Work from home

The past two days have been great on the work front. I've gotten to produce work I'm extremely happy with (good feedback is starting to trickle in, too) -- all while working from home.

So now I'm all warm and fuzzy about working from home, thus this post. Working from home is something I have wanted to do ever since I first saw Marlon's company grant him the privilege of working from home one day a week, plus a budget to set up a small home office.

Six years ago, it seemed far-fetched and decadent, like something only an deep-pocketed, ultramodern multinational leviathan could handle.

But technology has improved and mindsets have shifted. Employers are more open to the idea that you don't have to be physically present to do good work. And so working from home has become, happily, a part of my working life as a freelancer -- even now that I'm working what is essentially a 9-to-6 day job.

I love working from home for its many perks. Foremost is sleep. My morning primping and commuting time is added to my sleep time. My bed is less than three feet away from my desk, making a hasty escape from the heavy-lidded unproductive desert that is siesta time oh so easy.

Second is, time. I work at my own pace and at the times I am most productive. Although I don't like to pigeonhole myself as a morning/afternoon/night person (why would I want to limit myself?), I like to sleep late and get to thinking after a slow start. Still, I can get up early and hit the ground cracking if I need to; working from home isn't for people who can't manage their time, that's for sure.

And to be honest, I work fast most of the time. There have been times I find myself done with what I need to do and just kill time until the "respectable" hour to go home arrives. Trust me, maraming nai-imbiyerna kung mabilis ka; kasalanan ko bang hindi sila efficient? Among these are the creatures who wear their extended work hours as a badge of honor, the ultimate proof that they're working hard (never having heard of working smart).

Working from home allows me to cut out all that useless crap. If I'm efficient at my work and am done for the day, then I'm done for the day. No raised eyebrows, no wagging tongues.

Third is, simply, home. Since I never feel the need to physically get out of the office (admit it, sometimes it's a real and pressing urge, isn't it?), sometimes I even end up working later into the night, and for longer hours, than I would at a regular office.  I've had days so packed, I've had to crawl out of bed at 7am and keep to a strict hourly schedule until midnight. But I don't think I could do that at an office and still feel good at the end of the day.

I have my cat to bother or cuddle or be tormented by; I have a beautiful sunset right outside my window to mark the end of each day  The comfort of home makes a huge difference. And that's what makes working from home work for me.

Back to school

I feel like I ought to be writing an essay called "What I did this summer." I started working in June, upon my return from San Francisco, and it felt much like going back to school after summer vacation.

I had intended April, May and June to be my "break" -- but it didn't really turn out that way. I worked through my break, and I say that with gratitude and joy. One of the things that kept me clinging to my old job was the fear of leaping into a void of nothingness... no work, no income. I was wrong and for that I could not be happier. It was nothing like when I first started out in Singapore. What a difference two years can make.

Then again, this summer was like the ones I had when I was younger. I was never really idle.  There was always Rep or tennis or Spanish or art lessons. Heck, even the summers without parent-initiated activities were jam-packed with boy-watching.

This time around, going back to school was more like transferring to a new school. Getting used to new teachers, classmates, new ways of doing things; maybe not making lifelong friends right away, but anxious to do well and be liked. Even struggling and doing well at the same time.  

But I had my summer vacation (the first I've had since leaving school almost seven years ago!) and it was a good one. And even now that the summer is over, the sunshine seems like it's here to stay. 

And she's off...

Today's post is brought to you by Blogger's Remorse!

It's been crazy in the Paul-Plazo household these last two weeks.

After scrambling to get my Dependent Pass (which I now have! I am no longer a tourist in Singapore! Long story...) Marlon and I flew off to Beijing for an exhausting but definitely... interesting five days. I would describe most of it as fun although there were more than a few lost-in-translation moments, the occasional bouts of frustration and fatigue, and even an open-air lovers' quarrel for all to see. What the holiday pictures don't show, eh? 

marlon and i in beijing: having fun but a little overwhelmed, tired but still going

At the same time I was being yanked onboard a three-month freelance contract that I haven't officially signed yet because I don't have the right work papers sorted out (again, long story...). 

