Windows of opportunity

Apologies for not updating as often as I should. PLDT has basically given me the shoddiest DSL ever and it's become nigh-impossible to catch it working at home.

I am in a fascinating time. There are so many opportunities and activities opening up for me that I can't help but get excited at all the potential I'm smelling.

For three weeks now Mav and I have been jogging at Bonifacio High Street. We basically thought of turning to running as a way of keeping ourselves fit and maybe lose some weight, but so far we've been enjoying ourselves pounding away at the hard-packed concrete sidewalks. Mav is steadily getting better as she gets used to the demands of jogging.

Team Flat Out also invited me to Don Pastor's plan of making what they call a "gentlemen's racing series" - basically an open wheel-to-wheel racing class for daily driven cars and amateur drivers who have no racing licenses. If you can imagine what Keiichi Tsuchiya and his fellow race-driver co-hosts do on every episode of "Best Motoring" around Tsukuba Circuit, I reckon you wouldn't be far off.

Also when I try figuring out what I want to do with my life, it seems everything points to the direction of cars. Summit Media, that publishing giant with its offices just three floors down from mine, had a number of job vacancies, and Mav encouraged me to send in my application. Sadly there was no opening for "Top Gear Philippines" but maybe I could start elsewhere with that dream of being an automotive journalist in mind.

My only reservations revolve around leaving my comfort zone, I suppose. For better or worse I've adapted to my current situation pretty well, and there's a part of me that's fearful of leaving something that's already pretty secure. Then again I seem to have hit a wall and have stopped growing...perhaps because I've grown tired of my daily work grind.

So many opportunities, yet so many insecurities as well. It's an exciting time to be alive.

Signs

The week before last, I met Pao, a fellow poster from JACU and JDMUnderground Philippines. He happened to work at the same building as I did. When I asked what kind of work he did, he said he was from the Human Resources department of Summit Media, publishers of "Top Gear Philippines."

Last Thursday, on my way to the grocery I walked into Botchi Santos, one of Top Gear Philippines' more popular writers from his "Wrong Car Right Car" section where each month he helps someone pick out the vehicle they like, with pros and cons. No doubt Botchi had come from the studios of the radio station Jam 88.3, as he hosts an hour-long radio segment there about cars.

On the way back to work, after buying oatmeal, I happened to share the elevator with a guy holding a contract for Summit Media. Curious guy that I am, I looked over and saw the usual details: performance evaluation, regularization policy, etc.

These are probably signs that I should move on from my present post. I feel like I've lost my groove here. Sure I'm a certified software test engineer but that hasn't really spelled the difference for me. I haven't had a bigger paycheck; heck I didn't even get promoted, and those that did were disappointed with their raises. Ever since I left Barclays I haven't been enjoying work either.

My dad was always egging me on since my latter days in college that I should try to work as a writer in the automotive industry, since that's what I really like. Lately I've taken his words seriously. You never know, perhaps my professional bliss resides just four floors down from my present location.

I don't know where to start though. My portfolio as a writer is pretty much zero for now, if you don't count my blog, my mecha reviews at MAHQ and the thousands of posts I've made on car forum websites. Mav was kind enough to do a little research for me and said Summit Media didn't have any writer openings for Top Gear Philippines. Maybe I should just get out and do my own writing for now, just to build up my credibility, until that opening arrives.

Fingers crossed.

White noise

As a writer, my one greatest weakness is that I suffer from the potential of giving people what Mao used to call "logorrhea." It's like loose bowel movement but with words instead of feces.

I am so jealous of people - songwriters, lyricists and poets, for instance - who can drive home their loaded point with the sparest of verses. Perhaps I'm more jealous of songwriters as I hardly read poetry anyway. It's amazing how the songs with the best and deepest emotional connections to our hearts are those that have the simplest lyrics paired with the most appropriate melody.

Other people have told me my talent is in explanation. Sometimes I get sick of it. As a speaker I am proud of it, but as a writer, there's no challenge in explaining things as best as I could in black and white. If I were a novel --- and I say this because there's no way I can be a song or poem ---I'd barely have turned any of my pages; if I were a magazine I'd barely have sold because I don't have a good angle.

Keane. Sugarfree. Vienna Teng. I envy them all, their profound lingual grasp of "less is more," their letting the music speak.

Arthur Golden. Bill Dare. Banana Yoshimoto. I envy them all, their grasp of "KISS" - keep it simple, stupid.

Maybe I have no mystique left to me because I'm all explained out. I'm all white noise, there but not there.