It might be that time of the month again but OMG!!! I can’t take it anymore.

I hate chasing people. I hate following-up items that responsible people should and would chase on their own.

I hate emailing one-liner that starts with “Just checking if…” of “Please FUP…”

Can you really blame me if in my mind, I sometimes read FUP as f*cked-up?!

I HATE time-wasters.

Yes, hate is such a strong word. But seriously, if you’re already busy & stressed, why does the rest of humanity seem to think it’s your job to make sure they do the right thing?

You’d think I’m dealing with teenagers but these are professionals! And no it’s not only at work. Goodness. That’s what frustrates me more.

In Sassy Lawyer’s recent blog entry she mentioned Anne Widdecombe & I said that I sometimes catch this retired MP on BBC’s “Angry Old Women”. I chanced upon it the other night. Wouldn’t it be great to rant about anything and everything, big and small? The fact that you get to vent is enough, to actually be paid is a bonus.

I loved that they ranted about the SAHMs and the working mums. The seeming competitive streaks of the SAHMs to prove they’re not dull and that they made the right choice. The guilt and frustration of the “career women”. All the guests agreed women were fools to believe in “having it all”. Well, that sucks…

Thank God I could blog & moan to my heart’s content.

=======

Half-way through drafting this entry, I found physical evidence it IS that time of the month.

I hate PMS. I don’t know why & curses(!) to those who will say “google it” but I don’t know why I’ve only started feeling the effect of this phenomenon.

Isn’t it enough I battle with the D?

I’ve been feeling so angry and frustrated lately. I felt ugly & unwanted, utterly useless & lazy. Stupid, moronic, idiotic. I called myself names & I was  questioning my intentions & actions. I was paranoid. Should I smile? Am I smiling? Is it obvious I’m mad? Why am I mad? Am I mad? Do I want sex? Why don’t I like sex?

Shit, shit, shit, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck… muttering, mumbling, thinking it.

Sometimes I win, but this week I lost. It’s a shitty way to live, feeling like a phony.

Life, right now I’m giving you the finger!

Elizabeth Wurtzel quotes… I hesitate to read “Prozac Nation”, I’m scared. It’s like opening up my coat for everyone to see my sores…

Hemingway has his classic moment in “The Sun Also Rises” when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt. All he can say is, “Gradually, then suddenly.” That’s how depression hits. You wake up one morning, afraid that you’re gonna live.

“I start to feel like I can’t maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through. And I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe something about how stupid my whole life is. I don’t know. Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on?… I don’t know the answer, I know only that I can’t. I don’t want any more vicissitudes, I don’t want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.”

As been my practise, I switched on our home PC on Friday while having dinner. It’s my prep for use later on. When I logged in after 9pm, it was so slow. I kicked off my “trio” of protection: AVG 8, AdAware and SpyBot. It’s midnight , they were still chugging along.

Saturday morning BSD greeted me with scorn. My Windows firewall was disabled and the options to enable them are greyed out. regedit wasn’t working, I am locked out of my registry keys!!!

I pulled up my sleeves knowing I’m in for a slog, I’m infected and for the first time in sooo mmaaannyy years I have to deal with it myself. I switched off my router for fear I might catch more virus HIV.

Close to dinner time, I was near tears and I needed a shower, my hair wants a comb and I prepared DVD backups of the family pictures. I know the worse thing has happened, my beloved PC will have to be flushed.

I was thanking my lucky stars I backed up my files early this year, or was it December? I forget now, I just know I have stacks of DVD I need to find.

At the same time I was mentally kicking myself for not setting up my new external hard drive when I received it. I’ve been so tired at work, I’ve been putting off personal “work” since our Dubai holiday. I just copied my sisters’ Dubai shots from the flash drive two weekends ago!

I was copying files til midnight, burning DVDs. At the same time I was using my crackberry to find more information on Win32 Heur. The bloody thing hijacked everything and it kept on replicating itself. I scan, clean, restart and it’s there again. By 3am Sunday, I gave up the idea I was going to do this and not pay someone to reinstall my OS.

I have all the CDs but at 4am I’ve lost the will to live and I wasn’t happy anymore. I could barely see and my brain was so fuzzy I think it’s covered with molds.

The repair guy didn’t arrive until 1630hrs GMT. I have my emails imported by 7pm, AVG and spybot are back online. But that’s the most I could do. Gaadd the software I need to reinstall, the CDs I got to download! They’ll have to wait.