I rushed back from Beijing to a pile of work from said freelancing gig. I am working from home these days and am so surprised at how much I am working for a job that I am not even officially yet on (again, long story). I really get how everyone I'm working with needs me to come on board because they are all so damned busy! I've been doing as much as I can, but it's been a struggle to work with just a few days sandwiched in between trips -- plus the other, odder factor of me not being officially onboard and asked to work from home till the contract is signed. Long story... 

Long story seems to be the story of my life these days!

It seems like I was just struggling to onboard myself a few days ago, and suddenly I have to quickly and thoroughly turn over what little work I've done (which seems like a lot to me already!) before I disappear to San Francisco for the next two weeks. 

Still, the job was a huge and unexpected blessing so I'm doing my best to shut the complaints and to do right by it and The One who gave it to me. And there's no way I'm complaining about this trip because the tantalizing tandem of discovering new places and seeing old friends simply fills me with such anticipation. 

So I'm off again, and looking forward to a trip that will be every bit as exciting (and hopefully, a wee bit slower) than life on the ground, here at home, has been the past two weeks. 

Change

With just two working days left until I officially leave the company, I've begun turning over my projects, introducing new colleagues to old clients, clearing files from my computer and cleaning out my desk.

While organizing my numerous work files for the next user of my poor overloaded Mac, I found this scanned illustration by one of our former interns.

Suddenly, it seemed like a hundred years ago that the company I worked for felt like a family, and the office I worked out of felt like a home.

We had office pets, for goodness' sake!


We had Da Hui ("Big Gray"), the stunningly gorgeous but impossibly cranky feline who hated to be carried, often got lost, liked to sit on top of the printer and keep watch out the window, once stank up the office with his ear infection, liked to climb on the roof and eat bamboo, who needed to be fed and watered and whose litter needed to be replaced over the weekend.

I first laid eyes on Da Hui at my initial interview; seeing him was like receiving The Sign that I needed, that I was destined to work here! Da Hui has since retired from the busy life of an office feline and now shares an uneasy but well-decorated space with James' old cat.

We had koi fish in a shallow pond, which we transferred from office to office by rolling up our jeans, wading into the pond and startling them into a cooler one by one.

We had occasional visits from Snugger, a perky, fluffy and often dressed-up white terrier who belonged to Lilian. We used to walk him at times, and my heart would melt seeing him stare mournfully at the door waiting for Lilian to come back from some meeting or other. Then I would laugh when she'd come back and he would leap on her, licking and yapping uncontrollably in a frenzy of joy.

The place I work for now seems so different from this company that once kept pets. Pets! Maybe because you really need to care to keep pets around. And maybe it's why leaving is the right decision.

Too late the hero

Nais kong malaman... bakit ngayon ka lang dumating?

Dumating nung Lunes yung bago kong amo. Yung pinalit nila dun sa amo kong saksakan ng galeng pero tinira nila ng patalikod at ngayon ay pinapaaway nila sa abogado. Puti siya so kinabahan lahat ng tao sa opisina. Yung mga huli kasing puti na pinadala sa amin, walang kwenta. 

Pero shet. Ang galing niya. Mabait siya, magaling makitungo sa tao. Yung una niyang ginawa pagdating niya sa opisina, pagkatapos ilapag ang mga gamit niya sa mesa, ay kausapin at kilalanin ang bawat isa sa amin. Yung mga puti na unang pumasok, never nilang ginawa yon hanggang ngayon. Pati yung Intsik namin na opisina na parang limang salita lang ang alam sa Ingles, tiniyaga niyang kausapin ng mahigit kalahating oras. 

