Up in the Air

I'm glad I stayed home tonight to watch HBO.
For couple of weeks, HBO in Chicago has been replaying Dark Knight and Valentine's Day.
I swear I have memorized both films eversince their first airing.


Tonight, after a Kate Winslet film that I did not catch the title, HBO's programming was to play Up in the Air.
I only remember its title as one of the Best Picture nominees of Oscars some years ago, and I knew George Clooney was the star.
Other than that, I don't know anything about the movie, or why the heck it was even nominated by the Academy.

The movie follows George Clooney's character as the guy who was hired by companies to fire people.
Not light them up, but to let go of their employment from the binding ties of the company.
He flies 340 days a year, and he flies around the US to do his job.
His job allows him to travel business class, or even first class. To live in a luxurious hotels.
His job allows him also to see each human get devastated for delivering the bad news to these people.

After several years of flying to different states to fire people, the company he has worked for wanted to cut cost of staff flying all over the US.
It's understandable for the company to cut down their operating costs, so they tried to pilot a new process of firing people - that is to do the firing in front of a computer screen from
the comfort of their own office in Omaha.
But the business of firing people is never easy to do in person, much more to try to do in a rather impersonal manner through a computer screen.

Having been in a situation wherein your boss asks you to leave the company because they no longer need you is probably one of the hardest situation.
For one, it is really devastating simply because when the company hired you, in your heart of hearts, you build up this dream of growing old in that company.
Not only because it pays your bill, but also because you believed that the company will take your life to greater heights while you give them your invaluable day-to-day contributions at work.
But business is business. Sometimes (or alot other times) the company needs to cut their operational costs and would sometimes rely to machines to cut their costs rather than keeping a staff who would incur more costs each year to their ever-growing list of cost.

The film does not end on a happy note, but George Clooney's character realizes some few things about life.
One, that he shouldn't be running away from his family just because he thinks that they are the responsibilities trying to strain his comfortable life.
Another thing he realized is that the new girl trying to pilot the new process of firing people isn't her enemy - and that he can learn a thing or two about human relationships with her.
And three, at the time he wants to settle with someone, the woman he wants to settle with is just seeing him as a paranthesis in her life. An escape from her married life.
Something that he was actually okay to be doing with her initially - but he had a change of heart.

In reality, we can toss everything up in the air. Our lives, our dreams, our families and even our careers.
Sometimes, someone else toss it up in the air. Alot other times, it is the circumstances that tosses them all up.
But when something is tossed up in the air, we always forget that it may just be one of the few things that are up there.
Not everything will be up in the air. Otherwise, gravity won't be working and the world will probably be damned if that's the case.

A month after.

January 2011 is almost over.

We are down to the last 10 daysand then February begins in a speed.

The next week marks my first month here in Chicago and it is something to be reallt thankful for.

One, the childhood dream of travelling to the US and seeing and experiencing snow came true.

Two, the business trip will increase my technical skills and will be good preparation for my future role as a team lead.

Third, the entire experience is teaching me to widen my perspective about the client and about life.

On my first week, there was Sev 1 tickets that I mishandled, and today I had 2 sev 1 tickets again but I have handled them both graciously and finished the first set of migration steps that I'm supposed to do.

I think this is what I would call aging professionally. :)

The client is not as terrible as they'd always seem. I figured they are also servicing their clients on a daily basis and most of the time they get sacked for mishandling some things in between good service and the lack thereof.

And of course, each of the things that are to be accomplished equates to a time frame, hence there'll always be time pressure on it.

So after a month of being here...what did i miss?

Hmm..alot i guess. Manila is such a warm place. Family and friends are there. Night outs. Good food. Endless laughs.

Then again, Chicago boasts alot of good experiences and astonishing places as well...most of them you would only see on postcards...and here I am walking in downtown chicago.

An opportunity

It was October when i first heard the news that the project is thinking of sending me to the client site for temporary assignment.
Quite a big opportunity if you ask me.
They usually send developers to gather requirements or get transition for the customizations.
But ladyluck smiled on me and here I am counting the remaining days before my first flight to the US - 5 days.
Not sure yet what's going to happen in the coming four months, but it will probably be the most memorable four months of this decade for me.
Wouldn't want to think that it is just luck that delivered me this great opportunity...hardwork had something to do with this.
Yes, I have worked hard in this project more than I have worked with any other project over the last 6 years. I've spent time away from my family, sleepless nights and received client calls even at 3am.
I've always believed that if you work very hard you will get better compensation. And that if you put your heart into what you are doing, then whatever you are doing will love you back.
But more than anything else, these golden opportunities we get are great equilibriums for all of the sacrifices and failed attempts we have had in the past.
At the right time, when we are the right person for the job, and we have the right attitude...then the opportunity will come knocking at your door.

Comings and Goings.

Today, someone special to me leaves the country.
While this has been planned over the last two years, our attachment over the last seven months has spelled so much difference - pain, ambivalence and lots of tears.

If someone will try to rewind my life...they'd know that I'd been in a similar situation two years ago.
That makes it all the more difficult for me to believe that this second situation will be a lot different in terms of ending.

But then if you try to analyze more, the comings and goings in our lifetime would probably exceed the heartaches that we have been blogging so much about - including me.

