Late

"Let's welcome the late Joe Tye Otten!"

What I like most about my past workplaces were the opportunities to improve my heckling skills. There was nothing much to remember anyway being the non-performing ass that I had always been. Arriving late to a meeting and being welcomed as a deceased had always been the favorite routine at the Institute for Labor Studies, my last workplace before I came to America.

Joe Tye Otten was a character who I brought along with me from Northern Mindanao. Maphie Mook and Madge Noon recently joined forces with Joe Tye to celebrate cultural diversity and gay pride in America. Now all immigrants and naturalized Americans, Joe Tie would always be Visayan. No amount of Latter-day Saints' Christianity would change Maphie Mook and Madge Noon who would always be Arabs.

I initially thought of writing this blog to commemorate the birthday of my friend who died forty days ago today. The late Priscilla Decena Pampliega. My Abyan is officially accepted in heaven. I meant this blog to be sober and soul searching to mark Priscilla's point of no return to earth. But I don't want to miss taking note of how I hugged a tall lady wearing her little black dress who I thought was Vilma at the chapel where Priscilla's memorial service was being held in Phoenix.
"I'm Tess, Priscy's cousin. How are you?"
"Ohhh..."
I couldn't think of anything to say.
I hugged the wrong person.

workplace diversity at its best

My ideal workplace. Johannes* (pronounced like you' highness) is such a professional and serious clinician and that couldn't be him goofing off in front of my blackberry. I didn't expect Johannes could come out looking so funny and be captured as such by Chita** in my blackberry.

It was a night of Androids, iPhones and my lowly blackberry curve. Jesus told me it could be his last night working at the unit before he leaves for Northern California. He got accepted to a graduate program at University of California Davis on a scholarship. Wow. My Nelson Mandela personified. Cool. I thought I would never come upon the likes of Lev A. in the American workplace.
Jesus asked me to hold my "plus" sign. I did obligingly and that instant, I became a photo file in his iPhone with my "plus" sign hidden between my thumb and forefinger, and a thyroid in the foreground.

Jesus is Issa in Arabic. Jesus asked me if I am a Christian.
"Why'd you ask?" I could never give a straight answer because I don't have one to the questions of Jesus.
"You're wearing a cross. Christians wear cross."
Jesus is obviously a Christian, what else could he be?
"Jesus, it's a plus sign."
Jesus. Maria. Jose!


*Not his real name.
** Not her real name either.

Social Network

RN recorded the movie in this post title: Social Network! I love it because I could relate with the story. It's my Facebook. Because of Facebook, my social network expanded. My trip to the Bay Area in June 2010 was Facebook-related.

Thoughts while at Cafe Santa Fe

The last time I wrote a blog in this place, my friend Priscilla was still alive. She laughed at my nonsense as usual. It's been two weeks since Julie left me a voicemail using Priscilla's phone asking me to call back. I cried "Oh my God" over and over again. I cried some more while I was on my way to work. Norah Jones song "Don't know why" consoled me as I remember singing the song all the way to Arizona to meet my friend Priscilla for the first time less than a year ago in November.
"But I'll be a vagabond, driving down the road alone." I sang out loud with Norah.
I wanted to adopt Julie as my kid sister from that time I talked with her telling me Priscilla had passed away.
It's been a week since I drove 350 miles to Phoenix to pay my last respects to my dear friend endeared in her native Iloggo terms. Do I miss her, of course I do. Priscilla represented my oldest sister who was born the same year but died a year earlier in Turin, italy. I was not able to go to my sister's delayed burial the month before. Maybe next month, I would be able to visit her gravesite in Turin.
Dealing with dying has forced me to reflect on death, mine. Ugh. No viewings. No ashes either. I hate cigarettes and I don't want to end up the same fate as that of a cigarette. And since I am organ donor, i might as well donate my remains for compost.

Ugh...pha khin toxic!

Reposting for Chuchi Padua

And for all other formerly normal...
The video clip is more than two years old. Created Friday, ‎May ‎22, ‎2009, ‏‎10:37:51 AM. Philippine Normal University now. It started as a normal school, then a normal college and then there were us.

Jesus Christ is Not a Swear Word Church

I swear I still go to church. When I was younger and a lot more needy, I prayed a lot. There also was a time when I was in high school that as students, we recorded our church visit on Sundays. I went to a Catholic school by the way because Catholic education was supposed to make a world of difference.


I swear I still really go to church. I went to church of the Good Shepherd with Karlee one day, when communion time came, she told me that KG gave her a taste of the body of Christ.


"You know what, I can get one for you right now." I told Karlee and got in the communion line.
I just lined up and get the compact body of Christ from the priest.

