finally, some time for myself. the past few weeks have been–i don’t know the right words to describe it–overly fulfilling and gratifying to say the least. i keep looking back again and again just to convince myself that i really did make the right decision to leave and transfer to where i am now. i admit, i had that feeling of again wandering into uncharted territory with meeting new faces, feeling out new personalities and ushering myself into a totally different environment. again, looking back, it just keeps putting a smile on my face.

as my trainer-turned-friend told me in a text message last night (early morning, actually) after getting home from having coffee and listening to really good jazz with him and some of my batchmates, it was pretty much fate that brought us together and really made us one tight group throughout the two weeks of initial training. having different levels of perception, views on religion and life would almost spark a friendly argument, yet i guess the kind of maturity each one of us possesses made us understand and respect each other, especially this past friday night.

’twas a night of booze, fun, food, tears, surprises, slurred speech, laughter, repeated sentences, more tears, confessions and realizations as our batch gathered for a pre-training-completion-celebration-slash-advanced-birthday-party at a batchmate’s house. it was a culmination of two weeks of feeling each other out, classroom training, and group activities. be that as it may, i felt that it was just the start of more good things to come. because for the first time in a very long time, i have found and felt a sense of belonging with the batchmates i currently have. i mean, you know how it is when you feel so good about a group of people that you’re almost certain that you’ll excel in everything that you’ll be doing? makes you feel excited going to work, ain’t it? i know i am. i haven’t felt that way too for quite some time now.

this past weekend will be etched forever in my mind as one of the most memorable weekends i ever had. amidst the problems i have in my personal life, it’s good to have something to look back to, breathe a sigh of relief, smile and get ready for the week ahead and look forward to more of the same in the days to come.

on a personal note before i end, i’d like to make a quick shout-out to my new found friend-slash-brother, BREW. happy, happy birthday!! wish you all the best on your special day. stay happy and keep smiling!! =)

i received this via an email sent by a colleague of mine, and with my life being hinged on “faith,” i just want to share this with all of you. it kinda puts things in perspective, at least that’s what i think. hope you enjoy reading this as much as i did.

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty. He asks one of his new Christian students to stand and…..

Professor: You are a Christian, aren’t you, son?
Student: Yes, sir.
Prof: So you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.
Prof: Is God good?
Student: Sure.
Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student: Yes.
Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn’t. How is this God good then? Hmm?

(Student is silent.)

Prof: You can’t answer, can you? Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: Yes.
Prof: Is Satan good?
Student: No.
Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From…God…
Prof: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.
Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.
Prof: So who created evil?

(Student does not answer.)

Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student: Yes, sir.
Prof: So, who created them?

(Student has no answer.)

Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son…Have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.
Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student: No, sir.
Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.
Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my faith.
Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.
Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.
Student: No sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)

Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student: You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light….But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it were you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?
Student: Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student: Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument is going.)

Student: Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavour, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class is in uproar.)

Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class breaks out into laughter.)

Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it?…..No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Prof: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student: That is it sir.. The link between man & God is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive.

“…every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end…” – “closing time” by semisonic

i always use that line when changes in my professional life take place. yesterday marked the start of my final week in teletech. two weeks from now, i’ll be starting a new job in a different company as an assistant manager for operations. accepting that job wasn’t that hard. it also wasn’t that easy.

when i came here a year and a half ago, i was reeling from being “forced” to leave my previous company after being with them for two and a half years, yet optimistic about starting fresh, wanting to prove to myself that whatever my previous boss said about my abilities as a supervisor/team leader was dead wrong. and of course, being paid the right amount for such a position. whatever i have learned during my stint as a CSR and supervisor trainee, i applied to my new work. though i was overwhelmed with how they do things here, i welcomed it as a challenge to step up. just the number of handling people was exponentially doubled, so managing a multitude of egos was one of my top priorities. yet all wasn’t smooth sailing as i hoped it would be. of course, being under a large program (and the star program at that) does have its downsides. yet through all the workload that was too much for one supervisor to handle, the demands of the client which majority of the supervisors think were impossible to achieve, the ever-changing processes and procedures a CSR could take, and all the bullsh** management was giving us, i managed to have success by my team being number one in most metrics. although it was short-lived due to several factors, i could proudly say that i got what i worked hard for. yet the stress from all of the things i mentioned took it’s toll on me and i was forced to re-think my desire to work for such an account. although a transfer to another account or department would be the obvious choice, office politics would never fail to move it’s ugly head. so i started updating my accounts at the online jobseeking companies i had.