Then I log in here and this greeted me:

“In-depth view. Like it very much. I will follow these tips provided herein to examine its specific outcome after putting into use in real cases. Thanks from me.”

A comment left on my post regarding racial discrimination.

I’ve got web-rage.

Our friend called me this morning, pogiBoy’s school canceled the Nursery to Year 1 classes due to flooding. When I spoke to pogiBoy he said there was no school because there was water in their room. He then explained that their classroom and the “outside” is flat “like that” (palm down) and when it rained, the water came straight in.

In the last two years, England flooding (unexpected in most places) caused a lot of damage to property and in some instances lives were lost. Now is the worst time to be trapped in a flash flood, it’s freezing! Even if you do not drown, you’re bound to suffer hypothermia. I know my toes were nearly frozen this morning when I tried to get into work from 730am and didn’t arrive at work until 845am due to severe delays on all lines from my place to the City.

Last night whilst coming home the rain was pouring so heavily that the entrance to the Liverpool Street Station from Bishopsgate was flooded. I was just thinking if it was possible for the Underground to flood.

So after the Siberian snow, now we’re contending with floods.

I saw a news item over the shoulder of another passenger that the London Thames barrier was released. I can’t find a news item yet but that would have meant more water in. Now I don’t know if pogiBoy’s school will reopen tomorrow.

BTW, the Underground suspended a lot of the lines going my way! So the trip home was far pleasant again. Honestly, if the Tube staff really does go on strike, I might join the other commuters in throwing tomatoes at them!

11 Feb 09

My friend just called, the classroom’s still flooded. So she’s taking pogiBoy with her to go shopping. Okay  lang naman rather than have him spend his day on the sofa watching telly. Only this morning I was wishing I could take him to school which he sees as a treat! Nakakalungkot sobrang rare kasi.

At least there was no transport issues and I was here just after 8am.

I only like talking politics with old friends, old as in tenured. There are exceptions, of course. Sometimes I would disagree with a new person but I also learn in the process.

But I do hate talking politics and socio-economics with people who seem clueless about the world in general. I hate hearing people say “I don’t like Obama” and for explanation they can only come up with “I just don’t like him”.

Moreover I hate rumour-mongering with politics. “He’s a terrorist pala according to my blah in the US”

I hate discussions that pretend to be serious when in fact the arguments are stupid and hypocritical. “Bobo naman si Erap so he should never have won”

Fine. The man is no genius. But rather than slagging him for his personal traits shouldn’t we focus on why he’s not fit to be President in terms of his governance (or lack of)?

How can people pass off these comments as valid?

The Philippine media (and I guess the media in general) loves sensationalist reporting. They showed people cutting down Narra trees for uling and the viewers were indignant. What a waste, they shouldn’t do that, blah blah. Are you going to feed those people? Is it really new news? I bet the local government knew about the situation long ago.

They also showed (I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing it) young children hauling tabla from mountains, “trekking for 4 hours” and that the woods are rejected if they get dirt on the way down. “Ang la-laki nang paltos at may kalyo na sila”

At the time I was watching the coal “documentary” and commented that the kids are the victims because it’s obvious that their situation will be a cycle. Parang political dynasty sa Pinas, set na ang future nila.

The person next to me commented that the kids in the other segment (ie the tabla) were worst off.

I didn’t realise there were winners in either situation.

My mummy (ok, mommy) friends have been nagging me since April that they wanted to go on a night out, thinking I’m the key to that kind of thing. Fine. So I said on my birthday I will arrange it.

June came and went. I had to cancel two attempts afterwards. Finally today we’re going, but 2 of them had to cancel on us. Fine those who really, really wanted to experience the London nightlife are still coming.

Guess what though. Right on my cheek is a big fat zit. On my chest is a big red bump.

I wish I could say they’re due to late nights of partying… but they’re more from stress.

It’s been so long since I worried about this kind of thing & I’m not a make-up girl so I don’t know what I’m going to do. I bought a concealer but I’ve no idea how to use it.

Never mind, these mummies are not really out to party anyway. I’m taking them to the Ice Bar, kitsch I know. But I think that’s what they’ll enjoy most, except for May who like me is a real cow-girl.

When we take pictures, I guess I’ll just hide my left cheek a bit :-)

Why do I have so much pent up rage? I try and try to de-stress and calm myself, but I find myself irritated by the most insignificant matters both at home and at work.

Ang hirap.

Kadalasan sobrang kapal nang balat ko di ako tinatablan nang parinig, nang bias or even straightforward kabastusan.

