THE TWELVE DAYS OF DFA POSTS AND OFFICES CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

I had so much with this last year, I thought I'd do it again. Everybody now, and a one and a two and a . . .

On the First Day of Christmas, Vancouver PCG gave to me,

A Prom King and a Prom Queen . . .

On the Second Day of Christmas, Pampanga RCO gave to me,

Two Versions of the Same Card . . .

On the Third Day of Christmas, Madrid PE gave to me,

Three "What the..." Glee-like Poses . . .

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, Lucena RCO gave to me,

(Region) IV na landscape . . .

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, New York PCG gave to me,

The Fiiiiiiiiiiffffftthhhhh Avenue (Parol Project, that is) . . .

On the Sixth Day of Christmas, Moscow PE gave to me,

Six Babushka Dolls . . .

On the Seventh Day of Christmas. Lisbon PE gave to me,

Seven on a (reaaaalllly long) Staircase

On the Eighth Day of Christmas, the Coord Center gave to me,

Eight Signatures fo' cash, 'yo . . .

On the Ninth Day of Christmas, Helsinki PE gave to me,

Nine Pinoy Popsicles . . .

On the Tenth Day of Christmas, Public Info Services gave to me,

Ten Op-ed Writers . . .

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, Oslo PE gave to me,

Eleven Giant Winter Athletes (who are going to trample everyone underneath them! Run, people, RUN!) . . .

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, Yangon PE gave to me,

(Um. Wow. Just...wow) . . .

. . . and,

Eleven Giant Winter Athletes (who are going to trample everyone beneath them! Run, people, RUN!)

Ten Op-ed Writers

Nine Pinoy Popsicles

Eight Signatures fo' cash, 'yo

Seven on a (reaaaalllly long) Staircase

Six Babushka Dolls

The Fiiiiiiiiiiffffftthhhhh Avenue (Parol Project, that is)

(Region) IV na landscape

Three "What the.." Glee-like poses

Two Versions of the Same Card

A Prom Kiiiiiiiing and a Prom Queeeeeeeeeeeen!!!!

Good show, good show! But where's London PE in all this? Well, stiff British upper lip and all that. We don't just irreverently join in any reindeer games. We're all about dignity and poise . . .

. . . and putting our faces faces on Christmas balls. Classy!

Maligayang Pasko at Maligo sa Bagong Taon!!!

THAT'S JUST HOW WE BOWL

Another weekend, another request to deliver "inspirational remarks." This time, we're at the Christmas party of a large FilCom Bowling association. I believe my speech went well enough, but I suppose that was all but guaranteed by the formidable number of bowling-related puns in my arsenal. The best one: lovingly referring to a pregnant lady as carrying "her own little bowling ball." The worst: making any "7-10" split metaphor. Just don't go there.

But what's this? People were not in fact rapturously applauding my speech, but rather the party's entertainment numbers? Who were these performers who had everyone (ahem) bowled over?

A musician who massaged the hell out of his guitar....

....and a re-telling of the club's history -- in old-school lakandiwang dula format.

I see. Those were freaking awesome, actually. Compared to the bowling club's entertainers, I wasn't such an "inspiration" after all. If anything, I caused everyone some des-(ahemmmmm ahemmmmm cough cough cough a-HEMMMMMMMM!)-spare.

THAT'S JUST HOW WE PAROL

The good people at Philippine Generations -- the big Fil-Brit youth organization I'm designated by the Embassy as liaison because, you know, I'm sooo youth -- came up with another fantastic event: a parol making workshop to usher in the Christmas season! In my welcome remarks, I mentioned how activities like these were great because they could make you feel like a carefree kid again.

HA! If only everyone knew of the painful childhood memories I had of crying during grade school WorkEd classes because I was one of those kids who was never good with his hands and couldn't make that goddam macramé spice rack to save his life. KAYA NGA NAGING ABOGADO EH!!!

Kidding aside, all that angst is still buried deep inside and will manifest later on is long gone and forgotten, and the workshop was genuine fun. Still, motor skills do not magically appear overnight (despite my letters to Santa), so my own parol's progression was slow, to say the least. The hardest part by far was getting the bamboo joints to stay in place. I was told by the traditionalist instructors present to never use any form of adhesive, and that everything could properly be held together by string, knots and good ol' concentration. With that sage advice, I was indeed able to complete the frame -- by using masking tape and begging one youth's mom to finish it for me.

And even with all that help, my parol still wasn't finished by the time the (five-hour) workshop ended, and was looking, ahem, a little asymmetrical. I just told everyone I was really going for the minimalist/abstract/impressionist/ironic look. (I was. I WAS!) Anyway, all the kids at the workshop were handed the same type of kit as I was, and we were all under the same time constraints, so it's not like anyone could come up with anything that beautiful or artistic...could they?

