diary entry 35: the ex files

Exactly a week ago, my ex (who didn’t talk to me for a year) sent me a message to my YM from nowhere. It was so unexpected that I even asked him if he sent the message to the right window. hahaha. Apparently he did. He apologized for everything and told me he had many regrets. Because I was taken aback, my frequent responses were ‘ok’ and ‘no problem’. It had been a year, it was just normal not to vividly remember what exactly happened during that time. In short, I willingly accepted his apology. I told him to put everything to rest because it had been quite a long time.

 

So after we chatted, I jogged my memory and tried to remember everything transpired last year…As I went back to the past, and thread things piece by piece, my annoyance with him was awaken! hahaha. I wanted to take back my acceptance! hahaha. I got a little confused. Yes I happy that he remembered me…But a part of me felt wasn’t ready talk to him. I stayed away from YM for a couple of days. I thought it through…I realized that I had to talk to him to see what his real intentions were… so that we can settle this for once and for all…If he wanted to be my friend, I had to tell him that I couldn’t accept his friendship. I know exes can be friends… As I proudly tell people, my other is ex is still a close friend of mine. But with this one, we absolutely cannot be.

 

Over the weekend, we talked over voice chat. We talked for 5 hours, an accumulated 15 minutes was allotted for me to speak and the rest was his. hahaha. To sum it all up, he was sorry…he still loved me…he wanted another chance…I was honest with I felt that I still have feelings for him but not sure if there’s still a chance. I said, I’ll think and pray about it. For now, everything is under negotiation.

 

With all the things that I need to focus on, the last thing I need is a romantic entanglement. We’ve spoken several times since last week. I know you can really tell the sincerity of a person by mere email, voice chat or texts, but somehow I know he has been nothing but sincere about everything… The problem is me, I’m not sure. I want different things now. I’m completely different from the unsure 21 year girl whom he fell in love with. Like that version of me, I can be emotional and more so, insecure at times. But in some ways I’m different now. Through the years we’ve been a part, I got used to being on my own, not considering a significant other.  I don’t know…

diary entry 34: us, racist?

As usual, our officemates who have nothing else to do with their time but to watch our every move — took their pleasure from pestering us yet again. The other day, the three of us (me and 2 pinay officemates— I’ll call them Officemate 1 and Officemate 2) were invited to our boss’ office to discuss the complaints of our other officemates about us being racists. That’s right, racist! But prior to that closed-room meeting, we already knew was it about. A week before that, Officemate 1 received an email (she was just a C.C recipient, it was really intended for our boss) from an elderly officemate complaining about Officemate 2’s racist behavior. Bad as it is, our code name for this elderly officemates is Majonda. We’re not ageist, okay?! We just call her that way because she’s an old lady acting like a teenager which really annoys us. Anyway, about the email… It said that the panatiks community are ‘disgusted’ with Officemate 2’s racist behavior and comments. That she often covers her nose in the office every time a panatik is around, even inside office bus, and keeps on shouting “bad smell! Bad smell!”.  Majonda also included that Officemate 2 insists on closing the door of our room because of the bad smell coming from the pantry, which she found very insulting. But we found this rather funny because as I said, Majonda is like a teenager, everything or anything is a big deal for her. She said she’s speaking on behalf of her fellow citizen in the office. What a load of crap! We’re pretty sure that she was just speaking for herself. Besides, Majonda and Officemate 2 have been clashing each other long before I joined the company. Majonda has a track record of being melodramatic and making a big fuss out of trivial matters.   So we’re pretty convinced that this is just one of her silly fetishes.

 

Even our boss, was not even totally serious while speaking with us about this matter. Perhaps as respect to Majonda who has been here for almost a decade now, he decided to talk to us. He just said ‘some’ panakatiks were complaining, and think we’re being racist. He advised us to be ‘sensitive’ since we’re working in a diverse cultural place. I bit my tongue so hard, it almost bled. I wanted to say something but decided not to. We, insensitive?! Really now!

 

One of the things I learned is when to speak up and when to shut my mouth. This was one of those times I need to shut up. So we just sat still, pretended to listen intently and nodded.

 

After that meeting, 3 of us had a good laugh. hahaha. We didn’t take it seriously. So we moved on and went back to our work.

 

But Majonda didn’t back off. Every time she went to our room to use the copier or fax machine, she made sure her presence was felt by slamming the door, banging things on the table, stamping her feet loudly while murmuring something under her breath. So mature, right? hahaha. That didn’t stop there, the next day, she let her sign every employee a memo about being ‘sensitive’ with one another’s culture. And that same day, a male panatik co-worker who came from vacation brought some delicacies from his country to be distributed to everyone in the office. This so mature Majonda, told the office boy not to give us any food. First of all, it wasn’t her call to do that primarily because the delicacies didn’t belong to her. Second of all, that was so unethical. She was taking it too personally. Mind you, this Majonda is a 53-year old lady…she is the HR/office administrator who is supposed to mediate when conflicts happen. But no, but instead she’s the person who’d surely provoke such things.

 

Since we work in multicultural environment, simple misunderstandings typically lead to quarrels. We’re full aware of that. When there are cultural differences, language barrier is also there. Language barrier causes miscommunication. As far as we, Pinays are concerned, we always leave room for benefit of the doubt. Meaning, if we didn’t like something or offended by someone in the office, we consider that maybe we just misinterpreted things.  We don’t jump into conclusion and hurriedly complain. If it isn’t a big deal, we shrugged it off. They complained that when we see panatiks eating in the pantry, we instantly leave. The pantry is really small. It’s gonna be overcrowded if we stay. What’s the big deal about that? We cover our noses, when we’re inside the office bus. Bus is a compound place. It’s our body. We choose what kind of air we inhale. Anong magagawa namen kung may hindi magandang amoy talaga dun?! It’s really dizzying and nauseating. About us, not mingling with them outside the work, this is our life, we choose whom with socialize with. It’s our frickin’ right! As a long as we do our jobs well, and we talk to them at work, that’s enough I think. Which of the things we do can be classified as being racist?!

diary entry 33: nothing’s new

My crush got fired. He received his one month notice for termination yesterday.  It wasn’t because of the recession…he hadn’t been laid off. He was fired by our boss. Why wouldn’t he be? He was such a slacker. He was frequently absent and often late whenever he had an impulse to come here at the office. He didn’t wait for the month to finish. The moment he received his termination letter, he immediately stormed out of the office. What a brat! Ha ha ha. Too bad, I would no longer see that hottie brat. I didn’t like him that much, anyway. Ha ha ha.

 

So, nothing much happened in life. No surprise to that.  Ha ha ha. But of course, there’s always something to learn everyday if I’m just sensitive and receptive enough.