At nung nagsimula na kaming mag-isip ng concept para sa isang malaking proyekto. Pakshet. Para kaming kinuryente nung pinagsama. Higit pa sa chemistry. Alchemy siguro. Sapul na sapul ang istilo niya sa mga tipo ng proyekto na matagal ko nang gustong gawin. At sa tipo ng pagsusulat na pinakagusto ko. Ang kinalabasan ng brainstorming namin, hindi mo mapaghihiwalay kung ano ang naisip niya sa naisip ko. Matagal na akong hindi kinikilig ng ganito sa trabaho. 

Ang saya ko nung araw na yon. Nagsusulat ako, nag-iisip, nag-e-enjoy. Parang naging ako na 'ko ulit. Or yun yung ako na gusto ko maging nung una kong sinimulan ang trabahong 'to.

Napaisip tuloy ako kung nagkamali ako sa pag-alis. 

As in, napaisip talaga ako ng malalim.

Aalis pa rin ako. Ngunit hindi ako hihindi kung alukin nila ako magsulat paminsan-minsan. Siyempre, mamimili pa rin ako ng proyekto. Pero ang pinakamahalaga sa akin sa ngayon ay ang pagkakataong makatrabaho siya ulit.

Kasi sayang e. Bakit nga ba ngayon lang siya?

---


Sorry Pia! Let's chat about it na lang!

Client from hell

One of my clients from hell made it to Clients from Hell!

Buti na lang di kami natuloy sa project na 'to. Para pala silang tiangge kung mambarat e!

Back from business

I'm back from my first ever business trip! While the people closest to me, Marlon and my sister, have been pretty much jetting all over the world on business for many many years, this weekend marks the first time I have had to travel anywhere requiring a passport, in a professional capacity.

I spent the last six days in Kuala Lumpur on a shoot for a long-running project for Disney Channel. The team that flew down was composed of me, James, Jerrold, Mike and Leang -- a producer, director, assistant director/editor, graphic designer and director of photography, respectively. We each got our own rooms in a surprisingly good hotel -- the Dorsett Regency right smack in the middle of Bukit Bintang in downtown KL. For $70/night, the hotel wasn't bad at all! The location couldn't be beat, and it was a dead ringer for the pre-renovation Manila Pen. 

The whole experience of being away on business seemed slightly surreal to me. It was like I had momentarily stepped out of reality into something that was pretending to be my life, but was distinctly separate from it. Shooting on location all day and coming home to an empty hotel room simply nothing to do with my "real" life. It wasn't an unpleasant experience, and I even feel grateful that my days were so full and I was so tired there wasn't much room for loneliness. 

But I felt like being away had hit the "pause" button on something inside me (my ability to be fully present? To fully enjoy an experience?) and I was just waiting for the time when I could... unpause myself. 

Still, it feels good to be sent to another country because of something that I can do, and do reasonably well. (Let's hope it's a good sign of more travels to come, hmm?) I enjoyed spending time with my team (it's James' last shoot before he leaves BDA!) and my sister and her friends. I also enjoyed the "me" time in the cushy hotel room, and shoe shopping in Sungei Wang, the Greenhills/Tutuban Mall of Kuala Lumpur. And of course completing a successful shoot always gives me a high. 

But now I'm back home, cocooned in the arms of my Bulgari-scented husband (he knows I love it so he wore it to the airport!), in the comfort of my very own home, and in the spotty affections of my tempestuous cat. And no professional high can beat that. 

First impressions

It's a very short walk from the bus stop to the office. I think I'll stick this route: free shuttle from condo to MRT station, MRT to the hubby's office, bus from the hubby's office to mine. With the number of transfers it almost feels like a Manila commute. Travel time: nearly an hour and a half.

Our neighbor, the International Academy of Film and TV (still empty as yet) has what I'd say is a 100-inch plasma TV mounted on the wall. That there is the biggest TV I've ever seen.

Stickers on the frosted glass telling everyone what we do. This is probably to distinguish us from a bank, which is what I think of when I see these half-frosted, half-clear all glass facades.

Well, at least the London bosses finally get the fancy reception area they've been insisting on for donkey's years.

