Something to keep the team busy on the long weekend ahead:

Something closer to home, from the inbox today.

Public Forum on Mining

March 16, 2005 1 PM

Electrical and Electronics Engineering Bldg., University of the Philippines Diliman

Speakers:

Art Disini, President, National Mineral Resources Development Corporation
Nelia Halcon, Executive Vice-President, Chamber of Mines of the Philippines
Dr. Desiree Narvaez, Division Chief, Environmental and Occupational Ofice, DOH
Engr. Rodolfo Velasco, Jr., Mines Environment and Safety Division, MGB
Veronica Villavicencio, Executive Director, Peace and Equity Foundation
Redempta Baluda, Division Manager, Philex Mining Corporation
Reynaldo Alcances, Division Chief, EIA, Environmental and Management Bureau
Mon Santos and Emil Figueroa, Department of Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of the Philippines Diliman

Moderator: Prof. Gerardo Pio F. Parco

Emcee: Prof. Bebeng Clemente

This activity is sponsored by UP CIDS and the College of Engineering, but of course, the working horse is DMMME. We have invited the Senate, House of Representatives, National and Local Government Agencies, NGO's/PO's, Universities / College (AdMU, AdU, La Salle, UST, CIT, MIT) and UP Officials. It would be quite a scene if Sec. Mike Defensor and Sen. Jamby Madrigal can both make it (and yes, their office have called regarding the Forum).

Please attend and participate.

Laguna sunset. Gazebo. Playground. After work.

While the rest of the workforce dredge their way in snakelike traffic, I am miraculously home. I breathe deeply on air the smell of tangerine. I turn my side to the dying sun, a biscuit larger than life dipped in van Gogh marmalade.

Kids on swings, on slides, the rhythm of innocence--I'd better not disrupt their bubble as I do not want mine. Two cars meet and blink their message of mutual greeting.

I blew out a puff, five minutes of my life gone forever. But if those five minutes were not really mine, what have I got to lose?

Oh my. I'm starting to realize that celebrating one's blogiversary is so 2004 and people were just dedma. Sorry! I felt like watching a petunia flower after a decade of frigidity and celebrate, or better yet, interring a neopet and playing a funeral march midi. Not that I mind about it, but sometimes I do when I feel my hits are going zilch.

On to more relevant topics. I almost had 15 minutes of fame as the anti-stalker bill was tackled on GMA's Saksi last Monday. I got a call from Ederic on my way home that they will be interviewing me on my stalker experience for the primetime, but it would be impossible to field a reporter down south in a Jesus Jones situation*.

I'm slightly hesitant at doing the interview, even if I may be behind a screen, my voice morphed or my face bitmapped. To hell with the notion that I shouldn't think about what people might be thinking, I really mind. An average Joe like me can have stalkers too just like John Lennon. And you.

If I feel like it, I put on my bragging rights list that there really was a time when somebody was leaving indecent offers on my mobile, culminating in a sexed-up call from the same person while I was having a presentation. Ego booster for the down times. I was a sex god and the lines were full.

I had two types of stalkers and they were both biologically male. Stalker #1 started out with a number he hacked from his ex-boyfriend. Faceless. He was the one who made the phone call while having an orgasm. Meeting him to end it all was like a trip to the dentist--to remove anything that pains, make an appointment. Stalker #2 was a participant in a business deal, had friends in my social network that made him know what I ate for lunch and what I did with who and who. Took me a while to put off #2 because of the business (which did not fly at all later because I was a Code of Conduct believer) and the circle of friends.

Knowing him knowing what I was doing made me paranoid day in day out.

Confronting the stalker helped much but did not solve the issue, my personal issue. While my eyes opened up to the psychology of stalking, that they want somebody else to fill in what they lack, I became vulnerable and was even thought of as accomodating, and abusive at the
extreme. Stalker #2 sent me a SIM card because I excused that mine was malfunctioning (one thing sure about stalkers is that they have alternative communication channels) and I was labeled a user.

Ah, the unexpected benefits of being a stalkee.

While I was reaping on the pro part, I never had any life-threatening stalker-induced on the con. Almost, but it was avoided. Honestly it pricked my ego balloon as I thought that killing me wouldn'tve been of value since there will be no celebrity media mileage to talk of.

It was tantamount to terrorism, stalking won over me. Thus, this relatively new blog and the old ones under the veil of unsearchable usernames. There it is, two years of blogging and a half spent hiding. While I am not active in promoting this blog to fend off future instances of stalking (look at me, I am sooo assuming), I take on every opportunity to boost and let my hair down (nagpapahaba ng hair).

Humility is so difficult a word for me to pronounce, my learning curve is always flat.

*"Right Here, Right Now"--Jones' local one-hit wonder.

...

Item #5 is "Letting Love Go" by EBTG. I can understand why no one got this B-side in the first place. Congratulations for being so honest and too good to avoid googling it.