September 11, 2009

I’ll be leaving in a bit to work at Tiendesitas on my articles, where the wifi is pretty good.  The DSL here at home has been down for more than a week now, and I’ve had to head out for some mall to mooch free wifi since then.  Like yesterday, I’ll probably be heading for the Philsports Complex (formerly known as ULTRA) to swim for 30 minutes to a full hour, and maybe run a couple of laps around the track oval.  I ran for 30 minutes with Mo yesterday, and had begun running with Jaynee only last week.

I’m really into the whole health thing nowadays, especially now that I’ve given up smoking for almost a month now.  Cigarettes have been trusty companions while I reviewed for the Foreign Service Written Exam, and I promised to quit after it’s done.  My record isn’t really so clean, but apart from a couple of puffs, I’ve been a steady, cold turkey about it.  Whenever I find myself running out of breath while running or swimming, I remember all those alveoli in my lungs killed in the past and resolve to preserve the ones I have left.

I’ve only started running again this week after my legs had finally healed from that the mountain trek I came from last weekend.  I climbed Tarak Ridge in Bataan—the first mountain I’d climbed since 2004—along with the Loyola Mountaineers and the experience filled my reservoir of happiness up to the brim.  I was teamed up with Jason and Mansy—Team Daga—and in the midst of a tiring trek, a cold wet and dirty campsite and stormy weather I found myself really bonding with those two.  I still remember how warm and clean it was inside our tent, while the storm raged outside.  Jason’s funky LED light swung above our heads, and Mansy and I huddled together under my warm Ilocos blanket as we waited for our food to cook.  Mansy’s angel hair pasta and tomato sauce didn’t turn out very well—it was like eating Maggi instant noodles with ketchup—but we were all polite and happy about it anyway, and were very thankful that the food was warm.  In the middle of nowhere I found home.

I think I will be climbing a lot more in the coming months.

*              *              *

Am just waiting for JJ to come in from her last day of work before I leave.  She’s been quite the workaholic since she began working 2 months ago.  I rarely see her these days; she leaves for work with mum early in the morning and comes home past midnight.  It’s good that she’s getting off work.  She still has to work on her unfinished thesis, which will be bringing her up to Baguio maybe next week.  I think I’ll be coming with her to spend some time in Baguio.  Thank God for my kind of work.

Since I work at home and have been generally managing my work in a way that frees up so much of my time, I’ve been looking at doing second or third jobs.  I tried out working as a researcher at a local travel magazine, a stint in which I lasted a mere three weeks.  The workload was okay, and the office was full of really cute girls, but eventually I found out that the place was being run by some old guy who had a really big ego.  It also turns out that two of the cute girls were the boss’ daughters.  The people were all pretty cool by themselves (my favorite among them would be Pai, a girl who reads a lot, likes the Strokes and collects Batman comic books), but as a group the dynamics were dead—seemingly because the boss and at least one of his kids wanted to run things their way, and nobody really had the rights to speak up anymore, and even if they did it was all futile.  I don’t mind family run businesses; I’ve seen a lot of those that are pretty functional.  The things is, this one doesn’t actually own the business… they just run it.  Beyond that, I’ve been hearing a lot of bad things about how company money is spent.

Whether these things are true or not I noticed that I’d been absorbing a lot of negative energy at that place and I decided to get out as early as I could.  I noticed that I had a hard time getting up to cook breakfast for my family (which I always enjoyed doing), and was always tired and grumpy since I had to work on more articles for my original job by the time I got home.  I found myself sinking into unhappiness and after realizing that, the decision was easy.  A lot of people were amazed when I heard what I did, and personally, I don’t understand their surprise.  Friends of mine say they’re not “brave” enough to leave their jobs even though it turns them into the walking dead.  Why do something you don’t want?  Why stay at something that eats at you everyday?  It reminds me of something Martin told me a year ago.  When you’re doing something you don’t want, or doesn’t figure into your own plan, it just takes you farther away from your dreams and goals.

I like the fact that I know where I want to be.  It doesn’t matter if my goals are so far away.  One step at a time, I’ll get there.  Knowing what I want is my piece of security, a secret inside of me that burns like a star, and it makes me very happy.  It’s like being in my own warm, dry tent with good friends as the storm rages on outside.

