I’m all for pushing forward for the rest of the year. Now that I’ve got my priorities straightened out a bit, I just hope things just get better in other aspects. Like getting help. It is super stressful to be the only one who projects and draws up life strategies.

The past ten years has been quite a frustrating decade with my parents passing away and everything but it’s about damn time that I finally focus on building my own damn life. I’d have to say the best thing about these last few years is getting together with Rish and meeting friends who will most likely be the ones I keep for the rest of my life. And since I see my future with Rish, it’s high time I work on that.

I have to say that seeing two of my Bros – Jojo and Abet (my buddy from high school) – I’m feeling a bit pressured as well. While the subject comes up once in a while, Rish and I agreed to sort other things out first. Her getting a foothold in her career, me finishing my masters and strengthening my finances. But the pressure’s there nonetheless.

Work-wise, everything looks to be just going smoothly. I’m glad, that despite the recession, my work’s still around. I’m quite excited by these latest developments since it’s a chance for me to build up some technical skills.

While writing is my main focus, I don’t see any reason why I should shut my door to local linkages. My old boss and I still touch base and try to sniff out possible opportunities. I’ve identified quite a lot of possible projects to involve people I know. However, I’ve been burned quite badly before after some of my acquaintances whom I’ve recommended to my professional contacts performed quite badly. It’s hard to gamble friendships and reputation at the same time.

Had a bit of financial reconfiguration over the weekend and I’m dead serious with how I’ve planned my finances for the next six months. If everything goes smoothly then I might be able to create a good buffer so that I can work on other possible purchases.

I only have a year left to deal with my academics but I’d rather have that kick into higher gear come October or November. I do have until the summer period to finish but I’m targeting April as the earliest I can finish. It’s really just a matter of sitting down and writing the damned thing. Still, money’s top priority for now.

However, one X factors to getting jobs is how an applicant presents himself or herself. Here’s a reality that you really have to consider. You might be good and quite competent, however, the odds are that there are other good people around, probably just as good or even better than you. Don’t let your school, degree, or honors be a guarantee that you’re the fastest gun in the west and that you have to be paid top dollar.

With the financial crisis sending even the best people in other industries back to the job market, companies can hire people who have three times the knowledge and experience at the say pay grade. At the end of the day, the it’s the person who can make compromises and position himself or herself as of the most and best value to the company who will get the job.

This applies to different contexts too. Competition in any industry is ruthless. Consultants and businesses jockeying for the same target client need to pay attention to the . You might have all the answers to their questions and have full confidence that your skills will deliver the solutions they need. However, if the other party can make the target client feel more valued through human touch (steak and strippers?), guess who’ll land the business?

If you happen to watch The Office (the US version, in this example), you might observe that, despite Michael (Steve Carrel’s character) being bumbling management idiot, the guy can sell. And it’s primarily because he knows what makes people tick. Never mind if he doesn’t know about business models and management strategies.

The ideal, therefore is to have the sharpest mind with a human touch.

But as far as the for-the-Bros articles are concerned, I think I’m a pretty good Bro. Some lapses here and there, but I do meet most of the conditions in general. I’m a pretty supportive, Bro. Too bad I think I’ll be a useless wingman.

Oh and here’s an amusing one:

It is unacceptable for two Bros to share a hotel bed without first exhausting all couch, cot, and pillows-on-floor combinations. If it’s unavoidable, they shall prevent any incidental spoonage by arm wrestling* to determine who sleeps under the covers. Once decided each Bro shall don as many lower layers as possible before silently fist bumping the other good night.

Hehehe… Reminds me of something from a little over a year ago. The image of two bros spooning will forever haunt me.

It’s a financial stability no-no to go six months without any increase in savings since technically, monthly finances should be configured in such a way that part of the income is stashed away and the rest covers all the expenses including a few treats and luxuries.

I always considered myself as financially smart for my age. I guess living a deprived life as a kid sharpened my money instincts well. In addition, advice from old mentors exposed me to wise money management also help shaped my views on finance. Still, mistakes can be made even by the smartest guys in the room.

I have to say that I made some pretty bad (if not some of the worst) decisions in my life the past six months. Getting a place and trying to de-load myself of other possible income-generating efforts (to have some more time for myself) have backfired badly.

