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As of 28 October 2004, my mother’s father passed on after a long struggle against the progress of Parkinson’s Disease. Please share a prayer for him, and all of us who’ve been left to remember him. Many thank-yous.

After some thought yesterday afternoon, I realize I must not let myself be put down by circumstances as such. After all, I may have voluntarily subjected myself to corporate slavery at the moment, but that doesn’t mean I should lose my pride as a person. I make mistakes, and no-brainer tasks are not my cup of tea. I have forgiven myself, and I’m sure I haven’t been the first to be in a situation as that. Anyone who is affected by this in any sort of personal level is, in one word - ridiculous.

I might be ranting a lot over the next months, or even longer, about this arena. Well, I’m not going to apologize for it, but at this point I am reminding myself to not complain. I am the master of my demeanor.

It’s just work after all. I allow myself to get pissed off now and then, but generally, I’m going to make myself love doing it. Forced labor at its classiest!

A boo-boo here in work which, I am partly to blame for, has just been called to my attention. As much as I would like to take all of the blame since I was swamped with 3 different things to finish yesterday, I’ve also put Cel in the hotseat. She was supposed to verify my work, but since she was up to her neck in other things as well, she wasn’t able to do that itsy bitsy thing. Now my errors have been found by other people, and it’s put us both in the spotlight. I’ve never felt so embarrassed in my entire corporate career! (and it’s been barely two weeks…)

As plain as daylight, I had to tell my immediate superior about it. Before she learns from someone else. She was cool about it, but something in me, might be all the pride I’ve welled up inside from being an instructor in UP, felt like being stomped and wiped all over the floor. I could literally have broke down. I felt my neck burning hot and my insides were doing somersaults over and over.

I can’t believe I’m now part of the reason that a product launching here in my company is to be delayed for at least another month.

Sigh.

*blasts music in her ears to its fullest volume*

I could really use a steam-blowing affair tonight.

I’m sorta tired. Been doing something all morning. This really long documentation that, I realize, takes forever to finish. It has tons of data on it that refers to multiple files made by a dozen different people. It’s been 2 weeks and I feel like being here for a month, even longer, what with all the workload. And that seems to be just the beginning. I’m not complaining.

It’s lunch-out Friday. We ate lunch at Fazouli’s today. I ate the baked lasagna and drank lemon shake with strawberry syrup with bits. The lasagna was too rich for me, nothing beats Ninang Baby’s home made lasagna still.

We had a few laughs here and there, the group I joined is high-spirited. Though the workload is really a lot for each of us (mine isn’t even as much as theirs yet at the moment even), somehow they pull off being upbeat and jolly. Guess when they blow steam, they really do blow steam.

Anyhow, work’s fine so far. Save for this one thing I have to finish… everything’s cool.

It’s officially my last day in UP.

I’ve come to claim the last of my personal things here. Only this desktop computer remains. In effect, when I bring this home, until I can decide on a good set-up for a home internet connection, I will be offline from blogging and other internet stuff until further notice. I have no idea yet as to how internet runs in my new workplace.

Goodbye desk. You’ve been my trustworthy comrade in keeping my things, however in constant disarray. My Kenshin posters were preserved flat beneath your glass surface. Goodbye room. Three months was it? I’ve been housed longer in other office areas of this department, but you have most of all afforder a pleasant stay in terms of privacy and solitude. Bye-bye Department. However lame I had been in trying to fit in, I know you shall remain indifferent anyway. I’m relieved that I shan’t feel the need to belong here anymore, after all I hungered to be accepted. But still, it was fantastic living under your roof for 4 years. Sayonara UP Diliman. It is for you I feel most sad for me leaving.

Last batch of pictures with me part of the Department:

Nothing beats having an almost-break-in into your home as a paranoia-booster.

