Viewing: breakthrough

Twenty minutes

Six weeks ago, I signed Marlon and myself up for a beginners’ running group at the Vondelpark, Amsterdam’s version of Central Park. I wanted a wallet-friendly form of exercise, but am especially bad at running (which is probably why I detested it). So I thought learning how to run “properly” and combining it with a fun group atmosphere would transform my experience of the sport.
So every Thursday at 7:45 pm (except last week when my sister was here), I ran. I quickly grew to enjoy the company of my group—11 warm and friendly Dutchies who had as little experience with running as I did. Rick, our coach, worked in sports for the disabled, a fact that did a lot to put me at ease. I had all my limbs and faculties, didn’t I? So I couldn’t be the worst runner he’d ever met! Rick was patient and kind, always reminding me that everyone has their own pace and I didn’t have to keep up with the others. When you’re perpetually at the tail end of the group, lagging way behind the Dutchies with their endless legs, hearing that can really keep you going.
Last night was our last run, the one we’d been working up to for six weeks: running for 20 minutes straight around the park. If this sounds easy to you, you must already be into running. Back in Singapore, I attempted a “couch to 5k” program where the first level was one minute of jogging alternated with a minute and a half of walking. I would be totally winded after the minute-long jog, and lived for those precious minutes of walking. I never progressed beyond that first level. 
But last night was a breakthrough. After working my way up from 2, 5, 8, 10 then 12 minutes of straight running (no walking allowed!), I was nervous that skipping last week’s 15-minute training would stop me from reaching the goal of the entire course. But it didn’t. Finally, running became easy, automatic even (at least after the first five to seven minutes). And running through a park buzzing with vibrant life all around me, seeing all the Dutchies out in full force to enjoy the spring sunshine with their beers and barbecues… running even became fun. 

When I saw the green fountain (“water post” in Rick’s idiosyncratic English) that marked the end of my 20 minutes, I could not help but break out into a wide grin. Marlon, having seen me at the worst of my running attempts, was so proud of me. 

After a round of high fives, we walked over to the pub at the Amstelveenseweg gate of the Vondelpark to celebrate with a drink. It really did look and feel like a celebration, with a packed open-air terrace and bonfires lit all around. And that beer tasted like the sweetest thing on this good earth.

I also received a certificate from Running Holland. If I ever forget that I was able to run 20 minutes straight and how good I felt afterwards, I have this to remind me!

But why would I forget? Because I signed up for the next course, 6.6km or two to three rounds around the Vondelpark, next May. And I’m looking forward to surprising myself all over again.

2 Comments
Posted on April 22, 2011
Category: Life in Amsterdam · Labels: , , ,

Make it Monday

I’ve now been living in Amsterdam for an entire quarter. Time goes by so fast, doesn’t it? The last three months were all about leaping up and down, clapping my hands and squealing “I’m living in Europe!!!!! I’m living in Europe!!!!! I’m living in Europe!!!!!!” Now, I’ve entered a phase where it’s more of “I’m living in Europe! What now?” Multiple exclamation points give way to a question mark as I begin to ask myself: What do I want out of my time here?
So last week I sat down and looked into areas that I want to devote time and attention to this year. I won’t go into all the details because it’s very personal to me. But mostly I thought back to last year when I was dying to move here. What made me so excited was a picture of the kind of person I thought I could become, wanted to become, for which The Big Move would be the catalyst. 
One of those versions of me that I pictured was a more creative me. I know, it’s ironic for someone working in the creative industry. I mean creative beyond what is required. I used to draw, but don’t anymore. I love to write, but I don’t make the time to do so apart from work and blogging. So I made some promises to myself, and to give them extra weight, I placed those promises in a structure. I drew up a plan to do certain things, for a certain amount of time, on certain days of the week.
Which is how Make It Monday was born. I designated Monday as the day on which, every week for one hour, I will sit down and make something with pen, paper and/or paint. I will draw, paint or collage something fun, creative and very me! I just wanted to give it a name, so Make It Mondays it is. It might change if I think of something better.
So here’s something to kick off my first ever Make It Monday.

“Stepping Out,” mixed media collage

Did I say one hour? Once I sat down at our long wooden dining table, I didn’t get up for the next three hours. I had completely forgotten how much I love doing this and how much fun it is.

