we're always the same age inside, G.S.

How do you write sentences? Can someone answer me that question?

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I got off early from work today. I have some time to write a few things. (Aside: there's nothing like consulting/office work to totally linearize your thinking)

First, I received via e-mail a performance review form. I had never seen one of these babies before, my being new with this office thing and all. It was a good form let me tell you though. I expected some vague and bull-shitty form -- I should have known better coming from a company that trades on business analysis. It segments well all the skills, and traits that they expect from someone who wants to be a kick-ass consultant. There was no way this one could be fudged (at least not without a sizeable amount of lying, padding and crapping all over the place). I momentarily felt a little small that I obviously had a long way to go with some of my technical skill (ability to work with Acess, Excel, BIQ, etc.).

What jolted me back to a balanced outlook was my realization that I don't have any spare time at the office to train myself and improve on these things. One has to learn everything and do crash courses as needed.

This I do not find surprising. My company has a cowboy reputation of making things work. Learning something right the first time is such a premium: learning by doing and quick. One immediately knows who the slow people are at my work place. (does that sound like paradise to some of you)

I have to finish the PR form by Monday, but I'll probably hand in my self-review before the weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

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frivolities/perks/delights:

small joy realization #1, realizing that eating cream sauce on pasta doesn't have to be a heavy affair. was at Cibo last night with a friend, and remembered that there's the Cibo/Bellini way of a white sauce, and there's the CPK-heavy style.

realization #2, realizing that a book can excite you on the rack, leave you confused the first forty pages, and then proceed to increasingly delight you as you figure it out. Book in question: Saramago's Double.

realization #3, that sometimes all you want is to listen to old albums from start to finish. Dave Matthews Tim Reynolds: Live at Luther College one of them.

charged and shuffled

this weekend wasn't particularly restful, though it was pretty interesting. it began with an odd note when i received work e-mail early saturday morning that i had to be ready to do some remote work at the drop of a hat. in the end, said work didn't materialize and i think that contributed to the sense of never being truly fully at rest. i hate it when i start relating closer and closer to workplace cliches. but to deny that i am relating to these cliches just might make me more insufferable. i had long though that angst was retro, but then i'll have to remind myself that denial of it would then be medieval.

i found myself wishing for a blackberry aloud in the middle of a party. someone said, no you don't want that. and i said, umm, yes i do.

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early saturday took a semi-poorly planned trip to Divisoria/168 land. I don't want to dwell on it too much but suffice it to say that I was riding in a car with a low-IQ driver. i should have realized that sooner. bought an evil cheapo Ipod shuffle to replace the mini i lost a few months back. im still trying to figure out how to get it to work consistently though, since it's been acting weird. i swear if i dont get it working im gonna return and give that woman at the counter a peace of my mind. i dont care if i have to brave the jungle again.

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positive notes: went to a foodie eyeball at the fort. info about it at: marketmanila.com; i liked the food, and the vodka tonics, vodka on the rocks were the perfect lubricant midway through the proceedings. props to a friend for making the host give a speech towards the end of the gathering. as i related to her, i would have gone for the yelling for speech, speech. i would have never followed up with tinkling a glass with a fork. the speech turned out well anyway. throught that foodie eb, discovered an interesting blog along the way. anton.blogs.com; in particular it's interesting to read his ideas about Pinoy 2.0 and his thoughts of how pinoys could take further advantage of the web. he took good pictures of the event as well.

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sunday i spent mucking around my room and getting it messy. now im gonna clean it up. i've been watching old game shows on you tube. bob barker is funny. hope this upcoming week turns out well.

1991

Minette just flew out this morning to return to the US. That just leaves Robin here, until the 4th, after which my cousin-entertaining duties will go on hibernation mode. One thing I didn't expect was how cooperative they were in wanting to eat. They would call us on all suggestions to have another snack, another place for dessert, a second breakfast. I think their goals were to gain weight while here.

They don't fly in as often as my other cousins. In fact, the two haven't been here in 15 years. In the week or so they've been here though, I'd like to think that we somehow filled the void between of who we were as 11 year old kids and who we are now as people in our mid 20s. One funny recollection we talked about this afternoon was how we'd hang out before. They lived in Valle Verde, and we lived in Sta Mesa Heights. We would just show up un-announced at their apartment-step during weekends, and their helper would get all worked up trying to figure how to feed three extra mouths for lunch. Sometimes also, our driver would just ring their doorbell to announce that it was time to be picked up and brought over to our house. Can you imagine spending time with your friends now without flagging what the activity would be, or making a schedule, or figuring out where it is appropriate to meet? It's regression in many ways, isn't it.

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I think we were heading off to Metrowalk to buy some pirated stuff (yes!) when the subject of Irish-ness was brought up. I used to make fun of Mahar for wearing it as a badge of pride. As I clarified to a co-worker who thought I thought as my younger bro did, I don't self-identify as Irish. I don't even self-identify as American so I don't really get why any of us would want to talk about it in that way. My cousins gave me a fresh perspective though on what it meant for the family. 'Coz they more on the, yes, we're Irish and shouldn't hide it bit as well. they said that our grandmo thought very strongly about this as well -- and communicated it too. I had to ask: well, what is it then that would mark us that way, for us to legitimately (caution!) claim such a thing? Yes, our great-grandfather was Irish . .and?

Musicality, poetry, Irish names, catholicism(? how ironic if they had brought this up but they didn't). Most interesting though was the comment brought up by Minette...you could say it's also Pride. People who are even "less" Irish then us, know they are. So that was something I had to think about. . .but then we started moving on to talking about how occasionally frustrating it was to deal with this multi-cultural baggage. . .more on this another time.

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I visited 3 cemeteries this All Saints day period. first time i think for us