Thursday

Two things happened today. Fire and a phone call. Unrelated, by the way.

I was making pancakes this morning when I noticed an unusual amount of noise coming from the streets. I went outside when I heard sirens to see what the ruckus was all about. There was a fire across the street. A huge pillar of smoke (what I’d imagine the column of fire to look like from the Moses’ time) was coming from behind the building, and from my house I could feel the emanating heat. Firemen were climbing up ladders with their hoses to get a better view of the fire. People were gathering outside my house to get a better view.

They eventually put out the fire, but the smoke had cooled down and blanketed our compound. We closed the windows and filtered our mouths with our shirts. Then the power went out.

This afternoon I got a phone call from IBM. They weren’t offering me a position, but were notifying me of a phone interview with an account manager on Monday. I informed them that I signed with another company, and they said to call them back if anything happens because that was supposed to be the final interview.

I don't regret my decision (yet. I know I’ll regret it every morning when I fight through traffic), but I still wonder if I made the right decision. Everyone I talked to said to take the research job, but IBM just seemed so much more convenient and friendlier. And in the pro/con list I made, I gave the most importance to the job description, when really I don’t really care what I do. But I assure you, I’m confident I made the right decision.

It’s strange. I’ve been stressed out about this job thing for the last month. I anxiously wait for phone calls and have long conversations with people about my possible future. I lose sleep at night and lose my appetite. People try to reassure me that God will take care of me, and that I shouldn’t worry about the future. But then days like this happen, where a calamity strikes. Not to me, but to those around me. A sister, or parent will pass away, or a fire will erupt across your street. The aftermath is horrendous. I walked outside when it was all over, and saw people with what’s left of their possessions straddling the side of the road, wiping away their tears.

I don’t know what conclusion I’m trying to end at. Everything I want to say seems shallow and self-centered compared to what I witnessed earlier. My problems, my worries are temporary. I had two jobs lined up in front of me and I’m losing sleep over it, while there will be people tonight who won’t even have a place to sleep. Sigh

Conclusion

Apparently in my last blog post my ratings were off. An overwhelming majority of the people I talk to have ISS over IBM. I just hope I'm offered the job. And I hope my body clock can adjust to waking up at 6AM every morning.

ISS or IBM?

Hypothetically, if I was accepted to both ISS and IBM, which one would I choose?

When I was in high school Mr. Moore lectured about decision making and about the process of enumerating pros and cons. In college we learned to make decisions by quantifying those pros and cons and assigning a weight to each. (Proximity may weigh more heavily in person A's eyes than in person B's.) Let me start over. We each have something we look for in a job. It could be the salary, the prestige, or even the benefits. These are your desires and you assign a value to each according to their importance. We have options, for me it's ISS and IBM. Now we rate the likelihood that my desires will be met if I chose company A over company B. Here's what it looks like.

Simply put, ISS is more prestigious, the work is more challenging, and it won't disrupt with my normal schedule. IBM on the other hand is closer, and I won't have to deal with rush hour. It looks like ISS outweighs IBM. Oh wait, I forgot to include that ISS is a temp job that does not guarantee I'll be regularized.

doh....

Judging

I'm wondering what I'm allowed to post on this blog and what should be kept private.

It disturbs me when people say I'm a good person. Or that Christians/Protestants are all good people. I have a friend who doesn't share the same value of sobriety as me. Whereas my values come from my family and my involvement at church, his lack of value for sobriety stems from his value for socializing. Though you may think that one value outweighs the other, you have to account for other circumstances because it can also relate to other areas of your life. For instance, I'm not a sociable guy and I don't have that many close friends, but my friend influences the lives of his friends for the better because of his gift and his value in getting along and meeting new people. Who's to say he's not the better man for the good he's responsible for? No one is perfect and no one is good. It disturbs me when we discriminate amongst ourselves and become judges with evil thoughts.

Ebooks

When I had my interview with the ebook publishing company they told me some information about the conversion process. For classics they scan the book then with a conversion tool convert the text into editable letters. The process is 99% accurate, translated be 5 errors every 20 pages (approximately). The company checks for errors to push the accuracy rate to 99.5%, or 1 error for every 20 pages (approximately). They don't check every page, they check random pages because there are hundreds of books, each with a hundred different pages. If you take a random sample, you should get an accuracy figure which you can base your quality on.

I'm reading the book Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde and I've come across a bunch of dumb errors. The main one I found is the collapsing of words, so instead of "all hope of believability was gone forever," it reads as "all hope of believabilitywasgone forever." Another error I found, which was obviously from the conversion program is the use of "ex- cited" instead of "excited." You can tell that the word was broken to fit the next line.