Whoa. The floors are shiny.

Whoa. It's bright. Really bright. The light! It burns!

Wow. James really looks like a creative director now. Too bad he's leaving. These offices make people look more important. 

Wow. All the awkward, oddly-sized pillars scattered around in random places are gone. Or at least, have been well hidden. Good work!

Very nice wavy perforated steel like thingy in the meeting room. And we now have a very big TV. Nowhere near the IAFTV Jumbotron, but respectably big.

The edit and audio suites are nice. They look suitably maze-like, like all post facilities must be required to look. I like the grey walls. 

Brrr. It's freezing in here.

Where is my coffee mug? Where is the coffee? General confusion.

Where is _________? Did he get lost or show up at the old office? It's nearly lunch time.

Damnit, there he is. And I have a clear view of him from my new desk. Must adjust this monitor -- ah, there. Perfect. It's almost as if he doesn't exist. Until he starts talking.

-----

More on the new office (with pictures!) when I get back from KL!

Goodbye Oxley Road

The company I work for is moving to a new office this weekend. With Lilian gone and James leaving soon, moving out of the house on Oxley Road feels like an end of an era, a farewell to the "old" BDA. I wonder what the new one (both the house and the company) will be like.

I admit I had my doubts about it at first, but I could see the potential. My love for old houses soon won out. With some minor improvements and a fresh lick of paint, the beauty of this pre-war house (which is considered ancient in Singapore) began to shine through. I began to fall in love with its airiness, high ceilings and the abundance of natural light, which I will miss. 

The main workroom for me, the interns and the boys (designers). The light fixtures are vintage and come with the house. The floors are polished cement. 

It always fills me with pride to hear the reactions of clients and visitors who step into our office for the first time. People just love it. 

We used to have clients who would come over for meetings more often than usual just to escape the tedium of their own offices. Everybody would rave about how beautiful it was, how we must love working here, how it doesn't feel like an office at all, how they would love to work here, what a bomb we must be paying for a place like this (it rents for substantially less than people might suspect). I couldn't agree more. Even when I have to come to work on Saturday, the house is a consolation. It never feels like work. I sometimes find myself calling it "the house", not the office.

Our head office in London hates it. I think they just don't understand the culture and how aspirational this kind of place is for people in the region. I don't understand how our group director could have called it a shithole. :( Thus the move. 

We painted these murals using the company motif (fish) and color (blue) last January when the economy was down -- business was so slow that we had nothing else to do. It was a brilliant idea of Lilian's -- it was fun and kept us busy until work started to roll in.

When we first moved in, I made sure to get a desk beside the window for the sunshine and the greenery.

Speaking of greenery, there is so much of it around. I will miss it. Here's the second floor hallway where Jerrold likes to have his coffee and smoke with James. 

And right across from us is the yoga studio. Sometimes when I feel stressed I come up here and look out into the green and the neighborhood. 

Or I go into the backyard and take a breather. More recently I've developed the habit of having lunch outside even though most people find it too warm out. I'll miss the backyard too. 

It's a perfect place for barbecues, which we do quite often. 

Barbecues seem to be one of the national pastimes of Singapore, right after shopping and queuing for something. 

We had the last official barbecue last night and I still smell like liempo.

I'll even miss the kitchen, which is too small to fit more than three people at a time and reminds me of a hobbit kitchen. 

I'll miss the neighborhood and stepping out into this sunshiny, quiet street (which enjoys special protection, considering Lee Kwan Yew lives on the same street). I'll also miss the five-minute walk to Orchard Road -- goodbye Uniqlo megastore, long decompressing lunches, quick decompressing shopping escapes, Mang Kiko's lechon. I'm sure Chinatown is pretty happening as well, but well Orchard is different.

Goodbye, 55 Oxley Road. You were a lovely home to all of us. Too bad we only knew you for a year and a half. 

