I love this.

From Coco. :) I actually said something like this before...

3 years ago, Gweilos:

Me (after taking a long swig of beer, poker faced): 

"I don't need to put up with this crap to earn a living."

(PAUSE)

(HAHA! Ang drama!)

I was complaining about a certain person who used to make life more difficult for us than it already was, when in an ideal situation, cooperation should be a given in the backyard.

Things have changed, since. For the better.

AND the post ends here.

I thank you. Bow.

Is this addiction already? No? Good!

I was tweeting earlier about how I needed (or wanted... whatever) a drink but I also needed to finish some work. When all the people left the office, it became eerily quiet and lonely so I decided to relocate but didn't want to go home yet as I'm already in the zone.  To make the long story short, I had a choice between working in Starbucks or somewhere else. Or simply, it was coffee or beer.

Guess what? I didn't go to Starbucks. Haha. It's the first time I tried this -- went to a Greenbelt restaurant, requested for a table outdoor near a power outlet, ordered beer and food, and worked there.  I guess because I was so busy and into what I was doing, it didn't matter that I was alone.

Five beers later, I was done. Productive!

"Good teams can lose, but they recover and bounce back."

Perhaps, in our day-to-day battles, we can pick up a thing or two in the success story that is the Ateneo Blue Eagles 2009 basketball campaign.  Reposting a part of Fr. Niebres' homily at the mass before the bonfire - a great read.

Now that we have won the championship, we can look back to the embarrassing and painful loss to UE in Game 2 and see that it was a grace in that it taught our team and, I hope all of us, many lessons.

I hope Coach Norman won’t mind my telling what I recall of the story of lessons learned. He can correct my memory where it is inaccurate.

In the dugout Sunday after the loss, Coach Norman began by confronting the players

With what they did not do. “We are a defense team. Did we play defense?” “Our offense is premised on an inside game, inside first, from inside to outside. Did we do that?”

With what they did – “Look, you took this outside shot, look at the shot clock, still 15 seconds. No need to do that. I do not mean that you should not take the shot if you are free. But that is not our first option.”

He said, we all made mistakes, your coaches acknowledge their mistakes. You have to acknowledge your mistakes too. Not to blame others, but to face yourself.

Lesson 1, my favorite leadership guru, Heifetz, says that moving forward begins with: “Acknowledge your share of the mess .”.

Then Coach Norman shifted. He asked: “How many games did we win? 15. It is not easy to win 15 games.” Meaning, this defeat is not abnormal, it happens to good teams. Good teams can lose, but they recover and bounce back.

Then: Look around you, this circle is what counts and what should count for you. When you leave this room, you will hear a lot of negative comments. Ignore them, listen only to your circle here.

Finally: Tomorrow we prepare for Thursday’s game.

Lesson 2: Reframe the problem. A good leader moves on to reframe the problem – moving towards positive steps to a solution.

When I joined them Monday late afternoon, I was much impressed that Coach Norman had been spending a lot of time talking one on one with the players.

Then in the group session, he started: “How many games do we still have to play? One. Just one. If we win, we will silence all negative comments. If we lose, you can throw out your 15 game wins, you can throw out your winning statistics against UE. Only one thing counts, Thursday’s game.”

Lesson 3: Focus on the one key thing to be done – WIN GAME 3.

Then with the coaches he went through the tapes and play by play showed what went wrong and what had to be done. They translated the overall exhortation and focus into detailed deliverables. “See – UE ran this pick and role play 17 times, you tried to steal the ball and fell behind your man and he swept by you for the layup. Stay in front of your man. Stay in front of your man.

Lesson 4: Translate the exhortations and motivation into behavior, into detailed deliverables.

From then on, practice was on execution, execution, execution.

Last Thursday you saw the results – suffocating defense, dominant inside game, decisive victory. It was not an accident, not suwerte. Hindi sa sinuwerte ang UE noong linggo at sinuwerte tayo noong huwebes. It was the fruit of hard work, coming from lessons learned, leadership and unity coming from a defeat.

Underlying it all is a deep trust between coach and players and among the players themselves. “Listen to your coach. We your coaches work very hard to study the games and to design how you can win.”

