Before I go on to my scathing and vitriolic assessment of today’s job market, I’d like to plug in a few upcoming events.

J-POP ANIME MATSURI AND EIGA-SAI

The Japan Foundation is holding its annual EIGA SAI and J-Pop Anime Matsuri (JAM) at Shangri-La Plaza Mall in Mandaluyong this coming July.

The Eiga Sai will last from July 8 to July 13 (Tuesday to Sunday). The schedule is as follows:

JAM will be held on July 26-27. The featured film is Hosoda Mamoru’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo/時をかける少女）, but there will be screenings of Chibi Maruko-chan as well. The schedule is as follows:

July 26 (Sat)

4:00 pm –Chibi Maruko-chan

6:00 pm –The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

8:00 pm –Chibi Maruko-chan

July 27 (Sun)

2:00 pm –The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

5:00 pm –Chibi Maruko-chan

8:00 pm –The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Please spread the word! 

Okay, rant mode’s coming up, so if you don’t want to see my vitriolic invective directed against a popular industry in the country, now is the time to click off to another URL. However, if you want to see the truth of the matter and the senselessness of this industry, please, feel free to move on.

Call centers. It’s no secret that I hate them.

My dislike of them began in college. When I was about to graduate, I swore that I would not seek employment in a call center. As a bachelor of Fine Arts (Creative Writing), I did not want my talents (however little they may be) to go to waste with me receiving calls from irate foreigners during the Witching Hour.

To my horror, our own university’s job far contained very few jobs that were related to my field. At that time, I was seeking a journalism job (I eventually discovered that journalism had very little in common with creative writing, and getting into journ was not a very good idea.), but unfortunately, all the featured booths at our job fair were either corporate or finance-related—or, worst of all, call centers.

This dislike has been steadily growing as of late. It’s been more and more difficult for us to hire English teachers because people with the necessary communication skills are ending up in call centers. I don’t know if they’re doing it for the money (though it is highly likely) or doing it just because they have no choice (not likely). Whatever their reasons, the call center industry has been taking potential recruits from schools. Communicators are few and far between to begin with.

I reached a boiling point yesterday, when I was climbing the escalators to Trinoma’s top floor. There was another job fair being held at the activity center, and to my utter horror, discovered that there was nothing in it but call centers. Seriously, are call centers the only employment opportunities left? Is a career pushing buttons and faking accents the only thing the Filipino college graduate can do? PLEASE.

It’s already bad enough that the education industry has become subservient to the foreign job market. Just how many schools started offering nursing courses when we realized that Western countries needed nurses? (And just how good were the courses that came up?) Now, the local job market is focusing heavily on outsourcing. What gives?

I just hope that we can find a way out of this trend. I don’t think it’s fair that the only job opportunities that are given to our graduates are jobs they are overqualified for.

Thanks for bearing with my rant. I do expect to be able to speak about more interesting things within the week–our Nihongo classes begin this Friday!

Earworms: Ocean Soul by Nightwish

Sustenance: Pancakes with chocolate chips and peanut butter; Breadtalk’s Moshi Mushroom; Sizzling beef steak @ Yamato Beef Steak (Trinoma)

Just a flatliner. Got this in an email from Fil.

25 reasons to become an English teacher when you grow up…

Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays in order to have them published and sent out for the amusement of other teachers across the country. Recent winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled around inside his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the kind of wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who goes blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of  those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like the sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. travelling west at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. traveling east at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River .

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing their kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

I’d post stuff my students would say, but I don’t want to embarrass anyone. ^_^;

Anyway, I’m looking at going to the Toycon at Megamall tomorrow. Thankfully my pay came in and I actually have money for spending. Furthermore, I want to redeem myself from failing to get a pic of Alodia at Mangaholix. (lol, kidding)

Still, since she’s going to be there, might as well.

The inevitable end of summer is upon us. Some of my students didn’t even have a summer due to endless review classes and a myriad other cares and concerns. Strangely enough, some of them were online less in the summer than they were during the school year.

Regardless, this summer was one of the most productive I’ve ever had. Apart from a trip or two out of town, I’ve been able to earn extra money via a summer job, written new chapters for next year’s The Black and the Purple D&D campaign, among many other things.

Of course, there’s also the spiritual revolution I’ve had as of late.

One thing I sadly neglected during the summer was drawing. I do have a couple of unfinished drawings lying around (mostly The Black and the Purple characters).

The problem is, my brain seems to be flatlining despite all the activity.

As you can see from this post.

My language is getting more insip-…inpis…dumber…er.

*head shake*

Anyway, the Mangaholix MangaMania 2008 con is coming up at the end of this month.

Details in this poster:

Is it just me or that girl’s outfit was inspired by Yoko’s? Does this mean that the convention will contain more good anime and not just more of the same? (By the same I mean Naruto, Bleach, and Death Note. You might well know that the way the local fanbase obsesses over particular series well until they’ve become passe in Japan and elsewhere abroad vexes me.) I’d definitely love to see Gurren-Lagann more prominently featured in the Con.

In any case, I’ll definitely be going to this year’s con. I ordered a print from Alodia, and I intend to claim it. D:

If anyone plans on going, let me know! We could meet up.

May 19, 2007
Asia’s Music Hall, Mall of Asia
10am up to 8pm

Here’s the poster.

Still a long way from now, but here’s what makes this event awesome:

1. Free entrance.
2. MoA. Wait, okay, that’s at the end of the known universe, but still. It’s MoA.
3. Alodia Gosiengfiao[link] will be there.
4. She will be in costume.
5. Repeat #3.
6. Repeat #4.
7. It’s during summer, so no school requirements to deal with.
8. It’s still a long way from now, so I can sche—err, plan accordingly.
9. Repeat #3.
10. Repeat #4.

But anyway, I’m glad that it’s on a Saturday. It’ll be quite a commute to go there, then go back to St. Francis Square, but I’ve always wanted to meet Alodia-sama in person.