Just hustling

It's nice to be done with school, no homework, no papers, projects, etc. It's nice to just come home and not have to worry about all that ya know? But getting used to a regularly scheduled routine life takes some getting used to. Working 12 hour days has proven to be a very difficult challenge to me to be able fit in all I want to do: hang out with Nem, hang out with friends, work out and go running, have time to relax to myself and just whine down and chill. I love my job and all, I enjoy it, my co-workers are cool and young, the job itself is pretty fun. But I'm totally exhausted at the end of the day being busy, running around helping customers and cars and all. I definitely don't want to do 12 hour shifts 5 days a week, and 8 hours every other Saturday for a permanent amount of time. A quote comes to mind from Steve Buscemi's character in the movie Con-Air when he said, "What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?" Life is definitely more than that. And it's finding the times in between, making the most it, and enjoying what God has provided for you. Sounds cliche but it's true ya know? It takes waking up everyday and being able to recommit each new day to God and having a positive attitude and commitment. Just gotta hustle and work hard in all that I do to be able to provide for myself and others most of all. It's only been one month, I'm sure a little while longer I'll be adapted and all good. Just gotta be patient.

Random blogging

Long days

I just finished my first week on the job and it went fairly well. My office is a lot of fun, my two managers are two young women, Heather (Branch Manager) and Jen (Assistant Manager). And I got a fellow Management Trainee who's been there 11 months, Nick. We're all in our 20's and the office is pretty fast paced. It's the top office in our region with the highest customer satisfaction rating. And Nick is on the top sales guys in the region too. We're inside a Mercedes-Benz Dealership so most of our rentals are through the dealerships. We mainly rent 2007 C230s, but I've also gotten the chance to rent out a Jeep Compass, a Ford Escape, Saturn Ion, Chevrolet Aspen, and a Chevy Aveo. But the C230s are REALLY nice. We also get free Starbuck's Coffee so that's cool. And my office is literally only a 5 minute drive, so I can even take lunch breaks at home. So far my first week went well, I sold pretty well (protection products for our rental cars) and I wrote about 40-50 tickets (other branches people write maybe 20. But ours is pretty easy being hooked up with the dealership. All the service advisors and sales guys with the dealership are pretty young too, some even younger than me! It's pretty LONG hours though, 12 hour days, 5 days a week, 7 am - 7 pm. But at least I'm on my feet a lot, interacting with people all the time, so it's fun, but I'm pretty tired by the end of the day.

I recommend...

This new live album Dave Matthews put out with Tim Reynolds is awesome! It has all of his best songs basically, some of them even sound better like "Bartender." It doesn't include a lot of his really good songs from the "Everyday" album, but it still has my personal favorites like, "Grave Digger," "Grace is Gone," "Lie in Our Graves," and "Crush." Tim Reynolds is also on the most amazing guitarists ever.

Common and Kanye West

Ever since my senior year of high school, playing varsity basketball with all my friends, I've grown to love rap/hip hop music. Guess it comes with basketball culture. Lately I've been listening a lot to Common and Kanye West who seem to be dominating the radio and rap music scene along with T-Pain, Timbaland, and Akon (who is awesome too). But it's cool to read about these two guys in particular because they're known as intelligent rap artists not merely singing about capping people in the head, and cussing like crazy to making love to violent drive by shootings. But they actually rap about important social issues and even Kanye claims to be a Christian. His song "Jesus Walks" actually has some good things to say like:

I know he hear me when my feet get weary
Cuz we're the almost nearly extinct
We rappers is role models we rap we don't think
I ain't here to argue about his facial features
Or here to convert atheists into believers
I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers
The way Kathie Lee needed Regis that's the way I need Jesus
So here go my single dog radio needs this
They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus
That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes
But if I talk about God my record won't get played Huh?
Well let this take away from my spins
Which will probably take away from my ends
Then I hope it take away from my sins
And bring the day that I'm dreaming about
Next time I'm in the club everybody screaming out

(Jesus Walks)
God show me the way because the devil trying to break me down
(Jesus Walks with me)
The only thing that I pray is that me feet don't fail me now

Check out their new CDs "Finding Forever" by Common and "Graduation" by Kanye West which totally beat out 50 Cent's new album in opening week last week by at least outselling 50 Cent's album by about 400,000 copies.

Speaking of Christians


Quintin "Rampage" Jackson is the current light heavyweight champion of the UFC beating the famous Chuck Liddell (pictured above). He claims to be a Christian as well. Kinda cool to have a Christian UFC fighter. One of my friends here at Biola, his dad was the wrestling coach of Rampage and confirms his faith which is kinda cool.

Ready to get started

It's official, after a week long process of interviews (3, one with the regional recruiting manager, one with the area manager, and finally one with the regional manager, and one hour of branch office observation) I finally was made an offer this morning into the management trainee program with Enterprise Rent-a-Car. I'm so excited to get started, it's something new, something different, and it's decent income. I start next Monday. It's a good feeling to get employment after a couple of months after graduating from college. Transition from college student to real working world is kind of a weird stage in life and it's nice to know I'm finally moving on. And not only did I just land some typical job (many of my friends who just graduated in the past couple of years are still working at places like Starbucks, Biola Admissions, or some graveyard shift job) but I got a job with one of the most reputable companies in America.

Here are some "Fun Facts" about Enterprise.

- Enterprise is the #1 car rental company in North America.
- Fiscal year revenue in 2007 was just over $10 billion
- Ranked #16 in Forbes "Top 500 Largest Private Companies"
- Recently featured in Fortune Magazine's 2006 article, "The Big Surprise is Enterprise"
- Ranked Top % Best Places to Launch a Career by Business Week in Sept. '06

Anyhow, I have now entered the working world, should be fun.

