IT'S THURSDAY, I MUST BE IN...EDINBURGH

I like working closely with our "Friends Philippines"/Tourism department here in the UK, of course. But when it's the Philippine Trade office that invites me to give an investments promotion lecture and travel up to Scotland, well, wala nang kaibi-kaibigan.

(but we can still be "Friends" again, Tourism...just invite me to the dive show in Birmingham next month...I'm that easy)

Return to Edinburgh on a Thursdah

The LLDD-Hyphen-L and I arrive late Thursday afternoon, but because we've travelled so far up north, there's still plenty of daylight well into the night and we get a chance to walk all around Edinburgh's old town. It was as cool, beautiful and mystical as I remembered it.

. . .although youth photobombing has since become a problem.

How beautiful is Edinburgh? Put it this way: if you're an engaged couple and have an unphotogenic groom-to-be, having your "Guy and Pip" pre-nup photos taken with Edinburgh as the backdrop is guaranteed to overcome any of his unsightly double-chinned dorkiness.






(but not, alas, his inability to nail the "fierce" look)

Like I said the last time I was here, Edinburgh's stone sculptures are the best, most dramatic I've ever seen. (you might even say they...ahem...rock) The local bird population, however, does not afford the statue heads the same respect.

Fil-Forum Friday

With a full day's work ahead, we join the Trade team in the midst of the official picture-picture session. This may be an investments event, but it's a Philippine investments event, so by gum there will be picture-picture! Lots of it! (At. Every. Single. Hotel. Office. And. Restaurant.)

En route to the forum venue, we pick up a meeting participant at a trendy new hotel in old town Edinburgh. And by trendy new, I mean 80s New Wave colors and decor everywhere. Mauve walls with Zubaz flooring? I like!

Forum begins and I deliver a lecture on Philippine economic and investment opportunities before some Scottish business players. I won't burden you with the details of the talk (7.3%!), but I will say as unsolicited advice to other Philippine FSO lecture-geeks around the world that two particular jokes go over surprisingly well with an audience. The first is right at the start of the speech (above)mentioning the local weather ("I see today is one of the few sunny days of the year in Scotland. I won't blame you for ignoring me and just staring out the window"); the second is at the end of the lecture teaching the gathering the meaning of Mabuhay ("In Spanish it would be 'Viva', in Vulcan it would be 'Live Long and Prosper' ")



You think I'm kidding? Zoom in on my hand! And remember, the most beloved character in Star Trek's name is, that's right, Scotty! So you see how the Scottish speech has all come together. The circle of dork is complete. So awesome.

And there can be, of course, no talk of awesome or of sci-fi without Star Wars - even up here in Scotland. After the forum, the Trade group pay a visit to the offices of one of the event organizers. The conversation is dominated by a debate on macroeconomic figures and priority investment sectors until...I notice in one corner over some desk clutter...and yell out...BOBA FETT!!

Instantly, two heads pop-up out of cubicles like a whack-a-mole game. We all lock eyes. There are no words exchanged, yet it is immediately understood: I am safe here. I am among friends. I will not be harmed on this ground.

The owner of the Boba Fett image (above) explains, "I've had that since I was a kid, but my wife won't let me keep it at home". I feel you, brother.

His co-worker dives in and we all have a spirited discussion on the appeal of the bounty hunter ("It's the mask, isn't it? It makes him an enigma"), the merits of the re-booted Battlestar Galactica over the original ("The re-boot is just more gritty and intense. And the girls are hotter"), and the coolest thing about buying the Family Guy-Something Something Darkside DVD box ("It has a T-shirt inside, and the Chicken is Boba Fett!"). Good times.

The best part? Turns out the guys are animators working on a informational project. Their work is going well, but they say they still could use some help. Well then, what so happens to be one of the Philippines' priority sectors? That's right, Animation BPOs! The Trade people immediately referred my sci-fi boys to some local companies, and everyone may very well hook up. Win. Win. Win.

To recap: I got to visit scenic Scotland, promote the Philippines and get my Star Wars and animation groove on. All in the name of work.

Told you Edinburgh was cool.

OAZzzzzz

By roads and backways a lover's chance down a wind
Cut open murmurs and sounds be calm hands on skin
Carry further oh...entangled strands all sing
Saving some time to slip away we could dance oh..
Shouldn't be asking wild and scheming
Could be my election day

Sorry, but after pulling 40 straight hours of poll-duty on just 40 minutes of sleep, I'm as coherent as Arcadia (nee Duran Duran) right now. So let's kick things off with a special Election Day-related "Travel Advisory" for some perspective instead. As before, guess the country from where the following headlines originated:

• 18 registered voters living at one address (and other alleged shenanigans). Worst reality-show premise ever.
• 13-year old receives voting card. Talk about getting the youth vote.
• Thousands waiting in line as polls close, say it was easier getting into "Iron Man 2"
• Allegedly weird polling stations, although a place to get a manicure after some indelible ink makes perfect sense to me.

So, um, yeah.

Here in London, the Embassy's overseas absentee voting went smoothly, if exhaustingly. Regulations required us to complete vote-counting at our stations uninterrupted from start to finish, i.e., there would be no going home, no night's sleep, and no - ahem - bathing. At the end of everything, I felt a newly-affirmed respect and admiration for our public school teachers who used to do counting the old-school way: writing and computing everything by hand, tara by painstaking tara.

(don't worry, I didn't know what a tara was either before OAV; now, not only do I know what it is, I know to yell "Kahon!" after every fifth one).

