swatch irony

When I was a kid, all I ever wanted when i grow up was to become a watch-maker. I wanted to make watches. i wanted to go to Switzerland, and work in those watch factories. {wait, why do they say bear brand of Switzerland? I have a huge crush on that bear family but i thought they're from new zealand? or was it birtch tree? whatever!} Anyway, yeah, the watch business. Swatch watches specifically. I sooooo fancy those funky watches they have and I figured that I would get them for free if I manage to work there. In college I saved my allowance to buy them, and when i started working (not in watch factories though), i would always buy wrist watch for my folks for xmas gift. (very ingenious haha!)

When I got here, I actually worked in this fancy watch store, where they sell these expensive designer watches. From patek philippes to cartier to rolexes to breitlings etc. I was getting closer I thought. I mean, I'm in the watch business man!!! I have this private office where I would receive all the shipments, and then record the serial numbers and match the papers. I would talk to our suppliers and customers for shipping, etc. It was a busy day everyday. Europeans who, for the life of me I couldn't understand why they would get those here when they make it there back home? Even if the euro is stronger vis-a-vis the dollar (just slightly at the time I was working there), they have to pay the tax and the shipping costs, etc. Oh well, it's their money anyway.

For a couple of months I was just drifting and getting along. Yup, a grand clerk so to speak, and what a fortune it was indeed before me, every freaking day! I would go meet Marc Jacobs for his orders long before i realized that he's the Marc Jacobs, the bling-bling designer. Oh I was smart I tell you!!! Ok, i'll humour you. Personally, the patek philippes were grand. I also like the cartiers, tsk! tsk! the elegance...but, I was, (to my boss and probably our customers' humour), all those time wearing my funky swatch watches. Swatch should have paid me really. (Fact: I regret that i didn't get the centennial swatch tsk!tsk! And now that i'm running low on dough I think about the watch that one of our customers would insist on buying for me haha! Shit, I could've sold them by now).

Anyway, I wasn't in the production side. I wasn't a designer, I wasn't a watch maker. And I was blatantly being an instrument to all these materialism and capitalism. Of course, I would still be, had i been a watch factory worker. But at least there's an art in connecting those pieces that you see at the back of your transparent swatch watches and make them work. Simply put, I didn't see any social relevance on what I was doing. So there goes my watch career....(I think I still fancy becoming a designer though).

What I actually wanted to talk about is how, being hooked with timepieces and all that, and despite actually having several pieces of those, I would still be consistently and perpetually a latecomer! The irony of it suddenly struck me...I suck, totally and absolutely. It's a miracle my bosses don't fire me. I thought I would somehow change, given that this is US, and they say that uh, you know, they are all punctual here. But no, where I am is not a factor. tsk! tsk! I would take my sweet time walking along the streets of this city where people just seem to be rushing all the time. I think it was a former roommate who told me that punctuality is respect for other people's time, and i so perfectly agree. I hate waiting myslef. Let me tell you, as far as appointments are concerned I am "almost" always on time. But I remember that I was always marked tardy in school, espc. in college. I just don't feel comfortable getting in class when the teacher is not in yet. He or she has to come ahead of me, espc. during exam day, where I would prefer everyone minding their own business by the time I take my seat. And now, in going to work. I guess I am sick. There has to be a name for this, I mean, save for sheer tardiness.

But let me tell you, since I quit that job I also stopped wearing watches. I just don't want to be constrained. I have recently, however, visited a swatch shop to have their batteries replaced, just to make sure they are still working. (they are, thank god!) ah, maybe I am really flip!who cares?

exodus

Mimi, responding to my e-mail about me running into a HS schoolmate, asserts that everyone seems to have left the country. A lot of our HS batch-mates are in UAE if not Taiwan or Korea. Some of our guys have become mariners and are therefore roaming the world as I write, while most of my college friends are in the West Coast (and a handful in Japan). True, so many people have left. The exodus is definitely too widespread. I am officially one of them actually. People who left surely have their own respective reasons, and I don’t even want to go there. (In her song forgiven, alanis aptly says: we all have our reasons to be here, we all have a thing or two to learn, we all needed something to cling to, so we did…)

Anyway, Newsweek has a featured article on this that I chanced upon while checking the extended weather forecast (ha!ha!). It is indeed very sad, but I think that this phenomenon is something that must not be disparaged. In a similar vein, OFWs must not be judged, as if they are wholly to blame for the “brain hemorrhage” as Dr. Tan puts it. Of course there would always be people who wouldn’t like us being labeled the world’s biggest exporter of labor and there are those who would look at it on a brighter side, probably even justify it, especially in view of the so-called borderless or globalized world. (Incidentally, I think such a positive view insulates the government from criticisms).

