Back on 2 Wheels

 

What do these things have in common?

1.       Vietnam

2.       Discovery’s American Choppers

3.       Nat Geo’s Long Way Down

4.       Nat Geo’s Rides

5.       The movie Wild Hogs

6.       Mo Twister’s most hated

7.       Motorista magazine

If you still haven’t got it right, the last one is supposed to be a giveaway.  Yes, it all relates to motorcycles big or small; slow or fast; flashy or funny. And so today I got my own - my first one.

Now I’m back to riding (or better yet, learning) on two wheels – this time it’s motorized. Following careful and lengthy considerations and several discussions with my own self – yes, been talking to myself as to whether or not I need to get a motorcycle (or MC) - I finally convince myself to give in to this urge of riding one. I’m quite sure though that my dear wifey still has some reservations on my recent toy – disguised in the name of “beating the gas prices”.

Well, how can I blame her for having such thoughts when we were both together when we witnessed an accident right in front of our very eyes? And if that’s not scary enough (other than the fact that some newscasters deliver it like the world is coming to an end with their exaggeration) the news of motorcycle riders clashing with other vehicles or pedestrians is so common nowadays that one will get confused if the news he’s currently watching is a reply of last month’s.  That’s the bad side of motorcycling: motorcycles have gone so cheap that even those who don’t have the capacity (read: brain) to ride defensively can buy it as long as he’s  got the cash to pay for it.  Needles to say, it’s this ignorance that results to these accidents.

But as any motorcycle advocate will tell you, accidents are bound to happen – whether you’re in a car, in a bus, in a train, in an airplane or just even while walking leisurely to your destination. While I’m so sure that this reasoning will raise an eyebrow or two, it is just always true. It doesn’t matter what transportation you’re in if the one who’s in control like the pilots, captains, bus drivers or yourself (in the case of driving a car) doesn’t know what he is expected to do. And that’s when training comes in. But for all we know, it may even just need good judgment and a common sense to do it, at least for driving on the road. But then again, common sense is not so common.

Luckily nowadays, MC newbies like me have the world wide web to help us coach on how to go about in learning how to ride. A couple of googling in just a couple of hours will lead one to a numerous motorcycle-related sites (e.g., MSF) and forums (e.g., MCP). It now depends on how one comprehends what he reads. And individual learning curve will tell how soon one becomes adept in this new kind of transportation.

So how am I doing so far?

(From hondaph.com) This is my toy. No name yet...

After spending a couple of my time reading all about motorcycles since more than a month ago and right after I got my brand new unit this morning, I’ve given it a try only once by doing a couple of rounds inside our village. I did it by noontime where sun is steaming hot but with fewer people outside. I was actually rather more embarrassed than nervous for riding it like a sissy unlike those I’ve seen that were so relaxed, confident and at some point, irritatingly showy. A few more practice and I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. And I swear I’ll stay safe by then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stressed@Work

 

August is just around the corner and I still can’t believe that I still have work to do. And of course, I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible. Contrary to what I’ve imagined how the 2^nd half of this year will look like – after the gloomy, yet anticipated April 2 announcement – the environment at work still appears challenging enough, at least for me.

 

Although activity in my area seems to have significantly slowed down in the past few weeks, the pressure to meet commitments and deliverables remains unwavering as before. This means that feeling down and out for the count is just out of the question – at some point, I may slacken a bit but I still find the need to get back on track so as not to get left behind.

 

The recent stress which had me feeling a total mixture of emotions (from passing gas to collapsing and vice-versa) was the presentation of our 2^nd quarter indicators to the next level managers and other key players. Its preparation started about a month before and the extraction and crunching of data almost took much of my time. What made it even more stressful is seeing some of the indicators in a down trend even if the reasons behind it are perfectly justifiable.

 

Presentation day came and I felt that the 12-hour day is turning into a 24-hour vigil. Most of the time I just felt excited, jumpy and the butterflies inside my stomach kept on flapping their fragile wings. On that day the feeling of anticipation and anxiety was all over the place and even those senior to me felt the same way. Indeed, public speaking still remains to be one of the most common fears by most individual.

 

My turn to present came at last but in spite knowing that the foils are self-supporting and shows factual data, the fear of being questioned and not being able to answer was just overwhelming. If I remember it right, the last time I was into this predicament was when I asked for our wedding’s approval from my now father-in-law. I was focused yet awkward and the words were hard to come by.