I love collage. I used to draw and paint when I was a kid, but when I was about 18 I started my long-term love affair with collage. I can remember exactly when I made my first collage and why. I’d just come back from my first Europe tour with the ACGC and had this inexplicable hunger return to Europe. (It really bothered me back then. I thought I was depressed.)

One evening at home I found a Newsweek picture of a girl trapped behind a barbed wire fence. I tore it out, and started filling the holes between the wires with bits of maps, brochures and photos from my trip. When I was done, I felt that each little piece of paper that I had chosen with such care finally, adequately expressed everything I couldn’t say. I still have that first collage. And what I so yearned to do 11 years ago has been fulfilled: I’m back in Europe.

This collage is a little about that fulfillment, and more. Strange, when I was choosing all the elements I knew exactly what it was about. Now all I can say is that it’s about flight, spring, leaving the grayness behind to start anew, testing the waters, and walking on air. And that making her outfit was fun, like playing grown-up paper dolls!

I started out being slow and uncertain, but when I was done my mood had completely changed. From thinking “I’ll just throw something together to make a start, I’ll make it better next time,” I found myself quite pleased with what I’d created. And when I stepped outside to receive a delivery, I saw that I wasn’t the only one who had been busy creating today.

Here’s to Make It Mondays… may they make Monday blues a thing of the past!

4 Comments
Posted on April 4, 2011
Category: Creative Projects · Labels: , ,

Avoidance

This afternoon I exercised for the first time since November. Yep, it’s been that long—since this whole moving to Amsterdam process first got started, in fact. 
I’d been putting off this workout since we got here. When I first arrived in Amsterdam early January, I resolved to use my time at the serviced apartment by using the in-house gym. Guess how that went. Then when we moved to our permanent address, I got all excited about having the picturesque riverside a few minutes from my doorstep. I told myself every single day that I was going to run. Or at least walk. Tomorrow. Hah! Fat chance (a pun that truly applies to me at this point).
I avoided exercise with an odd, inverted determination. There were a lot of excuses, the cold being my favorite scapegoat. “When I go out in the cold, I burn more calories anyway,” I told myself. E ano kayang ginagawa yung mga cold cuts and cheese sa bahay? 
Finally, today, I just went out and did it. I didn’t think much about it. I just put on a Heattech top and tights plus a regular hoodie and sweatpants (a 100% Uniqlo outfit), stole Marlon’s Nike GPS thingamajiggie and stuck it in my shoe, and went out.
And found what I had been avoiding all along was actually… not so bad at all. In fact, it was wonderful.
Half jogging, half walking west along the river, I discovered Beatrixpark just minutes from my house. It’s a beautiful open space with long winding paths, duck ponds and large green swathes of grass. I saw lots of doggies bounding along happily, playing catch with their owners, and old ladies sitting all bundled up on park benches with their smiling faces tipped up to the sun. Because of the cold, a kind of fine mist hung in the air, making everything look soft. 
It was another “Is this really my life?” moment. I didn’t feel cold at all and I didn’t really care that my pace was atrociously slow. It felt that good. 
And I realized I avoid a lot of things that turn out to be less painless than I think they’ll be. I think of it as the “hell week” syndrome—you know, back in college when it’s the week before exams and you’re terrified you’re going to flunk or die, but when you’re halfway into it you realize you’re passing and alive and hey, it’s not so bad.
Exercise is one. Housework is another. I never did housework in Singapore, ask Marlon. Getting me to do it is like pulling teeth from a baby lion. But yesterday when the sun streamed in through the windows into my house, it hit me how dirty everything had gotten in the span of a few days. And so I began vacuuming and mopping like a madwoman. I remember thinking to myself, “Hey, this really doesn’t take that much time.” And seeing my all-white kitchen just sparkle in the sunlight gave me a domestic thrill that bordered on perverse. Hallelujah, I have seen the light!
I also used to avoid calling clients. And it wasn’t because they were difficult, I just had this strong irrational sense of not wanting to do it. It doesn’t last long, maybe an hour at most; people who’ve worked with me always find me quick to respond and very “on.” But sometimes even if I already found myself on my way to doing it, I would get a heavy, draggy feeling in my chest in those last few seconds before picking up the phone. Then we would have a normal chatty conversation, getting things done, and I would feel like myself and all fired up to work again. Weird huh?
What do you find yourself avoiding lately and why? And how does it turn out when you do get into it?
Comment?
Posted on March 4, 2011
Category: Uncategorized · Labels: , ,

