Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Now, moving on...
I really don't have much to talk about. I've been brushing up on my regional politics, if only to make a better estimate of what might happen if China becomes the leading country in SE Asia. I can imagine that the loss of control would be a nasty surprise for the US, particularly if economic ties with China weaken those same ties with America. Oh, happy day!
I've finally progressed to Chapter 23 of Darkness & Stars, though I may have to come back to Chapter 22 at some point. It feels a little void of something, but I'm not sure what. I'm sure it'll come to me eventually, so I'll just leave it as it is for now. However, as for my other project, I don't even know what it should be anymore.
More on that later. For now, I sleep as I attempt to fight a nasty cough & cold.
Late, Late Edit:
Folks, I know that I'll be the first to admit that my memories of Intelligraph Corporation are tainted by a sense of bitterness, I have come to realize a few things. Yes, the management sucked more than even the worst crack-whore. Yes, I do acknowledge that Gene Cruz's management style was probably outlined for him by the aforementioned crack-whore. Yes, I will admit that writing and business are two fields that should not be made to mix with one another. Yes, I will admit that writing as if part of some sort of a twisted production line is bad for creativity. However, I will also admit now that it has given me...for lack of a better word, discipline.
Make no mistake about it, this is not praise for the management style. This is praise for the harsh working conditions that we all had to endure. Like the warriors of Sparta, working at that Hell-hole of a company trained me to think faster and write faster, which has come in handy. It didn't train me to be more creative, but that's an impossibility. It also taught me that if you're trying to make writing into your career, you're liable to go insane. Also, if you already are insane, then you've got very little to worry about.
However, this post by a good friend reminded me of what mattered most to me during my tenure there: the people.
I am not a people person. Ask anyone who's known me prior to my working with them in the office and you'll get that. I simply don't like people. I'm not fond of how inefficient they seem, how they remind me of social norms and mores I have to adhere to, how they blindly follow the misinterpreted teachings of a dead Jew, and a thousand other things. However, I have a tendency, a weakness that makes me like certain individuals. No matter what office or company I go to, I always manage to find an individual or two who I genuinely enjoy spending time with.
It's a complicated thing.
I will genuinely miss the people I worked with at the ol' TCS department. And Ambergris. And ePLDT. And TeleTech. Oddly, I doubt that I'll miss the people I spent my college and grade school years with, for reasons that are diametrically opposed but related to memory nonetheless. High school is...an odd question. Ah, but this is about May and Ja-Ja and Miss Marilou and Miss Leslie and R-Con and so many others, so let me get back to them.
I can't say I had a deep seated personal connection to any one of them, likely from lack of trying. But the time I spent there with them, fighting in the trenches of the Eastern front, made us comrades-in-arms of sorts. To this day, I'd trust few other people to critique my work aside from my fellow Intelligraph Writers. I'm open to having them read it, but the only serious suggestions I'd listen to would come from the old TCS division.
Part of me is sad at the news that a whole bunch of them are going. Part of me thinks it isn't right, that they've been there and endured, and should continue to do so. But most of me understands that they have to move on, to seek greener pastures. There was, after all, only so much that I could be expected to endure from the dumb-ass boss. It follows suit that they also had their limits, though the backs of their camels were broken by that fatal straw and not hammered down. It makes me feel...melancholic to hear that they're all splitting up and finding new places to go, new offices to inhabit, and new things to write about.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to know that they're all getting (or will get) the rest they deserve. But I am a touch unhappy at the idea that it won't be a group thing. Cheesy as it may sound, I don't think I ever really blended in with the people I worked with as well as I did back there. Sure, that sounds like an odd way to describe me, the strangest writer the company has likely ever had, but that's how it felt for me. I've never felt so integrated into an office as back then, due entirely to the people I worked with and not the people I worked for.
An odd feeling, that.
Well, for now, I look to the crimson sunset and ponder. I suppose the only thing I can really say to my former comrades is this:
"Let them throw at us what they will. We have endured far worse."
Also, if School Days fails to have a bloody, gory ending, I will be severely disappointed, possibly even homicidal in the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni way.
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