Thankful

Last weekend was my big shoot for a project I've been working on for over four months. It was the cause of many sleepless nights, working Saturdays, and elevated heart rates for me. It was my first time to be the overall production manager on a project after Lilian left, on no less than a three-day multiple location shoot.

In the month before the shoot, my mind was filled with all the things that could possibly go wrong. Would we get our shoot insurance in time? Would the Land Transport Authority realize they gave us permission to shoot on the wrong date? Would this sixth round of casting finally be the last? Was rainy season in Singapore really over? Why wasn't one of the talents answering my calls and texts? What potential crises could come up and how would I respond? (What a vague question huh? This is the one that drove me up the wall.)

Then I had a breakthrough. And the oddest thing happened -- the two final weeks leading up to the shoot were the most relaxed I had had in months. We had pre-production meetings within the team where we realized we barely had anything to discuss. The final PPM with the client was a breeze. We finished packing up all the production stuff -- drinks, snacks, props -- and loaded them into the van at lunchtime the day before the shoot, and not at the last minute or in the dead of night. I even had time to print all the permits and release forms, neatly print each talent's name on payment vouchers and put their fees into separate (recycled) envelopes.

Then I realized four months of pre-production might have been like going into long, painful and drawn-out labor, but without all those months of pre-work, I might have died trying to pull off a shebang like this at the last minute.

And so we shot. Yes, sh*t happened -- a few things went missing, the usual client this-and-that, even the bane of my existence as a PM: overtime (for each hour of which, everyone on the crew charges me 1.5x their hourly rate! Gak!). Yet each day, after shooting wrapped for the day, I felt only two overwhelming things. Fatigue, and gratitude.

I was thankful for... 

... the beautiful, sunny weather and clear blue skies on all three days of the shoot -- even when we were shooting indoors. The day after we wrapped, it began to rain daily.

... the amazing performances of our talents. Our death-defying skateboarder had all of us applauding after takes. Despite literally skateboarding from 9 to 5, he was smiling the entire time.

... for the patience and sense of humor of our extras. They poked fun at each other wearing the compulsory, client-required safety gear, which they said they hadn't worn since they were 10. They had some mad skills too.

... the energy, enthusiasm, good looks and stellar performances of our cast. Every one of these kids was a winner. We had only one non-teen (she was 24!) and you couldn't tell she was a day over 16. For me, she stole the show.

... the kindness of our clients. They had typical client concerns, but nothing we couldn't handle and always delivered in the most pleasant and constructive manner. On the whole I couldn't have asked for better.

... the caring presence of my favorite makeup auntie, Doris. She pampers all the talents, looks after everyone on set and goes beyond the call of duty every time. She even mirrors all the directors' instructions just outside frame, because she believes it will help the talents. She's so cute.

... the support of my team at BDA. I really felt everyone supporting me. They always seem to know what to do and I felt we all worked really well together.

... the generosity of Joan, who owns the yoga centre next door. She allowed us to shoot in her beautiful ground floor studio with nary a second thought. She arrived on set to find a maelstrom of cables, shoes (we had to take them off to avoid damaging her flawless parquet), equipment and furniture and was totally Zen about it. I guess 30 years of yoga does wonders for your equilibrium. Without her, I don't know what I would have done. Her yoga space transformed perfectly into a home jamming setup, with ample space for the crew and equipment.

...  the support of the hubby. Marlon massaged my feet after the shoot, treated me to a lovely dinner at Original Sin in Holland Village (I'm sure it was lovely, although I was so tired I can barely recall tasting anything), and even came over to lift heavy furniture and help dress up the set. James joked that next time we should introduce him as our art director.

More than anything, I'm thankful that it's done! A milestone in my career safely tucked into the folds of my experience. Now, on to the next!

Flip-flopping

Do we take it literally?! Haha!

I've been going back and forth (and back and forth... and then some) over a big work-related decision for the past month or two. My cycles alternate between Hmmm sige na nga and Pakshet #~$@&^%! And the cycling back and forth between the... er, cycles has gotten to almost manic-depressive levels lately.