So bike me

Recently, Marlon and I put together a list of things we have yet to do in Singapore, made up of things we feel we absolutely must do before we leave (bakit kaya? Umaambisyon lang). On the National Day holiday last Monday, we finally got to cross one item off the list.
That item was “bike at ECP.” East Coast Park is a long stretch of beach on the, you guessed it, east coast of Singapore. It’s really popular for rollerblading, biking (or as they prefer to say here, cycling), camping and good old-fashioned beach bumming. The shores of home have spoiled me for life, so this is far from my top choice for a beach. But since learning how to bike, and biking through wine country in Sonoma last June, I thought I could finally give the bike lanes a try.
After a little online sleuthing, I decided that a worthy goal would have to be a nice way to end the day: a sunset stroll along the scenic boardwalk at Changi Point.  To get there, Marlon and I would cycle through Park Connector Network, a bike/footpath that links East Coast Park to Changi Beach Park. All we had to do was rent a bike from one of the PCN stops along East Coast and drop it off at any of the pit stops on Changi Beach. So we did, and we were off!
East Coast Park was packed with people that day, being a holiday. After a few kilometers of cycling, we slipped out of the crowd and stopped for a big carby lunch at the Mana Mana Beach Club. It was a familiar name from our visits to Bintan—we’d stayed there a couple of times, enjoying the chill vibe and superb wood-fired pizzas. Unfortunately, this was more like Polo Club Seaside Branch, without the pizzas :P
One of the reasons I don’t like East Coast Park is the view. Something about the fleet of ocean tankers parked meters from the shoreline just ruins it for me. I don’t understand how people can swim in this water—not when it’s plain that all these tankers are dumping their waste water into the ocean within swimming distance from you. 
You know how, at our beaches, the ocean gradually deepens to a sapphire blue as you look farther out to sea? Here, it doesn’t. It’s just a flat grayish green, with just a faint tinge of blue, all throughout. I know it’s the only accessible beach for a lot of locals, but for me it just feels like swimming in Manila Bay. I saw a lot of affluent locals and foreigners all dressed up in their flowing boho/tropicana caftans and chunky jewelry and designer flip-flops for this beach; kung ganito lang ang tropical paradise, wag na lang.  
So imagine my wonderment when, biking further and further away from the crowds, we found a beautiful little cove with actual white sand and clear blue water! I was thrilled. Pwedeng pwede na ‘to! There was only one other couple around, plenty of shade and grass, even a little rocky knoll with tufts of grass. Pang-Koreanovela lang. I wouldn’t mind biking back to this lovely secluded cove on another Saturday afternoon for a bit of sunning and swimming.
Tapos, kalbaryo na. Having woken up late, Marlon and I had to cover the longest stretch of road over the hottest hours of the day. But we weren’t the only ones—lots of bikers, a large percentage of them ang moh (Caucasians) whizzed by as we puffed along. I had gotten comfortable enough with biking to enjoy some of the views, like this aqueduct. It almost felt like we weren’t in Singapore. This was definitely a side of the Little Red Dot I’d never seen before.
The planning of the bike path was excellent. With lots of shade from the trees lining the path, and a covered rest stop every 1 to 2 kilometers, it was perfect for an easy-to-tire, newbie biker like me.
The most fun thing about this bike path was that it runs behind the entire length of Changi Airport. So every time I needed to catch my breath, we would plop down at a rest stop and watch the planes take off. 

After what seemed like eons of pedaling, we finally reached the PCN pit stop at Changi Beach Park. And not a moment too soon! If I could have thrown my bike at them, I would have. (Pero mas effort pala yon, LOL.)