 

Surprisingly, in the end, the horrible questions I was expecting from the start didn’t come. There were some inquiries, comments and advice that registered into my then half-conscious state but that was it. More surprising was getting a compliment from my direct manager who rarely recognizes a job well done. At least, I must have done something right. Whew!

 

I went home that night feeling proud and accomplished. I was even singing along with the FM songs inside the car like I’ve just been accepted in a job interview. And there’s no better way to cap the day than to treat my wife and I with a couple of slices of my favorite comfort food – a Red Ribbon black forest cake. Yummy!

 

With that event done, I now feel more ready to face another work-related stress. Whatever that is, I will surely know in the next days to come.

 

 

 

evidence of stress

 

Counseling

 

Yesterday I attended another Leadership Enhancement Program and the recent trainings we had are tailor made for us to cope up with the soon-to-be closure of our company. Yesterday’s topic was about career opportunities and career counseling.

 

I was actually enjoying the whole training and find it very interactive and informative when it came to one of the foils. The first line of it read:

 

“Career Counseling is NOT…

·         Giving advice.

·         ….”

 

Hmmm. “That isn’t right”, was my immediate thought. I know that deep in my vocabulary the word counsel is for sure synonymous to advice. So I raised my hand to clarify if I’m reading it right and our trainer without batting an eyelash emphasized, “Career counseling is not giving an advice.”

 

The training ended by noon time and my colleagues and I went on with our kill-time activities disguised in the term WLE (Work Life Effectiveness) activities. Some did basketball, while we did a good badminton right after until past 7pm. But those positive stress activities didn’t shake off the “counseling” thing in my gray matter. In fact, while driving my wife to work this morning, I still kept on thinking about it.

 

Instinctively, while preparing breakfast for myself, I juggled with the plates and our trusty Merriam-Webster dictionary and there it was printed on one of the pages – to counsel is to give advice. I was so excited that I eagerly finish my bread, egg and meat loaf meal. I was in front of our PC after I gobbled the last piece of the processed meat.

 

In order to confirm if our Merriam-Webster hardcopy isn’t obsolete yet, I browsed through their internet site – www.m-w.com .

 

The following entries appeared:

 

Main Entry: ²counsel

Function: verb

Inflected Form(s): counseled or counselled; counsel·ing or counsel·ling \-s(ə-)liŋ\

Date: 14th century

transitive verb : advise <counseled them to avoid rash actions — George Orwell> intransitive verb : consult <counseled with her husband>

Main Entry: counseling

Variant(s): or counselling

Function: noun

Date: 1927

: professional guidance of the individual by utilizing psychological methods especially in collecting case history data, using various techniques of the personal interview, and testing interests and aptitudes

Main Entry: ad·vise

Pronunciation: \əd-ˈvīz\

Function: verb

Inflected Form(s): ad·vised; ad·vis·ing

transitive verb1 a: to give advice to : counsel <advise her to try a drier climate> b: caution, warn <advise them of the consequences> c: recommend <advise prudence>2: to give information or notice to : inform <advise them of their rights>intransitive verb1: to give advice <advise on legal matters>2: to take counsel : consult <advise with friends>

 

Main Entry: ad·vice

Pronunciation: \əd-ˈvīs\

Function: noun

1 : recommendation regarding a decision or course of conduct : counsel <he shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties — United States Constitution> 2 : information or notice given —usually used in plural 3 : an official notice concerning a business transaction

With those results and the fact that this top semiconductor company have some managers whom to my shock have normally pronounced words such as Freight like Fright, Sub- like Sob and my favorite irritation, Z like Zay, I wasn’t surprised that one foil in the training material may be erroneous.

 

Like a fighter aiming to finish off a sprawling and bloodied adversary, I type “Career Counseling” in the browser’s search field expecting something that will back up my vocabulary. In a matter of seconds, several results appeared and I eagerly click into each one of it and prepared to celebrate my victory over the foil item in question.

 

 

To my dismay, not one of the sites shows a bit of “Career Counseling IS about giving advice…” to support my argument. Instead it listed common words such as assessment, aptitude tests, planning, decision making, development, research. It was almost about everything related but advice. That left me raising my white flag on this subject matter.

