. Some chairs had no back rests, arm rests or had gaping holes on the seats like toilet bowls.

More than a decade after witnessing that state of calamity, I wonder how modern Philippine classrooms are doing. Based on news reports, there have been changes. Here are just some of the improvements that support better learning:

  1. Due to the lack of classrooms, existing classrooms can now be occupied by two different grade levels being taught two different subjects. This permits young pupils to learn as early as grade 1 the concept of division. As a bonus for good performance, a teacher can reward her pupils by performing magic. She can disappear from one half of the room and reappear in the other half so she can teach both classes. This is a basic trick since most teachers have yet to master the illusion of being in two places at one time.
  2. Pre-school students who have no classrooms squat in the hallways during classes, thereby allowing them to develop their leg muscles, a good preparation for higher physical education lessons.
  3. Older kids also have their share of classroom shortages that’s conveniently solved by night classes. That’s good training for when they join the BPO/call center workforce.
  4. Many students still have classrooms. Some of these promote practical and hands on education. Students can make detailed observations of the underwater greenery in their flooded rooms or learn proper garden shovelling when the water subsides.
  5. Classroom sharing can be done across one grade or year level so students can concentrate on learning just one lesson at a time. This serves the dual purpose of values formation. Students learn quicker the value of endurance when they have to share a tight square space with 60 to 90 other human beings.

President Aquino is eager to add two more years to the high school level. It’ll be interesting to see how/where else students can hold classes. Well the trees are still unoccupied.

Blog Camp In Cebu – No Campfire Horror Stories

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My trip to the Cebu Blog Camp 2011 gave me the chance to stretch my limbs and introduce some movement into the rippling folds of fat I’ve accumulated through my stationary work situation. What did I think of it (the camp, not the exercise)? Was it worth the monumental effort of using a crowbar to pry my existence from the computer chair?

The Sugbuanons did not fall below expectations. They delivered exactly what they promised. There was little room for drastic last minute program digressions that would have made visiting bloggers appear polite and pleasant only to leave trails of virtual discontent.

When they said they’d offer insights into photography and travel for bloggers, they did just that. By the end of the day, I was again entertaining the grand delusion that I could ride a bus into the sunset to the distress of my paranoid blood relations, discover hidden retreats where there are no Jollibee outlets, learn to ask “Where is the toilet?” in 101 dialects and add my voice into the teeming mix of Filipino travel bloggers.

I must say though that I did entertain other hopes (a.k.a. ulterior motives) when I attended the camp. Since I work for a foreign internet-based company, I needed to find out if any of the speakers would mention the words internet marketing in the same sentence.

In the various blogging events I’ve attended, the Filipino bloggers I’d met were schooled in the belief that one should blog just because of one’s passions and interests. I’ve never attended an event in Vis-Min that taught bloggers to treat blogging as a real world business. That sometimes makes me think real Filipino internet marketers prefer to stay under the woodwork where they can secretly burp to the tune of five figure dollar incomes, away from the all seeing eye of the internet’s version of Big Brother.

Is internet marketing (IM) a forbidden topic in blogging events? Is IM the equivalent of horror stories told  around campfires? No one really wants to hear them and have nightmares of Big Brother taking away blog page ranks and contextual advertising accounts.

The last two speakers, Coy Caballes and Reuben Licera, social media management experts, came closest to approaching the topic that must not be named. Licera in particular was perhaps the father I never knew and would have given me the right guidance to taking baby steps in the traffic laden streets of Facebook, where crazy virtual drivers on steroids can run you over and cause death by social media, if he had more time.

By the end of the day, I could not resist the itch to ask why no one had yet said anything about future plans of teaching Pinoy bloggers IM that I made an effort to overcome my fear of men in shades and approached Philippine Blog Awards top man Juned Sonido to ask. He said plans for IM seminars might be in the works and that they have not consciously been avoiding the niche at all.

For the record, there are ethical ways of marketing online so future blog campers perhaps do not need to fear getting raided and rounded by Big Brother’s agents in ninja suites. I’m looking forward to those seminars Mr. Sonido.

Tween Romance With Pimples On The Side

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My six-year old kid has developed a liking for a tween-oriented Sunday show. When I’m not snoring away to recuperate from my endless quest for financial survival (if that quest were equivalent to physical exercise, I’d have washboard abs), I get to watch snippets of the show with her.

It’s a lot like watching a visual scientific exposition of the life, death and multiplication of acne. Every forehead and cheek shot is an insight into the oily bane of adolescents. Other than that, I didn’t think the show had any more biology lessons to teach my daughter.

Yesterday, she asked me if the cute pockets of acne in her favorite show were boyfriends and girlfriends. I missed a beat.

