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Dialogues I: ” Peter”

“On your way to a job interview,” said my old boss who was also a good friend, “you must always be prepared.”

“No kidding.”

“Be serious! You only have one chance to make a good impression.” He continued.

“The secret to success, is to read them before they read you. Companies are faceless corporations. Pure evil. Ready to toss you down the deadwood-chute the moment you cease to be useful or in your case, if they don’t like you.”

“Uh?”

“However in the end companies are run by people. Now, people are not evil but quite likable or at least, that is what you want them to believe. Everyone loves to feel they are better than everyone else: Special. Even if they don’t admit it.”

“I fear a sense of horrible irony in what I am about to hear…”

“That’s what you got to exploit. That’s your ticket in!”

“One word: Cynical.”

“You want to get the job or are you going to insult me?”

“May I do both?”

Peter then went on about a famous story from his past or something more akin to an anthology of them. Everyone always liked those. They were always funny and fantastical: Like, Spiderman-swings-in-and-sa

ves-a-convent-full-of-nuns-from-berserk–Gigolos fantastical. Such stories, you quickly learn to hear with a healthy side of a grain of salt. Otherwise, your brain simply explodes.

“When on my first job interview at an insurance company, a would-be manager asked me a series of questions meant to throw you off and think on your feet. Like: ‘Where would you see yourself in 5 years?’ I love time traveling questions. Or ‘Tell us a time where you were in conflict with someone and you just magically fixed it.’ Or ‘what would you do if your found your boss stealing office supplies?’ (I would have said blackmail) and other sanity-vague diatribe.

The point: No one wants to hire a moron. No one will ever say that to your face, of course. But now that I am a manager, trust me, they do. Sometimes walking an interviewee out without bursting in sub-political correct cachinnation is the hardest part of the interview!”

“Cachinnation? Really? You are a bastard Peter…”

“What is your strongest weakness?!” My manager said. “That one does come to mind a lot.”

“Isn’t that a Wynonna Judd song?”

“Silly no fuck!”

“What did you say?”

“…He was my strongest weakness… I surrendered heart and soul…”

“Shut up. You did not said that.”

“I said something about working too hard for my own good, but I was on the process of balancing it out with some sports.”

“Sounds normal, and he believed you?”

“Here is where you must shine: The Look. Everyone knows these answers are anal and vacuous. The internet has made sure to spread that fact far and wide. But the look and tone mixed in with a hint of a honest smile throws them off. That is what sells it. Don’t over do it, you don’t want to come off car-salesman smooth. Everyone hates that! And you will come off as if you are lying. That is something you want to avoid at all costs!

“Isn’t that exactly what I would be doing though?”

“See? Right there. You just failed to get the job.”

Wondered if asking Peter was a very, very, bad idea.

“Oh, wait, I will tell you my favourite question! At another interview few years later, a manager asked in a very serious and imposing tone:
‘Hypothetically, after you got the job, if my manager, came in here. Pointed out the window there and told you the sky was purple and I said to him it was blue… and he asked for your opinion. What would your answer be?’

“Finally, an interestingly attitude question…” I thought.

“I said you could not see the sky because it was in fact overcast.”

“Wha? You did not say that either! You are really BS’ing now.”

“He said it was hypothetical. Didn’t see a hipothericalistic thought sale at Costco. Its free. Anyone can use it.”

“What did he say?”

“He just sat there. Index finger raised upward, mouth opened, as if he was going to say something. After about 10 seconds he asked me if I could come up with anything else. I added we should definitely call his wife, as I would be worried for his boss going home and careening right through a red light.

“Hahahaha…And?”

“I hired you two years later, didn’t I?.” Peter said, smiling.

“Spiderman saves the day, again.” I thought.
In the end, I got the job. Not sure how but definitely not thanks to Peter’s advise.

Poetry Corner: Tempus Beatum Est

Night time.
With the faint and ever lingering humming of cars in the distance
And incandescents hanging outside my windows which never seem to rest.
White noise for the desperate.

How long has it been since my dreams took hold?
Leading to lush lands? Islands teaming of vibrant thought and endearing peace?
How lucky mellow-minds are.
Free to stroll through fields of wild ponderings and soft-oranged mornings

To welcome sleep’s soft hand, nurturing and pleasant, like a mother’s tender touch. Knowing your rest and time are blessed.
Rather than embrace it as cold escapism. A hamac of obscurity. An unplugging tool to hinder the surges
Pardoning a fool’s head with levity thus allowing it to hang lighter

What time is it now? Three more hours? Then, is there not a choice?
I recall traveling endless kilometers within my living room. Carving a path through my carpet
Pacing my worries. Passing and pacing. Endless.
Your mind is the worse enemy.

Days gone by remind me of quieter times
When I did not loose myself in the rules of numbers & words, and lived.
I am still like that inside. I know it! I think…
I can see it, when I am not empty like a canteen or peddling fears to myself

Something hardly ever seen in my mind now, are the galleries of memories. My museum of flashbacks.
Halls full of wonders, some innocent like those of a child. Or some among loved ones –Spring picnics, drunken nights and love making on a whim. Gently running your fingers across someone’s lips before that first soft, lusting kiss.
All of them now amalgamated within the retreat of my mind, along my statues of granite reason. What will happen to them? I wonder.
As the comfort of silence, unleashed and uncontrolled can make you mad

So then, when they found me the next day. They couldn’t understand it. How could they? You can’t blame them either. I didn’t, and I was there
Ah, silence! Peaceful. And right before I fade. Just before I fade.
I despised the white noise, a pestilent symphony without coda. Never desisting. Now, I see nothing.

Only blackness. Blinded.
Dear God, …where am I?

