Sunday, November 30, 2008

while waiting


while waiting at the e.r. i came across this flyer and signed up to be an eye donor for the eye bank foundation of the philippines. it's for a good cause, i made my mom and sister sign the form as my witness. it's reasssuring to know that someday when and if something tragic does happen to me, i will still be of help to someone in need.

it took me two weeks to finally post this not just out of procrastination but because i couldn't find the scanned file of this form. silly reason but true. i finally just scanned the form again, which i don't know why i didn't do in first place. sometimes being human means being silly for a lot of times over our lifetime.

life

the very first question that my sister, lei asked me when she got to the hospital e.r., was if at impact did my life flash before me? i knew i wasn't going to die wednesday morning because although i was so certain that the tricycle i was riding in would collide with another tricycle in front of it, my life didn't flash before me and it wasn't the typical philippine public transport road accident wherein reckless driving was so evident, none of that scenario was present. the tricycle was running at a maximum of 20kph. when it happened i calmly crawled out of the tricycle, picked up my handbag and my canvass bag sprawled in the pavement, handed out some baby wipes and headed to the hospital. i had that much composure, i knew what i should do and i was so sure to at least reassure my mom before she gets the call either from me or from the hospital that somehow i am already being taken care of.

luckily it was running at that speed had it been running more than that, then my life would have probably flashed and i would have sustained more than contusions and gashes. the double dose of tramadol from the hospital and my adrenalin to get out from inside the tricycle the moment the collision happened made me say i was okay the whole day. the truth is when effects of both wore out by night time i can feel my whole body ache. the next morning the pain was more evident but for some reason i got up ready to go back to work. i don't love my job that much, in fact i'm in the verge of quitting but to show my boss that i am more than what she thinks that i am, i showed up at work all swollen in the face and all.

this accident is about the only third time in my entire 27 years that i ended up in a hospital e.r. because of me and not because of my brother or sister. i am somewhat different from both of them, i rarely get sick and if i do, it's the type that only merit a visit to the doctor's clinic nothing as complicated as my brother or sister have gone through. my mom as my sister told me panicked and woke up the whole house when she got my call, the hospital's call came a bit later when they have already left the house to come to the hospital. i got that sense of panic when i was telling her on the phone what happened to me, an exact opposite of my boss who even after being informed of what happened sent me a text message and gave information of a project to be rushed and told me the following day that she expected me to come to work right after the hospital.

after the accident, i still take the tricycle and nothing has really changed. i don't have poignant realizations nor long pauses to think about things. surely i am thankful to be alive. for most parts life is back to normal maybe i want to have time to rest more. i was hoping for that, wait maybe i secretly wished for it to happen so i could skip work but on the contrary i didn't get it if one day out of work quantifies time off work because of vehicular accident. instead what my boss showed me was another reason to leave the soonest because of her insensitivity.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

on using the word "hate"

for about two weeks i kept thinking how i heard my boss mention that she hated one of my co-workers for not following company policy. what stuck to my mind was how she casually used the word hate over such very minor infraction with matching all the facial contortions to go with such a strong and emotional word. looking at her at that very moment i zoned out and i simply didn't want to listen to her rantings about my co-worker. she could have settled it with that person and being the boss that she is she should have pointed out that she disapproves whatever my co-worker's actions were.

in today's society as much as we are so obsessed with our quest for love, to love and be loved, we're not so careful on using certain words or terminologies that carry so much negative weight. there's always the word dislike or disapprove that can be used instead of the word hate. someone once told me to tone down using the word hate over minor things like how i would use to say that i hate japanese food, he suggested that maybe i should just say i dislike japanese food. he said that i should reserve the word hate for extreme situations that would merit usage of the word. all these years i kept his advice into mind and yes it did lessen the negativity in my life. being positive should start somewhere even switching and refining one's usage of words believe it or not could spell the difference.