Put simply, we here did our counting in the relative comfort of the Embassy, yet were still totally spent and drained at the end of it all. I can only imagine what the teachers felt and went through -- working with fewer facilities, subjected to heat and the elements, pressured by the media and the public and, more recently, subjected to bitching on the internet.

To those teachers who were able to do their jobs despite all that I say, Bravo! Ignore the whiners, naysayers and know-it-alls on Facebook. As my mom (a teacher herself) used to say "Those who can, do; those who can't, forward messages and make lame status updates."

(Mom is surprisingly hip with the social-networking)

Special shout-out also to everyone back home who helped pull off the automated elections. Again, y'all found a way to work while others just looked for ways to complain. When I was back home a couple of months ago for a legal training course, for instance, we had one speaker who - instead of just providing recent developments in law like he was supposed to - took the opportunity to smugly subject the captive audience to a four-hour self-promotional rant against the new process. His jowls were shaking as he literally shrieked "FAAAIL!!!!" and "WE'RE DOOOOOOMED!" over and over again.

Where you at now, Fail Boy? Actually, I don't know and don't really care, so long as you're nowhere near any of the OAV people around the world or teachers back home getting their much-deserved sleep, FTW!!

(yes, I had to ask Mom what FTW means; she's surprisingly hip with the gaming chatrooms)

4 May, 5.00 p.m (all times London) - A few days before the elections, Embassy and Filcom personnel take their oaths as poll officers. For photo-op purposes, the oathtaking was re-staged a couple of times, and it was a testament to everyone that they gamely went through each re-shoot without any difficul....


....OH MY GOD! THAT'S THE LLDD-HYPHEN-L'S MUSIC!!!

8 May, 10.00 a.m. - Everyone goes through their last "echo training", which is basically just me repeating what I learned in Madrid, but "echo training" sounds more bad-ass. Needless to state, I overuse my "What makes a ballot spoiled? Upbringing" joke, but what the heck, my audience was as captive as Fail Boy's.

10 May, 11.50 a.m. - Even though I knew it would be cutting it close to the deadline, I chose to be one of the last to cast their ballots. The fact I knew in advance there would be camera crews to capture the polls closing had nothing to do with my decision, nothing at all.

10 May, 6.00 p.m. - Hours after the polls close, no vote has actually been counted yet as we still have to sort out and validate the thousands of ballots. I already look like I've aged 10 years (damn you embassy photographer and your high-def SLR!)....

....while the LLDD-Hyphen-L still looks fresh as a daisy as she rocks a "100% Pinay" T-shirt. She said it should more accurately read 75%...but who's counting! (Get it? Who's counting? Elections? Counters? It's gonna be a long night)

10 to 11 May, 7.00 p.m. to 4.00 a.m. - As vote-counting proper begins, the reality sets in that we can't physically go through more than 50 ballots every two hours. This means - with 500 ballots per precinct - everyone is looking at at least 20 straight hours of work. Fortunately, people would every so often pass around refreshments to perk things up. Everyone's favorite (above) was some cannoli bought from a nearby Italian dessert place; the least favorite (below) was some coffee I personally made timpla that looked, smelled and tasted like something that rhymes with "rap".

11 May, 5.00 a.m. - Breaking dawn is when the LLDD-Hyphen-L's precinct (upper window) and mine (lower) finish half of their ballot-counting. It's also the chick-flick the LLDD-Hyphen-L will drag me to as payment for making her work without sleep.

11 May, 4.00 p.m. - Precincts headed by more senior Embassy officials approach the finish of their counting. I will say, having FSOs lead the counting makes perfect sense because, by their own admission, they are totally O.C.! I guarantee the truth and accuracy of their figures - not just out of a sense of responsibility, not just because it is the right and moral thing to do - but because it will freakin bug them in their sleep if any tara is out of place!

11 May, 6.30 p.m. - Finally, the last ballot is counted. Hugs and high-fives all around! We can all go hom....oh, wait. Everything still needs to be tallied, verified, initialled, signed, thumbmarked, sealed and documented. Since there are dozens of document pages and hundreds of candidates, wrapping up actually takes another four hours to complete. Good thing those with O.C. live for tallying, verifying, initialling, signing, thumbmarking, sealing and documenting things over and over! Good times!

12 May, 12.00 a.m. - OK, now we head home? Nope, not just yet. Everything still has to be reviewed and approved by the board of canvassers. The mood here is sort of a cross between expectant fathers at a hospital waiting room and contestants facing the American Idol panel of judges.

The canvassers' bad ass-looking version of Simon Cowell on the right, for instance, called my handwriting "pitchy".

12 May, 2.00 a.m. - The LLDD-Hyphen-L and I finally go home, and sleep the sleep of the (feeling) righteous. Everyone in the Embassy has a good feeling of accomplishment and, again, deepened respect for all those who did the same thing under more difficult circumstances back home. Still, as one of my bosses said, "I want a PCOS machine for Christmas!" Later in the day, I get to read some of my batchmates' posts about their OAV experiences at big Embassies ("canvassing time! electronic transmission! woohoo!") and small ("grabe ang hirap namin dito para magbilang ng 12 votes =)".

I would have flamed those batchmates, but was too sleepy. I just let Arcadia play us out.

Pull my shirt off and pray, i'm saving myself to suffer the heatwave
Pull my shirt off and pray, we're coming up on re-election day

(that...that actually made some sense. I must really need more sleep)