I could've been doing this for a living.

Gogogo

I didn't blog yesterday because I had supper at my Tito and Tita's house. When I got home my internet wasn't working so I wasn't able to blog.

A Canadian missionary named Trent came along and we bought an ice cream cake from Trinoma. And then we made the terrible decision of taking a cab to Project 4. It was a bad decision because we had a bad driver that claimed he didn't know his way around Project 4. We had to direct him on which way to go. We end up taking terribly long routes and making U-turns, and it was just a bad experience. I don't like taxing around Manila. It's no fun.

Basketball League

I don't like playing basketball. I'm usually placed at center because of my height and my reach. I don't mind this position because I don't have to guard anyone aggressively, instead all I have to do is stand in the paint and throw my hands straight up. Unfortunately this is there position where guy charge at you. So by the end of the game you have a layer of other people's sweat on you, and a number of bruises on your abdomen. But apparently, I'm good at this. I just have to make sure I don't move my hands a lot or else I'll foul out like I did in my first game.

Today we had our fourth match. Black vs Red. Both undefeated teams. But we were at a major disadvantage. The day before the game we found out that half our team couldn't make it to the game. We were playing with six players to our opponent's seven. This meant that four of us couldn't take a breather. It also meant we couldn't foul out.

The opposing team was very aggressive at first, crashing the rim whenever a shot went up. My height is my only advantage, my weight my biggest disadvantage. These guys were pushing me around like a doll. I couldn't box out and couldn't grab the rebounds. Fortunately, since they didn't have that many substitutes themselves they had to slow down their pacing to maintain their energy. By half time we were up by 1.

In the second half we lost our lead early on. They got inside the paint for made their shots. But then my team picked up our pace and scored easy points on fast breaks. We were up by 15 points. But we got into foul trouble. They closed the gap when they started pressuring us full court. Soon the lead shrunk to 3 points. But time was running out. Our strategy was to run down the clock, pick up fouls, and extend our lead at the free throw line. No fouls.

The game ended with the Black team victorious: 87-83. We are still undefeated.

Birthdays

I just came from a birthday party. Another of my young friend's debut. I was talking to my friend about how strange it is that the birthday celebrant was only turning 18 now, when I had the impression that person was already 19 going on 20. She's in her second year of college and to me she acts older than her age.

I reasoned that this only seemed strange since I grew up in an American school where high school seniors graduate at 18. In the Philippines we lack the middle school years 7 and 8, so high school grads are 16 or 17 when they enter college. I am generally older than most of my peers. You will find a handful of college grads at the young age of 19.

I'm just relieve that I wasn't asked to dance with the birthday celebrant. I'm getting too old for this.

Ta-da

Cheers to blogging.

Interview #3

I just came from the supposedly last job interview. After this you're either in or out. I'm confused about how the process is, it seems to me they pick one individual for one position and expect them to pass the exam and the interviews. I don't think they turn anyone down. Everyone I know who has applied there has been accepted. So I'm thinking I might not even be competing against anyone for this position. Hurray?

The job interview was at UP-techno hub, on congressional, across from the UP campus. It's one jeepney ride away from my house and it takes around 25 minutes to commute there. This is excellent. The IBM building is next to a mini-outdoor mall, but it's not as lively as Eastwood at night. The actual building seems non-spectacular but decent enough. It's a new building, built within the last four years. So the actual interview...

I was supposed to be interviewed by a M. Go, but he never showed up. I arrived 10 minutes early and had to wait nearly 25 minutes before a replacement came and did the interview with me. His name is J.A. and I kept thinking it was A.J. This seemed like the most laid back interview I've had so far (largely due to JA's candid manner). He pretty much asked me about myself and went through my resume -- but he stayed away from the question "tell me about a time when you got stressed out, then tell me how you dealt with it." What he did instead is ask about my perception about the company, what my job expectation were, where I see myself in 5 years, relatively easy questions. He told me what the position entails: processing payroll for 19,000 employees in the states. He warned me that it's very technical and I might not enjoy it since I seem more like a creative person (he actually compared himself to me -- business management student out of default who has a creative side). So generally, it went really well. He's going to send in his evaluation and hopefully I'll hear back from the company by Tuesday. Yayyy

