Not Quite Post-Exam, Day One: Verbosity

So, first day of the week.  Despite my misgivings over the task at hand, I think I have a good idea where I want to go with the take-home examination I was given.  That said, going from idea to action is a different thing entirely, and in all honesty, I’m not sure I have what it takes to replicate the wordiness of Dickens’ (or Balzac actually) style.  It’s one thing to pad a narrative with words, but one has to recall that Balzac and Dickens were  practitioners of Realism, meaning that despite the wordiness each word wasn’t really wasted, and used instead to describe, with great detail, pretty mundane things.  Then there’s the lyric and melodic quality of the prose and, well, it’s no wonder I’m a little daunted.  And with the word limit we’re given (1000 per question), well, I suppose this is the part where we have to balance the verbosity with the narrative actually doing it’s job.

As for the second entry, eh, I’m far too embarrassed to go with the first choice, so I’ll just go with question number two.  Yes, I’m going for the easier question, but as I already mentioned, I’m not really comfortable with what the first one entails.  Besides, the usage of wildly differing theories in the text itself, and consciously at that, is another of my weak points.

In any case I better finish both by the end of tomorrow though, so I can work on the exegetic essays to both.  

Obvious Solution

No, I haven’t actually started on my rewrite yet, but I think I’ve now realized just where it was I messed up.  Ugh, such an amateur mistake: outlining! It’s the one thing I never did during the treatment process, and I realize now just how much the lack of a formal outline had messed things up. I had a beginning, I had an end and… that was it, really.  Without an outline to guide me on what was supposed to be happening in which scene (and where each scene was supposed to be in relation to each other), it’s no wonder things are going literally nowhere.  Mmph.

But… That’ll have to wait.  It’s going to be another busy workday tomorrow, and I can’t afford to be drowsy.  I do hope to be able to finish this when I get home, but that’s providing I’m not fatigued out of my mind again.

The Usual False Starts

It’s payday once again, but as usual I can’t really feel happy about receiving my salary. On the plus side it’s money, meaning it’s something to deposit into my struggling savings account (which at that point just had a hundred pesos left that I could actually withdraw) and use to keep me fed at work until the next payday. On the downside, I expect that it’s not going to have that long of a stay in my bank account, especially with the arrival of the usual bills during the second half of the month.  Indeed, I had to take off about two thousand pesos even before I deposited what was left into my savings, just to partly pay off the bill on one of my credit cards. Mmm, at this rate, I’ll be able to pay it off before Christmas.  Wonderful.

Since it’s technically still Sunday in the US, it was a very slow day at work, with scarcely more than twelve customer service calls during my six-hour shift. Most of the time in between calls I spent cruising the internet, as usual, but given the office filters there’s very few websites I could access (for a good idea, look at the links I keep in this blog), so eventually even that got boring.  Still, I can’t complain, as slow days like today make the rest of the week bearable, in its own minor way.

It rained again today, but this time around it didn’t last through the afternoon. It started letting up around three thirty, which meant I was able to go out and do some jogging after. Too bad I just had to eat on the way back home after an hour on my usual route, but at least this time around I made an effort. If the weather smiles on me, I’ll try again tomorrow, this time trying to avoid the food temptations as I head home. Yeah.

Not really making headway on my 5-page Screenplay Treatment. It’s the usual issue of being distracted combined with a lack of sleep, so as usual I’ll likely turn in early. So priority one once I get home is… Well, turning off the internet, closing all browsers, and use the rest of the afternoon on the assignment.

Sounds like a good plan. Let’s just hope it survives tomorrow.

Unexpected Glitches

If people have been wondering why I didn’t have my usual journal entry last night, well apparently we lost our phone connection again yesterday. I only found about it myself once I returned from my afternoon jog, which I have to say is an unwelcome surprise. Without the phone line, we didn’t have any internet. Funny how things worked out.

I had to use my father’s cellphone to call PLDT’s CS, who then gave me the usual that the connection was fine on their end… which meant that this was a local problem isolated to my area. Hmm. It looks like I won’t be able to update my journal for the time being from the comfort of my house, and will have to depend on my workstation as well as the old net shops… On the bright side, this means less distractions while I work on my assignments.

I just hope things get sorted out before the week ends.