Full text here.

aaaaaaaaaaw.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Every now and then, children need to be assured that they're making their parents proud.  That, perhaps, is one of the best votes of confidence one can ever have. Just like when we were younger - it really makes us feel better when our moms would kiss our wounds to make the pain go away.

Same shit, different day.

Why am I always at fault? Not fair.

Aaaaaargh. I just wanna be on the beach.

Today (well, I mean yesterday. It's about 2 am) is such a crappy crappy day and I just have to write about it.  

It's a combination of so many different little things that complicated my day and it's not even about work, really. Work is just about 10% of it and it's actually not the work itself, only part of it, and there comes a point when you don't care anymore and just forget about whatever it is that stressed you out. If you get what I mean.

About the other things, - I'm not going to air my dirty laundry here.  All I wanna say is that things would've been clearer and less complicated if my brother were still here to listen to me rant and then make me see things in a better light.  Rather than what I'm doing now, if he were here, we're probably out in our little garden having a long conversation about my issues over microwaved popcorn and Coke. Haaaay.  You never really get to appreciate these little moments until you realize that you can never ever experience them again.

Although... I have to stress that I don't really run out of people to talk to, but there are times when I just miss talking to my brother. The conversation is just not the same with anyone else. I miss, miss, miss.

I'm a proud Atenean.

woooooooooooohooooooo! (pero pabulong lang!) -- inside joke :)


Too bad I didn't get to see the game live. I was in HK. Then again had I not been in HK, I would've also only seen this on TV as it happened on a Thursday... followed by a pizza party at the office just like winning the championship last year! It's actually nice to have an Atenean as a boss because wala mashadong bashers pag nanonood kami ng game in the conference room and it seems okay with him kahit lantarang wala kang ginagawang productive for 2 hours. May libreng pizza pag panalo, tahimik lang lahat pag talo. Hahaha. Although baduy minsan dahil walang kumokontra!

Things to do in Hong Kong

1. BUY TAIKOO BROWN SUGAR CUBES FOR MY BOSS   2. BUY PLASTIC BOOTS FOR MY COLLEAGUE  3. AND OH YES... ATTEND AND PRESENT AT A REGIONAL PR MEETING. ...BLOGGING FROM THE AIRPORT AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHY SMALL CAPS DOESN'T WORK ON BLOGGER NOW & EVEN THE ENTER KEY! IT'S JUST NOT POSSIBLE TO MAKE PARAGRAPHS HERE! HOW ANNOYING!

Let's not blow it like we did 2 years ago!

Ohhhhkay... someone's probably still hungover from the trip. What the hell am I doing up at 3am with nothing to do? I can still even hear the song in my head... California, Californiaaaaaah

This afternoon was a typical cloudy day in the Philippines (the one when it's like it's going to rain but not quite), but I was sweating loads! I would've probably sweat a lot more than the basketball players in Araneta had we not found a spot directly under an aircon in the coliseum. Guess you probably appreciate the good weather elsewhere when you're reminded of how it's so much better than hot and humid.

Add the fact that Ateneo actually LOST the game by a margin of probably more than 15 points. Not good. So not good! AM I REALLY HOME? I must be dreaming! How could we lose like that? We could've been champions today but we're not and we now find ourselves in a position where we could easily lose the championship to a team who wants it more than we do.  UE has not won a championship for something like 24 years and that will definitely work up their psyche. It's ours to lose. The Blue Eagles better not choke because it sure is gonna be embarrassing to do so effing well the whole season except in the games that matter. It's like crashing in the final lap after leading the race since the start. Oh, c'mon!

It's do or die in Thursday and I won't be here to see it.  Well, goodluck, boys. I'll be elsewhere in Asia Pacific holding out on my own while you battle for pride and glory.  I just hope to get some good news on Thursday.

Meanwhile...

We've been on the run, driving in the sun, looking out for number one... Ayan na naman! I'll try to sleep again.  The whole trip deserves it's own blog entry anyway, one that's not written through the tiny QWERTY keypads of this mobile phone.

I'm back at work in a few hours, fully recharged. Bring it on, bitches! Harhar! :)

It's imminent...

Kimi will return to McLaren!

Hello from San Francisco! :)