Food

Yesterday I realized that I had leftover chicken in my fridge. This got me very excited because I have been too lazy to cook and it meant I could postpone my going to the grocery store to buy more raw chicken. Let me take a step back and say that I consider food to be a luxury, in that I feel like I don't have to eat well every meal, but instead food is just a necessity in life. Very much like breathing or laughing or dancing in place. I eat anything. Um... I know how I want to end this but it seems like I have no where to go, so I'm just going to end this now. I found out that my leftover chicken had molded. Now I have a ton of rice that I don't know what to do with. Sigh. Sorry for the short post. The End

Groceries

In high school I enrolled in a food management class. The class was so serious that we had our own text book. It was not so serious in that we watched episodes of Emeril on block days. I remember one lesson we learned during our first session -- you should eat before you go buy groceries. I did this today when I was at the grocery store. I had a gift cheque worth 500 pesos and I decided to spend it on groceries (is this a sign of growing up?). I walked through the aisles but after eating I had no appetite, making me impervious to the drawing powers of food. For the first five minutes or so I was stumped. The only thing in my basket was bananas. I explored the whole area before I eventually got around to buying cereal (something I took for granted in Taiwan -- its so expensive here!) and a bunch of non-food items, like soap. When I arrived at the check out counter, I had money to spare so I grabbed a snickers bar. My bill registered 500.95php. I like gift cheques.

Bible

I really don't want to write anything at the moment.

I've been trying to memorize the book of James for the past week. I've got the first chapter and half of chapter two down. I take a paragraph a day because it takes effort remembering the verses from the previous day.

I just want to say two things. First, memorizing scripture is amazing. I haven't regularly memorize scripture since high school Bible class, and now I'm beginning to realize how helpful it is to my spiritual sustenance. When I'm put in a situation that requires a decision to be made the verse "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all, without finding fault, and it will be given to him." (I double checked on BibleGateway if I got the passage correct and they actually have it wrong. They use "you" instead of "him," possibly to be more politically correct.) If I find myself facing a difficult situation I think of "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him." At Church I think of "Do not merely listen to the word, do what it says . . . the one who looks intently into the perfect law which bring freedom, and continues to do so, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does." I need to work on punctuation.

But when you do this, when you memorize scripture like James, you realize how impossible it is to live the Christian life. I just memorize this tonight "But if you show favoritism you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking them all." Then in a previous verse it says "If anyone considers himself religious yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Seriously, almost every verse is as convicting as the next and I start wondering what kind of Christian I am. "If you show special attention . . . have you not discriminated amongst yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" We're hopeless, no wonder the world is as wrecked as its ever been. I was born to Christian parents who brought me up straight as an arrow yet every single one of these verses preaches that I am not who I think I am. I am just as corrupt as the next guy.

Thank God for His grace and mercy. I just wish my life would better reflect that.

Trapped

I want to hit the road.

Seasons of Hair

My hair has a tipping point. I usually grow my hair out without maintaining it in any way, and when it gets too long I ask the barber to chop it all off. I got it cut today and now my hair sticks out like porcupine needles. It takes around three weeks for it to not look like it was recently cut. Then I hit another point where my hair gets really hard to manage and it sticks up in the back when I wake up in the morning. It requires me to take a shower or wear a hat in order for my hair to stay matted down. After a while my hair gets longer and heavier, making the sticking up problem non-problematic. This is the point where I can actually comb my hair and look neat. But here’s where the tipping point comes in. One day my hair suddenly looks too long and too messy. One day my hair becomes unmanageable and I get ton of people telling me to get a haircut, all on one weekend. That’s what happened yesterday and today.

Yearbook

I'm using Dvorak right now after two months or of using Qwerty. This is going to take me forever to write.

So the Green and White yearbook has been printed and I got a hold of one during the yearbook and dvd launch party. A years' work has finally paid off and I'm surprised how well it has turned out. I hope people like it and its unique concept of using letters instead of articles (when I say letter, I mean letter -- envelope and all. I need to post this now. It's 11:58pm.

IQ

So at Pioneer Insurance I was given the exact same aptitude test but still couldn't finish the exam. What made my day was when the HR person asked me what I thought of the test. I said it was difficult (challenging), but she told me I did pretty well on it. Sweet.

Oh, the answer to the previous question is AD.

Interview #2

Today I had an interview at IBM. The days leading up to this one have been extremely stressful. I think about what I'm going to say at the interview, how I'll hold up working with IBM, what my daily routine would be, etc. During the week I've lost my appetite and get small headaches, it's not very pleasant. But the day of the interview is fine. I wake up, dress, commute, fill out the application form, and wait. It's strange but waiting at the actual venue is the least stressful part of applying for a job.