But this I know for sure: this is the situation we have right now—which may be a symptom of a broader problem. We have to acknowledge and accept that we are players in a constricted space governed by the imperatives of global capitalism. But within this broad limit, (and if you’re telling me that this is a zero-sum game) what can we do without to create a room for social reform? Can’t we ever create markets not based on concentration of income and uh..social exclusion of most of the population? Or am I expecting too much?

I confess. I am a follower of Zafra. I support her world domination goal. I believe that we can start something grand out of this diaspora. I believe in the power of human agency. In the meantime, I am keeping the spirit!

identity crisis

I have written about being mistaken as korean or chinese in my old blog, but last night's experience was bloody funny to pass up. plus the fact that it's actually the second time happening, (almost exactly as the first time) it felt like a deja vu.

On my way home last night, two boys (they wouldn't be older than 23) sat across me in the subway. i can tell they're filipinos and in fact they were when they started talking. Talking about me that is...well, they were arguing about my citizenship, boy 1 saying i'm indonesian and boy 2 asserting i'm a malay. hah! Me? NR as in no reaction coz i was thinking of the new pictures that i intend to plaster over the nasty stains on my wall (thanks to my sponsor by the way! might as well give me your rejects). So anyway, boy 2 reconsidered, saying they better stop talking about me coz i may be a filipina after all. but boy1 said i couldn't be, otherwise i would have reacted somehow when they spoke tagalog. I almost laughed out loud right there and then. Indeed, I could have interrupted and saved their breaths but the live act was entertaining, really. So i remained catatonic and feined indifference. Then they seized me, guessed my age and talked about my looks. Me being a "chick" (i hate that word in reference to girls. i mean, what are we small chickens?), me not being older than 25, me possibly with a bf, blah, blah, blah. you get the drift and must i say boys will be boys?

The first time it happened to me, i did not correct the boys (about 18 my guess) because they followed me up until the mall where i was headed. That time, I just want to stay away from them so i just let it slide. last night however, as i stepped out of the train, i told them that i am indeed a filipina and i perfectly understood every word they said. ah, to have a good laugh!!!

Last summer, a Filipino-family approached me and the daughter asked me in english if i am Filipino. I said I am. She said she thought I was Korean (huh? unbelievable) and seemed relieved to find a fellow-filipino on the street of NY (where probably 175 nationalities walk daily =) They are tourists from Australia she explained, and asked for directions. The thing was, they spoke to me in visayan dialect (i could pick up some words). Apparently, it's very hard for them to express in tagalog, and since i can't understand them (i don't speak any dialect, shame on me), we spoke in english. oh well...

I remember our history and know that Malays allegedly threaded the land bridges til they reached the Philippine Islands. I remember my Anthro 101, and it's not really surprising that we Southeast Asians would have similar features. Since they are identifying me based on my features, I just don't agree that I don't look filipina enough. My classmates don't believe me and assume i'm indonesian. In fact, one time i was having dinner with my muslim friends, this Bengali girl (who eventually became one of my closest friends) reprimanded me for ordering meat--pork at that! know what she said? You freakin' indonesian, how dare you order pork? They say we also resemble the Thais. Well, I'd say maybe but i could tell, not actually, coz they've got chinkier eyes. I frequent Thai restaurant and they would always bill me in thai writing and talk to me in their langauge whatever you call them. I almost often get the looks you know, the kind which seems to say that i'm some high and mighty citizen who, just because in a foreign land wouldn't speak my native language. And i would patiently explain that i'm not thai.

Oh dear....what more can i say?

alarm! alarm!

Our teacher said that there is a recent experiment to deter mice from creeping and coming back into your homes. Allegedly, there is a kind of device created that when hit by the mice generates music (or noise, whatever) that only mice can hear, which is apparently irritating to their ears, so that they wouldn’t want to mess up with you again.

I don’t have problem with mice, but imagine using that device (if there actually is?) for obnoxious people that you can't deal with anymore despite your ultimate attempt of extending understanding or patience? Tsk! Tsk! I would probably stay away even from Hugh Jackman if every time I would, um say, stare at him or say, try to get near him, he would set off the alarm and I would hear some intolerable sound (haha I wouldn’t say what, it might be used against me). But imagine I could retort, setting off the song “the more you ignore me, the closer I get?” (Morissey isn’t it?). hirit pa! Nah, nababaliw na naman ako. Kung anik anik naman kase naiimbento (I may have to check that out).