*              *              *

Speaking of dreams, I had a dream about the written exam again.  They appended the exam with a “culture” test which gave you a list of literature and art, and from that list you had to identify which ones where “high art”, “mid-art” and “low art”.  It was so tough that as the time began to run out, I decided to pick things out randomly.  Later on, when I woke up, I figured there was no right or wrong answer for that kind of question, only that you had to give an answer.

I’d been having those dreams about that written exam for quite awhile now.  I’ll write about the exam sometime soon.  For now, it’s really all about waiting.

But as always, I’m focusing on other things.  I’ve been accomplishing a lot of things I’ve wanted to do off my to-do list, there’s signing up in an Aikido dojo, seriously taking up German or Chinese, getting a scuba license with Joanne, and studying my business plan.  Yesterday, I just finished signing up for a Red Cross First Aid and Basic Life Support training, which is a prerequisite to the course I really want to take: Lifeguarding and Water Rescue—a tough course that in the end, will test you by getting you to swim for a mile out in the open sea.  Looking forward to that, minna-san!

I hate to pour negative energy into something, but I’m not sure I can hold onto it anymore. Tonight has been a night of sheer torment for me and it’s the cascading motion that really hit me the worst. My night wouldn’t have been so bad alone, but one thing happened, then another, then another and so on and so forth. It was like something or someone was purposefully trying to piss me off tonight. My day was fine until about 5:30 and then everything turned sour with the quickness.

To start my evening of delight my “co-worker” decided that she was going to let me close pretty much all by my onesies. In short I broke down the relaxation lounge, took out the relax garbage, wiped down the counters, broke down the cafe, took out the trash in the pool room, employee bathroom, locked the doors, completed the paperwork, loaded up the dishes and delivered them to the house, wiped down the saunas, turned off the wet sauna, clean out the men’s lounge, shut down the computers, shut down the cardio room, all music players, 5 baskets of laundry, and switched off the breakers (I’m sure I’m forgetting some things, but you get the general idea).

She broke down the women’s lounge, cleaned sandals, and 2 baskets of laundry.

I was so pissed i could spit. Then when I got into my car I found I had forgotten to cut my ipod off, so my music was null and void (Oh, I forgot to mention when I dropped off the dishes it started to rain and if it wasn’t for someone in the laundry dept being nice and offering me a ride back to my department I think I might have lost it all together).  There was some maintenance being done on the pool, so I was supposed to leave my key at the house for them to use. When I got home I realized I gave them my house key, not the spa key, so I had to make a return trip to get my key back.

On the return trip my gas light came on signalling I was out of gas and at the station my card wouldn’t work at the pump, so I had to go inside (which completely defeats the point of paying at the pump). I mean really? This night sucked.

The only redeeming grace was my girl was waiting for me with Chinese food when I got back to my apartment. We watched a mini-marathon of Lost Season I (yes, I’m starting to watch Lost) and I took her home. It was a nice reprieve, but I swear the events that took place between 5:30 and 9:15 tonight blew something fierce.

Good-Night

Muffins awakens after a McCormick's Vodka/Welch's grape juice bender

I was fairly excited to go to work today, mostly because I knew I was putting in my two weeks notice.  I stayed up late last night watching, “The Uninvited” with Matthew and eating out of a ginormous box of Junior Mints I found at Wal-Mart last week.  Today I was scheduled in the office to do the bank deposit and blah, blah, blah.  I had to be at work at 7 a.m.   An ugly, unGodly hour, but it was a whole hell of a lot uglier before I got pregnant, back in the days when I stayed out all night drinking vodka tonics.  Those were the days of stumbling to work with the remnants of the previous night’s mascara clumped onto my heavy eyelashes, trying not to breathe too close to anyone for the fear that they will suddenly freeze, sniff, then announce, “God! Does…(sniff) does anyone smell…(sniff) Corona?  I swear, I smell Corona.”

