Posts tagged work

Tatay

Four years and ten months later, the boy will receive his hard-earned college diploma and fall into a subtle state of recollection as he remembers that faraway day in Manila when a certain plumber gave him batteries for his Jollibee radio and bought him a T-square. He was only ten years old at that moment. The Jollibee radio was a portable AM/FM receiver inside a casing shaped and made to look like the beloved fast-food chain mascot. The T-square was a 90-cm Staedtler with a plastic handle and a wooden blade. The plumber was Tatay, his father.

Earlier that day, back in their house in the province, he woke up to the noisy rumbles of a vehicle that took a stop beside their yard. Nanay, his mother, told him it was Auntie Precy and her son Kuya Dexter’s car. Turned out they came to pick him up and let him join them on their trip to Manila. They were going to oversee the construction of the apartment houses they were building in Quezon City. Tatay, a plumber by trade, was asked about a month before to do some work there, and as a gesture of consideration, Auntie Precy offered to take the boy along so that he may pay his father a visit. He was a little reluctant at first, what with thoughts of missing a day of watching his favorite cartoons and playing with his snotty-nosed neighborhood friends egging him on not to go. But Nanay was very eager to send him off. In the future, just before his graduation march, he will be thanking his mother for that.

So the boy jumped in the back seat and, with Kuya Dexter behind the wheel, they started on their six-hour journey. Sure enough, throughout the first few legs he would get so bored by the interminable panoramas of houses, farms, and trees moving past that he would fall asleep and wake up a few minutes later. At one point, he woke up to the noisy rumbles not of the car (which was perfectly quiet at that time) but of his hungry stomach. Imagine the excited look in his face when he realized that they had parked outside the Filipino child’s favorite place in the world: Jollibee!

They hit the road once more after eating their midday meal and purchasing a promotional limited-edition Jollibee radio for the kid. Scrutinizing the radio, while listening to it, was what the boy did for the rest of the journey. No longer jaded by the passing landscapes, he was wide awake with Jollibee cradled in his youthful hands. Indeed, he was so amazed by it that he made a note-to-self that as soon as they arrived at their destination he would have his father tell him what could possibly be inside Jollibee’s round torso that made all those sounds of music, public announcements and whatnot.

The time came and he did just that. Unfortunately, his father did not know much about radios and had no clear-cut answer to offer him. Oh, the boy thought, it’s okay. I’ll play with it anyway. In what he was to realize years later as the hands of fate at work, far more than his father’s act of self-redemption, the plumber took him to the local bookstore apparently just to buy some replacement batteries for his Jollibee radio. As was expected, upon entering the shop, Tatay approached a counter and asked for a couple of AA batteries. But he also requested for something else whose name the boy didn’t quite catch. It turned out to be something rather like the six-inch ruler he used in drawing straight lines for his fourth-grade schoolwork, only much longer, much bigger, and much more expensive. It had a curious thingamajig attached to one end so that it resembled a letter “T”. Tatay, the unassuming plumber, handed it to his son along with the pair of electric cells for Jollibee and said that it was a T-square.

Fast forward to the present and the boy is now an incoming college freshman filling out an enrolment form at a well known university in Baguio. He has finished writing on all blank spaces on the form except for one; he’s still in doubt as to what course he should take up, what career he should embark on. Just then he remembers that day with the plumber, Jollibee, and the T-square, and it comes to him as though in an epiphany what he should write on the space prompting him to specify his chosen course: BS ECE.

Many years later, he will sit in his office after another day of electronics and communications engineering work and look back to when he wrote those fateful five letters. He will smile surreptitiously as he relishes the prospect of giving his ten-year old child something inspired by what her grandfather gave him years ago. But instead of handing him something shaped like a letter T, he will give her an object resembling a Y. Someday in the not-so-distant future, amid an outburst of ovation, his daughter will be remembering the day her Tatay gave her a stethoscope.

Verboten

I find it both amusing and somewhat sick at the same time that when learning a new language, it’s always the bad words I get to learn first.

Back when I was just a young ‘un, a family from Tarlac moved to the house adjacent to ours. The mother often gave her kids an earful and it was from those live and loud episodes of parental castigations that I picked up the Kapampangan swear phrase, “Puta nay da mo!” which sounds a lot like and has the same meaning as the Tagalog “Putang ina mo!”: “Your mother is a whore!” So the mother was actually telling her kids about her profession every time she told them off. Huhm.

Years later, attending a university in the predominantly Ilocano-speaking city of Baguio, one of the first words I learned was, sure enough, one that would fit quite well in an outburst of Ilocano profanity. Breathe in, and say, “Ukinam!” Again, in the tradition of the aforementioned expletives and Western culture’s “Yo Mama” jokes, the curse word pertains to one’s mother. But this time it’s not about her sleazy occupation; it simply refers to her genitalia. Literally, “Yo Mama’s cunt!” We Pangalatok Pangasinan-speaking folks say “Baoninam!” instead to convey the same possessive form.

Also while in college, studying sign language on the side, I learned a new way to express anger, exasperation, frustration and other similar emotions with a simple hand gesture. Nope, it’s not by flipping the bird. I learned that a long time ago. It turned out members of the deaf community have a general agreement that if somebody does the handshape for F and points it straight at you, that’s as good as him or her telling you to F yourself. Makes sense.

Now, working for a Japanese company, I am largely obligated to learn the language of the anime. It’s so excruciating at times, all I can say is “Kuso!”

Reused

I badge out, wait for the all-important beep from the timekeeping machine, have my mailman bag checked by the guard on my way out, instinctively enter the first elevator that opens and stick my iPod earbuds underneath my shirt, guiding them into my auditory orifices as I make my descent. From the ground floor of our office building to one of the FX terminals behind that big mall at the border of Pasig and Mandaluyong, I walk. And I contemplate my navel, while a rather poignant song is playing in my ears.

Usually what I do during my afternoon walks from work is listen to a How Stuff Works podcast episode and learn exactly how Murphy’s Law works or why toothpaste makes orange juice taste bad. Some work-related thing though has ticked me off and caused me to think about matters so pressing that they would only muffle the voices of hosts Josh and Chuck as they try to explain, say, how Albert Einstein’s brain worked, were I to listen to said podcast.

I think I want to moonlight. Light. I think I really need to gain some weight. Weight. I think I’ll buy me a blue basket chock-full of Hershey’s and some macadamia nuts. Nuts. I think I really ought to do laundry and end things once and for all between me and my undies tonight. Night.