Calm Before The Panic

Today was another relatively calm start to the week. Nothing really out of the ordinary, but given my current situation at the office I couldn’t afford to lower my guard. With the looming threat of the hearing over my head, it was really hard to relax like I would normally do during a Monday. Tsk. There’s no word yet on when it’ll happen, but it’s likely that the email I’m dreading will pop up over the week.

Am I ready for it? I’m not sure. Expecting something isn’t really the same as being prepared for something, and how can one be prepared for an office inquisition anyway? I guess not panicking would be the best I could hope for.

Still, all this anxiety isn’t doing me any good. I came home drained earlier, and I couldn’t even muster the urge to watch the shows I downloaded over the past few days. I just came home, then jumped into bed. Really.

Can’t afford to be idle though. There’s the submission I have for my class at the end of the week. Need to work on that ASAP.

Rained In And Out

This result was pretty much expected.

I knew that it’s been raining since early this morning, but I still figured that the downpour would let up sometime during the afternoon. It didn’t quite stop, but it had weakened enough that it was barely drizzling once I started out for my usual route. I’d already gotten used to getting rained on during my afternoon jogs, so I wasn’t worried too much of getting soaked… Okay, that’s not quite true. I was a little worried that the rain would suddenly increase in strength again on the way, so I put on a (lined) windbreaker over my usual jogging tee and shorts.

Obviously the rain just had to go back to squall-strength as I neared the Makati Medical Center area.

I ignored the fact that my windbreaker was getting increasingly soaked, and hoofed it as quickly as I could manage towards the Ayala Triangle Gardens. Interestingly enough I think I only stopped once to drink my water bottle on the way there. I figure that it was the opposite of what happened the other day, with the low temperatures brought by the rain made me less likely to stop and take a drink. Anyway once there, the rain once again let up a bit once I got there, and I took the chance to make a lap or two around the park before dropping by the Greenbelt Powerbooks outlet, to check out whether or not there were any printed screenplays to be found there. It was just as well that I did, as the rain once again decided to increase in strength when I got to the bookstore.

Normally I wouldn’t have minded waiting out the downpour there, but do recall that I was already slightly soaked at the time, so the store’s air conditioning was doing a number on me. Since I couldn’t find what I needed anyway, I left the store and hurried towards the intersection of Makati Avenue and Pasay Road, to where some of the jeepneys heading to Libertad usually picked up passengers. I jumped into one of them, still very wet, and rode the rest of the way until the jeep stopped at Zamora. From there, I hailed a tricycle, and had it drop me off at where my cousin’s place was.

Which is where I am right now. Given how the rains don’t seem to be letting up, I figured it would be best if I stayed the night here instead of trying to catch a bus home. Plus I was wet, and no matter how healthy I’ve been over the past few days, it’s best not to chance it. As it is, I still have some clothes left over from the last time my side of the family dropped by to visit, so I didn’t have any trouble finding a change of clothing.

Hopefully the rain won’t be as bad tomorrow morning. 

Fear and Panicking

I should be writing the most important part of my project today, but I’m not. As with the usual case with me, I’m experiencing difficulty in actually phrasing my thoughts, nevermind doing so in a way that actually makes sense. Call it theoretical indigestion I suppose.

What’s actually annoying about this is the fact that the reference materials I read on both Nabokov and Borges were incredibly lucid… Which makes all this trouble baffling.

Ugh. Four more days and counting. I hope that I get my thoughts sorted out by tomorrow.

Not Expectant

It’s almost midweek once again, which means I’m in for my weekly dose of stress and frustration. On the plus side, it’s going to be payday tomorrow, which means my savings account gets to survive a little longer; on the minus side, I’m required to attend the Performance Awards ceremony later in the day. While I appreciate the free food (the marshmallows dipped in hot chocolate during the last awards was very nice), I’m not seeing the point of even being there, as I’m not receiving a commendation this time (that I know of). Frankly I’d rather just spend the rest of the day in bed, and with it being a Wednesday I think no one would blame me for it.

Or even better, work on my final project. I have to say, the actual translation seems to be easier right now than the theoretical portion of the project. While it’s not supposed to be a formal explanation of the translation theories and conventions used in the actual project, it is an important part, if only to ground the effort in the specific train of thought or ‘school’. 