(....must...suppress...childhood...angst...memories...must)

THAT'S JUST HOW I ROLL

So I finally got the nerve to buy a used car and try driving around London. I thought a year of using pedestrian crossings painted with "Look Left (you idiot)" and "Look Right (you moron)" was enough training and conditioning for me to handle the whole driving-on-the-other-side-of-the-street thing. And you know what? It was. Right-hand steering is not as hard to get used to as I thought (although when getting in I sometimes still walk up to the passenger's side of the car; I just tell the LLDD-Hyphen-L I'm being a gentleman opening her door; she has yet to buy it).

You know what is fracking hard? Goddam roundabouts!! And goddam right turns!! I swear on Clark Griswold, I've gone miles out of my way because I can't properly time my lane crossovers without the help of stoplights. (made harder by the tears in my eyes from all the stressed-out crying)

Baby steps, baby steps. I am getting some experience under my belt making short trips around the neighborhood, going to grocery stores, and even travelling to the Embassy in central London on occasion. I even mustered enough courage to plan a trip with the LLDD-Hyphen-L to the beautiful English outlet stores countryside last weekend. When I woke up that morning, I went to the mirror, slapped myself in the face a few times, yelled "It's go time, fool!!", dressed with the same sense of purpose as a Rambo-gearing-up scene, stomped downstairs, kicked open the front door, and faced. . .

awwww...nag i-snow. That means the roads are all slippery, right? There's no sense in driving now...or until the end of winter next year, is there? No roundabout no cry, momma used to always say.

THAT'S JUST HOW WE ROLL

[ed. note: For reasons that will be clear in a couple of months, I'm too busy/tired/lazy to do much on this site. So I'm now shifting to a shorter-more frequent-less coherent posting style. Because that's how I roll]

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"Friends", I got your back! You and the Trade Office came into London this month and big-upped the Philippines (excuse me, PHL) at the great Philippine Tourism Investment Forum and at the World Travel Mart, and both events were huge successes -- not the least because of the sweeeeet ride you arranged for delegates to be rollin' all 'round London in

Vintage Routemaster buses tricked-out with big-ass "Philippines" on the side? Hells yeah.

BPOnd. JAMES BPOnd

Yo, yo, yo! Check it out, me and my peeps be totally invited to the fo-shizzle, the Source Awards! Yeah, boi....

(hmm? what's that?)

(check my invitation again?)

(oh I see...)

Ok...ahem...correction then. It appears we weren't invited to the Source Awards. It seems the Embassy was actually invited by our Trade Office to attend the best industry practices awards for, um, outsourcing.

Juust a bit less gangsta than the Source Awards

Still, this is an important event for the Philippines. The BPO sector brings in over 13 billion dollars a year and close to a million jobs to the country. So yeah, we're kind of a heavy-hitter. And hell yeah we'll represent at the industry's awards night.

Sparkling dinner conversation courtesy of a support center in Eastwood

But first things first -- the invitation said the event was black tie. Oh no. Usually, when a diplomatic event is formal, I can get away with wearing a barong. In this case, however, the dinner was being staged by a private/business group, so I would still have to explain the acceptability of national dress to an uninitiated bouncer. More importantly...it's freaking eight degrees in London!!

So there was really no choice: for the first time in my life, I would have to rock a tuxedo.

I knew nothing of tuxes, so I was worried and apprehensive at first. But this quickly gave way to an excitement arising out of the endless Kuya Germs stylin' possibilities. This, for instance, was the actual giddy text exchange between me and the Trade Office as we went to rent tuxedoes:

Trade Office: "Pagandahan tyo may boa feathers ka ba? Kami meron. With rhinestones pa."

Me: "Akin rubberized at leopard print. May bow tie, pero di ako magdre-dress shirt sa ilalim. Saka tear-away"

I may or may not have drawn inspiration from The Inbetweeners

In the end though, we all chickened out and rented the most basic tuxes available ("basic" still setting us back 51 pounds each!). We then proceeded to assemble our ensembles, starting with the signature of black tie, the...um..black tie.

In our book, "classy" is not mutually exclusive with "clip-on"

The cummerbund had a whole other set of styling issues. One, I found it hard to say cummerbund without giggling irrationally. Two, laid down, a (clip-on) cummerbund looked like a cross between a fanny pack and a weightlifter's support belt.

And I only wear fanny packs for my "smart casual" occasions

Three, the cummerbund didn't really keep in stomach flab so much as redeployed it (indeed, if you bent over forwards, the top of the cummerbund flapped down and your bilbils squished out over the top). Last, I'm sorry, but the high-and-tight waist illusion made me feel icky -- like I belonged with Prince and the Revolution.

