revenge of the killer tomatoes 13

*hmm, does anyone still use the phrase “paradigm shift”?

i’m a year older this month, and so is this blog.  thanks again to my brother freezing over in montreal who, a year ago, set up this site for me as a birthday gift.   

i was hanging out with a journalist friend last friday at a coffee shop - an oasis of calm in the middle of ortigas, the coffee bean and tea leaf shop near the jollibee plaza -  when i thought about writing in my post-corporate-world life (a.k.a. retirement).   something to ponder on for the next few years, till i trade in my dilbert spectacles for… i don’t know what. yet. 

i am too young to think about retiring!  but stranger things have happened.  like leaving mainstream law practice years ago after toiling for five years in law school and all those sleepless nights at my former law firm.  i actually relished being a struggling associate ferreting out once-obscure legal issues and devising grand schemes, errr, solutions. so yes, leaving was strange. 

i am constantly inspired by people around me who are masters of reinvention: economist-researcher-turned-chorale-conductor-cum-pianist.  investment-banker-turned-furniture-and-interior-designer.  corporate suits plotting to become chefs, web designers, restaurateurs.  photographers who happen to be qualified lawyers…  reinventing life, let alone re-imagining it, is not for everyone.  certainly not for the fainthearted or the complacent.   

a year older.  

i’m thankful that i’ve never had an accident on the road while driving.  thankful that my parents, brother and in-laws are just a phone call away.  happy that hubby is so tolerant of my musings even when i meander.  grateful for being able to walk my dogs when i need cheering up.  grateful for my pleasantly imperfect life, but wanting to move on.  next adventure, please!

nowadays it’s not enough to be smart. 

you have to be fascinating and exuberant.  you need a dash of color, theatre and drama, on top of a hefty sense of humor. 

on the job, you have to be on the ball, spot on, switched on, revved up, always hitting the ground running.  you need to know your job and everything else remotely connected to it. 

offline, you must know how to order a decent bottle of wine, have stock anecdotes to regale your audience with while properly uncorking the champagne, and given moderate levels of inebriation, dance a mean tango.  you can’t just carry a tune, you have to be rocking awesome on the videoke.

you can’t just have a general appreciation for art.  you need a well-nurtured eye for impressionists and cubists and neo-impressionists and neo-cubists, distinguish the Seurats from the Monets, Chagall’s whimsy from Kandinski’s quirks.  you just have to know something about modern design beyond the Eameses, to actually see Gehry’s amazing silver-gray structures (the one at Bard in upstate NY looks like an armadillo to me) or Frank Lloyd Wright’s starkly geometric window panes.  the urbane Pinoy can spot a Kenneth Cobonpue chair, a Budji Layug table or a Cacnio brass sculpture as quickly as you can say “Mies Van de Rohe”.

and shame on you if you missed Matisse’s painting of voluptuous women dancing in the cobalt blue sky at a stairway landing in the MOMA or worse, haven’t visited Juan Luna’s enormous 19th-century masterpiece, the Spoliarium (hmm, not counting the bucolic Amorsolos, how many great Filipino art works have you seen?). 

Above: the Alphabet of Design Classics; Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal, who was a polymath and polyglot. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Rizal 

beyond the fundamentals of physics, calculus, chemistry and the natural sciences, you have to be a deft Wii warrior and know that “Second Life” does not refer to the afterlife.  you compete with digital natives and argue with open-source advocates just for the heck of it.  you must have looked Sue the tyrannosaurus rex in the eye and known that he/she was named after a swashbuckling female archeologist.

when you travel to other countries, every tourist you meet is a global citizen.  in Prague, i met a young twenty-ish Pinoy who was born in Manila, raised in Philadelphia, was studying Greek art in London and vacationing in the Czech Republic.  in Berlin, i had the most interesting conversation with a Democrat from Washington DC who said that Barack Obama is brilliant but might not win the Asian and Latino votes needed to be president.

the new world order 

the Googles, Yahoos, Wikipedias, blogspots, CNNs of the world have spawned new rules and standards for over-achievers and new dimensions of stress.  just look at the infant and toddler formula milk ads on TV - most of them promise to bring out your child’s greatest potential, i.e., become Boy Wonder/Girl Genius.  “intelligent” is for everyone else, your child just has to be a prodigy!

so does this leave the intelligence quotient as nothing more than an antiquated benchmark for abstract reasoning skills?  i personally prefer upping my “FF” (Fascinating Factor) or another version of “IQ” (Interesting Quotient). 

