Lost Angles

Life, I have concluded, is a series of dodecahedron formations mounted upon one another such that they form a near-infinite number of angles and tangents. At the heart of this malevolent formation is you, trying to make heads-or-tails of the whole thing from the inside. Not pleasant.

In keeping with this general line of thought, I've decided to try and spot as many of these angles and tangents as possible. Numbering them, if need be. For today's completely useless bit of banter, we have a series of tangents that have come to my attention again recently. I suspect I've done each one in this blog at least once before, but there is always a good reason to re-visit your old thoughts and perceptions, no?

Tangent 8472: EduNara

I think it's time I did a re-visit on my EduNara entry. People who comment on that seem to be entirely focused on the fact that you're, basically, lying to the Korean people. Interestingly enough, that's not what I disliked the most about the company's policies, even if I did oppose the idea. Personally, I disliked the thought that I was being, in the simplest terms, shafted.

The company, from what I remember (that's a lot) and what I've heard since, is a rip-off artist that'll put P.T. Barnum to shame. And they're not just ripping off the employees! No, they're ripping off the Koreans too, and I have no beef against Korea, so I don't like them being treated in this manner.

I know a couple of Koreans here and there. They're not as prejudiced as EduNara's higher-ups would like you to think. Sure, they'd prefer if they were taught by someone who is a native speaker, but they know as well as we do that native speakers rarely have the best grasp of their native tongue's grammar and aesthetics. Koreans have a trait that they share with the Japanese (though they'll deny this until the country is nuked by their Northern brethren under orders of "Dear Leader"), and that is the appreciation of sincere, hard work. Show them you know what you're doing and you're doing it well for the sake of doing it well, and they will appreciate you (and your work) for it.

My other complaint lies in the fact that we're told to lie to them. This is unfair to us, as we are not Americans. There is no way that we can pretend to be Americans unless we've been there and have managed to spend a significant amount of time there. It isn't the lying itself that bothers me, as I'm a natural liar and I believe firmly that deception and conspiracy are the true foundations of a society or religion. What I am complaining about is the fact that we're not given ample material to build our lies upon. If you expect us to pretend to be Americans, provide us with what we need to concoct a plausible backstory for our supposed "American lives," you bloody gits.

Of course, this all boils down to my most important complaint about the place. Payment. Let's see. You expect us to lie to the people we talk to. You expect us to tolerate varying levels of English incompetence without even consulting us on whether or not we'd be comfortable (or, indeed, capable) of such things. You expect us to craft a detailed, elaborate background to explain the lies we are supposed to tell. And you expect us to do this for the same amount that a typical Dell - ABU Customer Care agent makes? Rip-off, plain and simple.

For one thing, Dell - ABU doesn't expect us to lie. They expect us to be understood by the client and to be nice and friendly. Incidentally, EduNara expects that too. Anyway, EduNara is basically requiring me to do twice the mental labor on a daily basis that I used to do for Dell. For the same amount of money. By all rights, if there was any actual justice in this world, I should get more money than that!

I'm glad I never bothered to show up for the second day. It would have been a waste of brain cells.

Angle 3341: Intelligraph Kills The Artist In Me

It is not a truth. It is a fact.

You'd think working in a place where you have to write would be a good thing for your inner artist, your inner Stephen King or Anne Rice or William Shakespeare. But no. In the 9 months I've been here, I have yet to produce something even remotely touching upon my old projects. Gods, I miss actually enjoying the prospect of writing.

Well, not that I don't enjoy it anymore. Just that now it's...different.

I enjoy the nature of the work, the chaotic temper of the beast. I do not enjoy the details of the work, the patchwork that makes up the horns of the bull.

I have an outlet to let out my creative juices, of course. Cecilia & Mint is progressing nicely, thank you very much. However, the words from the song echo in my head every single time I sit down, turn on that computer, and see the Ubuntu Linux splash screen come up.

Where do we go from here?

Promotion is not an option. I'm a competent writer. I'm an incompetent editor. I refuse to be put into a position where the skills I've developed will essentially be made useless. You spend so long at one task that you become good at it, but when they promote you because you're good at your job, you find that the promotion requires work that's completely different from what you're good at. Thus, from competency and skill, you degenerate to incompetency and idiocy. I refuse to be part of that. You want to reward me for being a good writer, pay me more. Don't remove me from what I'm good at.

I'm thankful for Cecilia & Mint. That project, that novel is what keeps me stable and sane now. Granted, what goes on in those pages is utterly insane, but that's just my mind and my memories collaborating to make sure that even if the novel is a love story, it is as far from a normal one as humanly possible. 100-plus pages and I'm nowhere near done yet, which I actually feel good about. It might not become a New York Times Bestseller. It might never even get published beyond the Internet. But, really, I write it because I love the story, I love the characters, and I love how it feels to just let it all flow out through the keypad of my trusty Treo650, where the whole thing was written.

When that's done, I'll likely go into a lull for a bit, and then another idea will spark up.

However, I don't think anything I make from here on end is going to be as dear to me as Cecilia & Mint. This story is my creative spark, a culmination of things I've consciously studied and things I've somehow learned through means I do not understand. And Gods, I love the women in it.

However, I do feel ripped-off by the "Elite Writer" program. From what I understand, I'm basically been turned into a copywriter, minus the decent pay. This sucks. I know copywriters. I know how well they're paid. For the love of Asmodeus, my uncle is a copywriter. I'm getting paid a half-opened bag of peanuts compared to what a typical copywriter would get if he worked in a halfway decent company. On top of that, the boss is piling up more and more added tasks for us that no longer fall into our job description, no matter how much you stretch the terms of it. This bullshit I put up with isn't worth even half the aggravation I deal with on a daily basis, but I keep going to work. Why?

Well, for one thing, I have yet to find a place with the same work but better pay. Technically, there is one, but I like to think I'm not desperate enough to write pornography, Yuki's Diary and assorted lemon fanfics aside.

The other thing is that I like the flexibility. I'm done with my work, so I can leave. I get home, I start writing whatever I feel like. I have a lot more time to work on my baby, Cecilia & Mint, than I would at any other job. Part of me doesn't want to let that go. Not until I get to the home stretch.

Tangent 66754: Philosophy

Here are a few things I've learned about life and dealing with it.

1. Everything in life is about timing and location.
2. It is easier to write about being in love than it is to be in love.
3. Be nice to girl, because if there is a "God," chances are "God" is female.
4. Rare is the person who understands the value of a single, perfect rose.
5. The only truly, perfectly happy bride and groom are the ones that are used as decorations on the wedding cake.
6. There is no such thing as perfection, as being perfect implies the absence of flaws, which is, itself, a flaw.
7. In love, one party is always Pygmalion and one party is always Galatea.
8. God does not play dice with the world. He plays roulette using the Nostradamus method.
9. The truth is malleable.
10. We may claim otherwise, but we always make our "gods" in our image.