Other times, like today, I can’t help it. I find every remark stings me. I hear “later” as “no” and find myself gritting my teeth at the rebuff.

I wish, I wish, I wish I got barbed tongue, too. I wish the katarayan they say I possess is so true.

I wish I wish I could curl up in bed and hide under the covers. But every day, each day, I have to put on a mask of bravery and pretend everything is okay.

I am superwoman, an impenetrable fortress.

This morning in the Tube I was verbally abused by a “young man” for telling him to mind his elbow as it was jabbing me on my sides as we’re sat next to each other. It was before 7am, the train was not jampacked but it was full enough to have people standing around the aisle.

This moron started callig me a slag, told me to “shut your face“, that I didn’t know “nuffink” and many other words that for the thickness of his uneducated accent, I couldn’t comprehend. I told him to take a cab if he was so bothered by sharing with strangers. I added that he should watch his language and manners when in public.

The buffoon answered that I shouldn’t tell him what to do as I didn’t know him. I said I can see enough to not want to know him. I ignored him from then and he removed his filthy arm away from me.

Nearing my destination, he probably remembered he was pissed so he started jabbing me again…

This time I raised my voice and when he started launching another verbal abuse at me I told him I will call the cops to fetch him at the next stop. Luckily there was an off-duty policeman, who told him to “behave or else”. Guess what the genius did? He proceeded to abuse the guy for siding “with a chink“. When the guy told him one more word and he’s done, the idiot shut up.

All the while this was happening none of the men in the carriage dared look at us. Many of the women, esp. Asians, were giving me sympathetic looks.

When this youth started whispering threats about doing something when I get off at my stop, I said to him in a loud voice to “Stop muttering idiot we can all hear your threats! If you so much as come down my stop, I will make sure you go to jail. You and your kind do NOT SCARE me!”

Siempre pa takot ako, I decided to move away from him. There’s nothing to be had there. I know I should have done so in the first place and I could have avoided that drama. But you know what? Why should I move?

I am paying for the education and in most cases, the livelihood of these demonic teenagers! Why should I fear them?

The answer? The Government does not provide me with protection.

The off duty policeman, yes thank you for the 2-minute assistance, but the effing follow-up was to get off in the next stop after giving him a talking to. Was that responsible?

Did he think the mal-educado will behave now that the nanny is gone?

The biggest fear in this country is getting knifed by a youth (a gang of youths, in most cases). The elderly and those paying taxes are shortchanged.

My biggest worry? These airheads are breeding! These are the people who are supposed to hold this country’s economy in the future. And as a working citizen, I have the right to a life not ruled by white yobs and black gangsters.

When I stood up to this guy, I was thinking of other Pinoys and minorities. Who knows how many people he’s already abused and who bowed to him? I hope that next time, he will think twice and decide against it. I hope he changes and becomes enlightened.

How that will happen I don’t know. But I certainly don’t want to grow old in this place. I pity those who won’t have a choice. No matter how lovely the United Kingdom is, if it’s ruled by dogs, then… need I say more?

Last year I wrote about my radio and komiks love affair. Today I received a comment from someone who can obviously read and write, but also apparently has no comprehension.

It was from a student asking for materials on radio programs and also had the temerity to instruct me to email the requested materials to him/her.

I know this plagues most bloggers and other sites. Sassy Lawyer blogged about this at least once. And these sort of stupid comments caused my fave poetry site to close years ago.

It’s bad enough they’re asking you to do their work for them, but they didn’t even bother to read and understand what the topic their “commenting” in is about.

The internet is vast source of knowledge. I could easily give this person crap and he’d probably pass it to his professor. It’s just worrying because in all likelihood the Philippines education system has not yet put proper guidelines/checks on info sourced from public sites. Compounded by the fact that you do get students who are not actually craving knowledge, rather are looking for cheat-sheets ala-Recto’s offering, then in a few years time Pinas will not only have massive brain drain because of the professionals flying abroad, you are also left with an inept workforce and even more stupid & corrupt politicians.

Why such a bleak outlook? Because those who do crave knowledge will think they’re too good to stay and they will have the opportunity to leave. Those who looked for the easy way out will not have benefited from their education and will not be export-material so they become President and Senators and asswipes.

Some would say my work is very “negative”. I assure the quality of our products. Test the beejesus out of it. Make sure nothing is broken. Make sure that if something is broken, it’s isolated. I can go on for a long time.

