Over Coffee

i swear. i have never been so tired in my entire life except now.

i think id be suffering on flu again next week. goodluck to me with all the headaches and runny nose and dry cough.

God! please dont make it that bad. if im not taking good care of myself good enough today, i promise to try even harder tomorrow.

nevertheless, im happy. the haggard day and no sleep was well compensated.

my Napungas community just had their first transaction of delivering fresh cardava bananas to Snap Snax (a banana chips exporter) a success! weheee! moreso, they only had 87 kilos rejected and 8.279 tons good ones! that means, more money for the cooperative!

i deserve some ice cream! wehey!

my classmate iteet gave me a copy of her newly brought MYMP album. she said it was best for relaxation while squeezing our brains in going over our assignments. i am loving the album, but there is one particular song that can make me smile. i am posting the lyrics here.

NOW

MYMP (make your momma proud)

Now is all I know
Now is all I got
And I don’t know
If there will be tomorrow for us.

Now is all I care about
Now that you are here
Now that you’re the contents of my heart.

Now you’re all I know
Now is all I promise
And I don’t know
If there will be a future for us.

Now is all I live for
Now that you are near
And it was best that from the start it was clear.

Refrain:
Loving is not owning
We can let it go
We can let it go.

Loving is not owning
You can let me go
You can let me go.

Chorus:
There’s a reason
Why we love each other now
And we don’t know if this is forever.

There’s a reason
Why we are together now
And we don’t care if it’s not forever now.

Now is all I think about
Now that I am happy
And I’m not sure
If there will be a future for us.

Now is all I offer
It’s everything I got
And I still wish
That there will be a tomorrow for us.

(Repeat Refrain)
(Repeat Chorus)
Ad Lib
(Repeat Refrain)
(Repeat Chorus except last word)
(Repeat Chorus)

Coda:
We love each other now…

*author is playing the song while doing this entry.. and she is currently smiling.*

yesterday, our team was in Malita, Davao del Sur to feast with our communities in their 2nd Gaginaway Festival. Yes, we are to celebrate a festival, but honestly, I was not in the mood to enjoy it. i was not all excited for a couple of reasons.

First, it was not my area of responsibility. But then I was needed there since a part of the festival would be a cardava recipe cooking contest. I have to document all the new ones for the 2^nd edition of the cardava recipe book.

Secondly, who would want to work on a sunday given that i had to miss Ka Adel’s make up class for my masters, and the day before had exhausted all the energy i had left for the week? secondly, the road to Malita, though now paved and cemented, is much more like a chicken’s intestine. and to add, i had to stay at the backest seat of the vehicle, that is expected to make the trip a very drowsing one.

we arrived a little sooner before lunch and i begged my colleagues for us to grab some tasty soup first. i needed that to calm my grumbling stomach, though not quite sure if its because im hungry or just plainly dizzy, or it can be both. They weren’t but I forced them to, convinced that if we wont, then surely id be racing against time to get to the closest cr to puke. and that is not a pretty view.

it was not a quick lunch. everybody was in a festive mood and even on a sunday, the small but neat restaurant where we ate was jampacked with people; locals, visitors and media practioners could be there too. the food displayed on the shelves looked really tasty that we ended up pointing and asking almost everything there! we were a bunch of obnoxious pigs that went on a scrumptuous meal. we had a good war with the hunger and heat, with food and a small dose of ice cream as our armors. lighting a cigarette after under the comforting shade of the old big mango tree was to conclude the noon.

then, we head straight to the event venue. this time, i am a little pumped up and was getting ready for the cooking contest. Then I spotted something. It was his gadget which actually caught my eyes first. His camera was among my wishlists for Christmas. I have wanted to be a photographer, a skilled one, that is. As he paused and clicked and shoot pictures, the more i find him cute, not just the thing where his hands were all curled up. He is gorgeous alright. in fact, even the place was as busy as the team was, I find it hard to get my eyes off him, and he actually noticed that. Or so I think. Nevertheless, he is so perfect for my type of guy.

Arriving at Davao later that day, I decided to surf his name with the hopes that I might dig prettier things about him. But alas! And later did I know that he was a popular, award-winning photographer in Davao. Moreso, he had a photography studio right within the compound where I was sitted. *and that made me actually wanna shrink right there and then*

I continued to read on articles about him, how he started, got here, and how he became as he is now. I think I just found an inspiration to continue doing and pursuing what I really love. He made me realize that though not early enough, but not too late even.