Yesterday, my roommate, Leny was in a fit of hysteria at 4:00 a.m. Waking up the neighbors this way can be no less terrifying. Her window screen was cut along the corners, and she claimed to have been roused up by the noise. She apparently thought that it was a mouse gnawing at something until she saw the screen being pushed inside. She was screaming like crazy and not soon after was banging on my door, her face as white as a sheet. Later there were whistles blowing from the other apartments. The neighbors were all up and about, looking for the intruder in the premises. They found a crude ladder against the wall below the first floor window (we live on the second floor) but other than that there was no sign of the alien. The guy in the room below Leny’s saw him climbing down (ironically, very carefully he said) and saw his face. He said it was a small man or kid.

Leny had her lights on, and her cellphone was within reach from the window. There had been other instances akin to this, and I’ve ranted about it before. (here)  What could push a person to creep up a wall along a well-lit area, open someone’s window to a room where all the lights are ON?? That guy’s got some nerve! And to climb down another window where a different person could see him. Breaking and entering into someone’s home is no more than child’s play to these people!

It can’t be just greed. Almost all of the cases involved just cellphones. It’s quick money. That’s all they’re after. For one cellphone, even though an aged model of a year or so, they’d risk being apprehended? Are they starving for food? Is getting away with quick and small money worth all that trouble?

What is wrong with these people… It’s one thing to have something stolen from you, but to have some stranger with malicious intent INSIDE your own home, that creeps the hell out of me. It messes up my mind to the fullest sense of the phrase. I couldn’t sleep. I was on my guard when I stepped out of my room just to pee last night for crying out loud.

I retired early last night at around 7 pm. In my shortest and most disturbed sleep I had this dream: I was edgy and in hysterics in my room and there were people there calming me down. I remember Issa, and some of the department staff were there, Lags, Michelle, Naty… (now that is so weird!) And Issa was instructing these staff people to camp out at my place so I’d be less edgy and get some sleep. Then Lags went to my bed and said something like “Dito na ako matutulog” and I ran in front of her shouting “Noooo way!! You sleep outside in the couch!!” After that they were just sticking around in the room and Betty, one of my co-teachers, came near to me and said something about my dresser, and asked me “How do you open this cabinet?” and tapped on the glass door of my dresser… After that I was roused and I realized there WAS tapping on my window sill!! I almost jumped up in fright, but ended up just hyperventilating from where I was lying down and staring at the lace curtain. I couldn’t figure out what made the tapping noise, and when it didn’t happen again for like an hour (I checked my cellphone time which I was clutching on to for dear life, dialling Ajay’s number over and over) I mustered up all the courage to peek outside. There was a strong wind and the tree branches were very clumsy.. thought none of them really reached my window so it still bothers me how that tapping sound was made.

I couldn’t sleep anymore…

I know I am paranoid most of the time about stuff like– How do I get home when the sun has gone down? Dusk is romantic and all when you’re with someone, but it is scary when I’m walking home alone. — How do I endure a taxi ride alone? It’s convenient and fast when it’s very late but you never know whether to trust a driver. etc etc…

I was paranoid from the start about living in Issa’s place alone with Leny.  Ithought they’d (Issa and Dinky) be moving
in a few weeks after we did, but they haven’t up til now. Leny’s out most of the time, and when I’m by myself in the apartment I usually hang out in my room where there’s a chain and dead bolt (installed by Ajay) with my windows shut. I felt a little less paranoid through the last couple of months when I got used to it. But this incident totally blows me over… and I’m back to where I was.

Way to ruin it!!! God bless his soul, that culprit. His head is lotta messed up, and I pray he and whoever thinks like him, gets a kick in the head, (shin, butt, crotch, and wherever else that hurts enough!) and find some other way to earn a living!!

Long story short: There was almost a burglary early this morning at our apartment. More details tomorrow.

http://penreyes.epinoy.com/ —> This site is temporarily unavailable. It will be back up in a day or two, so I was told. I have a mirror site to it at http://home.ripway.com/2004%2D8/162992/journal/.

Anyways, see y’all tomorrow. I’ll be in a better mood, hopefully, to tell the story.

Ajay’s cousin Nandy left for Singapore yesterday. Job-related. He’s getting married on January, so he’ll be back this December, though Cia, his fiance, will be flying back with him on February to live there with him.

And here now I just received news that one of my ex-co-teachers and college-batchmate Cherry is flying to Kuwait on October 10 for a new job there. And Mace, another ex-co-teacher and college-batchmate, flew to Texas last Monday to be a middle school teacher there. Talk about changes. There has been a lot going on these past few weeks… Next week I shall be reborn in the corporate world myself. My incubation in the academe will at last come to an end this Friday.

I sat in to listen to the last of the required paper presentations for Mathematical Biology. Freaky as it may be, one of my classmates presented the exact same paper I presented last week. Fortunately I had focused on the fundamentals of extreme pathway and flux balance analysis, the underlying theories of linear algebra which correspond to the computational biology concepts. That’s no big deal anyway, what IS is that my classes in the Ph.D. program have officially wrapped up. I spoke with Dr. Sy early this morning and told her I would not be taking the exam in Real Analysis tomorrow. She expressed her concern over my solutions for the Problem sets she gave, and went over them with me detail por detail. I felt obliged to tell her that I would not be finishing the degree anymore. At least not now.

We had a “sem-ender” luncheon at the Department today. Poor lechon biik never saw the light of the afternoon. Oh but we did hear dull thudding during our Math Bio class which was right alongside the lounge, when I went over to the other room to see what was going on, I almost laughed out loud. Our administrative officer was doing her “thing” again. She is notorious for her “binalot” take-home after every kainan. A few minutes later I saw her coming out from the lounge carrying a large sando bag bursting with left-over lechon.

I’m going to miss this girl! Jasmine Ruth, nestine’s adorable daughter. I’ve only grown closer to her the past few months when I moved to this office with Sonia. Nestine’s hubby went to Japan recently, and often she would leave little Jas with us while she went to class. I had so much fun having her around. Like most kids, she loves watching Barney and her favorite cartoons. I cheated a bit with her, luring her to stay by letting her watch Bugs Bunny cartoons on my desktop while her mommy is away. Sigh. she’d probably forget about me anyway. How often do you remember a specific person you are unrelated to when you were 4 years old? And she’s going to Japan with her mom to be with her dad next month… So she really won’t be around anymore even if I didn’t stay in UP.

Ajay helped me pack up some stuff here in the office and most of them are stacked up in my bedroom now. Oh the heavy load! We dragged my stuff a good kilometer, twice! I’m not sure if it IS a kilometer, but it sure felt like it. One last thing remains here… this desktop PC! This weekend it’ll be BYE-BYE proxy.upd.edu.ph/10.32.129.44. Goodbye 100mbps internet LAN connection. Who knows… in a couple of months it wwould be HELLO DSL!

My apartment is a mess! I left a note for Leny, my housemate, apologizing for the stuff I left outside my room, coz it’s just too croweded when I am at my messiest! I should be off home now, I need to sort my stuff a bit more. I have to be ready for the desktop’s homecoming. It will definitely be taking up a lot of space on its own.

My TV set died yesterday morning!!! I can;t believe my dumb bad luck. With it out of commission, the Video Disc player, PS2, Nintendo FC, have lost all their essences of existence! This MUST be remedied soon or I shall go crazy! Pure pandemonium I tell y
ou!! It does free up a lot of space in the bedroom when Ajay lifted the darn thing out from the room.

It’s a good day
Ajay’s turning permanent today
Six months already?

Incredible.
Swift sweep of seconds

It’s not so good a day
I can’t figure out this problem
Almost noontime already?

Incapable.
Stupid evasive solution.

It’s still anxiety day
Work here snowballs each second.
Isn’t it over already?

Inevitable.
Soon as soon as possible.