jaguar_kally7's Xanga

At the sink

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:22:48 GMT

Yesterday morning, the lady who lives downstairs tried to talk to me, and my inner snob was revealed. How? I only half-listened to her at first because she looked like a maid. I thought that she was the yaya of a relatively well-off freshman and had been sent here to cook for and clean up after her ward, who played bad music early in the morning. I was so close, yet so far from the truth. When I swam out of the part of my brain that was blocking this lady out, this is what I heard:

Do you want to buy this lpg tank? And the stove, too. We barely used them, but we have to leave. We have to go home to the province. My husband had a heart attack, and he wants me and my daughter--she goes to the community college down the road--to come home. My daughter will have to stop school.

"Sayang," I managed to say, after gargling and spitting out toothpaste.

"Oo nga, sayang," she replied. Anyway, would you mind asking the girls upstairs if they want to buy the tank? It's barely used.

Finally, I saw how tired and sad she looked. But her back was already turned to me; she was already shuffling back into their room.

This morning, I realized that I didn't hear music coming from there anymore.

It all boils down to

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:09:52 GMT

knowing what I want to do with my life, but not knowing what I should do until then. Because, the grown-up world demands an "until then."

=*=

I won't be home for Halloween, but I'll be there for Christmas.

=*=

I miss you guys. I realized the other day that of all the friends I've made in the past ten years, you guys--AJ, Cammie, Meg, Lei--are still the best. I don't write as much as I used to, and I don't see you enough, but really. I say this with an objective rating of friend goodness. You four are the best.

=*=

I miss playing the Sims. It's the only reason I regret switching from Windows to Ubuntu. One luxury I would like to have for myself is a computer set up solely for the Sims. Martin can share it if he wants to play his sports games. But he'd have a hard time prying me out of the chair, especially if I managed to collect every version. Sims Sims Sims--plus expansion packs.

=*=

more rambling and procrastinating.

=*=

I was going to say, you know that story about the boy and the magical ball of string? You know, where he pulls on one end to make his life go a little faster--like "Click," but lower-tech? The moral of the story was that if you just went through life at its normal pace, your memory of it would be that much richer when you used up all the string / got to the credits of the movie.

I was going to say, you know that story about the boy and the magical ball of string? If I had that ball right now, I'd pull on the string. I don't want to put up with this anymore; I want things to be great already.

But then--call me a sap now--I thought of all the times Martin made me smile after crying my eyes out over how awfully life was going. And I knew--sappiness continues--I wouldn't want to miss any of those times, any of the little in-between moments in the middle of the swamp and gloom, for anything. For those moments, getting to the "then" part of "until then" would be that much more wonderful, and slogging through the "until" part would be that much more worth it.

It'll be worth it, right?

Be happy be happy

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:26:14 GMT

I look at Martin now and realize that when we first started hanging out late last year, I thought of us as two kids. We were two kids hanging out after work and chatting. Now, almost one year later, he seems to have aged. The stuff that's happened since then--was it really enough to turn him even older for his age? Or has he really been this man the whole time, and it just took me a year to figure that out? (No matter how old he gets, I'll love him, but that's not the point right now.)

What about me? I don't feel that much older, and yet I know that I'm different, too. How old am I now? How is it that I can think these little grown-up things all day (write this e-mail, read that research, withdraw X amount of money--crap; I forgot to bring my NBI clearance so I can photocopy it) and still want to plop down on the mat, cut shapes out of paper, and color with crayons? Why does the first seem like a pretend and the second the real thing Kat is supposed to do?

I know the danger of regressing, but I also know the danger of losing child-likeness. The things I want to do, on which side of the line do they fall?

I watch "TekkonKinkreet" and feel for White, wish I were him, wish I had everyone's understanding that I just don't have the right screws to work in this kind of world. But am I really wired differently, or do I just not want to be here?

My first dips into Surrealism--"I've never cried over an art movement before," I told Martin--particularly Surrealist visual art--have been fun, but they scare me, too.

