Kumusta? =)

fine.

Ask me something, anything, everything.

WHAT SHOULD BE THE LENGTH AND WIDTH OF ANAME PLATE FOR A MEDICAL EQUIPMENT

huh?

Ask me something, anything, everything.

Dear Ms. Carol of HR

You are so AWESOME; beautiful with your fair skin and long shiny hair and charming in the way you move, so lady-like and elegant.

YOU are so BEAUTIFUL and CHARMING; so beautiful and charming in fact that my gay officemate even has a crush on you.. I know right, it’s C-RA-ZY. lol

You always bring me the good news. When I was down in the dumps when I screwed up the Reuters thing, you gave me that surprise call just an hour later to ask if I was interested in going at your office to take my exam for copy editor. I lost a job opportunity but gained another one, and you were the bearer of that joy.

And when I screwed that up too, it was you who e-mailed me to ask if I was interested to come in again, this time for the research analyst exam. 

Again, you brought me the GOOD NEWS when you came into the conference room after my interview with the group supervisor by giving me that little slip of paper. That slip of paper where my employment requirements are printed.

That was the time I knew I was hired. And your beautiful cat-like eyes confirmed it. 

YOU are an ANGEL. I didn’t even mind it that you were sick and coughing away when you oriented me about the company policies. You are soo adorable whenever you cough into your little handkerchief and say, “Excuse me” after. You could’ve coughed right on my face and it would have been bliss for me.

Now, I want to go to the 10th floor, to your department everyday just to see you. I’ll make every excuse.

Count on it. XD

Sincerely,

This Ghost

Outta There

So I was wandering around aimlessly in Makati yesterday, like I was in a bad episode of Lost except I wasn’t being chased by a smoke monster or getting killed off by fellow survivors. 

I had sooo much time to kill before my 2pm workday that I got to strangle one, stab one and hammer one with a Pikachu stuffed toy. I know, I know, you get it, I HAD A LOT OF TIME TO KILL. :D

And that was why I ducked inside SM’s Toy Kingdom awhile to check the Nintendo corner.

Now here’s one thing I hate about salesladies and sales guys: they are TOO helpful. 

I stood with my hands in my pockets by the Nintendo DS ‘gets, admiring the extra-large touch screen (they added a few thousand to the price just for that new feature) when this sales guy came around and asked, “DS, sir?”

Yeah, I can see it’s a DS, no kidding, I thought.

Now this has happened a lot of times before but it was still annoying. Try standing next to a product at the mall, try looking interested at it long enough and seconds later some sales person would sneak up behind you to ask if you need some assistance.

YES, honey, I need you to assist me in just looking at this… (insert product here).

Imbes na maisipan mong bumili, hindi na lang kasi may mang-iistorbo. I don’t know about you pero nakakawalang-gana para sakin yung ganun. 

So yesterday, it took a lot of willpower not to snap back at the sales guy, “Leave me alone, I’m just looking.” 

Normally, I don’t think like that at all (I’m mostly polite, no matter what I say in my blog posts) but yesterday I was already tired and hungry and in dire need of my vitamins, plus I didn’t catch a lot of ZZZZs because I had to wake up early to go to the city hall. Unbelievable.

But (amazingly) I calmed myself, turned to the smile at the sales guy and shook my head, “Nah, it’s okay.”

And I walked away, still annoyed. 

I know it’s their job to help, but seriously, can’t they just leave me to admire and yearn for that NDS (which I may be able to afford after seven months’ salary) in peace? Can’t they just let me look through its glass case and dream for the time when I’d finally get to play Pokemon Platinum and have orgasms everytime my team levels up?

But noooo, they just have to ruin it.

How crapola.  

After that, I went to the department store and the same thing almost happened. I wanted to check out some professional-looking bags (because I was still using my Bench schoolbag with its cute Pokemon tag for work). I saw this sleek, black one that I thought would look good on me. I discreetly peeked at the price tag.

I thought, Okay. Pwede, medyo mura lang. 

But in the corner of my eye, I saw a saleslady approaching— I was kinda expecting that already. So I casually put the bag in its shelf and moved off. The saleslady stopped in her tracks when she saw me leave, did a double-take and then headed to another direction.

A good thing I got outta there before she could pester me with, “Bag, sir?” XD

This Ghost and Problems in Journalism

I wrote this somewhat half-assed essay (titled It’s Problematic) for our Special Problems in Journalism class; back when the real world was still light years away.

Nostalgia and flashbacks go hand in hand for me these past few months. 

Oh well.

Read it here:

Journalists do live a glamorous life.

They live in excitement every day. Hell yeah, they do.

It’s because they’re a lot of things. Like doctors, their facts should be accurate and precise so they don’t kill off people, though in their case— a person’s reputation. Like lawyers, they protect their sources the way attorneys do their clients. Like scientists, they learn something new in the field every day. Like cops, they are there to watch for something off coming from those big guys up there in their seats. And like actors playing victims, they get to escape possible torture and .38s, though not necessarily in that order.