"The body of Christ?"

"Amen."

The way of receiving communion must be the same everywhere.Get in line and wait for your turn. Isn't that what Catholic means? Universal?

I carried the body of Christ to the pew where Karlee was sitting. I was not aware the priest followed me. I was almost in the pew where Karlee was waiting for me when the priest called my attention. He said something like he had to see me receive the body of Christ.

I stuffed the body of Christ into my mouth and left the church as soon as I recovered from my embarrassment.

RN happened to drive by the church of the Good Shepherd with Karlee recently and Karlee would still pause from her texting and quips: "There's the church where Mom tried to steal the body of Christ."

It happened four years ago.

Collapsed Glory

Many are cold and few are frozen.

Sister Mary Faith Magdalene hugged  me without saying a word. Sister Mary Faith Magdalene is a long name for a nun so I am calling her SMFM. SMFM was a social worker previously working with an international adoption agency in Mandaluyong. She had no priveleges to be called a sister yet. I have a sister with the same name. I like SMFM a lot so I am not calling her my sister's name.

"Please invite me when you have your final vows", I told SMFM because I have this feeling that she will really be a nun someday.

"I am so happy for your enlightenment."

I chuckled. I could not help it. My enlightenment did not come from my less than six months of discernment as an aspirant of the Religious of the Good Shepherd. The enlightenment came from a comic strip dialogue: "Who are you kidding?"

It was a point of no return instead of there's no turning back. I had to admit I was pha khin bored. Praying for divine intervention or for God to answer my prayers was pointless

With no job and no affiliations and not even a boyfriend, I went back to Scouter Fernandez. One of my brothers was laughing out loud.

I could not go back to Northern Mindanao. They were not surprised at my departure but not my stunt for a vocation with the Religious of the Good Shepherd.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself a job at the Department of Social Welfare and Development. I left Scouter Fernandez for the last time. I moved to Pasay City to share a room with a vegan spinster. I opted not to do any masters program in nutrition because I was beginning to get tired of the statistics of  moderately and slightly malnourished children which I was dealing with in my work at the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

I found myself at the Asian Social Institute and became a social worker like SMFM. I had a chance to ask about the six aspirants I left behind when I bumped into somebody who knew an RGS nun.

SMFM made it to postulancy but was the last to leave.

Genki desu

Genki desu..Kenji, a classmate in Manila who I saw in San Diego early this year said the expression means more than being fine in Nihongo.
The expression answers a question: Genki desuka? Pronounced like gen key desk ka...students are asked how they are are at the beginning of the class while the teacher does the roll call. Genki desu to a visitor in Japan would mean "I am fine" to make the meaning less complicated.

Through an interpreter, a student asked me about Philippine culture.

"Gloria-San, do you have vegetables in the Philippines?" a lady interpreter translated the question posed by a student in Nihongo to English for me.

Vegetables? I always had the impression that Japanese are healthy eaters that's why they have long lives. That explains the interest on vegetables.

"We have lots of vegetables in the Philippines. We have eggplants, cabbages and many others."

The lady interpreter looked bewildered but she tried to repeat her translation to me. Subhadra Rai who was standing next to me chuckled.

" Oh..I am sorry...oh yes, we have lots of festivals in the Philippines. We celebrate the birthday of our patron saints and we call them feast days or fiesta. They are more of festivals."

time after time

A dead Tissot and a slacking Seiko

A blank blog. It's bloggers' block or I am simply running out of nonesense. Not that I am saying that I make sense when I am running out of nonesense. It's one of those everything is pha khin corny mode. If I can't amuse myself, who else will? I know, Jacqueline will. She is a night nurse. She is funny. I liked her instantly. She calls me 'day. I made her listen to Himayang Nahunlak from my blackberry. She never heard it but she liked it, I know. I like Eva too. I pronounced it right the first time I addressed her: Yva. Ylena? Nah...it's still pronounce like Ella Fitzgerald. Oh well...

Colored

I am titling this blog as colored because I couldn't think of any other tit.

Lady Guada

Piece of art to many and piece of schist to some. Must have been the blogger in me that made me pursue this mosaic a week after it was illegally installed on a concrete wall under a railway bridge at Encinitas.
Awe, not awesome! I am relieved that the artist who eventually was smoked out from anonymity is not a Catholic. A visionary to some and maybe a beach bum to others. About two miles away from the mosaic is the Cardiff Kook. For a moment, I thought the mosaic was installed by the disciples of Cardiff Kook.