Are all these things--the childish/-like desires, the feeling of not-belonging, the interest in Surrealism and the unconscious--attempts at escape? Or are they an uncovering?

How can I tell between the lazy self not wanting to leave the comfort zone and the right and true self who knows what really fits, and so comforts, me? Who am I supposed to be? Who am I now? How old am I, really?

Lipat Bahay 2

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:46:16 GMT

I was wrong. I did unpack, and with every artifact I unpacked, my hopes for happiness in my new place went up. I realized that it was the first time in five years since I'd had my own room, so of course I set about making it as much mine as possible.

The layout I used was according to the best possible use of the little space. It all depended on two things: the locations of the electrical outlets, and the size of the things that needed to be flush with the wall. So that the cabinet wouldn't block any outlets, I had to move the ref from one corner to another and then push the cabinet into its place. There was nowhere else to put the bed after that but the wall opposite.

In the end, however, practicality lent itself to a particular aesthetic. When I stood at the door to inspect my handiwork, the setup gave me the same secure feeling as in a childhood nest. "My fort," I whispered. "My kingdom."

I texted people that it felt like New York (New York, Cubao isn't that far from here, btw); while I've never actually been to the Big Apple, the sound of the LRT going by reminded me of all those scenes in TV and movies where the L train rattles the windows.

My windows don't rattle, though. And when, while unpacking, I first heard the train going by, I felt a huge comfort. The trains are my favorite thing about Metro Manila. They're magic. It was nice to know that they were so close.

By the end of the first day, I knew I was in love with my new place, possibly more than I loved Ortigas. I have yet to see how life in the house will flow once all the rooms are rented out, how hard or easy it will be to see Martin, and how tight things will be now that I'm paying the rent all on my own. But what's that up in the clouds? It's my hope.

Lipat Bahay

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:26:02 GMT

I am sadder about leaving Ortigas than I was about leaving the dorm. The reason, of course, is that the dorm was the dorm; everything about it said temporariness. I was very conscious of the way I referred to it; for years, I never said, "Uuwi na ako sa dorm (I'm going home to the dorm)," but "Pabalik na ako sa dorm (I'm heading back to the dorm)." Four years there seems like a blip compared to the one year I lived in Ortigas.

When I moved to Ortigas, I was highly conscious of the difference between me and my roommate. She already had a house in Novaliches, so for her, the apartment was a place to crash. My family was miles away, and I was desperate to get out of my relatives' house. So for me, Ortigas was a place to live. There were no second thoughts about calling it my home.

I started out with a few essentials: kitchen appliances, a bed, and a closet. I was collecting household tips (baking soda, lemon juice, and vinegar for cleaning; baits instead of sprays to kill roaches) and took a quiet delight in mundane tasks such as taking out the trash, sweeping the floor, and scrubbing the shower tiles. By the middle of the year, I was financially confident enough to start making a list of more things to buy: a new mattress, another set of shelves, and a good side table for the TV perched on top of the refrigerator.

Then my roommate announced that she would not be renewing the lease with me, and I immediately cut homemaking out of my lifeplan for the rest of the year to write in, "Find a new place to live."

I could not afford the apartment without a roommate, even when I got a new job with a slightly higher salary. The trouble with me was that I had gotten used to the privacy; my roommate and I each had boyfriends and different sets of friends, so at different times, we each found ourselves alone in the apartment. I didn't want to adjust to a new routine with a new roommate -- in fact, I didn't want a roommate at all; I wanted a place all my own.

In the weeks that followed, however, I found that there was nothing like the Ortigas apartment within my budget. (I was determined to find and pay for a new place without my parents' help. My boyfriend, who also needed to move, wanted to live with me, and he was the only new roommate I would have accepted; renewing the lease with him would have solved both our problems. But that was the kind of independent action that would have lost me my family's respect.) I was this close to saying yes to my parents' help. As the time on the lease ran out, I settled for a boarding house somewhere in Cubao.

