[Me and My Lists] Part 4: A Prince Charming (Named Dad)

My favorite Disney Princess, growing up, was Cinderella.  I loved everything about her story, from the singing animal friends, to the fairy godmother, to the sparkly dress, to the ball.  But what, or rather who, I loved most, was Prince Charming.

Prince Charming was my hero.  Even if he nearly never spoke, I was absolutely in love with him.  He was perfect: tall, handsome, rich, could sing, could dance…did I mention he was tall, handsome, and rich?

Jokes aside, I was absolutely in love with him.  Why?  Because he rescued Cinderella.  Because she was miserable, and abused, and had to sleep in a garret full of vermin for crying out loud (cute animal friends though they were, I knew that it technically wasn’t hygienic for a girl to be sleeping somewhere with mice), and then he came along and suddenly she was royalty, she was a princess, complete with the Grace Kelly-style wedding gown and the tiara.

Growing up, I wanted someone who would make me feel like that.  I wanted someone who would rescue me from the monsters under my bed or the bullies at the playground.  I wanted someone who would listen to me when I cried because my friends had been mean or my teachers were teasing me by calling me a “piggy.”  I wanted someone who would tell me I was a princess.  And while my mum did all those things…with my Prince Charming, it would be different, somehow.

The name of my Prince Charming was “Dad.”  I wanted a Dad.  I had a father, but he was a father in the Cinderella sense–he disappeared in the very beginning of the story, leaving behind shadows of memories that could not be completely trusted.  See, my parents were separated, and would be annuled when I was thirteen.  My dad wasn’t around very much when I was growing up, and when he was…it wasn’t always pretty.  Instead of enjoying my drawings, he laughed that I couldn’t color within the lines.  Instead of calling me beautiful, he called me “dummy.”  Instead of singing to me, he shouted.  Oh sure, sometimes he laughed and joked and bought me toys…but when it counted, he couldn’t be Prince Charming.

Eventually, I grew old enough to understand completely what was going on, and around that time stopped liking Cinderella.  I found her too weak, too feeble and vulnerable.  I couldn’t be those things–I had to be strong, to fight my own battles, to figure out my own way in the world. (I guess it’s no surprise that my next-favorite Disney Princess would be Mulan.)  When the boys teased me, or tried to beat me up, I fought back with fists and feet.  I flushed my food down the toilet so I wouldn’t have to eat it, making sure no one could call me “fat.”  I made very sure to give my friends no reasons to be mean to me.  In short, I learned to survive without a Prince Charming.  I was determined I would never need him.

…Except I still wanted him, somewhere.  Even as I got older, learned to fight with different weapons, learned more and more to make my own way, there were times I wished for someone to sweep in, fit the slipper on my foot, and transport me to a better life where I wouldn’t have to fight anymore, where no one and nothing could touch me.  Try as I might to deny it, I wanted Prince Charming and the safety of his Palace Gates.

Or, well, I wanted a dad to be there for me the way the dads of all the other daughters I knew were.  Because when you’re young, romance isn’t a big deal.  It’s all fun and games, fairytales.  What matters is love, and protection.  Security and significance.

We’re taught, in my church, that the father is the head of the family for a reason–he provides for them the picture of what it means to have God as a Father.  He leads the household, the same way Moses and Joshua led the Hebrews, or the Judges (the good ones, anyway) lead Israel.  That’s why being a dad is such a serious responsibility, and that’s why dads need all the help they can get from God Himself.  To their wives, they are lover, protector, and head of their household–the Warrior King for the Warrior Queen.  To sons, they are the example of what manhood means–a walking, talking operational definition, the Jedi to their Padawans.  To daughters, they are to set the standard for future husbands, to give them something to demand from men, and to reinforce the worth of their daughters to demand it.

I never got that from my earthly father, and I guess that is the reason why I spent thirteen years looking for my Prince Charming, until I found Him.  Or, rather, I found my King Charming.  I found my Dad, the King of Kings, the Father of all Fathers, the literal Best Dad Ever.  And while that doesn’t mean that all my war wounds were bandaged up overnight, it did mean that I could start to heal, because I didn’t have to fight my own battles anymore, not even the ones in my own head.  I had Someone to protect me now, and, more importantly, someone to set the standard for what it would mean for me to be a woman, and what the man in my life, my eventual Prince Charming, would have to be like in order to deserve me.

So now I have my King Charming, my Heavenly Father, God, to do all the things for me that my father never managed to do.  Except here’s the thing with having a King for a Father…you still have to treat Him like royalty.  Which means you still have to submit to Him, to learn to obey, to follow His design.  Otherwise, you end up back where you started: fighting for nothing, trying to control things beyond your control, running a life you have no idea how to run.

Considering the alternatives, submitting to God makes sense.  After all, He knows better.  He made me, after all–worked out my design, fleshed out my purpose, put me together, quirks and all.  It’s sort of like having Steve Jobs around to personally guide you on how to use an iPhone–you’d be a fool to dispense with his advice and go and do it your own way.  Except that was exactly what I was, a fool.  Even if I had made the decision to make Jesus Lord and Savior over my life, I wasn’t exactly going to go quietly.  Years of fighting my own battles had given me an insanely strong pride and a habit of control.