It’s not just the show that taught her the concept of romantic relationships. In our neighborhood, adults already have “pairs” in mind for their kids. In fact, my 2nd child, who still has more gum than teeth, already has his pair. In school, the more astute little kids, just a year out of their diapers and now missing front teeth, already steal kisses.

They start so early.

I never like lying to my girl. When she asks sensitive questions, I like to stick as close to the truth as possible. Of course, I still really wish she’d just ask me about the life cycle of Propionibacterium acnes.

Mall Rats and Mall Horses

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Malls are marvelous inventions of modern society. They’re like the Swiss Army knives of life. You can do almost anything in a mall— shop, eat, work, take a nap while sitting through two hours of Richard Guttierez’s stoned/stony/stone age movie acting. Despite initial objections, Catholics can now also pray in malls in the midst of worldly allures.

One of the more recent additions to mall services are play areas. Now you can drop your kids like bags in a baggage counter and claim them with a numbered card after an hour of shopping. I do that all the time. After all, I only have two arms and two lungs, not enough to lift 30 kilos worth of kids through endless aisles of merchandise.

The all in one play areas are the best options to deposit little people with short attention spans because these places have varieties of diversions to choose from. Specialty play pens with shorter play minutes have been offering good competition though. These are perfect pit stops for parents who just need to make a trip to the loo.

One of the more popular specialty play areas here offers stuffed horseback rides. This one I find a little disturbing. Just like I’ve never really warmed up to masses in malls, there’s just something odd about fake animals in malls.

I’m not over analyzing this. It just feels weird. I was lucky enough to have ridden a real horse as a child. I’m not sure if my kids will ever be able to ride more than stuffed animals. That’s sad.

Vanity Attack

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Some people set a thin line between vanity and good grooming. For example, I’ve been given the advice that before applying for a job, one must pluck one’s eyebrows and apply makeup because these are components of good grooming. That’s news to me. I grew up in an environment where anything beyond washing one’s face was considered vain. Yeah, for the nth time, I had lots of nuns in my BFF list.

I still don’t “groom” myself very well despite the good advice of other friends who don’t hang out in cloisters. The last time I put on makeup was five years ago when co-workers convinced me that the only way for customers to take me seriously was if I painted my face.

I’ve also aggressively refused to pluck my brows. The clerk I was with yesterday convinced me that I made the right decision. Whoever “groomed” her gave her a perpetually surprised look. She probably realized the magnitude of the disastrous grooming session and decided to grow out the plucked parts so now she has something akin to stubble on the wrong part of her face.

I must admit, it was a lot easier not to care about my looks when I was younger. Seventeen years of lack of sleep, lack of exercise, and regular McDonalds fixes have joined forces to ruin my skin quality and create dark continents under my eyes.

The dark circles around my eyes are the hardest to ignore. They’re like the hole in the ozone layer. They grow larger every year. Fellow online workers who share the same look are considering putting up a Panda Look-Alike Society. Why pandas and not raccoons? Because we now also have the girth to match pandas, thanks to our bad eating habits and sedentary work.

A few weeks ago I thought I found the solution to the negative evolution of my facial looks. I bought a product that promised to take care of the 7 signs of skin aging in just 7 days. The product ad said nothing about doing cartwheels or replacing my daily diet with generous helpings of grass so in the guise of scientific testing, I gave in to my sudden attack of vanity and bought it. Seven days later, I looked like I aged 7 days.

Perhaps the product only works for folks who don’t get exposed to the sun, who sleep 15 hours a day and who thrive on wheat sticks. For the rest of us regular folks we only have three choices to look good: pluck eyebrows and put on makeup; live healthy lifestyles and look for golden flowers to sing to like Mother Gothel.

I still refuse to pluck my eyebrows so I’ll try exercise next week.

MisObedient

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My daughter just wrapped up her first year of school. Whew! One year down, 15 more to go of sleeplessness, financial juggling, project-making and time mismanagement.

Predictably, schools have their ways of making parents feel glad that they went through all that stress, distress and duress. My kid’s school had a special awards day. Their teacher was so considerate and understanding of what we’d gone through that she gave all 55 or so pupils in her grade level a special award. They should have called it the common awards because there’s nothing special about something that everyone’s got.

I suspect that the teacher must have had a really hard time. Aside from having had to think of multiple synonyms to respectful, diligent, helpful and everything nice until she got 55 awards, she also had the monumental task of rationalizing each award.

My daughter was awarded Most Obedient. That was after she snuck out of class after I told her to stay put. She only made it in time to the ceremony thanks to a harassed teacher assistant who managed to locate her without a tracking device and drag her and one other deserter to their proper places.