I don't want to live there. On the surface, it's because of the number of other people in the house and the number of things I will have to move, but at the heart of it, it's because a boarding house stands for temporariness again. While I did say I had just a few essentials, they are heavy essentials and will be difficult to move. I don't regret getting them at the start because today, they represent a kind of stubbornness I wish I could entertain. They are heavy because I want to be weighed down, want to be tied to one place, want my world to have a physical pivotal point. That was Ortigas to me; that's what the rented room will never be.

In my mind, I can see the room I'll be renting, and I'm starting to envision the layout I want as I envisioned one for the Ortigas apartment. I haven't decided yet where my bed will go, but for sure, the rented room will have one side lined with boxes I will not unpack. It will only be a storage room I happen to sleep in, and home life as I created it, as I want it, will be on hold until I can really get a place of my own, on my own.

I want to go home. I think of Kalsangi, the Ortigas apartment, and even of Martin's room in Paranaque, but really, it doesn't matter anymore. I just want to go home.

Silip

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:45:35 GMT

Hallo, piplets.

Things have been really busy. I'm still trying to get the hang of my new job. I almost wish I still had the old one; at least I didn't feel this pressured. But I know that this one will have a lot more to teach me, if not in terms of the writing craft, then in terms of organization and discipline. I'm determined to last at least six months.

Tomorrow, I should get my final check from CCF. Depending on how much it is, I plan to use that to pay for a deposit on a place to live and then put the rest away in my savings account. I'm trying to land a room without having to ask my parents for financial help.

See, I will be homeless in a couple of days if I don't find a new place to live soon. Finding the right one is hard. It's too far from work, or it's not in the best condition. The lighting is wrong, or the rules are extreme. The neighborhood isn't that great, or I can't afford it. My standards aren't that high, but they're not that low, either. :p Fingers still crossed.

I counted wrong; it seems that our sixth monthaversary is still tomorrow and wasn't last month. Haha.

What's new with you?

Cleaning out my desk

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:38:39 GMT

It's my last working day at CCF. Yesterday, I cleaned out my desk -- kind of. I just took home the stuff that was mine and left all the CCF papers there. Only right, right? Today, I'll be cleaning this computer of my files.

I thought this day would never come. And I don't just mean that in the way you think you'd never find an oasis after wandering through the scorching desert for days. I mean really, in the back of my mind, I thought this day would never come. I guess I just got used to the routine.

This morning, I rushed down a shortcut by the ADB to clock in on time, for the last time. I'll meet Martin at lunch break in Megamall for the last time (the kind of convenience we've enjoyed might no longer be available once I'm working and maybe living in New Manila). After that is my last staff meeting. After that I clock out of CCF, for the last time.

Am I sad? Not really. I'm thankful for my time at CCF, but I'm very much looking forward to September -- birthday, new job, new place to live (I hope). It's gonna be stressful. It's gonna be challenging. It's gonna be fun.

Those of you I've allowed to see me gripe about my job have celebrated the change with me. I hope you won't go away when I start griping again. :p

I do feel sad about having to move out of Ortigas. It's only been a year in this part of the city, but as I walk to and from home, I see bits and pieces of me that I found and will leave here. There's the park where I read and wrote in the hour I had to wait before work started. There's the convenience store where I supplemented my too-early breakfast with a Dole banana (I thought of buying bananas as a way of sending money home). There's the window I looked out at the city from with the thrill of being out on my own.

There's also the ledge where Martin told me how he felt about me. The other ledges we hung out on, the few streets we explored. The place where he first put his arms around me. The place where he first let the word "love" slip -- the place from which he first walked me home and held my hand.

Someone else will soon occupy the place where he first kissed me, so I'll never get to visit it again.

Despite the fact that it was also here that friendship started to fray, I won't deny that Edwin and his friendship was a part of my life in Ortigas, too. I'm thankful.

"We'll make new memories in other places, love," Martin said when I told him how sad I was.