 

As much as I hate defeat, I come to realize that Career Counseling is not just two words that can be discussed over a one-on-one meeting which in our case would only last from 15 – 30 minutes every 3 months (grin). If one staff gets lucky (or not) enough at all he’ll be into one of it at least 3 times in a quarter. Career Counseling is actually a task to be handled by a professional Career Counselor and if you’re not one of them (like me), most likely, you can only advise. Come to think of it, I might as well consider a career as a Career Counselor. Ti abi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rubik’s Cube

What is fast becoming as common as potholes on the road, skin heads, motorcycles, street children, unemployed person or grandstanding Philippine politicians? You guessed right, it’s the mind boggling Rubik’s Cube.

Little did I know that this 6-colored-swiveling-cube will once again haunt me at this age, and with guilt, became one of my interests while on a week long wedding anniversary celebration. Ti abi.

I have fond memories of this toy. When we were peskly little kids, our mother used to bring me and my sis to work as it was just a few kilometers away from where we live and during the times when she felt like it we tag along with her. While in the office I get to bug her boss, well, just like any kid. It’s a good thing though that her boss happens to be a relative and somehow bugging him isn’t much of a big thing and besides, he loves to show me how good he is with the then novel Rubik’s Cube – that time, he can do two colors.

My mother later on got to give us our own cube and I got hooked to it since then. Unfortunately, I can only do 1 color at a time. I never got close to 2 just like my uncle does. I’m so proud of him that I always brag, “My tito can do 2 colors!” I’d always tell my grade school classmates. Those whom I’ve seen complete all six (only on TV) were my idol and I consider them a either a hoax or not from this world.

Years passed and I fully forgot my fascination and frustration with this puzzle until the fad returned once again.  At first I just shrug off the urge to buy thinking that I’ve passed that stage already and have surrendered it to be solved by the young geeks. It seems though that my attraction to it cannot be denied. More people seem to have mastered it and every time I see one, I secretly envied them. Enough is enough.

I eventually bought myself another cube and grabbed the opportunity to fill in the gaps during my one week vacation to learn it. I printed tips from colleagues, searched the web for more instructions and like one student trying to make up for bad grades, I spent extra time studying how it really works. Within 3 days, I got it at last! The next days I can do it without looking at the guide and I was timing how long it takes for me to complete it – I may not in the league of the speed cubers, but who cares? A 5-minute average is good for me.

Now I’m very thankful that I did not include acquiring this skill among the 100-things-to-do-before-I-die list or I could be counting down just 99 more. Whew. I never really knew that the day will come, when I’d lift my head high and say, “Tito Joe, who?” Hahahaha.

Taken by my ever supportive wifey. State 2.

 

 

Lucky 9 Movies

Our week together turned out to be quite good despite not going farther than Festival Mall Alabang or Tagaytay. To make up with the cancelled road trip I played some make believe situation by considering our own home as a hotel as if being out of town and staying in a comfy hotel room. To make it a bit more realistic I let the air-conditioning turned on every night, woke up late, ate without counting calories and going out of the “hotel” any time we like.

After celebrating our exact wedding date with the rest of my wife’s team members, the other days of the week were spent mall hopping, window shopping and of course watching movies. And since we’re celebrating our 9^th year, I will do a brief review of the 9 movies we’ve seen recently - not necessarily within the anniversary week. By the way, I’ll rate the movie from 1(poor) to 5(great) stars just like my wife and I do in our individual diaries (which reminds me that I haven’t updated mine for a long time).

9.  Forbidden Kingdom (Jet Li. Jackie Chan). I’m not so sure if I enjoyed this movie or not. It may have something to do with too much exposure to MMA especially UFC on TV that I’m not buying the flying kung fu stunts anymore. What I like about it is seeing both actors back in business and being together in one film I think is a good way to do just that. 3 Stars.

 

8. Kung Fu Panda (Jack Black. Jackie Chan. Lucy Liu. Angelina Jolie). Being a fan of cartoons, I can immerse myself into it in no time every time I see one. Frankly speaking, I find this Kung Fu movie better than Forbidden Kingdom due to the fact that I have no reason to question once I see the characters, like the bulky panda, float in the air to do gravity defying stunts. It’s not impossible. Why? Because it’s cartoons. Duh. Po rules!  4 Stars.