A startling article on CNN today reported that a top engineer at Toyota, who led the development of the hybrid Camry, died from overwork.  He clocked in more than 80 hours of overtime a month.

Death from overwork is so prevalent in Japan, the condition actually has a name: karoshi.  The Health Ministry is said to have recognized the phenomenon in 1987 and cases have steadily increased since then.

A terribly sad way to go.  The real tragedy isn’t in their death - it’s how they lived their lives outside work. 

Perhaps the 45-year-old Toyota engineer could have been the genius to break worldwide dependency on oil - if he allowed himself the “indulgence” of spending more time at home or on a BlackBerry-free vacation.

Years ago I lived in a one-room flat with a sofa-bed, an overloaded bookshelf, and a dining table that only saw hurriedly cooked, meatless spaghetti from a can, and pizza from a place that knew my dinner order by heart.  The condo unit was within 15 to 20 minutes from the office, convenient for those times when I could only drag my feet home from work. 

I would regularly spend 10 or 15 hours, sometimes more, at the office.  And every minute was stressful as hell.  A client once walked into our reception lobby and just stood there, watching lawyers pacing back and forth or frowning at computer screens, legal assistants running around like headless chickens, and messengers shuffling around boxes of documents.  He nearly had a heart attack just by looking at us.  I told him that he pays us to worry on his behalf.

I left that world. 

Every time I feel tempted to return to it, I remind myself of the simple thrills I now enjoy.  Skipping over to a 5-level bookstore a few minutes away.  Having a decent lunch with colleagues who talk about their families (whom they actually spend time with) and hobbies (which they actually engage in, not just purchase).  Dinner with long-time friends to review food, wine, films and art, rant about politics and crack up over old jokes and tales.  Browsing rows of fresh cut flowers at a nearby market.  Reading 2 books and a magazine simultaneously, none of which are related to work.  Calling Mom and Pop almost every night to regale them with my latest driving misadventures.  Plopping up on the couch at home for a DVD marathon with Hubby while our two dogs race to sit on my lap. 

I’m still a workaholic.  Still competitive.  But a different person. 

a month after i left my old job, a whole new world!

in 1999, i first heard a radio ad for the Binibining Pilipinas beauty pageant.  the announcement rattled off various qualifications and ended with “not older than 25 years old”.  oh my, i’m no spring chicken!  at 26, i slid down the slippery slope towards OLD. 

the remaining years  of my 20s turned out to be great times though.  i clocked in 10-20 work hours a day but also reconnected with friends i largely ignored during law school, explored the philippines, read more milan kundera and salman rushdie, and discovered a passion for interior design.  now, years later and about 20 pounds heavier, i look back at the things i did before approaching another milestone of sorts…  

• january 2007 - panic.  “what, i’m turning 35 next year?!!” 
• february - boycotted valentine’s day, on mutual agreement with hubby.
• march - business as usual at the salt mines: training in manila for asia-pac colleagues.   
• april - business as usual at the salt mines (cont.): prepared for meetings and long trip in april-may.   
• may - revisited the fabulous impressionist collection of the Chicago Art Institute. saw the famous dinosaur Sue at the Field Museum.     
• june -  returned to manila to teach legal research to law students (my third year to teach).  joined a thesis defense panel for the first time. 
• july - bought brand-new car without knowing how to drive.
• august - actually learned to drive my car, weee! (yes, i’m 15 to 20 years too late on this indispensable skill!)
• september - climbed the Great Wall at Badaling in Beijing.  paid homage to Chairman Mao at Tiananmen Square.  wore out shoes touring the Imperial Palace.  spotted the “bubble building” and other Olympics edifices.  made new friends among asia-pac colleagues. 
• october - got my first taste of Europe via London.  floored by the art collections at the Tate Modern and National Art Gallery.  ate a veal burger at Burrough Market with best friends.  saw Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
• november - drove car to office on my own for the first time.  very liberating, very “thelma & louise”, minus the tragic ending and brad pitt.
• december - bravely went on first two-week break from work.  did not need to put out any fires, thankfully.  my first car accident: hit a stubborn parking driveway post that failed to avoid me.  on a happier note, celebrated 5th wedding anniversary!  2 dozen lilac roses marked the occasion.
• jan. 2008 - instead of throwing a birthday party, recruited volunteers for mural-painting session at Asilo orphanage.

and yes, i revived my blog before turning 35.  it’s comforting to know my brother will always be 5 years older than me.  :-)  raise a glass of cabernet sauvignon for me, please!

marian

beijing & london:

at Asilo: