IngliseraKuno

Last year, I marked my milestone of my first year in Ilocos Sur wth 100 Lessons Learned, in photos and one-liners. I did not know how to write my feelings down as raw that time, I was afraid I would be misinterpreted. I always am, ever since I learned to talk. But given that I am to conduct myself in a manner 'acceptable' and 'becoming' my position, I always have to exert effort to restrain myself from, for example, yelling until my lungs burst, in frustration; or to let out my witch-like cackle loudly until my eyes tear up, in joy. With this job, I need to be steady and balanced. Or at least project a semblance of that. So I will, in three points, add to those 100 lessons, as part of my version of a sustainability plan (or the points I need to always, always remember to 'aid' me in 'sustaining' this momentum, whether lackluster or excellent, I do not intend to render myself that judgement). First, I will say this with all humility aside, this job made m...

Exhausting two days. When I say that, I don't mean physically tired really. Two things: my brain worked overtime, and my heart was beat up. I had meetings two days in a row, with my teams for every division, one after the other, sitting cramped in my small office, to go through what is still to be done for the remaining months of the year. As in any meeting I call for, more time is devoted to administrative concerns rather than technical. My colleagues have been in this job for years, it would be an insult to tell them what to do. I simply try to keep them all in line such that we all sing in harmony, so to speak. Like in any piece of music, all instruments need to be in tune, meticulously playing notes reading from one arrangement. It takes only one, among an orchestra of musicians, to render a piece disastrous. One misguided note played, by one person, on one instrument; that is enough for everything to fall apart. I was perhaps too tired of speaking in the last two days that thi...

One week of meetings and of course, Maan and I simply just got nauseous about it all on the last day. I took the week rather well, considering,  because I have not been out for conferences in a while. My boss told me he misses me, which is his way of asking me, 'what the hell have you been doing all this time we have not seen each other?!'. I was told that he passed by Vigan a few weeks back, and finding I was not there (I was in Manila for a training) and he asked my staff, 'where is she this time?!'. My staff told him where I was, then it dawned upon him he was supposed to know, he signed my authority to travel, but of course he forgot.😜 The days I was supposed to have been missing I spent exactly where I should have: working in Ilocos Sur. So I took to facebook, saved all the pictures, wrote reports about all that I did evidenced by the pictures, and flooded the email of my boss with them. See, facebook has this other use; I even read that a suspect in a murder was ...

It is not that I criticize more often than I should. I admittedly 'make fun' of other people in private, not to really judge them but to find humor in what seems to be 'off' in people. If I say, for example, that this person sort of resembles a pitbull, I would point that out in the manner I would point out that I look like a rabbit when  I smile because the jackets my dentist put on my poor teeth are larger than the usual size. But if it will make me less than evil, I do that only with friends who can tolerate that about me.  I thought about that just now as I rest in this bed, my head rested on two pillows propped up, with the   pillowcase smelling like the hotel does not have a dryer, or a supply of fabric conditioner. You see, even the smell of sheets I comment on. I confine myself to stuff superficial, what I see in things and people, when I only wish to laugh. I do not go beyond what I can see, of course.  It is a different story altogether when you start to sp...

Ana is back in school and she told me interesting stories about her classes. In her psychotherapy class, she was recently asked a question about religion, and her feelings about it. In many words, she told me. The simpest way to put what she said is: to her, one's belief in God is an exercise of faith, not of routine. Her professor for the subject, she says, is really good. She told her class that it takes continuous learning and experience to be an expert in psychotherapy, 'when I was 25 years old, I thought I knew everything', she said. When I was 19 years old, I thought I knew everything. I was already teaching college classes then, so why would I not think that? Yet two decades after, I am still an idiot. Just because I took on responsibility for someone beyond my age, does not mean I have the wisdom to discern all there is about this life.  I have learned plenty, though. And today, one important lesson I formed in my mind is this: it takes more than ability to be a mot...

So Michael arrived late at the site where we are supposed to have an ocular inspection of the government-owned property we were to cover under land reform. I stood by the waiting shed along the highway of Burgos, Ilocos Norte, and waited for him, as instructed by his staff. He arrived, he was the one driving his jeep. I climbed up, then off we went to this 150-hectare property owned by the Provincial Government. He alighted his jeep, and said he had to a 'banyo'. He went to an outhouse built beneath a tree.  A group of farmers was waiting for him in the barangay hall, and he looked curiously at me. He did not know I asked our potential beneficiaries to be there to plead for his go-ahead on the coverage of the property. He whispered to me, 'why are there people here, Christianne? we were just supposed to inspect. just us'. I told him since he was visiting, they wanted to see him personally. 'Oh no, you set me up!'. So I said, 'you are here now, sir, let's...

I have this OCD-tendencies, not the truly-diagnosed type. I don't want 'kalat', I always make it a point to clean everything around me, wash my hands over and over, you know stuff like those which annoys the normal person. I have this thing for washrooms, especially. My little house in La Union is quite in disarray most of the time because of Winky, our youngest (she's a shitzu), but our restroom is always clean, well,  when my housemates know I am coming home for the weekend, at least.  The first major repair I did when I was assigned in Ilocos Norte was the restrooms. Same with Ilocos Sur. I have always believed that a lot can be said about a house, or an office for that matter, by just looking at the washrooms/restrooms/cr, whatever we want to call them. My daughter, Ana, got a little of that from me. When she was a little girl and we went out to eat, she would always ask if she could go to the restroom. I take her, she pretends to pee, which she does not actually, b...