A couple of other parents commented that their kids’ awards appeared to be positive takes on gray character traits. That led to a panel discussion among the more humorous parents.

This is what your kid’s awards might really mean:

  • Most Energetic – Your kid can’t stay put and is the reason why his teacher’s curly hair is now straight
  • Best in Performing Arts – Your kid loves to dance on top of tables and impersonates the teacher behind her back
  • Most Well-Groomed – You or the nanny is obsessive compulsive or has a phobia for dirt, the exact term for which your kid will never ever get to spell correctly, ever
  • Most Resourceful – Your kid can figure out how to give his classmates a black eye with a paper clip

Of course, we were just kidding. We all really love and appreciate our kids, even those who seem to redefine their special awards.

How The Fortress Was Won… By FB

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It felt like I was the last person standing. While the world around me succumbed to the siren song of the curly-haired demigod of geekiness Mark Zuckerberg, I built an anti Facebook fortress where the mere mention of Join, Like or Connect were punishable by beheading.

Last week, a small hole in my wall finally let the virus that is FB in and life as I knew it has never been the same. My former student, Bianca, says my being in FB is the equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling.

The first few days seemed almost like standing trial for crimes against humanity. Those who knew me well enough expressed such great surprise that I was convinced I committed murder. I killed my image… er… principles, I meant my principles.

Of course my friends are all happy that they can now get updates of what I eat, think and the amount of fat I’ve put on since high school but I still feel like writing a ten-page defense.

I need to be in FB because online work is how I put food on the table, send my kid to school and keep the Bureau of Internal Revenue happy. Anyone who’s worked online for a living knows that lighting incense and offering baskets of eggs on the altar of FB’s creator is part of the gig. Competing services and products who already have one million Likes will kill you if you don’t have you’re own page to gather your friends and stalkers.

So how cool is a job that let’s you work in FB? At first it’s as cool as drinking tea in the middle of the Sahara. I don’t just interact with friends, I also create and manage Facebook pages. Finding out where all the buttons, features and functions are and what they do is like reading directions to the comfort room in hieroglyphics in the middle of a maze.

The first time I jumped into the morass of social media, I found myself screaming in the halls of a virtual sanitarium, “…Bleep… you Facebook! Go to …bleep… Facebook!”

My second attempt left me temporarily immobile after 8 hours of trying to decipher geek speak for Like boxes.

My third try killed the nerves in my eyes but not before I managed to create the first FB page I owned with enough bells and whistles to cause brain damage.

Now that that’s done, the next step for me is to figure out the delicate dynamics between Google and Facebook and why Mark Z doesn’t seem to be in speaking terms with the big G. I need to figure this out because some online properties have reportedly been caught between the exchange of bad blood and male bovine manure between the two giants.

Yay, it sure is fun to be in FB.

Remember Your First Real Dance?

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That poor chap outside of your family circle in his father’s extra large suit, who had the misfortune of being picked for the first rose in your 18th birthday, was not your first dance. Go back many years more and you might be able to dig up suppressed memories of that fateful day when you were led to believe you looked cute in crepe paper, a banana headdress and a polka dot dress. Our minds are wonderful auto organizers so if you’re having a hard time recalling, you’ll find your memories filed in a folder labeled “Embarrassing School Foundation Days”.

My daughter just had her first dance. We were never told there’d be one. The kids were measured for costumes without parents’ consent and the next communication simply gave us the bill. I had the courtesy to ask my daughter what she really wanted to do with her life and she said she wanted to dance instead of getting a PhD in nuclear physics.

I figured she wasn’t being exploited or abused so I let her do the twist with her friends. They danced happily, oblivious to the world around them and even to their flailing, out of step partners. Despite the complete lack of synchronized movement and understanding for what they were doing, the kids managed to draw oohs, ahhs and wows from their captivated blood relations.

The older pupils who were required to dance upwards of the 60s didn’t fail to please their parents as well but the kids themselves looked like they were in mourning. These are the kids trapped between the internal tug of war between childhood and adolescence and who are incapable of busting a convincing groove if a song doesn’t contain “Baby, baby” every ten seconds.

One group dutifully pointed up and down to the tune of the 70s under the watchful eyes of teachers who probably included “grades” in every sentence to the pre dance pep briefing. That group forever redefined the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive”. Except for those who enjoyed the shiny costumes and the fake sideburns, the rest had the pained, unhappy expressions of kids under raw vegetable diets. I’m sure it got worse for some of them. Young parents under the spell of his royal geekiness Mark Zuckerberg will not fail to populate the web with photos that will forever defy “delete” or “forget”.

Seriously, why do we do this to our children?