I had just left our neighborhood when I spotted an orange and white cat bouncing around in the shallow ditch on the side of the road.  I knew right away that it was our neighbors’  lost cat.  They had posted up flyers all over the place a week and a half ago, looking for their pet.  I pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car.  I can imagine the sight to passerby:  Pregnant woman in dress clothes climbing out of a Jeep and running down the street.  The cat, dumbly trusting and friendly, ran right up to me and allowed me to scoop it into my arms.  It yowled and scrambled around in the backseat while I drove back into the neighborhood.  To make a long story short, I called the number on the flier that was still posted on our street and dropped the kitty off at it’s house.   I was pretty put-off by the owner’s reaction however.  She simply retorted, “Oh, the kids will be happy”, and shut the door in my startled face as soon as the cat ran into the house.  Riiight.  Meanwhile, I was twenty minutes late for work, bleeding from a scratch on my wrist acquired during the kitty-car transfer, and my black pants and maternity top were covered from head to toe in cat hair.   I’m sure my boss didn’t buy my excuse as to why I was late.  She gave me a quick ‘courtesy’ rat-a-tat-tat machine gun chuckle and sent a knowing glance to another employee that I also dislike basically because she likes to remind me every day about how she is 22 weeks pregnant and has only gained two pounds.

After I gave my notice, I experienced a euphoric sense of relief, and one of unencumbered consequence.  For the first time, I simply did not care about making a mistake.  I brought my water bottle into the office with me, a strict no-no.  Not only that, but I turned on the radio while I worked on the accounting sheets for a few hours.  Oh yes, I am a rebel.

I came home after work to find that Matthew had ordered me a bouquet of flowers from the floral shop on base.  They are gorgeous, pink lilies and red roses with a card that read, “Happy 1st Mother’s Day!”  It was incredibly sweet.  He has been mowing the lawn while I have been writing this, but came in a few minutes ago to tell me that one of our other neighbors keeps coming outside to peer over at our grass.  “Am I cutting the sod too short?” Matthew asked, pulling up the blinds by the couch so I could peer out.  I thought it looked a little short, but fine.  It’s grass, for Cripes sake.  Besides, these are the same neighbors that own a cute puppy that saunters over to poop in my yard.  Maybe they are worried that our new sod haircut will reveal the dog tootsie rolls that they hoped would go unnoticed in our unkempt grass.  My across the street neighbors take the cake.  The wife can only be seen outside smoking.  I can tell when she has run out of cigarettes, because then I will look out the window and be greeted by sight of her generous butt hanging out of a pair of black Juicy Couture pants as she scurries through the bushes of her landscaping, bent over and looking for cigarette butts to light and toke a puff off of.    This is all sorta surprising too, because we live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in our area.

Sometimes things are not what they seem, though.  The dog poo neighbor wasn’t scowling at our yard, after all.  He just wanted to borrow our mower.

I came really close to quiting my job today. I am so infuriated by this new girl at work I could scream! Don’t get me wrong, I understand that this is just a job, but have some self discipline and decency for crying out loud. Not only does this new girl epically fail at everything she “attempts” to do properly, she slacks off on everything else she’s supposed to do.

It’s not like my job is that difficult. If you’re stocking stuff you make sure it goes in the correct spot, in the correct order, and you keep everything filled up. Hell, there is even notes and models to go by and she still manages to mess it up. The icing on the cake is when I ask her if she’s done something, say cleaned the lounge, she says yeah it’s done, and low and behold I go in there and it isn’t. If I weren’t from the south I think I’d smack a bitch.

She’s lived off daddy’s money all her snoody life and she expects everyone to just pamper her and do her job for her while she stands around and looks pretty (a side note on that is she ain’t that pretty). The only person she remotely puts in effort for is the lady that hired her and I’ve already said my piece about how I don’t like closing everything down alone while we get paid for it.

Plus, every time I try to help her out and teach her something she rolls her eyes and talks to me like I’m a child. Her arrogance astounds and baffles me. I don’t see how anyone could stand living with her. I mean every time I look at her I want to take a pillow to her face and smother her to death (that’s a bit of an overstatement, but you get the general idea.) I swear after a five minute conversation with this girl I understand why some animals eat there young.

I hate that I let her get to me like this, but it makes my brain hurt just picturing her slack jawed I’m better than you face.

AAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Phew! Okay, I feel better.

I decided today that enough was enough. I was tired of working for a company who verbally abuses their employees and makes false promises. I never got the proper training I needed and never received the raise that I was promised (although I was told both would happen). So. I. Quit.

I have never walked out on a job before today. I didn’t make a scene or leave mid-shift, I finished my jobs for the day and turned in my key on the way out. As soon as I left I felt so relieved knowing that I won’t have to go in to work tomorrow.

