My Fish Philosophy

Photo was taken in 2007 in Seattle. I was visiting Beng, a former co-worker from the Institute for Labor Studies in Manila.
"What's so special about these fishes being tossed from one worker to another?" I asked Beng.
This was at the Pike Market area where the very first Starbucks was built.
"This is kind of a tourist attraction," Beng explained to me.
I was more attracted to the giant bronze pig.

An Old blog written in 2006

Did you know?

Apr 10, 2006 12:58 am
807 Views

That the World Trade Organization or WTO , the only global international organization dealing with rules and trade between nations was set up in 1995. US, Canada and Mexico all have their membership dated 1 January 1995.

That a WTO negotiation between member countries likes
US, Canada and Mexico in Uruguay led to the General Agreements on Trade and Services (GATS).

That under GATS are 4 modes of trade and services between nations, the most interesting of which that concerns some Americans regarding illegal immigration is Mode 4: the movement of natural persons.

That Mode 4 refers to cross-border migrations. Citizens from a member country like Mexico can enter the territory of another member country like US to supply labor, like agricultural labor.

That on January 6, 2004, President announced the initiative on temporary worker program. The program aimed to protect the rights of illegal workers who live in the shadows and are fearful of coming out of the shadows for fear of deportation. They would get documented and enjoy the same protection that American workers have with respect to wages and employment.

That there is also the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) made by US, Mexico and Canada that aims to strengthen and foster cooperation among the nations involved, among the areas of concern are employment creation and cross-border movement .

That this is getting to be a long and boring blog that I want to go to sleep but since I will be working late tomorrow, I could stay up late. What I was trying to blog about was the popular sentiments and mixed emotions that resulted from the anti-illegal immigration issue. The US congress still has to approve the temporary workers program or the guest workers program whatever one wishes to call. I have the impression however that those politicians, media and all those trying to rant and rave about illegal immigrants increasing the crime rate in US are not aware of what the government is trying to do. I am sure you have heard about the WTO, GATS, NAFTA and the humane side of GWB.

Our Priscilla of the Desert

I tagged our Priscilla in the above photo posted on Facebook by Cindy, a former co-worker in Saudi Arabia now based in London. I was so excited to see Priscilla's name in the billboard and associate cactus and Arizona to a desert. The photo was posted late February of this year. I was so excited when I saw what was photographed seven months ago in person. I took the photo below during daytime, when the lights were off and the cast in this musical are elsewhere and away from this West End Theater in London. I took the picture below in loving memory of our Priscilla who used tell me about the wildflowers of spring in the desert.



I never actually tried the find out what the musical was all about. All it mattered was Priscilla was the queen of the desert. What you don't know can't hurt you but it's too late. I am telling you anyway. The musical tells the story of two drag queens and a transexual. Priscilla is not one of the drag queens, thank God. Priscilla is the lavender bus that take the two drag queens and their transexual friend to Alice Springs, a resort town in a remote Australian desert. The musical was said to be funny and features what used to be my theme song: "I will Survive".
Speaking of LGBT's, the day before Priscilla died, I went to the San Diego Gay Pride Festival to photograph drag queens. Below is a three-month old photo on my blackberry to prove that I did go photograph homosexuals at San Diego's Balboa Park the day before Priscilla died.



Going back to Priscilla who is the straight one, knowing myself better than anyone, one of my fondest memory of her was her coming to my defense upon a rumor that I was gay. We haven't met in person back then. One afternoon as I was set to go for a walk, she called me on my cell phone and told me about how FreshEmerald insinuated in a blog that I was gay among other things. Priscilla never asked, neither did I tell!


There's our Priscilla of the desert above. I took the picture. She brought me to the Phoenix botanical garden, sort of her sanctuary. She looked forward to the wildflowers of spring. She will forever be our Priscilla of the Desert.

Sugar catches more flies than vinegar....