Killing time

Skills-a-thon day and am here at cafe Santa fe drinking my coffee. Thank God for wi-fi, I could tattle tale anywhere I am. There goes my favorite supervisor and my favorite educator. I have actually given up on tattle telling, yesterday. Academics call em narratives. My former professor in graduate school call it serious writing. All you need are mile-long sentences to make your writing sound technical and write about the quotient of digital divide in the twenty-first century where women are learning to use digital devices which include smartphones to to find foreign husbands as there are more than hundred and one ways but first the women have to do computer education that now comes in tablets and pills and in conclusion they can multiply the quotient and add knowledge and subtract the ignorance that goes with the divide. I'd rather ramble and tattle tale than do serious writing. As we Pinoys say it in English while thinking as a Pinoy: "Tomorrow again!"

The best place to work in San Diego

I printed the confirmation page of the Great Place to Work Trust Index Survey which I today completed and wondering what token would I be getting this time. Not another Scrippshealth backpack I hope. By doing the survey, I was actually saying thank you to my employer. I would do the survey over and over again and would keep giving all the 5's, the top score to my facility and unit. As a nomadic worker once, I have probably seen the worst and could tell the best place to work when I see one. From the foothills of a coastal town in Northern Mindanao to the 'badou' inhabited deserts of Saudi Arabia, I believe I have seen em all.

I must have started on the wrong foot. ROC situation, ridiculous obstacle challenge, to borrow a co-worker's sport without permission.

I remember emailing Kaitlin M my intent to work at Scripps till I am gray and gay almost four years ago while I was still completing my 90 days probation period. I don't know what the issue was all about but it had something to do with complaints from Kathy and Jane, both then hotshot new grads from San Diego State. Kaitlin M, my then supervisor, was the one who called in Ibsen Valencia from the human resource department to translate for her and Britney what I was going to say in Tagalog. Aghast, I made an appointment with Ibsen which she scheduled in three days.
I told Imee, a former social worker at a Non-government office in the Philippines who had worked with Scripps for the last 10 years as CNA about Tagalog translator incident: "That's nasty. Isn't that harassment?"

The following day, Kathy, then Department Lead who told me twice that she is a heartbeat away from being like Kaitlin M, told me to work on more menus after I have already clocked out. I told her I would work on the menus but I have already clocked out and I am not allowed for overtime. That moment, she called Kathryn who came back to the Department immediately from a meeting with Britney and got me in a closed door meeting. I went home very angry that night that I had to use the back roads of Sorrento Valley, a longer route. The following morning I went back to work but told Kathryn I could not work that day.
"Are you quitting?"
I looked her and our eyes met. "No, I am not quitting," I replied.

From Kaitlin M's cubicle, I went straight to the Human Resources to see Ibsen. Ibsen handed me a box of Kleenex and she asked me to use her computer. From Ibsen's computer, I applied to a non-technical position. Someone must have told Kaitlin M I was talking to Ibsen with a box of Kleenex on my hand at the Human Resource office that Kaitlin came into the office while I was at the computer and gave me my pay slip which she knew I really didn't urgently need. I don't know anyone at Scripps who pays attention to pay slips because everybody seems to be on direct deposit for their wages.
Two weeks after putting in my application to another position from Ibsen's computer, Min Park Lee from La Jolla contacted me and set an appointment. Min was an angel from South Korea and we talked in my usual nonchalant way. Must be that Asian vibe between us. She didn't ask me why I was getting into a lower position and she called me at the house phone an hour after I arrived home from meeting with her to ask me what size of uniform I wear.
"Extra small?"
"Nope medium."
"I wear small and you looked tinier than I."
"Okay, I am small."
It was Debbie Watson who first mentioned about hearing my transfer to La Jolla. Debbie was another Department lead but she never told me that she was a heartbeat away from being like Kaitlin M. It was Debbie who one time asked me if I was okay after one of those cubicle talks with Kaitlin M. I told Debbie I needed a hug. She gave me one: refreshing, comforting and warm. I was given a muffin stand-up on my last day. I knew about about the plan and wanted so much to ditch it.
The muffin stand-up came and Kaitlin tried to find some nice words for me while everybody listened. I don't remember anything she said because I was wondering if she invited Ibsen to come and translate for them what I was going to say in Tagalog. Britta referred to La Jolla as the "big house" and said something about "what happens here stays here". I didn't get a second hug from Britney, she gave me a welcome hug more than 4 months ago as a new hire.

Kaitlin did email me and sent me pictures of the muffin stand-up she had for me on my last day. The pictures was all camaraderie and warmth with the friends on my short stay with the facility. I also heard that she was no longer working with Britta but still in the facility. I got another email from her before our household switched to AT&T from Time Warner.