Of course now I need to find something else with the quickness, but right now I know I can do better. In fact I just received an e-mail asking me to join up on some typing jobs (something I’m actually good at).

I am so excited. I wanted to take steps in changing my future and I’ve done it.

I am smiling. I thought I had forgotten how to do that.

^_^

I’ve taken the liberty to share my advice and opinions over at Blogher on becoming a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM). If you’ve ever thought about being a stay at home parent (because the advice is the same for a man) this article will answer those age old questions that are lurking in your mind.

Go there. Read. Stay home if you want to. Taking the Steps To Be A SAHM

I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking.        He called me a quitter.     (Steven Pearl)

In my family the worst thing next to folk dancing and incest was quitting. It didn’t matter that you hated it. “Don’t be a quitter.”  The idea was that if you made a committment to someone or something, you were obligated FOR LIFE or until the gig was up. Don’t sign up if you don’t intend to  . . .  and so on.

It’s not hard to discern the origins and practicality of such a dictum. Many events and activities in life shouldn’t be entered into lightly, as they say, and should be thought out so thoroughly that the necessity of quitting is precluded. Naturally. Given.

My parents were right not to let me quit the tough courses in high school. I wanted to, thinking “Current Events” and “Home and Family” would make me hip and prepare me for “life.” I was right not to let my daughter quit band when the going got tough, and it was requiring hours of memorizing scales and practicing difficult pieces. She’ll confirm my rightness. But I may not have been right in not letting my son quit certain sports.

My husband was out of the state for a few days a couple of weeks ago. In his absence I took a job. I had turned down a couple of offers, but this was a dream job that I really wanted in the priciest boutique in town. The owner and I hit it off, even supported the same presidential candidate, so after a two-hour interview I had the offer. I would help her manage the store. Best friends to be.

“What were you expecting in terms of salary?”
Well, uh, . . .  “I was thinking $$$. Is that doable?”
“Yes. We can do that.”
“Great!”

But walking to my car after closing that first day, I realized that I had made a mistake, lured yet again by the promise of easy.  I was actually running. The projects that I’m working on are getting harder. I spend a great deal of time working through tutorials. It’s too much sometimes. But it’s satisfying, and it suits me.

So I quit the first week. I needed to. Not quitting would have been taking the easy way out and sacrificing what I’ve wanted to accomplish for years.

I fully support not picking up activities (or people!) with little thought and then abandoning them.  By their nature many things demand sticking with it until the end. Marriage is one. Childbearing is one. But t-ball is not. Your college major is not. (I changed five times.) Leaving a job if you can afford to is not.

So call me a quitter.  It wasn’t easy given my upbringing.  But I’m taking my chances and trusting my instinct that it was the right call.

I finally quit my job at pizza hut.  They were treating me unfairly, and making me do things that other workers didn’t have to do and it wasn’t enough money, and everyone was just being really awful tonight, so I quit.  But on a bright note.  I am SO excited about the play.  I don’t know if I said this already, but we are doing The Wizard of Oz, a non musical version.  I thought that it was going to be a bigger deal than usual, but WOW!!! I put a list on the drama teacher, Mrs Crockett’s, door with a list of characters and put it in the announcements to sign up.  There are around 40 characters, and I figured I was going to have to make some characters double up on small parts… There are like 50 names on that sheet.  Everyone wants to be Dorothy, the Wicked Witch, or Glinda… Ugh.  At first, it was going to be just me, Linda, and Ms. Crockett judging, but I remembered how last year, there was drama (no pun intended) because people accused the director of picking her friends for the job… Yea… SOOO the judges are a big deal.  I know Mrs. Crockett will pick favorites… But oh well.  Ms. Keith is probably going to, but she will be partial to some students, not as bad as Mrs. Crockett though! Lol.  Mr. Ruffin is definitely judging and I’m glad, he will be fair I think.  Then, I decided to make things completely fair, to bring in someone totally unrelated to the school or the play to judge. That’s not easy, but my Aunt Becca has agreed to come and judge!! I love her!! That’s going to make things fair.  I can’t wait.  This play is going to be AWESOME!! If you have any suggestions tell me!!! Talk to you later.

Logan

He was a failure at first.