And this is the route I cycled! From the blue point below to the blue point on the upper right, or a total distance of 17.9 km. It looks like almost a third of Singapore’s coastline!
Changi Beach was quite homey, a lot less developed and far less packed than East Coast Park. The crowd was mostly local families enjoying a day at the beach, flying kites and barbecuing. The tankers were way further out to sea, which made me feel more at ease about swimming here. 
Then our leader Ben Linus sounded the island-wide alarm, pulling us out of our weekly book club meeting to comb the beach for survivors. LOL!
We decided to take a taxi to Changi Point to make it in time for the sunset. Buti na lang kasi ang layo pala niya kung lakarin o i-bike! I have to say, the boardwalk was one of the nicest places I’ve been in Singapore, and one of the most genuine. Dotted with old-timers fishing and young families taking a late afternoon stroll, the boardwalk felt laid-back, removed from the Singapore I’ve known for the last three years.
Parang Riva del Garda lang!
And true to its promise, golden hour at the boardwalk truly was golden. Other photographers call it the magic hour, and yes, you could say it was magical too.
A section of the boardwalk takes you along a seaside cliff shielded from the sea by trees. This was my favorite part. Frame by backlit leaves and trees, the sunset seemed shrouded in layers of fine black lace woven by Nature’s own hands.
And that’s how Singapore and I bonded on her 45th birthday.
While everyone else was at the big splashy shindig down at the Padang, where we were that evening was absolutely fine with me.

6 Comments
Posted on August 20, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: , , ,

Thankful

Last weekend was my big shoot for a project I’ve been working on for over four months. It was the cause of many sleepless nights, working Saturdays, and elevated heart rates for me. It was my first time to be production manager on a project after Lilian left, on no less than a three-day multiple location shoot.In the month before the shoot, my mind was filled with all the things that could possibly go wrong. Would we get our shoot insurance in time?  Would this sixth round of casting finally be the last? Was rainy season in Singapore reallyover? Why wasn’t one of the talents answering my calls and texts? What potential crises could come up and how would I respond? (What a vague question, huh? This is the one that drove me up the wall.)Then I had a breakthrough. And the oddest thing happened — the two final weeks leading up to the shoot were the most relaxed I had had in months. We had pre-production meetings within the team where we realized we barely had anything to discuss. The final PPM with the client was a breeze. We finished packing up all the production stuff — drinks, snacks, props — and loaded them into the van at lunchtime the day before the shoot, and not at the last minute or in the dead of night. I even had time to print all the permits and release forms, neatly print each talent’s name on payment vouchers and put their fees into separate (recycled) envelopes.

Then I realized four months of pre-production might have been like going into long, painful and drawn-out labor, but without all those months of pre-work, I might have died trying to pull off a shebang like this at the last minute.

And so we shot. Yes, sh*t happened — a few things went missing, the usual client this-and-that, even the bane of my existence as a PM: overtime (for each hour of which, everyone on the crew charges me 1.5x their hourly rate! Gak!). Yet each day, after shooting wrapped for the day, I felt only two overwhelming things. Fatigue, and gratitude.

I was thankful for… 

… the beautiful, sunny weather and clear blue skies on all three days of the shoot — even when we were shooting indoors. The day after we wrapped, it began to rain daily.

… the amazing performances of our talents. Our death-defying skateboarder had all of us applauding after takes. Despite literally skateboarding from 9 to 5, he was smiling the entire time.

… the patience and sense of humor of our extras. They poked fun at each other wearing the compulsory, client-required safety gear, which they said they hadn’t worn since they were 10. They had some mad skills too.

… the energy, enthusiasm, good looks and stellar performances of our cast. Every one of these kids was a winner. We had only one non-teen and you couldn’t tell she was a day over 16. For me, she stole the show.

… the kindness of our clients. They had typical client concerns, but nothing we couldn’t handle and always delivered in the most pleasant and constructive manner. On the whole I couldn’t have asked for better.

… the caring presence of my favorite makeup auntie, Doris. She pampers all the talents, looks after everyone on set and goes beyond the call of duty every time. She even mirrors all the directors’ instructions just outside frame, because she believes it will help the talents. She’s so cute.

… my colleagues. I really felt everyone supporting me. They always know what to do and I felt we all worked really well together.