after months of waiting, i got the call from a friend who works at one of the online jobseeking companies and offered me a chance to get out of here. i gamely accepted and went through two interviews, until finally, around two weeks ago, i was offered the job. although i wanted to sign the contract right there and then, i just took it easy and asked them to give me a day to think it over and be back to sign it. i did think it over, about leaving my trusted colleagues who endured all the hardships and bullsh** management and the client gave us, yet in the end, you only have yourself to look out for. two days after being offered the job, i went back and signed on the dotted line. everything is now set in motion for my transition. i had a mixed reaction of surprise and relief from colleagues when i mentioned about my transfer. surprise because i have been mentioning before that i would leave this place but ended up staying for another month or so. and relief that finally i would be leaving this “hellhole” of an account. most of them wanted to follow me and i gladly forwarded their resumes to my friend in the jobseeking company who also asked me to look for more interested people.

though i am excited at finally getting something higher after the hard work i made over the last year and a half, as the same thing i mentioned when i left PS, the people i have worked with will be hard to leave behind. most of them i could say deserve a much better and higher position than what they have now, yet they continue to be dragged by the inconceivable thought of things being better someday if they just be patient. i tried to be that as well and waiting for management to realize that we deserve better, yet i guess they don’t see that at all. the only comfort i could rely on is that fact that my hard work paid off, and the opportunity to work for a financially stable company is on the horizon. a bittersweet end is near, yet a new, much sweeter beginning is just beyond it.

“…’commitment’–it’s what makes you tick; the only problem is, you’re just not good at letting go…”

i decided to start my entry with that quote from the latest episode of “Lost” which can be seen on AXN every thursday at 9pm. why? well, simply because it hit close to home, if not directly. it was said by the father of one of the main characters of the program on his impending marriage. nervous about maybe not ending up as the husband or even the father he hopes to be, the doctor (jack, the main character) asked his father if he should still marry her fiance. and the father responds with the given quote. i guess that on all the relationships i’ve had, i used the same approach. once i commit to someone or something, i go all the way. like a racehorse with blinders at the side of the eyes i block out all distractions and keep a razor-sharp focus on what’s in front of me. i guess that in the same way, with the same blinders, i tend to lose sight of the bigger picture of things so that when the time comes, for one reason or another, that the thing or the relationship i committed to suddenly ends, i still go on, continuing to be blinded by that strong sense of commitment.

honestly, i believe all relationships should have that approach. although without the blinders. you may ask, what are those “blinders” i’m talking about? well, there is actually only one which can multiply into all sorts things or grow bigger, thus blocking your sense of, well, sanity for one the more you keep it close to you. and that is fear. fear of making the same mistakes, fear of failed relationships past, fear of not living up to the expectations of the one you love, fear of maybe not being the “one” for him/her, fear that he/she is not serious about you compared to what you have for him/her, or fear that he/she might actually meet someone better than you. any of these given fears will lead to the one fear we hate the most–fear of losing the one you love.

which brings me to another quote i came across. this time, the quote was mentioned in episode three of star wars (which i watched on dvd last week). i’m not sure if this is the exact wording used but i’ll try to get into the main message of it. who said it? well, it’s the all-wise and powerful yoda and it goes,

“…train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose…”

…or something to that effect. in any case, it teaches us to live life to the fullest. that life goes on. that there may be something better that awaits us. that we too, like the relationships we have, will one day have our own end. but there is one thing that puzzles me though, and in no way do i mean any harm to jedi purists out there reading this, but how can a person of the jedi order block feelings of love (especially when it comes to relationships) and continue doing good when in doing good itself, some sort or degree of love is involved? you may say the same thing about priests or the religious, but that’s a whole different ballgame.

in any case, who am i or where is my place to question such things? i’m only human and last i heard, humans aren’t perfect to say the least. all i know is that we can all learn from both the quotes i’ve mentioned. no matter how we look at it, no matter how we think of it, or how we feel about it, at the end of the day, it’s our perception about life and love that’s important. love is the most mysterious of all mysteries and at times, there is no right or wrong when decisions are made in the name of love. for me, i have had no regrets doing what i have done, especially in the last few months. the decisions i made have given me maybe a step or two closer to finding out the bigger picture destined for me. but as of now, i still can’t seem to figure out what it is, or how will it pan out.

i guess only one question remains my friends sometimes ask me that i also need to ask myself: based on the relationships i’ve had and the attempts i have also made to have one, do i really have a hard time letting go? for now, the only answer i could give is in a form of another quote which i have mentioned before: “when you tell someone that you love him/her with all your heart and soul, never leave some for yourself, otherwise it’s not worth saying it at all.”