Id be visiting more and more places, meeting new and newer people, learning on old and older cultures and mingle with different societies. And id carry memories stamped on nice photographs in each trek. Id be pointing and shooting people and landscapes. And lastly, il be saving up for a nice photo gadget. This time, its for real. That by the time, me and my friends would go prancing anywhere else again, say Orlando vacations, *hehehe, its a wishful thinking, but mind you, everything starts from wishes, right?* i can bring home nicer souvenirs from the trip.

my travel friends have already decided to head on to Thailand and stop by one place here in the Philippines on the way home. im so excited and with all the inspirations i have in my backpack now, adding up mr. photographer, im one notch higher now in reaching my dreams.

i just spent 4 days watching over my sister at Brokenshire Hospital. and i never thot that anyone in my family can actually catch dengue. having her hospitalized is another proof to add weight for me to say that i am not the sickest in the family.

i jus hate hospitals and i can list more than a hundred reasons why i should not be admitted into one. na-ah. not sooner. an hopefully, no, never.

reason #1. it is just a waste of money. instead of spending for the doctor’s professional fee, id rather buy me everyday a pizza bar.

reason #2. it is just a waste of time. lying around that bed, with that hose forcefully plunged into your hands limiting your movements and activities, is much much sickening.

reason #3. i hate injections. who wants one anyway?

reason #4. nurses checking on you can really get annoying. i completely understood my sister at times when she did not want to speak to her nurses. they touch you, get your bps even when you are sleeping? how are you supposed to get well then if they cause stress ayt?

reason #5. in relation to reason number 2, the time wasted is proporionate to the work missed. worse is, it can be greater.

reason #6. i hate hospital food. its blant and i can fairly taste the food.

reason #7. i cant get good sleep when thoughts like how many people died on the bed i am using.

reason #8. the oral medicines are worst than the injections. especially the liquid ones. the smell of it makes you puke!

reason #9. you dont have the comfort of your own home, especially the bedroom. plus, i dont like the hospital smell.

reason #10. hospitals put emphasis on the fact that you are sick. and i really really hate it.

so as much as possible, i try to do the things that can help me avoid hospitals. im thinking ive been trying enough.

first week of november. waw. time does not only seem to fly fast, cause it really does! what felt like just a couple of days ago, i went into listing what my resolutions for the 2008 would be. now, i need to write another list again. with barely 2 months left before bidding goodbyes to 2008, there is also a need to reflect on the things i have wished to fulfill for the year, my accomplishments, the backlogs, and of course, my shortcomings. now, this would of course take another one day so i’d like to reserve my thoughts for the last weekend of next month.

for today, ill make a draft on what has gone circling on my mind for the future… uh-oh. stop! did i just say the future?? OMG! cant believe i am thinking about it right now. jeez. what could this be a sign of? i hope not growing old, but growing up, quoting from sir abad.

anyways, so the following are what i want for 2009:

1. i want to graduate MM. hah! if i will want this bad enough, then i should be trashing the thoughts on giving up next term. not a bad idea after all. though, for sure, id be ironing not just my hair, but my eyebrows as well for the next months. but do i want a Master on Management degree that bad, for that matter? i need signs God.

2. i should get my own business running, and this time, it should be for real. i love my job, yes, but another means of income would not hurt. its good actually! there’s a lot of franchise opportunities out there, but the key is to finding the appropriate and fit one for me. uhm, on second thoughts, il have this one by 2010 and not next year.

3. i want my own car. back in highschool, i always thought that its best and practical to save up for a house rather than a car. now that im working, i say, il have to own a car first then il work my butt out to buy a good home. hey! things change noh.

as for now, i think il have to end here. its nearly 12 noon and my stomach is grumbling, telling me that its time to grab some good lunch.

have a nice day everyone!

Somebody said that missing someone is the worst feeling of all.

That when she wanted to show him what her loving means, distance cuts the desire.

Then she remembers how the moon once smiled nicely but realizes his smiles brought good riddance of the bad day that was

Then she remembers the warmth of the hugs shared, the sweet kisses of the night that she once wished would not end.

