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I was born on
June 14th, 1980 in Manila. Like most Filipinos,
I lived with my parents much longer than people do in the
States. Here it’s not uncommon for 3-4 generations to be
living together under the same roof. I’m told that in
Mexico it’s common to see the same family tightness.
Obviously it was not my first choice to live with them until
I was 24, but here in the Philippines budgets are rather
small for living on your own. Of course you can find
housing for $50 per month for a shared dorm style room all
the way up to $400 for a very nice 1 bedroom apartment in
the Central Business District of Makati. To most people
reading this that sounds very reasonable if not totally
cheap altogether. I understand that the same 1 bedroom
apartment in the CBD of cities like New York and San
Francisco can cost $2000 and up. The big problem here is
jobs as you might imagine. The Philippines is well known
for its abundance of English speakers. But there is so much
talent in this poor country that it is easy for an employer
to quickly hire a staff and have hundreds on the waiting
list within a matter of days. So it may be easier to accept
that my $250 per month salary when I worked as a trainer in a call center
is basically standard. At the highest levels of management
in my company, the salaries are still relatively low
compared to the rest of the world at $900 per month. But
these call centers typically employ some of the brightest
young talent our schools can produce. For those of you
reading this who call those 1-800 numbers, you are probably
speaking to a Filipino sitting in a call center in the
middle of the night (our time) that is assigned to assist
your call. The reason you probably were not aware of this
is because we are so well trained to adopt a “neutral”
accent and most people think that they are talking to
someone in their own country.
So that’s what I
did for about 10 hours per day and at roughly $1 per hour. I
trained my countrymen and women to be able to talk to you when
you call customer care centers and for you not to detect
that fact. After all, it’s well known that people would
rather speak to someone who intimately knows, on a first
hand basis, the product or service for which you have
questions. You probably would feel uneasy if you knew that
I have never been to your city for which you are asking
directions and I’m reading off of a map while talking to
you.
So for those of
you who might moan and groan should you find me advertising
a few things on my website to make extra income, at least
take a moment to consider the fact that I don’t make $60,000
per year and up like most of you Internet people from
Western countries who are reading this. $250 per month
took me as far as you can imagine it did.
Bandwidth, domain names, servers, and PC usage is not free
you know. Most people here do not have their own PC
and must use internet cafes if they are to take part in
modern communication with the outside world.
After reading
what I wrote above, you might have already guessed that I
have at least some ability to use my brain to get what I
need out of life to survive at a reasonable level. This is
in contrast to most of my friends or co-workers who have
either done nothing or turned to various forms of discreet
prostitution to make ends meet. To me, accepting any gift
from a man whatsoever that you don’t love (or hope to love)
with sex on his mind is prostitution, pure and simple. And
trust me, the offers are always there, especially from local
businessmen who want a mistress. But I learned from a
friend back in college that there are many ways to get what
you want from men and do not need to do anything in return
as long as you know how to make them respect you.
So what you read
above is a few things about my character. I see the world
from an optimistic point of view regardless of how I may
come across. Even as an optimist, I do see the world as
dominated by men. It’s not because men are smarter than
women, as overall they are not. But men tend to have
greater motivation in securing the objects of their desire,
whether it is through force, persuasion, or simply hard
work. It’s interesting though those unattractive men tend
to be at the pinnacles of society through pure brute force
hard work while unattractive women do not accompany them
there with equal effort. This is where I come in. It’s my
belief that no matter how hard you work as a woman, your
looks are your limiting factor. Now for all of the
feminists out there about to blow a fuse and fire off an
angry e-mail to me attempting to prove me wrong, let me say
this: Just because you are not “beautiful” doesn’t mean
that you won’t rule the world. It’s just my experience that
you will have to work 10 times harder than a beautiful woman
of equal motivation and intelligence. For all of you ladies
who disagree with me, and even some men, I know you can
recall a time you were up for a promotion but were passed
over by your sexier co-worker of slightly less talent who
constantly bats her eyelashes at the boss. In an ideal
world, the boss would be smart enough to ignore Ms. Flirt.
But this is the real world. So this is why I believe that
taking care of my skin and body is the first step on my path
to success. Research proves this concept when studied in
the average workplace if you care to do a search on Google.
So again, looks
are very important to make it easier to get what I want out
of life while still allowing myself 8 hours of sleep per
night. I love to eat, but I only “cheat” on my diet once
per day, meaning I eat whatever I want. The rest of the
time I eat food that I prepare such as eggs or chicken and
bring them with me wherever I go in my purse. To stay
fit, I work out 3-4 days per week. If I’m trying to get in
shape for a big social event that is 2 weeks away, I
increase my training time to 6 days per week. Any more than
this and I can’t walk! I also love to lift heavy weights.
It’s interesting how my female officemates won’t go near a
gym because they think that they will get huge muscles. At
the same time they all tell me how they want arms and
shoulders like mine, but turn up their nose when I tell them
how I lift weights “like a guy”. LOL! Talk about a
catch-22 in their logic! I wish these same ladies would
talk to our male officemates who lift weights for months and
still barely look like they have seen the inside of a gym.
Hello ladies….it’s called years of diet, discipline and
genetics. Add steroids if you don’t have at least two of
those factors and then we can talk about looking like a
man. Do I look like a man? Not according to all of the
wonderful words of encouragement I receive from random
strangers!
Other than this,
I like to run along Manila Bay every now and then, swim at
the pool at the high-rise of my friends, and learn about
business so that I might have my own someday. I don’t want
kids for the next 10 years or so since I want to build
something to support a family first. The biggest mistake
Filipinos make here is thinking that you have to have 10
kids before the age of 30, otherwise you will be “too old”
to enjoy them. Too old? Tell that to my grandmother who
can still kick my ass even though I can bench press 135 lbs.
So do I work out
too much or spend too much time in front of the mirror?
Well let's put it this way: I would be willing to bet
that I spend less time taking care of myself per week than
most people spend watching TV. I don't watch TV by the
way...if you could see local programming you would
understand why.
More to come.
P.S. If you
have a blog/website and like the way I think (or even think
I'm nuts) please link to my site!
January 11th,
2005
Due to
(surprisingly) popular demand: How you can contribute to my
website.
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