on the personal side of things, nothing new happened what’s quite interesting to take note was that communication between donna and i improved. wait, hold on, let me explain what that means before things pop into your head. let’s backtrack to my birthday. after doing what i did (i need not explain it here again, just scroll down if you want to read it all over again), i promised myself that i won’t be initiating any kind of communication with her, and that everything is up to her. if she calls, fine, we talk. if she sends me a text message that needs a reply, then i reply back. but in under no circumstances would i start or initiate any form of communication whatsoever.

i’m proud to say that since that day, i haven’t done anything to break that personal promise to myself. now you’ll be asking, how did communication between me and donna improve? the answer is quite simple: she calls me now more often. the last time we talked was saturday night, before i got ready to go to work. and we actually talk close to five times a week. all during the same time, say around 11:30pm until around 1am. yeah, it’s quite surprising because after the birthday incident until the accident (may 24 to june 23 to be exact) she called me maybe a total of five or six times. since the accident, as i’ve mentioned, she calls me almost every night. what do we talk about? well, nothing serious, just how our days went and all that. she does more of the talking actually, telling me about her being out always and the time she spends with her friends. i admit, i thought of asking her out again, but not wanting to have ghosts of “we’ll see” past and reminding myself of the promise i made, the thought never became reality. although we did see each other once. the last time i saw her before that was during my brother’s birthday party, meaning it was two months before i got to see her again. but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, although it was quite important which prompted us to meet for a few minutes. the reason? well, she needed money to settle a financial obligation and her friends who owed her money weren’t able to pay up when needed. it actually started out as a joke (the way she asked me if i could help her out by lending her money) because the amount was farily large. without hesitation, i said yes. she then asked me if i was joking and i said no. i still had spare cash from the loan i got and rather than spending it on some unnecessary things, i thought i’d rather help her out by lending her the money. which led to us meeting after my shift for a few minutes just to give her the money. i acutally forgot what day that was, but it didn’t matter to me anymore.

i guess you’re wondering why, after all that she’s done to me, would i do something like that for her? i sometimes ask that question myself, but it all boils down to someone i hold dear and close to my heart asking for my help and i would answer in my own simple way. i also really try not to jump to conclusions on the reason why she calls me more often now, but i can’t help but notice the trend. i actually thought that after the “questioning activities” squabble we had over the cellphone to her telling me about throwing away the letter i had for her on my birthday that that was it. that if ever she would call me, it would be like once a month or longer. one friend even told me, “maybe she still has feelings for you that she’s trying to sort out by talking to you and finding out if you have changed.” honestly, i don’t know and don’t want to know if there is still any kind of feeling i have for her because the last time i did talk about it, i ended up getting nothing. but to be more honest, yes, i do think about her sometimes, but it’s merely reminiscing what we had. i actually don’t look forward to her calls; in fact, i’m always asleep everytime she calls me. i just wake up at the sound of the phone ringing and finding out that it’s her. being the person i am, i won’t just brush her off by saying i’m sleeping because i have work later (i actually never did that to anyone who called me while i’m sleeping) and just continue the conversation. as of now, all i can say is that we talk on a regular basis, but nowhere near about us gong out or the like. you can say that donna and i have been reduced to being “phone pals.”

is there anything to look forward to, you ask? in my opinion, i don’t think there is any and i wouldn’t like to think that there is any. although she hasn’t paid me back (i told her to pay me when she’s quite stable in her expenses) i still continue to not think of anything unless it happens. that, in a nutshell concludes my comeback entry. i wanted to touch base on the political crisis in the country, but with the easing of the tension over the past few days, my comment would be quite offline, so to speak. i only have one thing to say about it though, but before i do, i want to make it crystal clear that i am not pro-gma, nor am i pro-opposition. with that in mind, here’s my thought on the subject of the “hello garci” fiasco: is there something wrong with a candidate, be it the incumbent president or not, to call up an elections officer asking him/her the margin she has over her opponent? i mean seriously? is it really that bad or is it against election rules? if it was, then an administrative punishment would be enough. if there are allegations of cheating basing on that conversation (which i personally think doesn’t have any if you analyze the conversation with logical thinking) then proceed with the impeachment process. asking the president to step down is so passe. just because we were able to force one president to step down doesn’t mean we can always do the same henceforth. it’s just me, thinking aloud. comments? most welcome!!