Monday, October 31, 2005

Paralyzed

Hold your horses! I'm not (yet) physically incapacitated. My spine is not busted nor am I brain dead. I have no physiological impairment, whatsoever. It's just that my laptop needs repairs ofr the NTH time!


Not having my laptop for the whole break means forfeiting the opportunity to work on several stuff I had planned such as: learning Adobe InDesign, further learning Photoshop, working on the presentation for the Youth Concert, coding a new blog layout, and more. Currently, I'm stuck with an old Pentium II computer with Win98 installed. It's slow and buggy and I hate it. One of the things I hate about this computer is that I can't copy-paste with this! But with no other alternative, this would have to do.

****

But it seems that another part of me is paralyzed. Although in this area, I can say that it may be for the better. I am yet to uncover what is the truth in my thoughts. But I know that there is something more to it, to this. I know there's a reason. Laboness!.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Anger Mismanagement

Yesterday, I saw two cases of anger mismanagement.


The first case involved a father and a son. The son was going on an errand for his mother, who is not at home. During lunch with his father, the son told him that he will leave at 2:30pm. His father told his son that he should wake him up before he goes out. After lunch, the son went on to do his favorite household chore, washing the dishes. Unfortunately, the chore didn't seem very likeable at that time since there were heaps after heaps of unwashed plates and pots before him. And so, after an hour and a half of scrubing and soaping, he finally finished the chore. Seeing that it's already 2:30pm, he decided to not pressure himself too much since the set time can no longer be met. So he chillaxed (n. chill + relax) for a while. Afterwards, he took a bath. Incidentally, his father woke up while he was taking a bath. (OH NO!). After dressing up and readying himself to go, a scene occured.


Father: (insert name of son), lagi ka na lang backtracking
Son: Backtracking?
Father: Backtracking! Lagi ka na lang nalelate!
Son: *Silence*
Father: Noong isang linggo, hinatid pa kita kasi malelate ka na! Ano ba yan! Paglaki mo, dala-dala mo iyang pag-uugali na 'yan

After gathering his stuff, the son immediately went out of their house. He was pissed off not because he was scolded but because he knew that his father preached against the same qualities that he possessed. Thus, his son was mad at his father's hypocrisy. Truly, the son let his emotions take over him. It was rude of him to walk out so hastily. Obviously, his father was just trying to discipline his son.


The second tale of anger mismanagement happened on a bus while I was on my way to get my laptop fixed (for the 3rd time this week!). While I was minding my own business, I heard quarelling voices at the front of the bus. Apparently, the conductor would not give an old lady the discount she asks for since she can't show any SENIOR CITIZEN CARD. The lady was enfuriated by the conductor's strict adherence to the rules that after much debating, she gave ALL her money to the conductor, in a very forceful way. The once calm and reasonable conductor showed signs of irritation by such an unexpected display of rudeness by the older lady. After finally winning the debate (and finally charging the lady with the proper price), he went off to the back of the vehicle mumbling, "Ako na bata ang siyang dapat natututo sa inyo pero para yatang kayo yung matututo sa akin e."


The root of the whole situation is not the rude old lady nor the goody-two-shoes of a conductor but its the system that has made Filipinos accustomed to not following rules. Implimentation of policies and regulations in the country is very very bad. There are so many loopholes. Thus, people become used to not following them, including the old lady in my story. So, when she is confronted with the proper implementation, she was caught off-guard, and so salvaged her ego by acting quite rudely.


These are two cases of anger mismanagement. Two people were placed in situations they don't like and so, anger came over them. Anger is normal. It comes even to the best of us. But it's in how we take control of that anger that makes the difference.


In other news..... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!!!!

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Name Game
This post was inspired by a converstaion with Maja.

My real name is Omar. No, I'm not a muslim. Although my name means first son, which I am, my parents didn't look at a baby name dictionary to get my name. Well if they did, they'd find out that my name also means gifted speaker and famous. (Silence). Going back to my point, the origin of my name dates back to when my mom became pregnant with her first child. At that time, my dad was still working in the casino (he retired about four years ago). My dad was assigned to the casino in Baguio. He left mom with his parents in Muntinlupa. In Baguio, my dad's co-workers would often say that there was another table supervisor (that's dad's job description) who looked just like him and it made them confused on who's who. For months, dad was on a look-out for his look-a-like. By the time he was forced to take a leave because mom was on a critical stage, he wasn't able to meet the guy. Probably, out of sheer frustration (and with a lack of any idea in mind) he named their first child after the guy, Omar.


Through the years, I had several nicknames. To my relatives, I was Om-Om. To close friends, I was Om. To some, I was Oms. To a few, I was Omsky. To the quirky, I was Omaroo. To the nutheads, I was Ramo. But to the many, I was plain Omar. Things changed around third year high school when my good friend, Aesha, started calling me Omie. I liked the name because it had a cutesy, childish ring to it. So I adopted it as my nickname during the YMCA Leadership Assembly in Baguio (wow Baguio na naman! during that year. But instead of Omie, I switched it to Omee since I thought that the former would be misread as Omi-ye.


In the first quarter of 2004, when I was filling up a Personal Information Sheet for YLSS#13, I was confronted by the question of what nickname to use. At that moment, I thought of the idea that a nickname should be shorter than the real name. Omee was simply too long to be my nickname. Thus, I shortened my nickname into 3 letters - Omi.


Nowadays, I am known by people in college as Omi and I feel really comfortable with it. At first, I ws still a little unused to being called by that name but slowly, it grew on me. Truly, it's quite unusual to give oneself a nickname. But technically, it wasn't I who gave it to me. Nonetheless, tonight, I became curious about my nickname. After a few digging in the Internet, here are the trivial stuff that I found:



- in Japan, it is a rank; it literally means "great body"
- in Nigeria, it means "water"
- it is an acronym for a religious order, "Oblates of Mary Immaculate"
- it is an acronym for the "Ozone Monitoring Instrument"
- in the now extinct gay language, Polari, it means "man"

The above list is quite short and incomplete. Obviously, the Internet is quite broad yet too shallow to make any real research. But it is really fun to find out what your name means. It's like trying to make sense of who you are in a weird sense.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Five Days Are Enough

There are times in our lives that would forever be etched in our memories. The previous statement may be somewhat cliche but I can't find a better way to start a post about ASLA.


I won't go into the details of the Ateneo Student Leaders Assembly but it is enough to say that the whole experience was incomparable. The five days I shared with the 34 other participants were incredible. In ASLA I found another family to whom I share the passion (yahoo!) of leadership. Sobrang astigin ang mga tao, mapa-candidate ma o core. At tigasin din yung mga speakers.


I have learned so much about myself. There even came a point when my childhood dream of priesthood re-surfaced from its old state of repression. I began to consider shifting to Philo Pre-div. Although I have yet to completely discern that issue, I cansay that indeed, because of ASLA, my life is taking a tangible shape - something I didn't have before the fateful day of October 18.


Thank you to all the people who made the whole experience as it is. Truly, five days are enough to change a man. Why? Just because.