Sunday Thought Swirl

I'm cooking a late brunch. It's my first Sunday off since becoming a supervisor at our sister hotel. It goes without saying that Kyera and I have been missing church. Missing our church in Manila, to be exact. If you've read through the older posts on this blog, you'll notice that at the start, I would wander off onto a spiritual tangent from time to time. It was much more evident that my faith was/is such a huge part of my life.

I guess somewhere along the way - as with many other things in life - I tried striking a balance by including other aspects of our move into this blog. I find it difficult to articulate this morning; this looking back at where we were and where we are. (No doubt, due in part to the new omelet recipe I'm trying out and in the middle of cooking...) But two things come to mind that almost explain what I think and feel after a year back in the US. They'll be blogs very soon:

The Novelty of Squirrels, and
In Search of the Perfect Door

Happy Sunday! Wherever you are and whatever it is you're doing.

Krispy Kremed

Got our free doughnuts after flashing our 'I Voted' stickers at the Drive Thru. Sadly, they're not star-shaped as advertised.

But what the hey, they're free for voters!

Now the question is: Do we now hit Starbucks for our free cup of coffee?

The Difference Between Missing and Remembering

I have days wherein it doesn't take much to remind me of Manila and my life there. An Asian product here, a Tagalog sounding word there, and suddenly I'm back in my beloved, hot and humid country, sweating like a pig, hair frizzy and skin sticky.

Some days, I'll be in the middle of doing the most routine of tasks and I'll be reminded of someone. Or to be more exact, that someone doing the said task much better than me. I had one of those moments today. I was driving our twelve year old Chevy down Highway 50, listening to its many creaks and groans and moans when out of the blue I thought of one of the safest drivers I have ever been driven by, Angelo Barretto.

It was a rainy night past midnight in November 2000 and Angelo had just flown back to the Philippines after bagging the Gold medal from an endurance race in Europe. I was his unofficial publicist at the time. (We met when he guested on my morning show, Zach and Joey in the Morning, in 2000.) He had been racing - and winning - across Europe without any sponsorship deals back home and I wanted to help his cause by connecting him with all my (at the time, traditional) media friends.

He won, I helped people know, the press awarded him Driver of the Year 2000. He came home to a TV channel crew welcome, monsoon rains and a surprise welcome back party. We partied with his closest friends and supporters until finally calling it a night at 3AM. The Barretto family chauffeur was going to drive me back to my radio station where I had left my car.

But seeing how slippery the roads were and how low visibility was, Angelo took the wheel. Jetlagged and exhausted from traveling halfway around the world, he reasoned he felt he was the better driver for the conditions. Fresh from his victory on an endurance track where driving for 24 hours is the norm, none of us argued with him.

We flew steadily and safely down the main road called EDSA - his brother, his driver, and his publicist. I felt... secure. His steady hands and able maneuvering had us all dozing off that by the time we arrived at my building twenty-five minutes later, we hardly knew we had stopped.

I remembered this night today and as I thought of Angelo and wondered what he's up to these days, I caught myself in mid-missing and realized our friendship does not so much warrant a longing as it does a remembering.

Now that I have been back in the US for more than a year, I'm learning more and more how to distinguish between the two.

Slowly, the things I once thought I could not bear to be without are merely things I remember.

I guess this is what happens when a new life takes the place of an old.

Reinvent

I was promoted two weeks ago to supervisor at our sister hotel so I've been spending the time learning the new systems, the culture and the cast of personalities known as The Staff.

In all honesty, I've been kicking and screaming along the road called my hotel career, seeing that I landed on it purely out of necessity. Translation - nobody would hire a former web writer, training manager and morning show host and producer who lived too long overseas (this is debatable) other than a hotel for a concierge position.

But six months, five interviews, and two months after joining our upper upscale hotel chain, here I am now, doing the same thing and then some. There really is so much room to grow at the hotel. So much room to grow in America if one is hardworking.

Ask me if I'm happy though. I'll tell you I'm deeply grateful for not only having a job but for getting promoted in less than a year. That doesn't answer the question of happiness though.

This is the part that I'm still trying to figure out.

Trick or Treat-ish

Holly, Bridgette, Kendra... Joey?

Not!

On the Economy Through Third World Eyes

While it is supposedly no longer politically correct to use the terms First World or Third World as these are now known as Developed and Developing respectively, I figured Third World sounds better as a blog title. I write it with pride, having lived in such a country for twenty seven years.

Over lunch at work recently, a colleague and I glanced at the cafeteria TV tuned into CNN when news of an economic bail out plan was announced. I couldn't help but comment that until one has experienced living without anything, can one find the right perspective through all of this.

"I come from a country where people live at dumpsites and make a living sifting through trash. This is nothing."

He looked at me in as much agreement he could muster.

"I guess it's all a matter of perspective," I continued.

He smiled. "I guess you're right."

I wonder what will happen in the next six months. If anything, K and I have lived through a season of homelessness and noodles and hotdogs before. I guess if we have to go through this again, we can always say we've had practice.

The Joy of Working at a Hotel

Dessert today at the employee cafeteria. For real.

A light and fluffy white chocolate pyramid.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Heads or Tails

Killing time at the library where the air conditioning is cold and the Wifi is free. I'm listening to Broken Social Scene's Shoreline. I do this weird thing wherein I can listen to a song on repeat for hours (My last.fm spins will prove it.) and just get lost writing.

I don't know why I do this. For some reason, a song, or songs, put me in the zone to blog. And judging by how sporadically I've been posting, I haven't had much time to listen to my iTunes!

One of the reasons I wanted to move back to the US is to go back to school. Not just the many libraries with free Wifi and fifty item checkout limit. Nor the amazing convenience of debit cards and online shopping... It was the possibility of going back to school. One of my unfinished and much lamented unchecked goals in life. I've been out of the classroom since getting pregnant at eighteen. Marriage and morning sickness made me leave university a year shy of a degree in Literature.

The past twenty years have given me an education in the School of Hard Knocks where I earned a Master's Degree. But I want the real thing now. I think in my late thirties, it's safe to say I'm done with angst and finally ready to be a grown-up.

So here are my choices:

A) Finish my degree in Literature or;
B) Get a degree in Public Relations.

The former was born out of my love for books; the latter, from eighteen years of working in communications, i.e. broadcasting, call center communications training, web content maintenance.

The US has not been kind in my job search for something similar to my experience so I figure I'll just start from scratch. In the meantime, I shall keep slugging away at the hotel. And since I just got promoted to supervisor, I have no complaints.

Let's see where this goes.