tagged: all right, all right!

For the second time now Don has sent me a tag. I’ve been ignoring the first one, and so rather than risk facing recurring reproaches and eternal damnation (ok, I’m exaggerating. maybe he’ll just pout his lips and go hmp), I’m going to give this one a go.

The mechanics:

“Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a blog with 8 facts/things/habits about yourself, saying who tagged you. In the end you need to choose the 6 people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs.”

Gaak. Eight? But the good stuff I’ve already put in my Friendster profile! And six people? My blogosphere consists of like 5 people, three of whom he’s already tagged! Oh well, here goes:

1. I used to hate, and actually still do hate, those “Tell me about yourself” or “Describe yourself” questions one invariably gets asked in job interviews and application forms. It’s not exactly a surprising question, but somehow it throws me whenever I do get asked. I wish I can just say, “Uh, could you be more specific?” I end up mouthing senseless generalities, pulling so-called “qualities” out of thin air and trying to package them in a not too self-flattering way, in an attempt to answer the real (but still general as heck) question behind “Describe yourself,” which is, “So why the heck should I hire you?” Why indeed?
2. I have a problem with anger management – not in controlling it, but expressing it. I’m such a wimp and would like to avoid all types of confrontation as much as possible. Back in Grade 2 I was the class “peacemaker,” actually going back and forth between two warring parties in an attempt to resolve what must have been earth-shaking seven-year-old’s disputes. I would kneel beside the desk of Girl A, presenting Girl B’s side of the issue, while Girl A would sit staring straight ahead and snootily say, “Sabihin mo sa kanya .. yada-yada-yada.” I can’t remember for the life of me whether I was a great success at those peacekeeping missions, but it must have been a hit-or-miss affair because apparently I stopped doing it after grade 2. Probably, at the ripe old age of 7, I was disillusioned at the certain futilities of conflict resolution. Tipong, a bahala na nga kayo sa buhay nyo!
3. I have discovered time and again that I am just not built for take home weekend work. Whenever I go home to the province on weekends it’s like I’m entering a time warp, or maybe a refuge, a Tara of sorts if you will, and you should not, not, attempt to intrude with bothersome city/work concerns. Leave me be with my big bed, my 12 nn wake-up time, and cable tv.
4. I’m not a morning person. Not a Monday person either. Tuesdays I’m generally frazzled since it’s our weekly client meeting. Wednesdays I’m working on tasks talked about during the Tuesday meetings. Thursday I’m recovering from the strain of it all. Fridays I’m too wound up in anticipation for the weekend I’m generally no use. I’m actually at my best during weekends, when I go home to the province and – see number 3
5. At the right moments, I posses a laugh that can scandalize, amuse, terrify, rattle the room. I happen to like it, so deal with it.
6. My father and I hardly even talk nowadays, but I will forever be grateful to him for introducing me to coffee, albeit instant, at the age of five. Just about the right age, I would say.
7. Sir Avecilla back in mass comm. days used to terrify us with lectures on the evils of mediocrity, and how we should never settle for it or even tolerate it. More often than not, I fear that I’m guilty of exactly that.
8. I’m a reading geek, though not quite as much as before. My earliest storybook was the Old Testament Tagalog version (“Mommy, ano ibig sabihin ng ‘sinipingan?’ Sinipingan ni Adan si Eba at sila’y nagkaanak), and you can still quiz me on Bible stories any day of the week. The first “novel” I ever read was a Sweet Dreams romance, read in the solitude of my room while being held hostage by a kick-ass case of chicken pox that actually formed various constellations on my tortured skin. I was eleven. The rest is history.

All right. Done. Now for my victims: Joc, Jaypee, Noreen, TJ (who will kill me for “outing” her blog). Never mind the six people requirement, and the first two probably have a total of 10 posts a year between the two of them, so good luck with that.