The root of these mistakes come all stem from this – I failed to trust what I know and I failed to know what to trust. I have allowed myself to be persuaded by people’s pokes and prods to try and live a little and have fun.

Moving out was inevitable. Just the recent storm battered our old house pretty badly and it would’ve caused me more problems if I was still staying there. However, getting a place that fits a family of five and shouldering all the expenses related to it is a killer. Instead of adding some more revenue streams, I decided to forgo the additional work for more personal quality time. That was dumb.

I should have always known better. I should’ve trusted my own mentality and personality given these things. Who cares if I continue to be a stingy cold-hearted scrooge for now? People who really care about you wouldn’t really mind especially if the drinks are always on you because you’re that rich.

At least what I have for the rest of the year is hope. I still have six months to work on things, re-configure my priorities, and re-establish my finances.

***

Okay. Now that the rant’s over and done with, let me move on to a more productive frame of mind. So I have six months before 2009 ends to put me in a better financial position than I am right now. As always, a battle plan is in order.

Target

• Boost my savings by (at least) 30%

Prerequisite

• Save (at least) 30% of my monthly income

Tactics

• Continue focusing on web content development
• Defer academic work

Collateral

• Defer purchasing a new laptop
• No splurge expenses

Wildcard

• Learn a new skill
• Engage a side-project that requires minimal time investment

Looks good and very doable if I just put my mind into it. On the more metaphysical side, I’m praying that the US economy bounces back real soon. I’m all for a more stable financial prospects.

***

Oh, and aside from that, the really cool thing about not being single is that prospects of the future always picks my mood up. As what one of my bros would always remind me, “Walang kwenta yaman mo kung wala ka naman ka-share.” (Your riches count for nothing if you have no one with whom to share it.)

Rant alert. You’ve been warned.

Sorry, friends who think that Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is the movie event of the year. Or if you’ve watched it and are raving about how mad the whole movie was. I can’t say I share your sentiments. I do understand why you’re all raving about it. I really do.

Watched the movie with the Dearest earlier today and as the day draws to an end, I think that it was nothing but a cost write-off amounting to Php 270 and two and a half hours of my precious time. Even the appearance of a scantily-clad Megan Fox spooning a big bike wasn’t enough to redeem the movie for me.

*Possible spoiler alert!*

And Michael Bay is all to blame. Too bad I just made him richer with my ticket. Sure you don’t watch Transformers for the story. Much like any other Michael Bay film (Armageddon, The Rock, Bad Boys 1 and 2, Pearl Harbor and the first Transformers), the story’s bound to go wrong somewhere.

Sure I liked Armageddon, The Rock, and Bad Boys all because of certain things that redeemed them for me – animal crackers, Sean Connery, and Joe Pantoliano, respectively. Otherwise, his movies are just a stream of car crashes, bombs going off, and other things going kaboom. I’m trying to remember how many city blocks got blown to hell in the Godfather movies and that worked.

Michael Bay is an explosion junkie. I seriously think that he needs to be check by a psychiatrist. Who knows? He might share the profile of those people who just love to watch the world burn.

I think the only reasons Pearl Harbor ran for an three hours are to tease the audience for a possible devil’s three-way involving Kate Beckinsale, Ben Affleck, and Josh Hartnet’s characters, maximize Alec Baldwin’s talent fee, and to have even more stuff crashing and blowing up.

The same goes for Transformers 2. Only this time, Michael Bay went totally berserk with his visual effects. The fast-paced action, explosions, and wild camera work almost triggered an epileptic episode. Transformers 2, my friends is nothing but a combination of elements from his other movies and rip-offs of Mel Gibson, Ridley Scott, and Steven Spielberg (and yes, Spielberg co-produced the damn thing).

Think Transformers with the crashing cars of Bad Boys 2, outer space shots of Armageddon, flying airplanes of Pearl Harbor, flares of The Rock, the archeological settings of Indiana Jones, and the hacked-off-body- parts (albeit mechanical) savagery of Braveheart and Gladiator.

The movie could’ve done without Bay’s overactive (and overrated) imagination. What’s up with Prime dying all over again? I motherf*ckin’ cried when the good ol’ Prime of the cartoons died in the movie. Trying to pull it off for this generation is a slight to our generation. Having Prime ultimately don additional body armor and tear all of the Decepticons apart was just overkill.