She remembers them all, the afternoon coffee sessions, the sing til’ your throat runs dry, the long table discussions, the disagreements and the submissions, the hot Roxas and the grasp of the speakerphone.

MTS park might have changed such that The Tent divides it into two, but the grasses, the metal benches, the plants – they still give the same nostalgia.

She misses and she is so hurt. She cries her heart out.

Then I told her, numbness to pain is worse than worst.

That you have grown used and/or no/fondness of the pain at all that you don’t feel it anymore. The hurt is there, but the pain, gone. It is like a handful of valium intake. You get drugged, still the illness is never cured.

That when you want to cry, tears move back… towards the inside, and every drop burns the brain and is a million times heavier as it pounds the heart.

The numbness can be contained. It is there, and there is nothing you can do about it. It is the body’s natural reflex.

But the sadness it brings, it’s what is unbearable.

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Marx viewed work as a social activity, such that production is a collective effort that involves a group of people, wherein labor is offered as a capital, thus, a commodity. Since it is a social activity, work itself is dependent on certain environmental conditions, and inevitably changes through time.

Among his arguments was that the mode of production created history and as societies developed into more complex ones, social power later on was owned by those who owns the means of production, or the capital. They are the capitalists. Those who do not own any material capital such as money and land uses their labor as their capital. The capitalists, he termed bourgeois, and the laborers, proletariats. The small group of capitalists has the control over the mode of production, which coincides to Pareto’s theory that societies are governed by a small group of rulers which he called elite. His 80-20 principle also supports this idea, such that in production, 80% consists of the working class while 20% composes the capitalists. Furthermore, he stated that the ruling class is always overthrown by the lower class, and is replaced by a new elite ruling class. This is what he called the circulation of the elite.

For organizations to maximize profit, they must have the lowest input unit-cost per output-unit cost. Marx coined this as surplus value. Since the prices of the material goods are fixed, organizations manipulate the salary of its laborers to gain the maximum profit possible. Companies must be able to extract the maximum surplus labor possible. This is what the working class struggle for, as very evident in all sorts of media. Laborers have been long haggling for a substantial wage increase. However, the amount they are asking for is normally not granted, and if it is, salary increase comes in very minimal increments.

The evolution of societies into more complex forms also, as pressed on by the change of mode of production, lead to the development of complicated organizations. This necessitated the division of labor of the different stages of production, where specialization of the workers and departmentalization of each specialization was deemed important to create order. Durkheim further noted that the division of labor resulted to organic solidarity, such that people are dependent from one another and thus helps create unity.

The theories of Marx and Drukheim combined is seen in most organizations, if not all, where production is divided into different but interdependent departments, depending on the function of each unit. The production would be incomplete if a department fails to perform its job. This shows the interdependency of each department to the remaining ones. However, departmentalization also created problems for organizations such that informal groups residing inside these divisions can trigger social separation from the other departments. This is where Durkheim’s emphasis on the need for balance between division of labor and integration comes in. Companies and their managers are to be sensitive enough to the informal groups created within formal groups to be able to sense any form of isolation or estrangement from the other groups to avoid major departmental issues which may cause production bottlenecks. The organization’s shared vision, mission, and objectives set a common goal or target for everybody who works for the company, may they be belonging to different units, such that even if they are performing an entirely different function from the other groups, the product of each department is vital for the total success of the whole production.

Apart from the problem mentioned above, specialization as a product of division of labor also had its negative impacts on the workers. This created in them a sense of alienation, as stated by Marx. A person not fully utilized to his full capacity because he was stuck in a department doing the same task over and over again deprives him to exhaust his other talents which he may impart in the production process. Alienation creates tension and is a major cause of demotivation. HR interventions for shorter production processes includes job shifting, however is not often applicable for huge scale processing. Constant trainings and refresher courses are among the methods to equip workers the needed skills from time to time. Workers are also motivated through various incentive programs, for them to continue functioning well in their specialized area.

Complex organizational structures need a way to maintain its order. Bureaucracy, a type of organization that was introduced by Max Weber, then illustrates the flow of authority from the upper level of the structure (top management), passing through different channels (manager to supervisors, etc), down to the lowest level (laborers).