Meeting Vocera in London

I said goodbye to that man with a funny hat at 12:20 pm, London time at London Heathrow Airport. It was 8:20 am in Philadelphia and 5:20am in San Diego. He is an Englishman, obviously. If I was talking to an American who spoke English the way Piers Morgan did, I would have told him he had a fancy accent.
"I come from New England," the American would say.
I was so glad to be back in London after a quickie visit to Turin, Italy. At Stansted Airport, I asked an Englishman at the ticket booth for bus and train which would be the better transportation to take to central London for sight seeing purposes.
He seemed to be listening intently to my question.
"Don Andersten."
Sounds like a Swedish name. I am in EU alright.
"Say that again?"
Instead of saying pardon me, I sometimes phrase my request to repeat what the other person is trying to tell me thinking of a funny way Jules, a former colleagues, used to put it:
"Come again?"
But the Englishman was beginning to look bewildered like he was trying to tell me something in simpler English any Asian would easily understand.
"Don Andersten?"
Hmmm...
Eureka!
I'll have one bus ticket for London Victoria Station, please."
Now I have a name for my Vocera when i return to work: Don Andersten.

Bridges at the Thames River

Cousin Sue said she had never been at the Tower Bridge. She had been living in London for the last twenty-eight years. If I did not visit, she would not be seeing the engine rooms of the Tower Bridge for the first time.
Aunt Pauline, who has lived in London for the last thirty-eight years and Cousin Sue's mom, explained to me that the London Bridge referred to in the nursery rhyme is actually the Tower Bridge. The Tower Bridges folds up to let big sea vehicles into the further end of the Thames River.
There's something literary about Thames River.
More poetic than nursery rhymes:
"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down...crap!"


I chat with my husband online and tell him that I was at the London Bridge during the day.
"What you saw is a replica of the original London Bridge. The real London Bridge is in Lake Havasu, Arizona", my husband told me.
If my husband says so, as usual it would be a fact that London Bridge is in Lake Havasu, AZ.
"LOL."
"Don't LOL me, google it up."
My babe would be in Ire land if I don't stop ROFL.
I did google London Bridge and indeed, it is in the States, at Lake Havasu, Arizona.


"That would be a silly picture," an Englishman remarked as Aunt Pauline instructed Cousin Sue and I to get our hands closer to make a picture that would look like we were pushing a big building with our bare hands. We were in the middle of the Millenium Bridge.

"Mind your own business, this is a free country," Cousin Sue retorted to the Englishman.

The Englishman just kept walking as other pedestrians did. It was just another busy afternoon in London.

Blogging on a burp bag

This US Airways flight 250 readies for take-off. The exact time as I scribble on a burp bag is 6:55 am. No electronic device is allowed until the plane is airborne. That explains the burp bag. This is the burp bag blogger seated on F by the window. F stands for falcon which pho-eating Asians pronounce as Pha Khin.

Pha Khin burp bag blogger seated on F by the window scribbling on a burp bag!

More pho, Djeline?

I am about to rip the burp bag so I have more space to scribble on. The marks made by a chicken looking for stray grains on the ground would look better than my scribbling.

Pubic address (PA) says we are almost at Phoenix. Pardon my scribbling, I meant public. How can pubic be public? I could hear Ka Orly's favorite reply to my constant queries when I was still his student: "That remains to be seen!"

Ka Orly was my professor in community organizing at Asian Social Institute in Manila. He is now a peace worker on Afghanistan. I was brimming with pride when I learned about his work when I tracked him at Facebook. May he live long and thrive as I hope every peace worker in Afghanistan should.

I just ripped the burp bag so I could scribble on the other side of the durable paper that burp bags are made of. My scribblings now look as good as then scratches made by chicken as they looked for treats of worms and stray grains on the ground. Funny how scenarios from my rural origins in the Thrid World come up alongside the cosmopolitan facade of fellow passengers in this US Airways flight 250 bound for Philadelphia.

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.