 

7. Get Smart (Steve Carell. Anne Hathaway). There’s always anxiousness inside me whenever I get to watch a film that is closely similar to previous movie. I have some reservations that this stupid-field agent-comedy movie will be a letdown. Thankfully, it wasn’t the case. The casts (and characters) and story of this film are a great combination. The comic scenes are so hilarious that I was either laughing or giggling from the start until the end of the film. Jim Carey beware. 5 Stars.

 

6. Evan Almighty (Steve Carell). We caught this one on TV while lazily channel surfing one afternoon. It was just a couple of days after we watched Get Smart and my interest to see another version of the famous ark story grew with the fact that Steve Carell is portraying as Noah.  I was fascinated with the idea of mixing a biblical story to a modern setting but I don’t know if my mother would have been laughing as I find some of the exchanges blasphemous. Anyway, I did have a good laugh from majority of the scenes and more importantly I think that the same moral of the story is conveyed as intended in the bible. I’m becoming a Steve Carell fan. 4 Stars.

 

5. Letters from Iwo Jima (Ken Watanabe). This one was from the DVD - another Clint Eastwood film to complement his Flags of Our Fathers movie. I always wonder if there are good people on both sides of the war and this movie helped prove that. The Iwo Jima story reminds me that most soldiers fight with what they believe is right regardless what side they’re in.  In a sense, one you consider a foe is actually a hero of the other side. Comparing the two war films, Letters from Iwo Jima is better than Flags of Our Fathers.  Additionally, dubbing the film in Japanese with English subtitles created a more genuine experience to it.  5 Stars.

 

4. The Happening (Mark Wahlberg).  This film is like some of the dreams I had. It starts with something so interesting that no matter how frightening it was, I forced myself to stay in it in order to find out how it will end.  It’s like a nightmare that you have no control over what you’d see next and every scene makes you curse and jump out of your bed and find yourself sweating from the excitement and/or fear.  At the end of this movie my wife and I were staring at each other still with lots of unanswered questions but being an M. Night Shyamalan flick the end is no surprise – and I love it. 4 Stars.

 

3. Wanted (Angelina Jolie. Morgan Freeman).  Have you ever had a time when you felt like they cast a well known celebrity to compensate with the movie’s poor story? In my opinion, this movie is one of those. Angeline Jolie was like an a wriggling bait so irresistible to an unsuspecting fish like me that despite having seen the trailers with bullets circling its way to find its intended target I still got to watch it in the end. I could have give in to the idea of the intelligent bullets but I called it enough when the story came to be about killing individuals as dictated by a loom supposedly started by weavers from long time ago. To me that’s just crap (pardon the word). 4 Stars – for casting Angelina. 2 Stars for the whole story.

 

2. Incredible Hulk (Edward Norton). Other than fearing lightning, I fear that I might see another lousy Incredible Hulk movie once again. I wisely skipped the first version of this marvel comic character but unfortunately watched it either on a pirated copy of the public buses or from friends’ houses (also pirated, I suspect). But having watched almost all film being shown this week, I hesitatingly agreed to see the new Hulk movie with my wife. Good thing this new version erased all my doubts as the movie progresses. I was awed by the actions scenes, I find the CGIs are not exaggerated and the actors are convincingly good. Lastly, having an unexpected twist in the end makes it more interesting. See for yourself. 4 Stars.

 

1. Made of Honor (Patrick Dempsey. Michelle Monaghan). What better way to cap a week of wedding anniversary celebration, than to end it by watching what else? A wedding movie of course! The movie is about a platonic (or more aptly, hypothetical) relationship which led to a crazy love story. What sets this movie apart from other romantic movies is the idea of having one man being tagged and eventually agreeing to be the bride’s maid of honor.  Although come to think of it, IF I were in the shoes of the male character, I can’t imagine myself to last that long as just being a friend with a lady as lovely as Hannah.  4 Stars.

 

Don’t get me wrong, but whether I enjoyed the movies we’ve watched or not, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the company of my dearest (wink!) wife. We’ve been in the movies 11 years ago (wink again) and hopefully we’d still be together to see more of it even if we’re as wrinkled as English bulldogs.