… the generosity of Joan, who owns the yoga centre next door. She allowed us to shoot in her beautiful ground floor studio with nary a second thought. She arrived on set to find a maelstrom of cables, shoes (we had to take them off to avoid damaging her flawless parquet), equipment and furniture and was totally Zen about it. I guess 30 years of yoga does wonders for your equilibrium. Without her, I don’t know what I would have done. Her yoga space transformed perfectly into a home jamming setup, with ample space for the crew and equipment.
…  the support of the hubby. Marlon massaged my feet after the shoot, treated me to a lovely dinner at Original Sin in Holland Village (I’m sure it was lovely, although I was so tired I can barely recall tasting anything), and even came over to lift heavy furniture and help dress up the set. James joked that next time we should introduce him as our art director.

More than anything, I’m thankful that it’s done! A milestone in my career safely tucked into the folds of my experience. Now, on to the next!

1 Comment
Posted on January 23, 2010
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: ,

Pleased with myself :)

i just had to blog this because i am so proud of myself today!

back story: after weeks of sitting through reruns of the biggest loser every day, marlon and i decided to get serious about losing weight. after all, if these 300- and 400-pound juggernauts could literally work their butts off and get even thinner than us, what the hell was our excuse? marlon took some opportune downtime at work to look for online tools that we could use to help us. initially, he found us a calorie counter widget for igoogle on labpixie, but with some more digging he turned up this website called sparkpeople.
it seemed a little confusing and tedious at first, but basically what happens is that you input your current weight and goal weight (it caps your weight loss at a very healthy 2.2lbs per week), and it churns out a recommended calorie/fat/protein/carb intake, plus a meal and exercise plan for you. 
marlon and i opted not to follow their meal plans (which seem like the most boring, white-people meals on the face of the planet) and just input our own meals into their calorie counter. you can search through their database or input the nutritional info of the brands that you like.  
it then tallies up the numbers and helps you see how you’re doing in terms of the recommended calorie/carb/fat/protein range for the day. yep, it helps you get that good old-fashioned balanced diet that you’ve been hearing about but never really believed worked. 
this is where i had all my breakthroughs, because i’ve always just starved myself (which actually forced my body to go into survival mode and cling on to the calories) or cut out carbs (which my body needs to burn calories). and i never even thought about protein (which my body needs to build muscle and pump up my metabolism), a bad habit that which became obvious in my first few days as i was always way below the minimum protein requirement. and fat… hah. it was off the charts.
ANYWAY. i could go on and on and on. but basically yun yung back story. the reason i’m so happy today is that after nearly two weeks of trying to balance my diet (and failing miserably on some days, as the spikes below will show you!), i was finally right on target today! 
the light green area is my recommended range. the out-of-bounds spikes reveal when i had a ton of olive oil in my salad dressing, or when we had a big vietnamese dinner with fried spring rolls and coffee jelly!
not only that, i was actually kulang calories and fat… even after eating a big (for me) breakfast, drinking apple juice (which i don’t normally have) and having lunch with a full tupperware of brown rice. i actually had to rack my brain for a snack that would put me just within the ideal range — and it turned out to be a midnight snack of parmesan cheese and ferrero dark chocolate! 
a diet that “forces” me to have chocolate and cheese? i never thought i would see the day. :)
2 Comments
Posted on July 16, 2009
Category: Uncategorized · Labels: ,

2008 was the year…

I almost missed my honeymoon flight… and ran straight from my arrival gate to my departure gate without my luggage.

I introduced Marlon to his new Indian relatives, and gave my family in India a new jamai (son-in-law). 

I fell in love with Rajasthan.

I rode a camel for the first time.

I saw my first desert.

I woke up before dawn to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. If there’s anything I would ever wake up that early for again and again, this would be it. 

I left home and moved to Singapore.

I began to create a new home — my first. 

I learned to cook. Really well, I might add. I also discovered a new pleasure — cooking with Marlon.

my first pasta

my first risotto

I became obsessed with Jamie Oliver.

I started writing beauty articles for Singapore magazines.

I learned that fighting with your husband never, ever means the two of you are doomed.

My grandmother died.

I got the job that I really, really, really wanted – despite having potentially screwed up my chances to get it.

I made a choice that gave me what I really, really, really wanted – despite knowing that there were going to be some people who would absolutely hate me for it.

