antecoitus

**posting for the last week of Feb to March 7

I was gone for business to Poland and Germany for a week and returned tired… both rushed and dizzy with adrenaline and lack of sleep from all the long dinners and drinking compulsory to meeting counterparts. There are a couple of rules that I try to follow during such social gatherings related to work. One, never get drunk enough to make a complete moron of yourself in front of your colleagues, especially if you need something from them or you just met them for the first time. If it is fated that someone makes an idiot of himself, be kind enough the next morning by telling him ‘No, it wasn’t that bad. I just didn’t realize you could be so much fun.’ Be vague about it, and good karma will come to you. Hehe. (also be discreet about it to other people, or else they would think you gossip about them too – you freak =)). This week a couple of shots of schnapps almost threw me off, but it was nothing two orders of espresso cannot fix. That’s another thing, this is different from deciding to get totally pissed with your mates enough to, say, sing in the streets with your pants pulled halfway down. People who are not as drunk as you are, then, will remember how you started to dance on the bar singing the Coyote Ugly theme song. Worse, if you are unlucky enough to meet highly competitive corporate whores, it can be used as effective ammo against you. Two, if you are not a white male over 30, you are somehow a minority in some of these meetings. Use that advantage by being interesting, exotic or simply be a breath of fresh air. Do not exploit your exceptionality to max levels though or otherwise suffer being regarded weird. Just be cool enough while you pull off a couple funny remarks and you’ll at least manage to stand out. You can talk about the eccentricities of your country, a couple of biting but not overly done feminist remarks or simply be interested in what other people have to say and some good comebacks will come to you. Three, be humble and know your boundaries, these people are not part of your college clique. They’re not your high school best friends. Sharing anything wild that you’ve done or making a stand up comedy act at their expense or your own, with enough charm can be amusing, but very very rarely. If you’re not sure, zip it. Walking on eggshells with nasty Doc Marten’s will get you nowhere. Four, make friends, it always works. A personal relationship built on being genuine with each other even just for a night over a couple of bottles of Merlot, is always good for getting things done.

Such business meetings can be thoroughly exhausting in the beginning but at some point I guess you learn to enjoy it. It can have huge downsides, however. Apart from only being blessed with 4-5 hours of sleep each day, you also do not get to see much of the cities you visit. I still cannot imagine having to work in projects and having to travel more like some of the people I know. If I am called to stay for at least three weeks in another place, that means I get to miss a lot with babuy, friends and my other activities. If you’re gone for too long, the quality of your free time is compromised inevitably. I totally admire the resilience of some people in projects.

W picked me up at the airport in the afternoon of Saturday, we had lunch and I had a couple of hours of sleep before I had to move again to use the remaining adrenaline in my blood by having some extra inches of my hair cut off again. It’s a bit obsessive of me to schedule a trip to the hairdresser right after arriving from a long week of working. I don’t know why but I just can’t seem to keep myself from looking my usual androgynous self. =)) They say that leaders do not have inertia. Well tough luck since I do HAVE that. I can be a body in motion which remains in motion unless an outside force prevents me from doing so (though, it can also happen the other way around. =)).
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Currently, babuy and I are in the mountains enjoying what’s left of winter. The season is almost over and for me it’s the perfect time to be finally earnest of learning to snowboard because there are less bodies on the slope which are endangered by my clumsy presence. So I crammed two meetings, approving invoices, an interview for marketing and emails in the evening on Monday (and ended it with a glass of red of late harvest grapes with a friend at the National Wine Bank – which I didn’t know existed before). I stretched myself then to get the remaining days of the week for vacation. On Tuesday, I decided to just laze around, wake up late and finish a couple of episodes from Ugly Betty – since I am still only on the fourth (haha oo Stella, John Rae, Mark – sa wakas kilalang kilala ko na si Gina Gambaro – sino nga sa inyo yun?). We had breakfast at babuy’s mom’s place after which we went to buy snow pants (which took about 20 mins given my shopping skills, or should I say disability), watched Cocaine Cowboys and packed.

This is my first day on the board and just getting the bindings on took me about 20 minutes before I comfortably was able to do it on my own. I rented the boots and the board. In the rental shop, after I have fitted one boot, the store owner caught me by the shoulders and started turning me, he said he was going to see if my ankle was comfortable by rotating my whole body on my ankle. The moment I had my back turned away from him, he pushed me hard. WTF, I thought loudly. But before I got my fist up, he said— LEFT (as in left foot, hindi Beyonce to the left). Apparently, if someone pushes you unexpectedly, the foot you use to prevent the possible fall is your lead foot in snowboarding. He had to screw the bindings of the board accordingly. I thought that was so fetch. Hehe, fetch anez?

After the first lesson my legs were shaking heavily from tiredness. Muscles I never knew I had are aching and I am pretty sure that I will soon learn of other places in my body which I never new can break my fall, my face included. Babuy is amazingly patient with me the same way he was when I had to relearn driving here, what with all the signs which we didn’t have in Manila. Like in driving, he’s not the type to shout at you making you feel like you intentionally are trying to murder him. He’s not the type who’s going to scare you to tears as if driving is a death defying circus act like sword throwing. He told me not to be scared, but a proper amount of respect and managed expectations will not hurt. Tomorrow, I’m going to the blue slope (black is the toughest, red is difficult, blue is easy-average and green is relatively flat). God bless my soul.
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There is a chance I’ll be having a teaching stint in one of the American colleges in the city. Babuy is not thrilled with it and I know it’s because he knows too well of my tendency to spread myself too thinly, but I am a slave to my own stubborn streak. If all goes well, soon, I will be polluting young minds with nonsense blabbing like the one you just finished reading.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 4:06 pm and is filed under the buzz (current tsismis). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.