It’s not surprising how I’m struggling with that part of the project (I mentioned before that theory, or rather, trying to frame one’s personal work within a specific theoretical framework), and at this point I think I’ll just come back to it after I finish the translation of the short story. If all goes well, I can knock off a few pages tomorrow and on Thursday, so I can use Friday for the theoretical portion. 

Nothing really planned for tomorrow though aside from that, except perhaps trying not to explode or raise my voice at a customer during a call. Let’s just see how long that will last, shall we?

Oh, and one more thing: I think  should start cutting down on my cola intake, at least for the next few days. I felt a very sudden ache around my left kidney, and I’m worried that all that Coke Zero is doing a number on my liver. Going to have to shift back to water, and find an alternative to keep me awake at my workstation that isn’t Sting or Cobra… Iced Coffee perhaps? Though it’s going to add calories I’d rather not count these days, ugh…

Not About Me

Just when I managed to get those rare moments of inspiration, my father just had to walk in and ruin the mood. After seeing me doodling around in SAI, he again goes into this diatribe about using the skills I ‘waste’ on my hobbies to make more money. Seeing as I always seem to have monetary problems these days, of course. It’s nearly the same argument, whether he sees me reading manga, watching anime RAW, or doing fanart: why don’t you make money out of them?

I think he grossly overestimates my capabilities. Frankly my art skill is barely above beginner’s level, and my Japanese language skill, which he thinks would get me into a consulate job or a position abroad, has degraded to the point where a Japanese grade-schooler probably could read better than me. How the heck can you earn money on that level of proficiency? The answer is obvious: you don’t.

When I gave him my usual rebuttal that he’s deluded (which I phrased in as nice a way as I could manage), he then jumped on my major. If I knew that I wouldn’t be earning much as a writer, then why did I even bother taking up Mass Communication anyway?  Why not a specialist course that would not only pay well, but would have big companies looking for you, even overseas?  Well gee Tatay, I guess you forgot about the fact that Math and the Sciences never exactly mixed well. Oh, wait, you didn’t know that, since you were away again when I restarted my schooling.

Put simply, I actually enjoyed studying in the Communications courses I took. The same could not be said of my time in Civil Engineering.

Eventually this little sermon of us ended up again with my writing. Why don’t I make money out of writing? Gee, if I was sure of the quality of my work then it would have been no problem, but do recall recently I was given a reality check during my Fiction Writing Workshop class. For those who don’t remember, everyone in my class, including my professor, thought my writing stank to high heaven.

Even more than three months on, my confidence still hasn’t recovered from that experience yet.

In the face the depressing facts I laid out, he finally gave up trying to convince me this time. He should have learned by now, really.

I understand he’s worried about me. But giving me a verbal scrubbing isn’t the right way to encourage me to do anything about my situation.

Sounding Board

I found it funny how a spam post commented on how my journal seems to be a collection of my complaints about… everything and anything really.  Okay, that’s not quite true, but I do comment a lot on how most of my day-to-day existence isn’t perfect.  Such is the story of my life, really.

I think I’ve mentioned this before that, but I treat the blog as my personal journal, and anything connected to the random bits of fiction filling up my drafts only come second to that. Not that I wouldn’t like for the blog to become an actual writer’s blog, it’s just that I haven’t come up with anything I feel I could share without fear… for quite a while.  Not for the lack of ideas of course; it’s just that, once something nice pops up in my imagination, like a story scenario, it sort of runs off out of control towards an expected ending before I could even put it down.  Kind of like a VHS tape left on play, except with no real way of stopping the player without damaging the tape itself.

One of the most recent ideas that came to me, for example, is a about a man and his fiancee going home to the man’s hometown since they’ve somehow managed to get some free time from work. Given my proclivities, obviously there’s going be a slight fantastical twist to things, and in this case they’re both mages working for the government. That little detail aside, the focus is more on some of the issues the two have to deal with while they’re visiting, stuff that normally they’d push aside because of work. Not exactly exciting stuff.

And when I try to put those ideas down to a page, how can I put it, it’s like forcing a bull elephant to squeeze through a mousehole.  It’s frustrating, and even more so when I’ve come to realize how messy and clumsy a writer I am. 

So, is there any surprise how I deal with that frustration brought upon by my work and creative impotence by writing it all down? Its a much better alternative than just kicking something, after all.