William Tecumseh Sherman was one of the great heroes of the Civil War. His famous march on Atlanta that razed the South and left nothing but ash in his wake played a pivotal role in securing the North’s victory and helped free men, women and children from the bondage of slavery.

There are times when it necessary — even beneficial — to quit your job. For some workers, there are intolerable conditions that are better left in the rear-view mirror. You may need to reposition your future and go in a different direction. With a healthy and vibrant economy, there is no moral quandary to finding other employment.

There is a right way to do this.
Don’t burn your bridges. Don’t say things you shouldn’t say. Don’t bad mouth the company or management or your coworkers. Don’t walk out in a huff. Do the right thing, give proper notice, clean out your locker and leave with your head held high.

But there may be a reason to stay in a bad environment, especially for the Red Letter Believer, the Christian who is commited to living out the words of Christ.

Zacchaeus (Luke 19) is a great example. He was a tax collector – a despicable man who cheated his own people so the Romans could use him and lavish him with riches. Until he met a certain man from Galilee.

Jesus went to Zacchaeus’ house, they had a party, and there, everyone got saved.

The next morning, Zacchaeus returned to his job a new man. He didn’t quit because suddenly “he got religion.” He didn’t rat out his employer to the press. He didn’t go to the magistrate and give him a “piece of his mind.” He didn’t retreat to “full-time Christian service.”

Instead, he committed to living out Christ’s principles in the workplace. He went back to his job, still “Zacchaeus,” but as a new new man. He vowed to repay those he had wronged. He was now not just a believer, but a follower.

So maybe, before you quit, there’s still a little more work for you do

Tonight is the first Halloween I will be at home, alone… doin’ nothing but crafting. Call it what you will, but I am kind of excited. Not excited I will be alone (Peter has to work… boo) but excited I will have time to refine some things on the blog front, the shop front, and give candy to all of those Trick-or-Treaters. Actually, now that I think of it… this is the first time having a Halloween at our new place… hopefully I will have Trick-or-Treaters, otherwise Peter and I are going to have to eat a ton (300 to be exact) of dum-dum suckers.

I also plan to work on the grannies tonight. I kind of feel like I have been shunning the afghan for a while with everything that has been going on the last couple of days, so time to give it a little tender love and care so I can have it done before it starts getting warm again.. haha.

Work today has been great. I have been doing less work than normal (for obvious reasons) and taking my time weeding out the pile on my desk. I think I have the right to tell you the truth. I didn’t have to give them notice or I could just stop doing my daily duties all together… either way, I definitely feel I made the right decision – without a doubt.

Okay, well, tonight I will be posting all  those pictures I keep telling you I am posting… promise.

“Quite often we change jobs, friends and spouses instead of ourselves.”
– Akbarali Jetha

The typical American spends eight or more hours a day at work but that’s just the start of it. Add up the commute time, the time spent in personal preparation, and the time decompressing in the evening and you’ll find that work consumes a majority of your waking hours.

It is no wonder that work can invade even our quietest moments. How many nights have you stretched out on your bed, wide awake, replaying the day’s events? You recall the criticisms being thrown around, the personality clashes, the seemingly impossible deadlines, and the overbearing bosses.

Then a thought begins to worm its way in between your ears. An innocent notion that flies in from out of nowhere, just a quiet whisper, “I’ve got to find something better.” And for some of us this errant thought can take on a much darker tone. “I can’t stand this place.” Many of us can hear Johnny Paycheck singing the chorus of his anti-workplace anthem. “I want to quit my job,” you hear the voice say!

For many of us, the job feels as if it has become a cruel form of punishment, our own personal prison where we are serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. We’re told what to do and how to do it. We’re told when to take a break and when to eat. The warden with his keys strolls past the cubicle to make sure the work is being done. Deviation from the norm results in punishment. You long for contact with the outside world, for a bit of sunshine, a ray of hope.

So should you quit your job?

For the believer this becomes a tough question. We should never make decisions based just on money – since we know that these decisions are rarely based on giving God honor. And we shouldn’t walk just because we can’t get along, since that destroys the concept of inter-personal relationships that God has redeemed.

What do you think? Post a comment. Let’s talk about when it is appropriate to leave a job.
Or, what does it take to ‘take this job and LOVE it?’

** David Rupert


“So why do you call me ‘Lord,’ when you won’t obey me? I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then obeys me.”
– Luke 6:46-47 NIV