The other day, I bought a new diary. My way isn't to buy the imported ones with leather covers and art by Jordi Labanda or kukuxumusu. I get a cheap school notebook (but with nice paper) from the school supply shelves of National Bookstore and re-cover it with a different design.

That day was the first time I bought a diary while someone was there with me. The fact that this someone was Martin makes the five minutes it took to buy a diary more significant than usual. It was a tiny, tidy, symbolic moment: Martin was there when I picked up the new repository of my life -- a life that's been changed by him and has come to revolve around him. This was the diary that would contain my first days at the new job, moving to a new place, and figuring the rest of life out. That brief moment at the notebook shelves held the promise that for all those moments, Martin would be there, too.

Here's to new memories.

Yikee.

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:17:11 GMT

Six months na.

It's not the software; or, A little freelancer angst

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:54:06 GMT

Sometime ago, Martin offered me a freelance gig: to layout a brochure for a small non-profit organization. The company he works for already had its own in-house designers, but they were both preoccupied with other projects, and they needed to meet the non-profit's deadline. Martin knew that I wanted freelance projects from someone other than Mom and that I could layout, so he suggested that I "audition" as a freelancer for the company with this first project.

To make a long story short, Martin's boss liked the brochure, and the client did, too. The boss then proposed that I be the go-to layout person for this particular client.

So, about two weeks ago, I was asked to layout another project. This time, it was a comic. Someone else would take care of the comic itself; I just had to layout the information that would go on the back page.

This is what happened:

1. I can't draw very well, but I knew exactly what images I wanted to accompany the layout. I asked the comic artist if she could draw these for me also, and she obliged.

2. The comic artist sent her inked work, and the in-house artists and designers set to coloring it. I, meanwhile, dropped it into my file, just to see where it would go.

The comic was too tall and also too narrow to fit the page ideally. I took this up with the in-house designer who was also the art director; she was to have the final word on everything I produced. I pointed out that it would fit better if we used a smaller size paper for the brochure, but because the company had told the client such-and-such dimensions and because it was too close to the deadline, I figured that there was nothing for it but to resize the comic as best I could.

It was through this first snag that some signals got crossed. The art director asked me what software I was using. I said that I was using the GIMP. Through our chat, I got the idea that she had some doubts about the GIMP's capabilities versus Photoshop's and that the reason the comic had messed up dimensions in my layout was that the GIMP had messed up dimensions.

It threw me off. Rather than trusting my experience -- I've designed stuff using the GIMP before and printed its results, and I never had dimension problems -- I started to wonder if it might be inferior after all.

The art director offered to resize the comic for me and send it to me later.

3. Because the comic artist and the in-house designers were busy working on the comic, Martin and I designed the comic's title panel together. It was also to serve as a logo.

We started working on it via chat, him making suggestions, and me continuing to render it on the GIMP, and finished it at his office during their overtime, after I got off from my own job. The art director approved the logo.

While at Martin's office, his boss said that the comic fit better on the smaller size paper I'd suggested. That quickly put my dimension worries aside, and I knew I wouldn't have to wait for a resized comic.

4. The day of the deadline, I submitted my layout. I also included a layout of the first page of the comic, where the title/logo would appear.

The art director asked me to make certain adjustments, and I made them. Everything seemed hunky-dory.

5. Then, the account executive for the client jumped in. This is the point where everything when downhill.

The AE asked me if I could redraw the logo a certain way. I told her that I couldn't draw.

She asked me what software I was using.

Again with that question. I told her, it's not the software, it's the skill. Even if I were using Photoshop, what she wanted me to do required knowing how to draw something by hand.

To go off on a tangent for a little bit, I would just like to say that you can know how to use the most cutting-edge software in the world and still be unable to design for shit. You can also be one of the best designers in the world and happen to be running some caveman program on a weenie processor. It's kinda like my favorite math teacher used to say: you can't blame your calculator when you're the one who pushes the buttons.