Adventuras De Un Organizador (Part IV)

As some of you may already know, I run two social groups in Toronto with a combined membership of 1230+ members and hosted a total 133 events, not too shabby for a hobby. However I have been thinking of going back to the original reason why I joined meetup.com: To learn Spanish.

You see, I first joined meetup a few years ago due to my slowly disappearing Spanish skills. I had moved to Canada 15 years before and was loosing it. Loosing sucha beautiful language is like loosing a part of your past, a part of your being. As I had no one to practice with, I decided to google a way to do so in Toronto.

To make a long story short, I found myself at the front door of The Toronto Spanish Language Meetup Group–or something named like that– about three years ago. Soon, I was helping run it although in the end I simply did not have the time, so I relinquished control to someone named John and that was that.

Fast forward two years. The group still existed however now in a moribund shadow of its former self. Even though it was one of the larger groups (850+ members) in Toronto, the number of events had crawled to about one every seven months. Can you imagine that? Yeah… I know, party time!

The organizer at the time, the one who is supposed to post and host events was MIA for months. Apparently, saving the whales or whatever may entail a seven month sabbatical. So after finding his email address, I offered to take it over. He refused. Sadly the reason was not very clear to me, something to to with the previous organizer not wanting for him to give up his organizer responsibilities. Okay. So two weeks later, he gave up the position on his own. Go figure.

I immediately jumped at the chance. Annexed, revamped it and decided to make it not only a tool for me to learn but to anyone and everyone else. It’s all about the good Karma, right? I was a bit worried the group was beyond repair, but there is nothing that can be achieved without some elbow grease. Thus so far, it seems to be working, my first event had 27 members show up! Second? 38! Third? 44!

What is it that we do, you ask? Primarily we chat. Somewhat anticlimactic since there is only one rule in the group: You can and must only communicate in Spanish. But our repertoire of types of events is growing, watching some Spanish movies and some dancing. Indeed it may seem daunting to those who are learning the language and are on their way in. However I have found one the best ways to learn any language is to simply immerse in such environment where you are forced to use it as often as possible. Whether you like it or not! Call it conversational sink or swim or the Spanish mother of invention or my personal favourite: Linguistic Darwinism. I baptize thy and copyright thy too.

If you would like to learn and more importantly practice your Spanish then come out. Not only you practice another language, meet new friends. Events are held at least on a bi-weekly basis if not weekly. You cannot loose! To start, click here: Toronto’s Spanish Group.

A hablar Español se a dicho!

Holy Book Inc. (Part I)

Someone close to me bought me a book entitled “The Year of Living Biblically,” ironically, as a Christmas present. At first, when you crack the sucker open it is hard not to feel comfortable as you sail past the first few pages. A. J. Jacobs, a self-described agnostic-Jew who takes pride in his generally God-less existence, is a fun, if a little neurotic scribe. He guides you quite easily through the origins and the concept of his project: To live one year as literally conscious of the Bible as possible –and yes, also book contract. So far, he hasn’t let that one veer to far out of his peripheral sight. As much as he may want to learn more about the insights of living a non-secular life style, so far he has made note of his book contract about five times into the read. You need to work on that one A.J.

I am not going to lie to you, I haven’t finished the book yet, as I am only on page 108 out of 332. So far he has read the bible(s) as there are countless versions –some experts count them well into over a thousand– and pointed out many of the pseudo-forgotten rules within the ‘book of all books.’ Down to the downright obscure: “Kill all magicians!”or the rule disallowing men –and some women– from “trimming the ends of your beard.” Which by proxy includes skipping on shaving altogether, hence his Tres-homeless chic look. Or my personal favourite: If in the scene on an unresolved crime, you must break the neck of a cow as sacrifice. Can you imagine that?

‘Honey, what happened to the $5 I left on the coffee table?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t take it though.’
‘That’s alright, I have a cow right here. Hi cow.’
‘Moo?’
SNAAPPPPPP!!
‘That’s okay honey! I took care of it.’

There are also some other strange ones, like not touching women… specially if menstruating. In fact not only you ladies are unclean but everything you touch, including me, a chair or a bench becomes unclean as per Leviticus 15:20: “everything upon which she lies during her impurity shall be unclean; everything also upon which she sits shall be unclean.” And you thought being a leper was bad enough. At least we have found a cure for that one.

With such truck-load worth of idiosyncrasies, I cannot help enjoying the book so far. Hearing some of the most ludicrous and forgotten rules from the Bible, as they themselves are presented as proverbs and parables from A.J.’s current day life in New York city make for quite the funny read. However it makes me realize two things. First, –and this is my own personal choice– as someone raised in a Catholic household who has read the New Testament, the Torah (parts of the Talmud) and the Koran: Holy books should never be taken completely literally, as they simple contradict themselves way too much. This is how political agendas are fueled and wars started.

The “Give the other cheek…” argument VS. “Eye for an eye.”
…”Stone all gays.” VS. “Let he without sin cast the first stone.”
…”Kill magicians\ stone sinners, and non-believers!” VS. The *Don’t do onto others what you would not like done to you,* Golden Rule.

The list goes on and on… for centuries. Secondly, as easygoing as A.J. is, ultimately he is praying –pun intended– on a gimmick to make money. A stunt, a piece of chicanery that although amusing never relents its true intentions: Sell books. Make money. So, the questioned begged here at the end of the day is: How Christian/Jewish/Muslin/Hindu/Scientology?/*insert next religion here* is that?

I find it amusing that as I read this book, I am getting stopped on cafes, buses, subways and well, anywhere I like to read–9+ times so far– about this book. Mostly because they have seen the author getting interviewed on CNN, or some morning show. Guess the advertising budget is working its magic. Pretty sharp A.J. Pretty sharp.

I will post more once I finish the book.