THE SEVEN STAGES OF POSTING

Disclosure time: I'm about to be posted! Like, tomorrow!!! Certainly a significant, meaningful occasion in the LLDD household, although I must say -- having seen every other batchmate and countless personnel assigned abroad -- people at the Home Office are not as cool and routinely nonchalant about their postings as I thought they'd be. No, postings here involve as much trepidation and elaborate planning as a rebel trying to escape from Hoth (only with more signatures required to actually leave).

Anyway, a quick guide through the process.

"The ASEAN Summit will create a distraction, allowing the FSOs to escape through the imperial blockade, got it?"

1. Shock/Disbelief - You know you're in the foreign service to be assigned abroad, yet when news of your posting does come down, it feels like a soap opera-slap. Suddenly, everything seems likes its on fast forward. To make matters worse in my case, my posting preparations had to run alongside my wedding preparations. It was like having TWO "24"-clock sound effects counting down in the background.

"Dammit, Chloe, there's no time to get 19 signatures for the Travel Order clearance AND select the entree menu!"

2. Personal Affairs Prepping - All those little things you've been putting off for so long suddenly pile-up and demand immediate attention. So many personal status reports to file, so little time. I must have reported, for instance, my marriage to something like nine different departments. The LLDD-Hyphen-L, on the other hand, enjoyed every second of her office tagging me as her new "dependent".

They may as well have stamped "Kept Man"

3. Uprooting - More difficult than you'd imagine, not just because of the emotions involved, but also because your household junk seems to have mated and exponentially multiplied over the years. I still have no idea why I found five wallclocks in my tiny old studio apartment.

If you look closely, you can see the desk lamp humping the oven toaster.

4 . Sudden-Onset Cheapness - The high cost of relocation is aggravated by the realization that everything costs much, much more abroad. Thus, in the last few days before your departure, you find yourself scrounging around for every bargain, discount and freebie. Among the must-have's: haircuts from relatives.

Now, if my sister could also do dental work and lasik surgery, I'd be set

5. Rising Nationalism - As an "ambassador" of your country abroad, you can't be soft or back down from anyone. You have to represent, dammit! Now, some diplomats would be happy with just bringing a few barongs and a couple of Yabang Pinoy bracelets to Post. True thug gangstas like me, however, go to the extreme and get Sun and Stars tatoos from the seediest parlors in Manila.

OK, it was actually face-painting during a kiddie birthday party at Max's Chicken, but still totally bad ass I think.

um...Grr.

6. Feeling Jet-Set - But of course the LLDD-Hyphen-L had to get new girlie-red luggage. And of course she had to walk it through the length of SM during the Sunday afternoon rush while it was still wrapped in plastic.

"Outta my way! I have diplomatic immunity against ankles run over!"

7. Despedi-days - Talk about long goodbyes. As news of your impending departure spreads, you get a steady stream of invitations to and requests for farewell pakains, many from groups and sub-groups you haven't heard from in a while. I haven't been such the center of attention since my wedding (and only then because of the rub-off effect from the LLDD-Hyphen-L =).

"Look, ma! It's like I have friends!"

So where am I being posted? Well, most everyone in the Department already knows, but to those out there who don't, I'll just leave a little hint: the zombie apocalypse may be a problem.

"Why, of why, did I ever want to leave the Home Office?"

GIRL OF MY FANTASIES

At the end of another season of the MetroManilaBalls Fantasy League, top prize went to CRANIAL AGAIN. Again. Dammit. Simply nothing could dislodge him from the number one spot (although thanks to the North Koreans for trying to distract him with a missile launch).

The big story, however, is the dramatic, last-day runner-up finish of...(drumroll please)...THE LLDD-HYPHEN-L!!!

That's right, sweetie took second place, the first female ever to finish on the podium, soundly beating three former champions and four current FSOs in the process. I swear, there's no woman with a better hotness-to-Basketball I.Q. ratio than her. Damn right, I'm proud. To paraphrase Obama, "How much of a couch potato's fantasy is my wife!"



The LLDD-Hyphen-L, of course, was classy and graceful in her victory message board post: "OMG!!!....umm...how/where do i start? so this is how jennifer hudson felt when she won her 1st oscar and grammy awards! out of breath... out of words... out of... hey, wait a minute! where is my T-R-O-P-H-Y??? i want my trophy, now na! commish??? commish!!!"

(Yes, those "OMG" and Jennifer Hudson/Oscar/Grammy references will surely resonate with every guy who plays fantasy sports. My wife's breaking barriers, I'm telling you)

Indeed, this is just such a happy, historic moment, let's not mention anymore that the LLDD-Hyphen-L has beaten me - Commissioner of MetroManilaBalls - two out of the three years that she's been part of the league. Or that in my first ever Champions League (made up of winning managers from all over the world), I finished...dead last.

Just goes to show that in Fantasy, as in real life, we should all just listen to the wife.

CAN'T SPELL "APRIL FOOLS" WITHOUT "FSO"

Oh, those pranksters at Personnel Administration! Such cards! First, they schedule the oathtaking of the newest batch of cadets...on April 1! This of course won't affect the cadets' legitimacy as FSO IVs, but from now on, as they move through the bureaucracy, everyone who sees their appointment papers will glance up and snicker, "Yeah, right."

They were probably also told FSO life is all cocktail parties, glamour and rainbows. Suckers.

Then, Personnel announces out of the blue that my batchmates and I have been promoted to FSO III (legally pronounced "FSO Threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, baby!!!"), and that we had to take new oaths, pronto. All well and good, except: a) we were expecting the announcement a couple of months earlier; and b) the announcement was made on the last day before the long Holy Week holidays, i.e., when the de facto Home Office dress code was already set to "awkward casual".

Thus, "Amazing Grace" (the only other batch-member not yet posted, and the one most responsible for pressuring Personnel to carry out the promotions) and I had to go on a mad last-working-day search for oath-appropriate attire. For her part, "Amazing Grace" essentially disrobed our kind, motherly Admin Officer (who was then left to hide and cower in her office because, as she put it, "wala na akong karapatan mag-sleeveless!"). On my end, I scavenged an old skinny tie, then accosted the office-new guy "Ozymandias" and relieved him of his black blazer. The problem: "Ozymandias" is almost half my size, so the blazer was short and skin-tight, bunched up at the forearms, and had a collar that kept popping up -- just like an 80's Jojo Alejar jacket.

Normally, that would be a good thing.

As much as I wanted to be promoted to FSO III dressed as one of The Tigers, it simply wasn't practical: I couldn't raise my hand above my shoulder and assume the oath-taking position without ripping the back of the blazer. So an emergency call was made to our protocol office to break out the emergency formal wear. When was the last time this was done? I don't really know, but I can tell you the jacket given to me smelled of Elmer's Glue and, more disturbingly, had a pair of black spandex underpants rolled up in the front pocket.

Which is a serious diplomatic faux pas because, as everyone knows, spandex underpants should be white before Labor Day. (unless the spandex underpants were white at the start; in which case, ew.)

But time was running out in the day, so I still donned the emergency blazer and hurriedly took my oath as FSO III, side by side with "Amazing Grace". At the end of it all, I was thoroughly happy, filled with a renewed sense of service, duty, and confidence in mixing a blue blazer with brown pants.

Not seen in picture: the renewed sense of alcogel handwashing to get rid of black spandex underpants smell