I exaggerate of course. But it seems as if I change my mind on a day-to-day, and sometimes hour-to-hour basis. When I'm stressed I tend to swing one way, and when I'm rested I come wobbling back in the other direction. Victories at work both big (which I'll blog about this weekend - it must be celebrated!) and small buoy me up, but the weight of other, more consistent stresses at work almost immediately drag me down. Aggravation pulls me down one path, but worries about income and career (your recent posts are so in sync with my life, Pia! Friends talaga tayo!) anchor me in place.

Still, I trust that I'll make the right decision at the right time. My patient husband has played the dutiful therapist through all these mood swings, which I'm thankful for. His listening ear, warm hugs and quiet but unwavering support settles me when I'm most agitated and need to think clearly. And I discovered a prayer for discernment in a book of prayers my in-laws gave us for Christmas, reminding me that big decisions need the wisdom and guidance that escapes us mere mortals.

Wish me luck and pray for me please :)

Getting there

I had to stay late at work tonight to finish a Powerpoint presentation for a meeting tomorrow. I didn't mind at all, because I am just so glad to be reaching a huge milestone in a project that I've been working on for the past four or five months.

It's the final pre-production meeting (PPM), one last run-through and final approval of all my casting, location, wardrobe and other troubles before the actual shoot next week. Getting to this point means that everything has been approved by The Powers That Be and that the shoot will push through as scheduled. Trust me, even after pre-production has been going on for 4-5 months, there's never a guarantee that it will push through. Parang tour diba? Wala kang guarantee until nakasakay ka na sa eroplano. Or at least that's what officers tell the trainees to scare them, haha.

There was a time I felt as it we would never get to the final PPM! Clients always have a right to refuse anything we present (a right they love to use, more often than not) and it seemed like we had run into a wall of "no no no no no absolutely not" at one point. Thankfully now the last few loose ends are being tied up, and all I have to worry about is getting through my very first shoot as producer and line producer (without Lilian, I might add, who leaves Yeti-sized shoes to fill).

It's a three day shoot with multiple locations, so it was giving me sleepless nights just worrying about organizing the logistics and making sure sh*t doesn't happen. Funny, I used to see the titles "producer" and "line producer" in film credits and wonder what it meant. Now I know it means planning for sh*t, making sh*t happen according to plan and making sure sh*t doesn't happen. 

The price we pay for learning things, huh?

Loved

I had to go to the office yesterday. It was a sunny, blue-skied Saturday afternoon, and while I'm not the outdoorsy type, I still would have preferred to spend such an afternoon elsewhere. It was to do something that I thought was wasteful and dumb: print, manually collate back-to-back, and ring-bind five sets of an 80-page, full-color Powerpoint presentation as requested by a client for a meeting on Monday morning. Bleh.

The printer was fucking up big time, and I had to print more than one set several times over. I was feeling short-tempered and stressed and utterly disgruntled at having to spend a perfectly lovely weekend afternoon in the office.

Then I looked over behind my Mac monitor to see my husband sitting in one of the office chairs, engrossed in a game on his phone. He looked up and smiled at me.

Then I remembered that I was blessed with a best friend and wonderful partner who willingly, without complaint, kept me company in the dull, stressful, even pointless moments of my day-to-day life.

Then I felt loved -- and Saturday afternoon at the office was transformed.

Lest I forget

What's missing

Lately I've been really stressed out about production. My boss, who used to play the role of senior production manager, resigned over a month ago with no replacement in sight. That and an unusually large number of production projects (as opposed to purely graphics-based) have left me picking up the slack and doing most of the production work myself.

Although I realized I've learned a fair bit about production since I started this job over a year ago, there's a lot that completely escapes me, like costing and scheduling. Juggling all the nitty gritty grunt work of production with my creative responsibilities has left me stressed and anxious. I'm antsy for someone to come over and take the lead; while I've professed my eagerness to learn the ropes, I don't want to be (and I don't think I am equipped to handle) being the sole responsibility for production.