I started working at BDA.

the office cat, da huay (“big gray”)

bda’s big black-and-white pre-war office on oxley road

I learned how to take ownership of my own ideas and be responsible for them – thereby killing a long-suffering suspicion that in my old concept team at GMA, the only person responsible for the kick-ass work we did was my brilliant partner. Oh, the dramz!

I delivered my first pitch.

I began to learn just what it takes to bring an idea to life. In short, I started to glimpse what it was really like to be a producer.

I conceptualized, scripted and produced my first spot for a regional network.

I bought my first piece of sculpture (from the Taka project, a piece by Juan Sajid Imao).

I made my first overseas remittance (and officially became an overseas Filipino worker!).

I saw Alicia Keys…

and Rihanna live in concert.

I traveled to Malaysia…

… Seoul, South Korea

… and Shanghai, China (where I turned 27 years old) for the very first time.

I jumped off a pier for the first (and what will probably be the only) time in my life, at Tioman in Malaysia.

I did an overnight shopping junket in Hong Kong.

Marlon and I paid off all our credit card debt.

I started having fun doing monthly budgets. Even beyond cleaning off the card, this to me is the ultimate sign of financial freedom.

I made the switch from PC to Mac… and wondered why I never did it earlier. (Oh, yeah. Macs are expensive. Now I remember.)

I learned that not all badings are fabulous and smart, and that my ACS badings are truly rare treasures.

I adopted a cat, Rogue (and inducted Marlon into the wonderful, adorable, thrill-a-minute world of felines).

I attended my first Promax BDA conference.

I got completely, passed-out-and-dragged-home drunk and had the worst hangover of my life… thanks to an office party.

battling for the honor of “drunkest expression” with my boss, james, and the creative director of our sydney office. i passed out shortly after this photo was taken.

I became a student of flamenco (which subsequently led to the most expensive shoe purchase of my life). 

I started muay thai.

I made my own Christmas ornaments, and set up my first Christmas tree.

I had a choir-less Christmas for the first time in over 10 years.

I celebrated one year of being married to Marlon… and continue to discover the thousandfold reasons why people fall in love and get married.

celebrating our first anniversary at the boutique hotel in tagaytay (i’m wearing my favorite of marlon’s christmas gifts this year — my bikini necklace!)

when i look back and see what a year we’ve had, how can i believe that 2009 will be any less phenomenal?

4 Comments
Posted on January 4, 2009
Category: House & Spouse, The Singapore Years, Wanderlust · Labels: , , , , ,

Small victories

finally whittling down the conjugal grocery bill from over a hundred, almost two hundred dollars a week (for two people! no wonder we were so fat!) to $80 and below. the secret: going on the south beach diet eliminates so many frivolous and often expensive purchases like cookie mixes, couscous, chocolate, various pasta ingredients.

calling my mom up on day and hearing her laugh. we hooted over the ridiculous prices of today’s “it” bags together; she had an especially big laugh over the prices of celestina bags. while window shopping in greenbelt 5, she saw a yellow croc handbag that looked exactly like a Php200 purse she got me from an ukay-ukay. the celestina price tag: Php169,000. the sales attendant generously offered her a discount, bringing the total to “only” Php139,000. oh, how my mom laughed.

after hearing a friend say the words “retail therapy”, realizing that i didn’t need it.

putting together a great interview outfit in only two tries.

feeling pride in the portfolio of print work i put together. i was saying to myself for the past five or six months, “i don’t have much of a print portfolio.” when i really put my back into creating one, i found i was wrong.

going to an interview on friday; feeling that i had been given a thoroughly fair chance to represent myself and my work… and that i had grabbed it.

realizing that while i used to thrive on long work hours in my old job, i no longer feel the compulsion to play that trump card in order to get hired. working my old hours in a new life doesn’t seem to quite fit. it misses the point of me getting married and moving here.

going home after the interview and evaluating how well the job and the company was suited for me without a tinge of desperation.

finally giving up my resistance to singapore and realizing that i could really have the time of my life here. maybe i already am.

considering that there may be no such thing as a small victory.