One of my better managers once said that we actually have the best job in the software industry. We find a bug, it’s great. We don’t find a bug, we give an all-clear, it’s great. But underneath that second statement is a lot of sweat & some nerve-shaking decisions (read: risk management and cost-cutting).

Anyway, that’s my job, it’s me, it’s part of my life. I’m a software tester, and I love it.

I am pretty reasonable. I don’t go loggerheads with developers or management (okay I do gnash my teeth a lot). Experience taught me that there’s no point. At the end of the day, I am here to get my money at the end of the month. I am not here to fan anyone’s ego. Or be someone’s fall-guy. Eff you if you think that. And you’ll have a rude awakening if you think, I’m a pushover.

I guess most non-Pinoys I worked with, think I am a soft touch because of my mild demeanour. I wish I could tell them that’s not how my Filipino colleagues would describe me (or could I be mistaken? hmm). I do encounter attitudes but most are tolerable & I let them pass, so yes that’s probably why they would say I’m “nice”. But whenever someone pushes me a little too far, I can be like Wolverine and turn them into muttering brats.

In my second London job for example, there was this Irish “call-me-Dr” know-it-all. I’m not sure if I blogged about him in the past, but here goes. I reported a major crash on our Symbian application. Our phones were crashing with KERNEL-whatever errors and his code’s log weren’t sufficient. The problem was straightforward to reproduce & I allowed him some attempts to send it back to me with a lame “fix” and at least 3 “not reproducible”. The latter was a push to close and forget about it. I told him we can work in tandem & showed him the steps & voila! The crash. Then he stood up and said “Okay, reproduce it again and call me.”

“No! You sit down, watch what I’m doing & FIX your bug!“

I must have looked like the Furies. He can only manage a barely audible ‘ok’ & meekly sat down. When I finished, I slammed the phone in front of him so hard, I thought I’d broken it. The nerve of this PhD-wielding-weasel! He picked himself up & said something about going to work. That afternoon, I received a fix that actually worked.

London offices are open-planned, so yes my raised voice carried throughout the floor which houses the sales, marketing, HR, support, and dev teams. Everyone in the dev team were smiling and looking at our direction. My then manager gave me two thumbs up and later on in the pub bought me a pint. Then everyone gave their “horror” stories about the red-haired geek, apologies to good geeks out there. Well, let’s just say he wasn’t very popular.

Are you getting the picture?

Now, as in an hour ago, a developer whose component has been the weakest of our entire trading system, had the gall to tell me he “doesn’t have much time to look at the problem” because he’s busy! WTF?! I told him the bug (which is really at least 3 months old as it’s related to other failed fixes!) is with his dev manager & they will deal with it appropriately.

I am a software tester, not your “debugger”, jack—.

I wasn’t hot at all. In fact, he probably went away thinking “I showed her”. Thing is, I am the QA Manager, mate. Even before you gave me that attitude, your lack of, uhmm what’s the nicest word to use?, let’s say: your lack of focus has given me cause for concern for a while. I already had a 5-minute chat with your boss about my observation, albeit I didn’t pointedly say you’re “not good”. He did.

Okay that’s it. WHEW. It’s been a while since my last work-related post ah.

“I live to break your world”

This is definitely not my week. My emotions have been swinging up and down, left to right & I feel as grey as the London skies. At the back of my mind, I know it’s my black dog making its presence felt. Fine, that’s normal but then my skin is dry & I feel sick & dirty.

Tuesday I went to my dermatologist for my skin allergy patch test & I haven’t showered for 48 - hours! My hair is as oily as Snape’s. Yes, I shampoo’ed it but I don’t why it won’t stay shiny & clean-looking if I didn’t douse my entire body with water & soap.

My back is itchy. Dunno if it’s due to the allergens. My fear is it’s itchy because I am allergic to the plasters! Anyway, I just hope all these are worth it in the end because my skin needs the right treatment. I keep complaining how rough my face is now & this year I’ve actually taken steps to at least find out why. Tonite I will have my first reading, like palm-reading only the nurse will be tracing how many bumps formed on my back, which looks like a messy whiteboard, only my skin is not white.

Then this morning at the office, I found out I “have” pala. That explains my short/ill temper. And why I am so uncomfortable. I really hate these red visits. I should be glad I guess as I have had depo-injections for 3-years & most women don’t get their menstrual cycle back for a year. But as my ate said I might be similar to Nanay in terms of fertility (”mahakbangan lang buntis na” she said).

So anyway, here’s to women everywhere. Us, who are governed by the Waters and the Moon. Or am I the only loony?