heck is life, life is heck…

i am again in the office right now. i have been pondering all the while (all day,
to be exact, why life has to be like this. i don’t think that i can feel anymore.
you may say that this is just an exaggeration, but hell, no! i feel like a prisoner
in this world of routines.

(this is just a momentary escape from the robotic world… i may not have time
to update my blog every sunday, so i am doing it right now. here in the office,
evaluating every motion and every people that come in and out of the room. heheheh)

i would just like to tell you about what happened last wednesday, i think). i went to
test my fortune in the world of education by taking a test on a yet very intimidating world
of a school somewhere in las piñas (school need not to be mentioned). i felt that the school
projected the same aura as in my HECK high school (take note, with posters all over cavite. YUCK.),
the difference is, that school in las piñas is a very large one, compared to the high school i had
enrolled in which looked like an abandoned warehouse/parking lot. i felt very intimidated when i stepped inside
that school, because everybody, including the lady guard, was speaking english. the funny thing was that i did not
understand the guard when she talked to me in english. i was asking her where could i find the damn comfort room because
i really want to pee… and she told me that it was "just across the hall, in the wall," and when i went there, i figured out that
i was led into a bodega, for goodness’ sake. a bodega. does she expect me to pee in there? my god.

it was also funny that when the guard always talked to everybody in english, i talked back to them in tagalog. you would rarely hear
anyone speaking in the native language. i was intimidated by the students. i was intimidated by the teachers. I WAS INTIMIDATED BY THE GUARDS, FOR
GOODNESS’ SAKE. it was one of those moments in my life when i felt really inferior and i could not do anything about it.
i felt really helpless with no apparent cause. i hated these moments. it makes me want to do an ad like that of the mcdonalds’ with the bespectacled
guy asking the viewers ‘what is the meaning of life." heck. but really now, i am not used to getting myself into this type of situation. when i was in
that school where everybody looked nice and happy and like everyone had undergone an accent neutralization training for a call center company (they speak like
americans), i suddenly miss the sweaty people i ride with everyday in the bus or jeep. the feeling was really unexplainable. Caste system, anyone?

i found out after the exam that i was recommended to teach a korean class.

goodness gracious, koreans again. AYAW BA NILA AKONG LUBAYAN? It seems like everytime i apply for a
teaching job, they always give me a korean class. and to think of it, that school is not a tutorial type of school.
imagine being in a class where the mongoloid race stares at you in awe, only to find out that they do not understand a word you are
saying and then they start to speak in their own native tongue, and you’re the only one who could not understand. everything backfired.
you were supposed to teach english, but instead, you’re exposed to the korean language.

i have nothing against the job, but i just find it really hard. koreans in the philippines are good friends, but it’s altogether a
different thing when you teach them a new language. it’s the same thing with anybody, even us, if we learn to speak a new language.
i trust the professionals to teach english or another language to newbies, but not me.

i gotta go… it’s 10 minutes till worktime again.

i am typing my stupid thoughts in the notepad program
because i cannot risk being scolded again for my misdemeanors…

last monday was the very first time that i was late for work. to
top it off, i was late for almost 20 minutes (20 minutes! imagine!) and
i punched the time card two times… one in the ‘out’ column and another
in the ‘in’ column at the back. good grief, i felt so stupid at that
time. i felt that the whole world is conspiring against me and glorifying
in one of my lowest times… arrgh…

15 minutes to breaktime…

anyway, last week, i received the most annoying text message of all time:

"pwede ba raw tayong mag-reunion?"

heck it is…

these are some of the things that i am going to say when we have the
goddamn chance to meet again:

1. i am a writer now. for smut columns, that is. i derive my creative
juices from smoking pot five times a day. i am also a leader of an
"Oust Gloria" movement.

2. i am a milkmaid now. i’ve spent my whole college life here in the
mountains of zambales, singing "yo-de-lei-hee-hoo.." i have also discovered
the technique of milking cows - - -  you have to grab the cow’s udder
very firmly and yank it all your might to let the milk come out.
i have been named "The Best Milkmaid in the World" because they say the
milk comes out in strawberry flavor. guess why.

i have nothing to do. i have to find loopholes in this miserable path
called life so i am typing out my thoughts to bother you and make you ponder.
hehehe.

here i am again, typing my useless thoughts…

need i say again that i miss (as in big time) school? everytime i am in a bus or in an fx going to work, i tend to lose myself in my own thoughts about the college life i had. i think about my classmates, my classes with my professors especially sir jess and corny as it may seem, a drop of a tear or two emerges from my strained eyes…

anyway, i am here to talk about the yet cruel and pathetic world of working people. i said pathetic, didn’t i? well, yes, if you are in a corporate world like me. i have a dead-end job even if it’s not a stint from the call center. i am a researcher. i describe my job as "sitting eight hours a day in front of the computer with the internet BUT without having the power to open my email or friendster account (i’m in a computer shop, folks. not at work)." yup, it’s the same way every day, from 2pm to 10pm, i am surfing the internet doing my work (company policy, folks… i don’t have to tell you what my work is all about). i feel dead. well, at least i feel like a robot. everytime i come to work, i have to turn on the computer and start whatever i have to do. it’s the same thing with my co-workers. the formula for work is as follows: sit in the swivel chair, turn on the computer and start surfing the net away. formula is the key.

HECK.

there are some things that i look forward at work, though. one is punching the my card into the clock. i never imagined that such an obsolete machine will trigger such excitement in my child-like mind. i like the way it sounds and the way it punches the time on my card. i could do it all day. another thing is coming home from work, when i just sit in an fx and think about the day that was, how i hate the day that was and how i love to go back to college and fool around, running in the halls of the Arts Building and well, just being weird. i love looking outside the window of the vehicle even though i see the same sights all the time. i gives me that fuzzy feeling inside, thinking, "hey, i’m going home, hallelujah!" i watch the faces of every passenger inside the fx and laugh whenever they have their mouths agape, head lolling aside from sleeping and i secretly laugh (ok, sometimes i couldn’t help but smile and laugh openly). i don’t know why, but no matter how tired i am when i come home from work, i never fall asleep because i observe things in and out of the vehicle, and these small things makes me feel alive. i makes me realize that there are other people who are in the same state as i am but they just don’t openly declare their desperation to talk to another human being who can feel their own sentiments.

i want to talk to holden caulfield right at this moment. okay, at least with j.d. salinger. i feel as lost as holden. i know that i am already out of the adolescent stage (good grief, i am 21 years old) but i still feel lost. i feel like a fleeting bubble ready to pop anytime, with its particles lost in the midst of nothingness. sure, the people at work tell everybody that the work as a researcher is a pretty entertaining and educational job, but i feel otherwise. i want to mingle with people, and that is more entertaining and educational than sitting eight hours in front of a computer. i am thinking about going back to school in november. i am going back to school while pursuing a teaching stint who knows where. arrgh. i want to earn money, but if earning money means that i have to be stuck in a dead-end job where death does not only mean a physical death but a mental and spiritual one is useless. that’s what most people are stuck in nowdays, but they just don’t know it or they just refuse to realize it. just like what sir jess had said, it’s a "damn it if you do, damn it if you don’t" situation.

sigh…

i wonder what will happen in the next few weeks or months. will i be a weird professor who will inspire students to do the best they can to fulfill their dreams and feel good about themselves in return?

we never know, do we?