At work, there had been 6 or 7 new team members who came to join our team over the last 12 months. In an adjacent team, there were atleast 5 people who left the project to work abroad or on another company.

At home, a new baby was born over the last 8 months. And another one will be born in the next 7 months.

Within my circle of friends, one will be leaving for the Netherlands to get married, then another one will be working in China for the next two years.

This only means that the earth continues to move...that life continues to move on..and that there are little time to waste on being sad about these movements...because as long as the earth moves...there's a probability that human intersections will happen.

Do they have to bring in dollar reserves just to be recognized?

I was not a Bob Ong fan. Even during his rise as a phenomenal writer, i shrug off and ask who he is.
Today, I finished reading his book, ABNKKBSNPLAKo? and it was a wonderful experience.

The book capitalizes on his memories as a student until the day he went to college and everything went wrong.
But more than that, Bob Ong pays homage to his teachers by saying that teaching isn't a job - it is a vocation, and he touched social issues of the national budget
and the continuing decline of national interest to deliver free education to everyone.

I have to agree with him on this.
The government would spent billions of pesos to so many things within its fiscal year, even millions of pesos for the presiden't entourage on his foreign visits,
but there were never concrete plans on how to make education affordable to those people who need them the most - the poor.

Bob Ong may have been trivial and witty on his book passages, but it is never trivial to hear stories of underpaid teachers braving the daily grind of their hard-stricken life just to teach the kids.

And yeah, we always say that OFWs are the heroes because they leave their families just to be able to give them good future and deliver dollars to the country.

But what about the teachers? Is the government too busy to recognize them and all their efforts for this land? Do they have to bring in dollar reserves to this country to be given importance?

What is love?

Only recently, I came across someone who confessed that he doesn't really know how to love.
I was a bit stunned upon hearing that.
To pinoys, love comes like a second skin. We are exposed to puppy love at an early age of six or seven. We get into serious relationships even at age 15.
Sometimes, we raise families at an early age of 21 all because of love.
We dream big and we lose it all to love.

But maybe he was right.
We would often hear Iloveyous and yet when you asked them to elaborate it, they wouldn't be able to really distinguish what they love about the person that it sometimes mixes up to attraction or desire and not really love.

Then it hit me.
Love cannot be defined always. At times, you need to share it to an individual to explain it.
It is part listening, and then part understanding without judging.
Hear the stories they have to tell. Understand what they're trying to tell you and then right before you open your mouth to judge, zip it.

You may also do ala Mother Theresa. Give and give and give...without expecting to get anything of it. That maybe tiring, especially in this materialistic world. But look at where Mother Theresa is.

In the end, love will always prove to be the actions amidst all those flowery words you say. Or the gestures you show when it is all unguarded as against to those that you do when you hope to score. Or maybe that genuine concern you have for the person even if he will not be able to reciprocate it to you.

Don't take my word for the definition of love. Find it out for yourself dear. Who knows, you will be able to define it in better words.

Or maybe you can just start sharing it.

New beginning.

As a child, I always looked forward to Easter sundays because I would see a show at the end of the Salubong.

An angel coming from a building glides down to meet the image of Mary in her black dress. As the angel glides down, everyone would take pictures of it. Everyone waits for the angel to reach Mary's black dress because it needs to remove the black dress to signal the end of Mary's lament over Jesus' death as proclamation that Jesus has indeed risen.

After the pulling off of the black dress, doves will be flying around the image of Mary and one of them needs to pull off the black veil. And after the dove has clinched that black veil, Mary's image will see Jesus' risen image and all the balloons will fly in the air.

As a child, this whole event was magical, and it really fills my heart with joy.

As an adult however, I got exposed to the different facts of life that sometimes it makes it hard for me to feel joy over the painful emotion. Being more exposed to life, it also showed me that sometimes, you will encounter people who suffer from so many pains being brought about by their parents as well.

I'm not yet a parent, so I cannot speak for them yet. But I have always been a son to my parents, and yes, it is never a perfect road for all of us.

And this Holy week, I fell witness again to atleast two fathers who have brought pain to their kids, emotionally. As their friend, I told them to try to be patient and continue loving their dads. At the back of my mind, I'm thinking, how on earth will I be able to convince them to continue loving their dads, if their dads are hurting them inside and out.

I'm sure these dads have reason why they are doing these to their kids...there must be a good reason for all of these, otherwise, we can all just be parents and have the justification to hurt our kids as long as we want them to.

I know I'm never gonna be in a position good enough to approximate how fathers are made of, but I sure know that Jesus never got this much pain from His Father who has given birth to Him and who sent Him to deliver us.

I know that God may have been tough on Jesus for wanting Him to do something that He may have yet to understand, but in the end Jesus did understand what was the task all about and the purpose of the sufferings and sacrifices was revealed...for man's salvation.

I hope that these fathers will soon reveal their good intentions to their sons so that these sons will stop hurting and that all the sacrifices and emotional sufferings they have endured for more than a decade will somehow be understood.

And as they say, Easters are new beginnings, I pray that these strained relationships of Fathers and Sons will have a new beginning, not only for their sons, but also for their fathers who may have been so blinded to see how much hurt they are causing their loved ones.