Most of all, those years had given me a rebel heart.

(Stay tuned for Part 5)

~ARoamingTsinay~

[I’m INFECTED: Life As a Virus, Inc. Intern] #CrossingFunctions, featuring STORIFY! (I hope.)

4/4!  FINALLY.  It’s nearly 1AM and my eyes are beginning to get all blurry.  Honestly when will I ever learn not to cram major academic requirements?  Though, pretty soon (God willing), I won’t have any more academic requirements though.  Don’t know how I feel about that yet.  Will probably blog about it when I figure it out.

Anyway, back to the task at hand: update 4/4!

Today was a pretty big day for us at Virus.  First, a TV crew actually came over to film us as part of a feature for ABS-CBN’s morning talk-show Umagang Kay Ganda, which I’m told will air Monday, some time between 6:30 and 7:30am.  (If y’all are from the Philippines, and feel like waking up early then, do check us out?)  While I will admit in a past life I was a shameless media attention-seeker (I remember when camera crews came to our elementary school to interview my classmate Keeshia Wee Eng because she’d interviewed Erap, I got excessively jealous and was depressed for days.), and certainly I don’t think things have changed that much, I had to finish a pitch deck for one of the three client pitches on Friday (tomorrow, or, well, today), and so decamped to the quietest place I could find in Virus HQ: The Kitchen.

Actually, I didn’t so much decamp there as I was summoned by Sir Miguel.  We’re currently working on a microsite for a major client, and I was dispatched to shadowing Justin, who was spearheading this effort, and helping him out with content placement and layouting…at which point I had to reveal I had zero Photoshop experience.

This being the case, I was asked instead to pinpoint where we still needed assets from the client, which I did as quickly as possible before plunging back into my deck.  The cameras still invading my side of the office, though, I decided to “lie low” in the Kitchen for a while, promising that as soon as my deck was done I would help out wherever else I could.  To be honest, though, I didn’t expect to be much help, due to my lack of coding knowledge and Photoshop illiteracy.

I finished the deck a little after lunch, a few minutes after the cameras had left.  After getting the go-ahead, I sent it off to Roch, along with the fonts, all from the stolen bit of space I had in the Kitchen.  Chalking it up to pure inertia, I settled in to do pre-work for another deck…when Sir Miguel approached me again, this time asking me to assist with CMS: content management.

At first, I thought I was going to be in over my head–I’d never excelled in development, and my puerile attempts at tinkering with my blog layouts before I’d wised up and stuck to templates looked…amateurish at best.  CSS and HTML were, as I’d mentioned before, beyond me.  I’m a BD-Strat intern, which while technically makes me “cross-functional” isn’t as dramatic “cross-functioning” as Keynoting to CSS!  Could I handle this?

…Apparently, I could.  It wasn’t that much different from blogging, actually–just a bit more photo-editing involved.  And about one line of CSS.  The only skill I really needed was attention to detail, which as a woman I guess is sort of a given.  Justin showed me the ropes a bit, I asked some stupid questions, and I was off!  About a quarter of the way through, I decided that I’d live-tweet my adventure as well, so I did.  Look out below!

[View the story “The day the Cross-Functional Intern…actually crossed functions.” on Storify]

[UPDATE: Okay, so WordPress isn’t allowing me to embed…so let’s pretend it worked? You can click the link real quick instead and check out the live tweets, then come back and finish. Sorry guys! TOLD YOU I SUCK AT CODING!!]

What I’m liking about this internship is that despite being assigned a certain department, I’m allowed to have face-time with all the others, learning bits and pieces of the more technical sides of digital as I go.  While I won’t claim to be any good at what the people of the Kitchen do (compare my paltry AE art to their masterpieces and you’d see what I mean), it was fun to feel like “one of them” for a day, and watch how they worked.  They even joked that after getting used to the dual-screen and the code-checks, I might migrate permanently!  (Heck no; I’m sticking to Keynote!)

All good things have to come to an end, though.  Eventually, my time to head out–and go to my last ever official class at Dragon U–came, and I said goodbye to everyone, and thanked them (especially Justin, who had to put up with all my n00b mistakes) for their patience with the midget “Intern 2” from across the office.  All-in-all, an interesting day, and, as usual with my internship, I learned a good deal.  I actually quite enjoyed doing my “baby development team” work (though it hardly qualified development work, I think, compared to what they actually do), and would definitely want to help out again when needed, as long as at the end of the day I could go back to my my AE-art and strat decking. :))

~ARoamingTsinay~

[I’m INFECTED: Life As a Virus, Inc. Intern] Virus Open House, or, One Giant Extended Family Reunion

3/4!  Only one more and I can catch a few Zzs and hopefully stop “looking tired.”  Since my last two updates were “serious” in nature (one was all-out emotional, and the other was me trying to explain my newly-found geek), I’ve decided to make my third a fun one.  After all, just because these blogs are technically a “school requirement,” doesn’t mean that I can’t talk about fun stuff.