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Posted on May 12, 2008
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: , ,

Episode one

on wednesday, i woke up to a wonderful, wonderful email from lilian at bda.

i have this small project for you. it’s an episodic promo. would you be interested in doing this?

in j‘s words, tumumbling ako. would i be interested in my first paying job in singapore EVAR?!?!?! hell yeah!

lilian went on to tell me the rate for a 30s episodic promo spot: SGD250. she explained, rather apologetically, that if they had a generic series plug for me to do, the rate would be much higher but would i mind? what did i think?

what did i think? forking over two hundred fifty dollars to a workaholic-turned-housewife who can barely afford to get herself a mani-pedi or keep herself stocked with magazines and chocolates (my weekly must-have luhos) without dipping into the hubby’s pocket is like offering a glass of water to a man in the desert.

and two hundred fifty dollars for an episodic? dios mio, marimar! ina-outsource pa ba ‘yon? that’s nearly a third of my monthly salary at gma for something i used to do every single feckin’ day! (and on really long days, i could do literally half a dozen episodics in a day!)

put it this way: two hundred fifty dollars for an hour of logging tape. maybe another hour of scripting — at most (this generous speed assumes that i am practically brain dead, wear lead weights on my fingers and take a languorous snack break). on my first day at gma, i wrote my first script in ten minutes. and i knew nothing about the job or the show. my fingers were literally trembling as i typed.

then maybe another half hour each for revisions (if any) and brainstorming with/briefing the graphic designer (which used to take me and charlie eons). here i’ll have to supervise the voiceover session and edit session, which i never did back home, but that’s just another two to three hours tops, five if things go badly or slowly.

so, total it up and it works out to two hundred fifty dollars for less than eight hours of exactly the same type of work i used to do (and love to do) and the chance to wedge my foot in bda’s door. who am i to complain?

wait, it gets better. the next day, bda’s production manager lay tuan emailed me with the details.

i’m doing a promo for THE BBC!

the promo spot i’m doing is for an episode of BBC’s horizon. (clicky on the linky. the promo for the memory episode is awesome.) and i have ten days to do it! kakaloka! toto, we’re not in gma anymore!

first of all, i actually received a production schedule for an episodic. at gma, you’re fortunate to even get a job order. second, the schedule stretches out over ten days from viewing and timecoding to final edit and dub out (or as they say here, dump out). the long gap between scripting and edit is for client approval and revision. back home, the faster the better! episodics have been known to be viewed, scripted and edited within hours.

i got all my instructions (plus a couple of sample promo spots and a nice tip from lay tuan to bring a jacket) last week, but i’m still thrilled and delighted. i feel totally vindicated to have held out for (and pursued) work that i really love and can get super duper excited about. i don’t think i would be in this big a tizzy if i had sold out for an easy-come job like… i don’t know, a tindera at an estee lauder beauty counter. which i seriously considered for… one whole afternoon. haha!

tomorrow’s the big day! i plan to wear my gray team manila shirt (reprezzzzent y’all!). and right before i step into the bda office, i will put on my nice, new, hard-won hat — you know, the freelance on-air promo writer/producer one.

*kilig* i can’t wait.

4 Comments
Posted on April 7, 2008
Category: The Singapore Years · Labels: , , ,

This was NEVER gonna happen


zambales. august. midnight till about two-thirty, three in the a.m. a couple of beers, a bottle of ginebra, and two bottles of a mountain dew-alike called sparkle. one glass, shared in turns. (ika nga ng mga tao sa opisina, parang naka-lips to lips ko na siya. at guilt-free pa!) peanuts, i think, and some leftover chicken wings. porch steps. the ocean to my left. the most unexpected, amazing, fun, surreal conversation ever. (“magkaka-despedida ka ba? imbitahan mo naman ako.”) a goodbye that someone in the office, when i told them about it, described as “lingering.”

a new friend — one who would pass by me the next day and stop me for no reason at all except point to both our shirts, and point out: “terno tayo!” one who would pull up a chair opposite me during a lull in the workday, and share a bar of dark chocolate with me.

my all-time work crush for two years (!!!) and me.

definitely a first, and maybe-hopefully-not an only.

i love my job!

1 Comment
Posted on September 24, 2007
Category: Manila Girl at Heart · Labels: , , , ,