I'm interviewed by a lady named Lea who's very pleasant and very helpful (she better be, she's HR). The interview goes well (even though I feel like I babble a lot). I'm asked about situations where I've been stressed and how I react to it. I hate this question, it's not that I'm not comfortable or unable to answer it, it's just the only thing that comes to mind are problems that STILL EXIST. So before I know it, I'm spilling my guts about my failures at coordinating the youth fellowship and finishing projects, and then I get stuck with how I dealt with those problems. I managed to pull something out of my butt. Up to this point, I'm wondering if I was completely truthful with that interview. I might of skewed things in my favor. Oh well.

So I'm told I might be contacted later that night or the next day about an interview. I'm surprised because the interview is only for 15 minutes, and after that I'm already heading home. I hail a taxi and leave Eastwood when I receive another call. It's IBM asking me if I'm still in the vicinity because they would like to have another interview. I've already left the area when I tell the taxi driver to stop the car. I run back for another interview in a different building. Good bye fifty pesos.

I'm interviewed by Diane and April (the team leader). They ask similar questions that I was asked earlier, along with "tell me something about yourself that's not on your resume." I'm baffled and start stuttering because I can't think of anything. I throw out my involvement in Church activities, etc. They ask how comfortable I am with numbers, and this is when I bomb the interview. I pretty much say I don't like accounting or finance, which is basically what the position is for (payroll). On top of that, I let them know that I prefer to work at a different IBM location, not at Eastwood (meaning I'm asking for a different position). Okay, I don't think the interview went terribly, I handled myself pretty well. I'm just struggling with a few things:

1. How am I going to commute to Eastwood?
2. How am I going to adjust to the night shift? (Good bye social life... Oh wait, I don't have one)
3. What am I going to do about food?
4. Do I really want to spend the next 6 months or year dealing with numbers everyday?
5. Am I going to be good at what I do? What if I suck?

After the interview they said they might call me tonight or tomorrow morning for a third interview (What? I thought there were only two.) Supposedly this is the last one, and this one's supposed to be with the head honcho. Supposedly.

Interview #1

I took an pre-employment exam at RiskMetrics (aka Institution of Shareholder Services). It was dreadful. The test contained a bad combination of logic, comprehension, finance (not math, finance), and self evaluation. It took me four hours to complete the exam, and by the end my head was spinning.

Forty minutes later I have my initial interview which I flounder in. I express myself awkwardly, grab at words, think out loud... It was a disaster.

I’m really hoping they brush my exam and interview aside and accept me with outstretched arms. An embrace would be nice.

Next on the list: IBM.

Question 4
BANTER AN WINTER IN FAMINE AM LADDER **
Answer
________

Email

Here's an email I wrote to my parents because I'm too lazy to write anything else.

Good news, I received a few phone calls today. I have an examination tomorrow at Makati for RiskMetrics. It's a part time job that has the possibility of regularizing me after six months, but it seems like a big deal company. It's research based.

I got a call from someone who got my number about KGC Philippines. I was unsure about what it was, but it's for entrepreneurs and it has to do with wholesale/retail. I turned it down because it sounded kind of shady.

Later that day I got a call from IBM about an HR - payroll job. It's night shift and I'll have to work at Eastwood. I'm going to the interview on Thursday. But don't worry about the Eastwood part, my friend says there's a shuttle that goes there from Quezon Avenue, which is walking distance from my house.

Please pray for me. God has already been gracious enough for the examination and the interview to be on separate days (Wednesday then Thursday). On top of that, since we're talking about two positions this will be me options instead of decided on one job. I'm very grateful. But please pray for me just the same :)

Open

So it's November. You know what that means... NABLOPOMO!!! (also, happy All Saints' Day!) That means I'm going to attempt to blog everyday for the month of November. Exciting, right?

I've been reading the Andre Agassi memoir Open on my new Kindle. Great way to start my ebook reading. It reads a lot easier than the previous book I read (The Blind Assassin). For one, I'm reading it on the Kindle, and two, the words are simple and the sentences are short.

Like this.

But I can't stop reading. I'm in love with the character. Let me clarify, I'm not in love with Agassi, I'm in love with the character that he is. I don't want to sound all woman-like, but I've found that I'm attracted to reading about tragic men. Two of my favorite books in the past four years have been about tragic men: The Tender Bar and The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

I'm comforted that there are men out there who are great, although insecure and remorseful, yet can still carry on with that baggage in tow. I can't say I have much in common with these characters, but I do understand what it's like to be judged by who I'm perceived to be, yet live a life that's totally different from within. Unlike these memoirs and novels, it's harder for us to express our stories. And it's even harder to be honest about it.

Maybe I can be more honest with myself in the coming month.