i am a scientist

Dear Ate Charo,

i honestly think that most people have forgotten that there are more thrills outside the walls of their respective companies and their jobs which they take so seriously; well until few days ago, i was one of them.

*********

i am a scientist. you see, in the past 8 months or so, i have been inventing(for the lack of better term) things which I can make myself busy with. On the first few months, i was sending sparks here and there, establishing my presence and making everyone happy with my fresh projects. But on the, ermm, i think 5th month, i realized i have run out of bright ideas. i arrived at my dreaded plateau tad too early.

i got bored (well i still am). i wanted that change in environment; that change in job. it's like wanting to take that u-turn over a big "no u-turn" street sign. i plunged so low that i cancelled my mandarin classes... i stopped working-out... i eloped on every chance of dining out with friends. i stopped living. it has been an office-apartment-office-apartment routine on the succeeding months. i busied myself wallowing; wallowing until i decided on the date when i will tender that one single sheet of shit to end the misery...

too many long lines of rather irrelevant stories more and the bottomline is - i have rebounded. much thanks to my mom who has never stopped squeezing into my brains how hard life in the philippines is right now.

i restarted to count my blessings. i decided to live again. afterall, the thought of being housed in an uberly-fancy condo, living a rather luxurious life, and getting a nice sum of money for merely being in the office 40 hours a week can actually be cool - especially when you see people here and there barely making both ends meet. so what if i do not become a sage at 23? so what if i do not skyrocket up the corporate ladder? there are more thrills to be had outside my company walls, away from this desk and PC, away from the corporate world which for some reasons I have held onto like the single source of life. stupid me.

can it be true then...? that happiness is a choice? i certainly am not happy - well not in the sense like happiness naturally radiates out of me. it's a forced one - in the sense that even after taking into consideration all the cons of my situation right now, i've got to be happy... and indeed, that's the choice i have taken...

...and so like a true scientist, i came back to inventing new things - new things to enjoy, to experience, to indulge on. i am still bored, i must admit, but this time i know better how to deal with it; more importantly, how to cope with it.

Nagmamahal,

Jaybee

jack of all trades, master of none

in this city where eating-out is always a pleasurable experience, i still find myself going for my usual take-out lunch from the nearest fastfood. i come back to my desk and eat in front of my computer. it has been like this for, erm, about 3 months now. ask me why, though, and i do not have an answer. but... erm... well in the past few months that i was silent here and have not posted a single entry, i have sent out about 20 applications to all parts of the world you can imagine. 7 more applications 2 days ago and here i am still. and so i guess the main reason is that i happened to accept the fact that sometimes (or most of the time), i just have to stick with what is readily available, with what i have now. so why choose to squeeze myself into jampacked restos? why choose to continuously think of how nice a change in job and environment can be? in the end, i think it all boils down to truly accepting "you can't have it all".

**********

dunno what has gone through my mind - but at around 10:30 am today, i told beybeh that i seriously want a girlfriend - right here, right now. hehe. i am so ready for it.

having lived it for 4 years now, playing (ok fine, fooling) around is not a bit exciting anymore. it's like i've gone tired of sponge baths in a hot summer day to keep me fresh, and now wanting that sweet precious bath; like having worn leather shoes for the office, rubber for the gym, and now wanting my old pair of slippers which brings undescribable comfort. i miss waking up in the morning and then jokingly picking her nose. hehe...i miss HHWW-PSSP haha. i miss watching a movie with a girlfriend, and then ending up re-enacting some parts of the movie(huh??).. hehe...Truly, a 98m2 condo unit feels quite empty, a king size bed tad too big, a bathtub boring(??), when you live alone.

**********

sometimes i envy the nurses, the doctors, the engineers, the chefs... to me it seems that at the very least, they know where their lives are headed to; they know what they will most likely do for the rest of their lives. more importantly, i believe that they live their lives doing what they are most passionate about. they essentially just have to build on their expertise to get a truly rewarding career.

and then there are the generalists. an economics graduate like me can go to law school, work for a bank, take further studies, teach..and so on and so forth. Seriously, with such infinite options, how would I know what to do with my life? I confess that I am bad at choosing one thing and hanging-on long enough to see what's actually in it for me. You see, fresh from university i initially worked for a bank, then after 2 months hopped to an IT company, then after 10 months jumped to the biggest shipping company in the world. seriously, where am I going to?

if we were rich, i would have gone to conservatory of music. seriously. i know i have the potential; and even if in the end i do not get an awesome salary like i enjoy now, i think i would still be happy and contented each time i see my happy listeners.
**********