But first, an admission: working at Virus can get pretty hectic sometimes.  It’s an agency trait, really: in the fast-paced world of Marketing, and the even faster world of digital, there is always something new to get a hold of, some new area to innovate in or improve.  You’d think that, in a world of “EOD” (end-of-day) submissions and never-ceasing output, people must burn out a lot.

…Well, not really.  And for good reason: the people here at Virus know when to work, and when to stop, kick back, and throw a really good party.

Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking.  Party?!  Frankie, you hate parties.  You’re an agoraphobic lobster!  You are admittedly socially awkward.  How can you be working in a place that throws parties?  Well, you’re right, I hate parties: the meaningless kind where you go to be seen and make small-talk and never actually do anything fun except stand around and maybe flirt and imbibe indescribable amounts of alcohol as a social lubricant when there’s no actual “socializing” to lubricate…you get my point.  I don’t like parties for the sake of throwing a party.  Virus Open House isn’t like that.

Part-company bonding, part-client servicing, the Virus Open House is a quarterly institution where, after office hours (of course), we open our doors to clients, partners, and friends.  Continuing that “family” analogy I’ve been constantly reiterating, the Open House is sort of like a family reunion complete with the occasional “talent show” and a Playstation 4.  It’s a chance for everyone to meet everyone’s significant others, friends, and actual biological family (Nike brought her brother, Miguel, who is actually friends with our President, Sir Miguel…which makes me wonder how they refer to each other, honestly.), and for everyone to take a much-deserved break, together.

 

Being the aforementioned agoraphobic lobster that I was, I spent most of my time with the Virus Girls BD-Strat alliance of Helen, Arra, and Nike (representing Strat/Social Media) and Roch and Jovel (representing BD).  Strategy Head Rashmi was at an Indian Henna ceremony, but she was able to come a bit later, and we all ended up hanging out together at the couches, playing truth-or-dare, chatting, and meeting everyone else’s friends: Jovel brought some people from her old workplace, and Nike brought, as I mentioned earlier, her brother, and also invited her boyfriend, Rommel.

A lot of clients and partners came, and I greeted some who I recognized, but mostly I was content to sit, chat, and watch the restless energy.

The Virus Girls BD-Strat Alliance! + André Tani, Virus’ Executive Director for Business Development.  The colorful lights are a result of Associate Director of Business Development Mike Gabion’s cool sound-sensing laser machine.  

As far as parties go, this was a lot of innocent fun–mostly photos taken (many Oscars-style selfies), ping-pong matches, casual conversation, and happy faces.  There was no business talk; instead, everything was personal, relational, and set to the soundtrack of some cool music provided by DJ Amistocino (a.k.a. Nike) and Jaba, who made sure to play Disclosure’s “Latch” twice.

 

Oreo couch assault!

I had to leave the party early, as I wasn’t feeling well, but not before taking a ton of photos, of which this is only a sampling.  Or, well, okay, I wasn’t the one who took the photos–my arms aren’t that long.  Instead, I brought along a “photographer” plus-one, friend and sometimes-collaborate Kyle, to help ward off agoraphobia.  He was warmly welcomed into the fold, was claimed by Arra as a “best friend,” and ended up falling in love with our Oreo Couch, but made a mistake of sitting between the cream and the top cookie.  Obviously, that invited becoming part of the sandwich.

 

Me with DJ Amistocino, right before I go. 🙂

Friends, food (yes, there was food; I may have forgotten to mention that fact), and fun-and-games (someone actually whipped out a Jenga set) made this one of those rare parties that this socially-awkward midget Asian actually enjoyed tremendously.  And it wasn’t just the “party” aspect really–observing the conversations that went on, I could understand why everyone at Virus seemed so bonded, and why our infectious little agency has such strong client and partner relationships.  See, the thing I always hated about other parties was that someone was always left behind in the corner of the room to fend for themselves, feeling awkward and unwanted (9 times out of ten, this was me).  At the Virus Open House though, it was literally an “open” house–everyone made an effort to interact with at least one stranger, even if they weren’t particularly “social.”  And, whoever walked in the door, everyone looked happy to see them.  It was such a welcoming atmosphere, you couldn’t help but join the fun (or the selfie-taking).

I guess this reiterates the point I made in my first of these four updates–that my ideas about being “professional” were wrong, and did not necessarily mean ignoring the human side of interactions.  Relationships are as much a part of business as actually doing business is, and while of course during work hours interactions are strictly about work, I guess it does help to know that the person on the other line, helping you with this project or making your campaign, actually cares about you as a person, and the business you are doing.  It would definitely help me.

Virus Open House is Virus’ way of saying “We care enough to hang out with you and not talk business.”  And really, that makes it the best sort of party–a party where you can actually make friends.

All right, so that’s it for my “fun” update: 3/4!  Last update of the night coming up in a bit, but I really hope you enjoyed this one, and if you’re interested in attending our next “Open House,” or finding out more about the cool place I work, you can check out our Facebook page!

~ARoamingTsinay~