As a 4th year Journalism student, I expected bullet-dodging for our finals but it hasn’t come up in the curriculum. With all of that stretching in the road right in front of me after graduation—the cold precision of a news story, different people with different agenda, and the power I can wield with only my pen (or keyboard)— it just goes to show that a journalist’s day is and always will be full.

Which brings me to this: what we are taught in class won’t always be what one expects after the party balloons and graduation gifts are put away.

If I ever wander away from my BIG dream of working for a glossy magazine (without the Mexican background, the braces, glasses and the mousy brown hair) and become a REAL hardcore journalist with the vest, camera and the old brown polo (wink, wink), I’ll have some specific problems. I know that working in a mag will entail the same but it is way serious for those who are following the real, hard road to watchdog greatness.

When I’m out there in the real world, a newbie journalist soon to cover stabbings, local elections and the occasional grandpa flashing his wrinkled noodle to school girls, I’ll be opening myself to these…

Behind Door No. 1 is sensationalism. ‘Tis the one where someone dies (for example) and Mr. Journalist tries to write it off as if that person’s death is the saddest, most tragic death the world has ever seen since Michael Jackson’s. And he’ll make it as if that person’s killer is the most deranged, evil monster the pits of hell has ever produced to torment humanity.

In short, he’ll be making a soap opera instead of a simple news story. Then he’ll compose the most shocking, vulgar headline to attract readers. He’ll even go crazily creative and ask his editor to put a picture of Francine Prieto in a bikini beside it. 

That’s one special problem in journalism; when you blow a story up and push the more important ones to the backseat. Which is wrong. As a journalist, he has to cut the cheese and prioritize what the audience needs—a real news story with all the major info.

Our Mr. Ephraim Aguilar discussed that way back— when Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng terrorized Manila like two guys high on meth— almost all news stories were sob stories of people in calamity’s aftermath. It would’ve been fine, yes, but it gets tiring after two weeks of the same old, same old.

Why didn’t the major broadcast companies focus on what the government did or didn’t do to prevent and manage the disaster? Why show Marian Rivera packing relief goods and pass it off as news? As a media practitioner, he has to report deeper things than human suffering; he has to scratch that surface and dig until that issue is perceived in a different light and the more worthwhile issues are exposed.

Then, right off the bat is bribery. A media practitioner’s earnings are anything but caviar and Cabernet Sauvignon. He’s lucky if he can afford a new pale blue polo to replace the old brown one. That’s why the people in media are prone to bribes.

Ah… It’s amazing how an envelope loaded with cash from a kindly politician (and with the elections right around the corner too!) can make the difference. Take the money given; make the politician or another person with something to gain look good and smell fresh. Oh, sleek compliments there, a good word there. Take the cash though, and that person owns you forever—with the emphasis on OWN.

Dirty now, a politician’s little lap dog instead of watchdog, the poor media practitioner is now taking sides. Impartial no more— losing the neutrality that society needs, the only possible solution to that is obvious.

Don’t take it.

A shake of the head, a polite refusal is way better. It’s always possible that the envelope-man will dog our fellow media practitioner into submission, in which case Mr. Journalist will have to make a firm stand. Although that won’t involve announcing to the world at large with open hostility, “I will not be bought!”

If that fails, just take the damn money, especially when you suddenly feel threatened and envelope-man’s eyes begin flashing lasers. Staying alive will always be the ‘in’ thing for journalists.

Just don’t make a habit of it.

Convergence is up. Is it possible that newspapers will be a thing of the past? Will parents regal their children with stories of how they used to read news on printedpaper? “Once upon a time, the Filipino people read newspapers”, the parents will tell their kids; and the kids will exclaim, “No way! How soo uncool!”

That’s another problem: convergence. Media and technology are both evolving. It’s now a digital age, when everyone have it easier. One doesn’t have wait for the paper the next morning to catch what’s latest. They won’t even have to turn the radio dials when it’s all right there on the Net.

Even non-journalists can participate in the media and report their own news stories via videos or photos. They can be citizen journalists! Except they don’t know how real journalism goes and the element of impartiality may be lost.

This one’s easy because the tri-media (according to Mr. Henry Maceda and Mr. Jonas Soltes, and I happened to agree with them on this) will stay on. Even with all the technology taking over, people will always, always keep to the old ways. Media practitioners won’t even worry about losing their jobs. In the far future when the tri-media is finally obsolete, media practitioners still have that new media to fall on. It’s more of an opportunity than a loss, in Mr. Anacito Dematera’s opinion (and I happened to agree with him too).

Suitable working provisions are in it too. I’ve heard in class about media men and women working like dogs all day but without even a scrap of meat to chew on after. It’s crazy when you’re expected to work in your little corner of the office that looks suspiciously like a bathroom, if you’ll notice the painted-on tiles on the walls, and work as hard as you can but with hardly any pay.

The horror!

If that happens, it’s always better to leave and look for another job in another media company, where it’s more comfortable. Unless bathroom-offices are your thing.

Needless to say, a journalist’s life has some problems, but still charged with excitement. And it’s even fun to experience those but still come out the winner.

It won’t be easy but…

When and if I go that path, expected problems and all, I like to think that I’ll turn into a better person and media practitioner because of it. 

—This Ghost