When dorks cry

Yet all of the above issues were totally forgotten as soon as I slipped on the striped pants and velvet-lapelled jacket. From then on, dammit, I felt like freakin' Double-O Seven!!

Oh, James....

Nothing left then but to shake and stir the outsourcing awards. The event followed the usual program: cocktails, dinner, dessert. The surprise came when the evening's entertainment turned out a be Jack Whitehall, a pretty well known stand-up comedian who regularly appears on British television talk shows.

It's nice to know it isn't just the Pokwangs and Allan Ks of the world who have to go on the office dinner party circuit to earn a living

Whitehall was very funny, if a bit risqué. Most of his jokes weren't fit for publication in classy blogs like this one (I'm wearing a tuxedo as I type this, so it counts as classy). He also kept things moving speedily along, and before we knew it, the Philippines' category - Best Outsourcing Destination of the Year - was up. Some important things you should know about the category: 1) the Philippines won the award last year, and twice over the last three years, so there was risk of voter-fatigue; 2) we were up against other heavy-hitters like Egypt, Ukraine and Sri Lanka; and 3) we heard that Egypt campaigned hard, and one of its companies even sponsored one of the categories. Still, we had to keep the faith and believe that we would take home the award.

If Egypt won, I was very much prepared to yell "Denial is not just a river in your country!"

As the nominees were read and images flashed on the big screens, a great sense of nervous anticipation swept our table. I personally was worried not just whether we would win or not, but whether I could pull off the contrived "I'm-intellectually-interested-in-this-award-but-am-detached-enough-that-I-don't-look-stupid-if-I-lose" close-up of nominees.

After a few more unprintable off-color jokes by Whitehall, the envelope was opened. And the winner is. . . .

Yeah, boiiiiiiiii!!!!!

That's right! The Philippines won again! Third time in four years! Euphoria in the UK! Palakpakan sa 'Pinas! Rapture in RCBC Tower! Oh, how I wished they played the intro to Black Eyed Peas' "Bebot" when the Trade Office went up to accept the award!

A most memorable night indeed. Kudos to our Trade Office for a job well done. All their hard work and tuxedo rentals paid off. The task now is to build on the momentum, attract more investments, and - of course - make sure the Philippines wins again next year!. But all that can wait 'til tomorrow. Tonight, celebrations! Tonight, as with all awards nights, an afterparty!! Tonight, the coolest and most beautiful people get to par-tay!

Tonight, my invitation is outsourced to someone cooler and I eat cold soup at home.

SONGS OF FAITH AND DEVOTION...

...is not just the theme for this week's post, it's the title of an obscure Depeche Mode album I often invoke to establish my new wave bona fides. Win-win!

And speaking of waves...

Fluvial Pursuit

Last week, the good people of the UK Bicol Association staged their version of the famous Our Lady of Penafrancia fluvial procession. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience on many levels. First and foremost, of course, was the profound meaning of the activity and its deep connection to our homeland. Second, there was something serenely surreal about singing beautiful Philippine hymns as River Thames landmarks passed you by.

Third, I like saying "fluvial". Fourth, the very definition of "fluvial" (geologic processes associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them) naturally gives rise to my favorite only-lawyers-will-get-it joke of all time: A man lawyer and a woman lawyer are walking along the banks of a river; the man turns to the woman and whispers, "alluvion." (non-lawyer diplomats, look it up! That's legal comedy gold right there!)

Fifth - to my total surprise - once all the ceremonies were completed, the pious boat suddenly turned into... a Party Boat!! Complete with dance floor blooper at the end!

In case you're wondering if such a shift from sermon to salsa was OK, let me assure you it was the presiding priest who was rocking the ray-bans and busting the moves =)

Pope! The Visit

As you no doubt heard, the Pope was recently in the UK. Now, I leave it to the pros to better elaborate on the significance of the visit; I can only contribute some photos of the vigil at Hyde Park -- an event with such a concert-like atmosphere and spiritually raucousness it was described as "Glastonbury with God."

(I know, I know. I know I said after the Rutland Bird fair I wouldn't ever call anything the "Glasto of ____" again. This was the last time. I swear.)

A truly memorable and touching experience. The only thing really missing was a happy and catchy greeting everyone could use. I distinctly remember during the previous Pope's visits to the Philippines, we all serenaded him with "Totus Tuus" or chanted "Lo-lek! Lo-Lek!" or joked "Welcome Pope John Paul and Ringo!". In the UK there was...nothing. Some tried "Be-ne-dic-to!", but it didn't really resonate. Oh, if only someone in Hyde Park was creative and smart enough to appropriately capture. . .

. . .ah, there we go. "England 4, Benedict 16". And the banner was led all around the park by a Philippine flag and held up by some Fil-Brit youths. Perfect.

It takes a Pinoy, I guess =)

Amen.