God please, when will this end?

As much as people from all around the U.S. would kill to live sunny Southern California, I'm about ready to die in this dry CA heat. It's been a little over 100 degrees F the past week or so and I hate it. I can deal with southeast Asia humid southern tropics heat, but this dry, stuffy heat here in CA, I can't take it anymore. I feel like I have headache and fever all the time cuz' its so hot and dry. It's September now, it better start cooling down, Lord please, I'm more than ready for the fall.

Setting yourself apart

Usually when I hear that phrase, "setting yourself apart," I usually think of sanctification, or setting yourself apart to God from sin, the world, everything else. That's mainly because I've grown up in a Christian bubble, home, community, school, etc.

But for this post, I don't mean setting yourself apart to God, but setting yourself apart from others. The past summer I've been working Cutco full time and it wasn't what I had planned or hoped for. A job where it's self-appointing and self-motivated is tough, on top of that with 100% commission, it's rough having weeks with little or no results. So I've been job searching for the past month. I've done a couple of phone interviews and more recently, I've been interviewing with Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Enterprise is one of the top and most reputable businesses in America and the interview process is long. I've completed the job application, made it to all 3 interviews including a branch observation, so hopefully I got the job. I had a friend who recommended me and everything I've heard and gotten feedback from looks like I pretty much have it in the bag. So let's pray that I officially get hired when I hear back from them on Tuesday (darn labor day weekend, no work Monday).

Anyhow, I've really enjoyed the whole interview process. It's a little scary and intimidating, but without my experience with Vector Marketing Company selling Cutco knives, sitting with over a hundred different strangers and even seeing Realtors and brokers, I really have Vector to thank for my success and confidence. I really have no fear sitting in front of anyone and answering any questions they may have and I love selling myself. Interviews are basically and excuse to talk about how awesome you are, that should be easy enough for anyone. It really is fun setting yourself apart from every other candidate and selling why you're better.

However, as much fun as the interview process has been, and after a month of job searching, I really am ready to land a new job and Enterprise is really great for right now. So let's hope and pray.

It really was "Wicked!"

Last Sunday Nem and I saw the musical "Wicked" with our fellow high school couple friends Jon Elliott and Katie DeHart. Nem saw it about 2 years ago in San Francisco and loved it, so we decided to all see it together. And MAN, was it good! It was WAY WAY better than I ever expected. I guess I expected something more serious like The Phantom of the Opera, but it was actually both really dramatic and really funny! There's one character that kinda steals the show, Glinda, the Wicked Witch's best friend. She was hilarious! The whole time I was imagining Reese Witherspoon from Legally Blonde, too funny. I can't say I can remember ever watching the whole movie, through, The Wizard of Oz, but I know the general story. This musical is great cuz' it's kinda a prequel, explains all the back stories of the characters including the Lion, Tin Man, and Straw Man. All the songs and singing were really great too. The show was overall 5 stars, excellent, I recommend everyone to go and see it, it's worth the $35 each EASY.

"...Robots in dusguise!"

This movie was awesome! I can't say I remember the cartoon in much detail, BUT I do have good memories of it and I certainly remember the animated movie with one of the best all time songs in it, "You've Got the Touch" by Van Halen. Anyhow, the movie was ALL that I expected, giant robots, cool cars, hot girl, funny guy, over the top Michael Bay filming style, chaos, explosions, really awesome CGI, and the list goes on...! The movie was perfect.

Ay buhay!

UPDATE:
May 18 - 20: Cutco Representative Development Conference in Dallas, TX
May 26: Graduated from Biola with a B.A. in Intercultural Studies, Minor in Biblical Studies
May 29: Went to the Philippines for 3 weeks
May 29 - June 19: Relaxed at the Rizal Re-Creation Center, visited Mom's side in Tagaytay, attended Malabuyo/Tanquintic Reunion Celebration banquet, went to Zambales Beach, trip to Baguio, hung out with old high school friends, hung out with the family for a week after Kuya, Chesney, Caleb, and Lem left

Some Random thoughts or lessons I've learned, a little bit of my "emo-ness":
- I'm realizing more and more as I'm getting older how intricate and complicated life experiences are when growing up both Filipino and American. It's interesting to see how to mesh both together (I just did an independent study course looking at Filipino Americans, was a lot more fun writing it than I expected)
- No matter how laid back and easy going you'd like to think you are, you'd be surprised how much you really aren't. We're all pretty much selfish and always want things our way, it's a challenge to always be able to show humility, and give up ourselves for the sake of others.
- We influence and affect others by the way we live our lives more than we think.
- Money is annoying, love it and hate it
- Language is awesome. Being bilingual is awesome and within the next couple of years, that's a goal of mine.
- Life isn't always epic, it's in the mundane, uneventful that take up most of our life, but that's what shapes us the most, the little things everyday, every little step

A lot has been in the past month and half. A lot of life changes, a lot of rough times, a lot of stress, but amidst it all, a lot of good times. I was way more busy and stressed than I would have liked to be at the end, but coming home to the Philippines was just what I needed to relax and just catch my breath. I'm a little sad as always to leave home, but I'm excited to get back to the states to start a new life. Got a new house, no more school, working full time, trying to save money, living with new roommates and friends, gonna be seeing some old friends this summer, Malabuyo/Camacho camping trip, etc. The summer has got off to a good start and let's hope that's just the beginning. I hope to come back home to the Philippines for two weeks this Christmas, so we'll see.

God is good, sarap ang buhay!