There have been many, many times these past months that I wished I could drop the "/producer" half of my job title and go back to being "just" a writer. Especially during times when an important creative proposal deserves attention and I am bound to spend half the day ringing up all the car rental services in Singapore until I find a red convertible Mini Cooper for a shoot at the end of the week.

Mostly I have been feeling that I haven't been writing as much as I'd like, or giving my writing (when I am called upon to write) the time and effort that it requires.

So yesterday I finally gave in to the urge to write. I picked up an old book that used to belong to my mom, called The Right to Write by Julia Cameron, where I remembered seeing writing exercises and prompts. The first exercise was simply called, Begin. And the result of that exercise was what I posted last night.

For the past few months I've been feeling that writing was missing from my work. And just last night, I realized that I don't have to rely on work to supply what's missing from work.

That's what life is for. :)

Ignorance is bliss

after the casting and creative chaos of last week, i started this week with an uncharacteristically quiet monday. no client emails, no boss emails, nobody chasing me for everything. i even had time to plan my next production (a repeat of a sleazy, skanky project i did early this year) and think about what to do better, having learned from the last time.

and the reason for this blessed quietness? the central email server in london was down. and london being six hours behind us, their IT guy couldn't even get started on the problem until our local workday ended.

ah, peace and quiet. sometimes you gotta love technology.

Surreal

it's surreal to think that tomorrow, i'll be en route to new york. cue ate guy: "di ako makapaniwala..."

my mind is already flying off ahead of me. i want to go home and prepare for the trip: read my time out guidebook, choose a restaurant and make reservations for the one special (read: expensive) dinner that we promised to treat ourselves to, and omg WAX AND EPILATE! and generally rest up before we begin tomorrow's mad amazing race-ish dash to tor's wedding in manhattan on saturday morning.

but there are still presentations to do, meetings to go to and interns to brief. and if you knew how detailed their briefings have to be, just so they don't mess up casting while i'm gone, maloloka kayo.

as in, yung isa sa kanila nagreklamo na kaya daw siya nahihirapan mag-facilitate ng auditions ay dahil simula nang mag-kolehiyo siya, hindi na raw siya masyadong nag-iingles. ANO BA! e yung alipores ko ngang koreana hindi nagdadahilan ng ganyan! kaya ginawan ko siya ng powerpoint na babasahin na lang ng mga mow-thel bago sila um-emote para hindi na siya kailangang magsalita.

tapos dahil hindi siya makaisip ng anong papagawin niya sa mga mow-thel (kahit na nandun naman sa harap niya yung storyboard), ginawan ko siya ng iskrip na babasahin na lang niya sa mga mudel para mapa-emote sila. mabait naman ang batang ito, pero JOSKODUDAY KAILANGAN DE KUTSARA LAHAT!

and to top it all off, marlon is "working from home" today and isn't going to work tomorrow. one of my last glimpses of him before i left this morning was surrounded by pillows, bundled up in a comforter, reading eragon. kakainez! i wanted to throttle him.

ok i shall now reel in my altapresyon. eyes on the prize! i'm leaving tomorrow and that's what matters!

Yo MC MC

in a classic example of local english, sick leaves in singapore are called MC. what does MC mean, you might ask? medical certificate, as in that little slip of paper from the doctor. people don't stop to think about it, but i wonder if anyone actually realizes that they say "i am on medical certificate today." (what else can you expect from a country whose government campaign for speaking grammatically correct english is called "speak good english", a phrase which in itself is grammatically incorrect? ah, the irony.)

i can't bring myself to use this turn of phrase out loud. i've only used "MC" in texts to my boss. and it's always along the lines of "the doctor gave me a 2-day MC." or to our office manager, when turning over said slip of paper "here's my MC, jane." this is like that whole regime/regimen debacle. i just won't give in. 