I have since moved to my third facility. Pride, camaraderie, trust, respect, fairness and credibility: the same factors that must have helped me hurdle the ROC experience when I was starting kept me in the best place to work in San Diego.

Pha Khin Corny

Life is a blog? Too shallow for the deep end! Back then, I still thought myself as a researcher and could still write a few sane sentences. Yep, sometimes I see life as Pha Khin Corny but fun.

It is hard to pick on one's thought. Maybe I'll just start whining.

Just talked to the pig lady, by the way, and I was Pha Khin bored. Shut yours Adria, why would you even refer to her as my nobya. She is not my type. She is too shallow, just too shallow. Pha Khin immigrants who grew up not knowing where they belong!

Stamped

Unadulterated files

Nutrition misinformation creates opportunities for health fraud, quackery, and food faddism. Unreasonable or exaggerated beliefs that foods or supplements or their components may cure disease, convey special health benefits, or offer quick weight loss are just a few among the health and nutrition claims with which the public has to contend. More often than not, the public is at a loss how to distinguish nutrition facts from nutrition misinformation.
Consumers opting for self-care continue to rely heavily on these claims, unaware of their possible harmful consequences. Failure to or delay in seeking legitimate medical care, undesirable drug-nutrient reactions and the effect of nutrient toxicities or toxic components of the products are among the many health risks of nutrition misinformation. When promised cures and effects fail to work and when products are purchased unnecessarily, the consequences extend to unnecessary expenses of consumers.
The federal government, through the recommendations of policy-making and regulatory bodies, has in recent years begun acknowledging the link between nutrition and health. The U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health defining food quackery as the promotion of special foods or products with false or misleading health or therapeutic claims for commercial purposes has likewise supported the link. Despite these positive developments, misinformation about the role of nutrition in health still abounds, allowing nutrition misinformation, health fraud and quackery to flourish.
The public receives all kinds of unsolicited health information from a variety of sources. Recent surveys of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) cited television, magazines and newspapers as the top resources for consumers continuously in quest for health and nutrition information. The Internet has also become an indispensable source that none of the leading sources cited could contend with.
Consumer interest in health and nutrition information is high regardless of their validity or the sources. However, one in five consumers admits to being confused by dietary advice. The sheer volume and varying quality of information received as well as conflicting perceptions fuels consumers’ confusion about who or what to believe.
Four categories of evidence that could assess the validity of a nutrition information or a health claim are suggested. These are: 1) testimonials; 2) arguments; 3) correlations; and 4) experiments.
Testimonials or anecdotal evidence are the bases of much of today’s nutrition information or health claims. Sometimes highly unreliable, these do not report people who took the nutritional product and did not benefit, as well as those who did not take the product but did improve. Testimonials are not necessarily fraudulent but they could hardly be validated.
Arguments consists of organizing known facts or experimental results and justifying them as valid. Until the argument is supported by studies, it remains just another claim waiting to be confirmed or disproved.
The only kind of evidence acceptable as genuine proof to support a health claim or nutrition information is that of a repeatable experiment, usually accompanied by control data. Different researchers in different laboratories in different parts of the world have to be able to repeat the experiment and obtain results that do not disprove the nutrition information or health claim.
Repeatable experiments or scientific progress, however, do not prevent or eliminate nutrition misinformation. The popular media tend to capitalize on preliminary research data in an effort to enhance audience and readership ratings. Promoters as a result quickly turn to legitimate research findings in sales pitches, products and services.
As the ultimate end-users, consumers must learn how to recognized an evidence-based scientific health and nutrition information to distinguish fact from fiction. Knowing how to access credible inforation is a helpful skill. The Food and Nutrition Science Alliance has summed-up 10 indicators in spotting health and nutrition misinformation:
1. Recommendations that promise a quick fix;
2. Dire warnings of danger from a single product or regiment;
3. Claims that sound too good to be true;
4. Simplistic conclusions drawn from a study;
5. Recommendations based on a single study;
6. Dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations;
7. Lists of "good" and "bad" foods;
8. Recommendations made to sell a product;
9. Recommendations based on studies published without peer review;
10. Recommendations from studies that ignore differences among individuals and groups.

On Thomas Hardy and Orgasms

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

If Hitler was a gay..

Jews would have been spared from the gas chambers and Germans would have been more proud of their heritage. Ist das richtig? Haben Sie The Producers von Broadway gesehen? The gay Hitler is the highlight of the musical and it was sort of funny. Now I could only wish that Hitler was gay.

Das ist Life

Till I gain my momentum to go literary, let me ramble. A picture is worth a thousand words so fighting the temptation to just paste photos heir. Well, life is a blog, corny isn't it?