I am not the best designer in the world, but I do know a thing or two -- enough, at least, to be asked to do this project. You shouldn't mind if I use a different software from you; mind when I can't do the job regardless of what software I use.

Drawing is not something I can do, regardless of what software I use, and the AE didn't get that. She asked me if I could try redrawing anyway, and also making a couple more revisions to my layout. She seemed to think I could do it as long as I had software helping me.

I did the best I could. I used the GIMP because it's what I have, but I used the same techniques I would have used had I been using Photoshop. It took so long that I did not have as much time left for the actual layout -- my actual part in the project -- as I would have wanted.

6. I sent the work and then went out to meet Martin. When he saw me, he gave me this news: they didn't like my redrawing and were going to ask the comic artist to draw the art for them.

I felt angry about this because, had the AE listened to me when I said that I couldn't draw like she wanted, they would have gone straight to the artist in the first place, and I wouldn't have taken all that time doing something that was going to be scrapped anyway.

But at least it was over.

7. It wasn't over.

Yesterday, Martin received two e-mails. One was from the client, saying that the layout was perfect. The other was from the AE, giving him a copy of the layout they'd sent the client.

It wasn't my layout anymore. The only credit I can claim for it is the design for the text in the logo, and the fact that I'd requested that specific art for the page (again, see #1).

Peanuts.

8. To add insult to injury, I didn't get a copy of either e-mail. I don't mind not getting a "The client liked the layout!" because it wasn't my layout that the client received. But a "Hey, Kat, thanks for the time you put into our project, but we redid the layout completely and won't be using yours anymore," would have been proper, at the very least.

I would even have taken a "Check out what we went with instead," in the best way; I would have seen it as something to learn from so that I could become a better designer.

If you don't like my work, fine. If, for some reason, my preference for a different software adds to its suckiness, fine. Let me know so that I can do a better job; don't take the job from me and without telling me first and telling me why.

9. Despite everything, I would still like to help that company with its projects. I haven't gotten paid for the first project I did for them, and I would still like to help. The client is working for a cause I support, the people at the company are actually nice people (I mean, hey; I happen to be in love with one of them), and this whole experience is probably due to deadline stress and signals getting crossed. But if they ask me to do anything that requires drawing, I'm turning it down. That way, everybody's happy.

Snapshot blog entry

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:16:47 GMT

Sunday, I went to Caliraya with the cousins, but the tide was too low for swimming.

I took some pictures there and knew more than ever that I wanted my own camera or something similar. I have stuck to this rule I read somewhere, "Don’t buy a new camera until you’ve hit all its limitations and have found your photography restricted by them for at least three months. Do this, and you may never have to buy another camera ever again." I have hit the limitations and found them quite limiting.

I didn't ask my parents to replace the camera that had been stolen from me in March because I was earning my own money. But a lot has happened since then, and I am now saving up for things more important than a camera. Still, I can't help wishing I had one to better chronicle my way. I've got an affinity for Canon's Powershot series, but Myka's Sony camera seems pretty good, also.

Things happened very quickly last week. I was asked to come in for an exam on Monday, then an interview on Wednesday, then was offered the job Thursday. I accepted on Friday and filed my resignation that same day. Next month, I'll be a new staff writer over at Business World.

I didn't want to blog about it until things looked more sure. :)

I have called off my search for a new roommate because there are room-for-rent listings that I can afford on my own, and I would really like to have my own room now. I actually look forward to moving again.

I realize that living and working somewhere else, even if it's still in Metro Manila, will dramatically change the frequency with which Martin and I get to go out. I also foresee missing holidays and weekends and staying up late, because it's work at a newspaper. But Martin's been wonderful about this and has been behind me 100%; we'll work things out. :)

I really miss you guys. Meg, I'm sorry that I couldn't hang out with you at Comic-Con (Megamall) on Saturday; I'm trying to get added to a pool of freelance writers, and part of the 'audition' process was to cover a food expo in Pasay. With turnover and pre-employment and other stuff happening, here's hoping things settle down by the time of my birthday.