apart from its vulnerability to grammatical abuse, the other annoying thing about MCs is that it's standard policy for local companies to require one every single time you go on sick leave... even if it's just for one day. forget being sick for three days before having to traipse to the doctor for an MC -- that's sooo third world. 

first world progress means that if you have a fever for just one day, you have to spend a couple of hours of that single day of rest to haul your ass to a doctor, expose yourself to various germs in the waiting room, and pay anywhere from $40 to over $100 in consultation fees and medicine. doctors here LOVE to over-prescribe; i think it's how their clinics make money. for example, a recent stomach upset caused by eating spoiled food got me five, count em, FIVE different medicines -- a painkiller, one for killing the bacteria in my stomach, one to settle my stomach, and goodness knows what the other two were for.

so it's day 2 of my SICK LEAVE, and my 2-day MC expires today. the fever has gone down, although i'm still woozy from the medicines and the antibiotics are drying my throat so i sound uncannily like inday badiday. tomorrow i will be back at work bright and early at 9, and my boss tells me there's tons of work waiting to welcome me back. apparently projects with rush deadlines have been flooding in like crazy. i wonder if it has occurred to anyone to turn anything down considering there are only four designers working on everything and 2 production people (me plus the intern).

looks like i'm really going to deserve that new york trip by the time these next two weeks are over. for now, i'm going to take advantage of the rest, because i know i'll be expected to be fully functioning, as if i never got sick, ready to attack my share of the workload the minute i step back into the office. don't you just love it.

That's the thing

i'm trying to get this guy (who thankfully not represented by a talent agency) to come in and audition for my sports spot. his face is cute but this is really what got me. you could say he had me at "ugat".


forearms have always been my "thing". one of my high school crushes was a guitarist who had the most maugat forearms and manly hands i had ever seen in my fourteen years of existence (due to all the guitar playing). kalimutan na lang natin ang fez.

later on, when i got into my first relationship, i developed a thing for butts. di bale na kung malaki, basta nakakagigil. my ex had the most whackable butt in the world. thankfully i married a man who perpetuates my butt fetish to this very day. another ex-generated fetish is my love of plump lips. thin kissers are just not my thing, except if they happen to belong to this guy.


each of us has her own thing about guys. justine and i used to notice very clean batoks in college, which is one of the reasons i love marlon in a very short haircut with a nice clean nape. then there are girls who fall in love with fingernails, go into a tizzy over toenails, swoon over shoulders and go bananas over backs.

what's your thing?

update: so nakausap ko na siya. akala ko nung una nagmamaganda siya. pero ayaw niya palang sumubok hangga't conFEERMED na yung petsa ng shoot. may laban daw kasi siya at baka mag-iba ang itsura niya pagkatapos ng laban. oo nga naman.

anyway, gamit ang maikling usapan naming iyon ay nasiyasat ko na siya. at eto siya, mga kaibigan! hindi lang pala braso ang kahanga-hanga sa kanya.

Inspirations for the day

i quickly discovered that one of the most useful survival skills for my job is gathering and maintaining a pool of references. from videos to images and (less often for me) music, sometimes simply pulling the right reference for the right brief is enough to turn a hair-tearing creative drought into hours and hours of writing when your fingers can't fly fast enough to catch up with your ideas.

i started maintaining a reference folder on my desktop shortly after joining bda. i was both amazed that my boss could so effortlessly cherry-pick and develop ideas from his seemingly bottomless pit of reference, and frustrated that he had had least a fifteen-year headstart collecting them. i figured if i was going to be useful to him, i had better start catching up.

anyway, today i found two videos in my stash that helped me write a pitch for the army (yes the army here is very media-savvy), something i usually detest doing, in the matter of a several hours. while both videos work on the idea of a missing element, a "what if" scenario that i found interesting, i'm happy to report my finished concept turned out to look like neither of the two! and my bosses liked it!



a quiet, mood and thought-provoking ad for fotoprix.



a hilariously vivid and very panicky (!) football promo for sky sports.