Yup. Michael Bay is nothing but a five year old gifted not with crayons to draw his pictures of red sports cars with flame decals and a rocket launcher on the hood but with a summer movie’s budget and a film army.

Anyway, I have to admit that I nitpicked his movie. If only I had watched it during a “I am such a child” moment, then maybe I would’ve loved it. No little boy would get pissed off with giant robots with rockets and lasers. Only some bitter old bastard like me.

Yup. It seems like I’ve lost my inner child.

***

Oh and though I don’t want to overread his movie, I somehow appreciate the idea of “No matter how advanced Cybertronians are, they are still as savage and primal as humans.” Did Bay even think of that while filming? Or am I throwing him a metaphorical bone here?

I was talking to my mentor about the difficulties I was having with my research. Apparently, fellow graduate students were also struggling with their theses. Quite ironic, since when it comes to our own students, we’re quite sharp in critiquing their studies.

There are a number of local English language teaching and research groups. However, these groups do foster a sense of exclusivity that students are oftentimes left uninterested with the prospect of joining these groups. In fact, I only became aware of the existence of such groups years after graduating.

Hence, I created this website that would cater to all English language and literature scholars here in the Philippines – The English Studies Forum.

So far, the forum features categories on Language and Literature with boards that cover the main areas of study. For language the boards range from general linguistic theories to language teaching. For literature, the boards are based on geographic origins (British lit, American lit, Philippine literature in English). I’ve also added a Creative Writing category. For kicks, I also threw in a “Lounge” area for off-topic discussions. There’s also an e-Library section where people can contribute files and sources for study.

The next step is publicizing the forum

A bit on the technical side. Yes, it may be a Web 1.0 solution in a 2.0 world. I initially toyed with the use of Elgg and build the site as a social network, but it appeared that the focus of discussions and interactions might be watered down with. I’ll see how the forum pans out first. Who knows? I might slap on a wiki one of these days.

It took a bit of an effort trying to squeeze in work for the forums during what is actually designated as my lunch and supper times. A couple of junior faculty have expressed their interest in helping me run it and one senior faculty expressed her approval of our little side project.

Whenever I teach business communication, the part on which I give most emphasis always is communication planning and audience analysis. The problem with some writing manuals is that they prescribe the “best” formats and step-by-step processes failing to take into account the various communicative contexts.

For example, many writing manuals would prescribe the up-front format – a brief and concise format that begins with the summary of the message. While this does work effectively in most business organizations, I have observed that some more traditional organizations would prefer a more academic format – the one with the typical intro-body-conclusion structure. It’s always a choice on what format would probably better suit specific contexts.

Everyone in the organization has his or her own politics to consider. The simple existence of management and subordinates and yes-men and rebels in organizations are a testament to that. It often hard to identify these from an outsider’s perspective. However, for internal communication, one can have a fairly easy time through continuous observation.

It does take a lot of skill, patience, and practice to be a good judge of audience expectations. The tricky part here is that you have to survey both the organizational culture and a specific target’s agenda for one to be able to plan an effective communication strategy. Goals are almost often when messages are conveyed to promote the greatest benefit for the audience.

Scouting and stalking skills are quite beneficial to be able to even get a sense of these things but as with the military and sports – intelligence is key. One might not have to be snooty to get sense of these things but an objective and keen eye to details will be typically sufficient.

I really wanted to learn ActionScript in an effort to toy around with casual gaming. I used to be real quick in learning these things but I keep forgetting what I learned just the previous day. Perhaps it’s the lack of a structured environment and a mentor. Or perhaps its the lack of background in OOP, logic, and math. Strong fundamentals does allow one to prosper in a field of study. Those I don’t have and a reason that I keep beating myself up for not taking Computer Science in college instead of this useless degree.

Which brings me to the biggest gripes of my life – not being able to go into law school. I recently had chance encounters with friends from way back – all of them asking if I’m set to take up the bar this year. Some others who are more familiar with what I do ask if I’m still interested in taking up law. Yeah. Like that would happen. Unlike most of my peers who are bar review brats these days, I didn’t have a parent nor a trust fund to support me.

To compensate for such frustration, I’m urging myself to finish my master’s degree. I only have a year left of residency for it. I only have the thesis to finish but I am struggling with it. I initially thought that by writing a page a day, I’d be finished by now. Unfortunately, other responsibilities, a serious case of writer’s block, and a nasty case of depression stretched over the past couple of months have led me back to square one as far as that is concerned. I might have to think of a new topic. Perhaps taking shortcuts would be the best way to go about it. All for finishing that darned degree. Which, aside from a ticket back to university life as a teacher, has absolutely no business value for me.

Maybe it’s just the lack of time. Earning money is definitely my top priority now. Everything else becomes moot if I become homeless and starving. A psychic advised me earlier this year that I shouldn’t pressure myself with academics for now and should just focus on making money.

I had a chat with my former marketing counterpart in my previous company. He left after just a few months on the job to take on a position in a multi-national company. Now he’s with another group as one of their young executives. Makes me wonder what if I had taken the same route like he did. I hate it that I was drawn towards trying out teaching – my prime motivation for quitting my corporate job. It was a monkey on my back that I just had to get rid off. One doesn’t teach to be able to afford things. One has to afford things to be able to teach.

I’m still pretty much in a depressed mood of late. If only Prozac is sold over the counter here.

Anyway, I’m ranting again. At this point, I figure that the post title’s irrelevant. So what’s a tired and frustrated dog do? If only people can be put down once they feel that they’ve run their last race. But jeez, I’m just twenty-five and yet I feel like a bitter old goat who gets off by pointing shotguns at those damned kids encroaching his lawn. Not that I have a shotgun or a lawn (or a piece of land I can call my own) for that matter.

Now let me flip another page on that book I’m reading. Only if I remember what was on the previous page.

People who have claim to be psychic have always told me that my “third eye” is open. Well, it seemed that way since I was the only one who actually see that ghostly figure around our home before. It even came to a point where it was dangerous for me to drive at night and the wee hours of the morning since I used to stop for or avoid “people” who cross the street only to see vehicles zoom past them. I’m not really sure these days since I’ve stopped seeing apparitions for quite some time now. I think the last time I “saw” one was seeing our dad’s ghost standing at the foot of my bed one All-Soul’s day.

Today, with my left-brain in overdrive, I’m more likely to take the skeptic’s stand as far as paranormal phenomena are concerned. I remember taking that stand when a GMA 7 show interviewed me on my opinion for their Halloween special as their “paranormal expert.” Still, I’d like to keep an open mind. I still think that there’s some greater force out there. As for Santa Claus, well, parents spoiled that experience for us when we were kids.

I recently stumbled upon this crazy ghost show – Ghost Adventures. Similar to those Ghost Hunters series but they introduced a new twist where, instead of going to a location several times, the investigators lock themselves in a location for a whole night and provoke the spirits. They’ve gotten some pretty good “evidence.” Rigged or not, I think it’s good TV. Not to mention the often bordering-on-gay (no offense, gay friends) comments from three guys in black muscle shirts. Somehow I miss the first Halloween specials of Magandang Gabi Bayan.

Ghost Adventures riled my curiosity up again on these things. Yesterday, Jojo and I toyed around going to Baguio and do some ghost hunting of our own – something that has always came up when we veer into the subject of “vacations.” I wonder why we initially think of that rather than hit the beach and do some bikini inspections.

Perhaps it’s the natural draw of the thrill of horror that we don’t want to live vicariously. Or perhaps our own histories of experiencing the unexplained. Hey, if even Shakespeare toyed with the idea, then why shouldn’t I?

June 12 should be the most important holiday in this “democracy” but let’s face it, it’s not. Christmas is a bigger holiday. All-Saints and All-Souls are bigger holidays. Pacquiao’s match days send the country to a stand still. Never mind if we’ve always claimed that we’re the oldest “democracy” in Asia. Who cares? All of that is bound to change anyway.

“Independence,” with its current semantic load, seems to be an inappropriate word to use to describe our context. We pretty much got screwed back then. Out of Spain’s hold into the US’. Then there’s the Japanese. Then the US again. Internally, the poor man was never free from the clutches of the rich man. So what independence?

Still, I’m a Filipino. I don’t see myself saluting another flag than the red, white, and blue with three stars and a sun. (At least not anytime soon, or will I?)