After I wrote about investments, I’ve been thinking about chronicling my professional journey. I’m planning a new blog/journal, which would serve as a repository for my less poetic, less prosaic recordings on life. I’ve been inspired by Where Is Life especially after an insightful correspondence with the author, Leah Cox, regarding my professional and personal struggles. She brought an outside perspective that was terribly needed, and which has already proven invaluable.

I’m also planning on attending a seminar on goal setting this weekend. I think it would a great learning experience. Aside from being affordable, the center organizing the event has a great background. The speaker’s credentials are also noteworthy – he doesn’t seem to be the usual ‘all persuasion’ lecturer rather focused more on practical lessons that would apply. Which I like. Substance over flare, as I say. Plus, I’m planning to network with fellow young professionals during the seminar, or maybe find myself a professional mentor. Not that I am in desperate need of one. But having someone view your life from a different perspective gives you an expanded panorama that can be crucial for success, especially the personal kind.

In other news, this week could potentially be a game changer. I do hope I get a job offer I’ve been praying for. I’ve gone through a rigorous process for two particular career opportunities. This week is make or break. I’m terribly hoping for the former.

On another note, I’d like to ask you a question. How do you feel about mixing money with relationships? With family, it’s easy. But when it comes to friends or acquaintances, I’ve often found it burdening to put a relationship under certain financial obligations. I know many couples who argue over money. My parents have had their share of debates over finances. And as much as I trust my financial advisor over my investments, I understand she’s simply doing her job, and emotional investment is out of the question. So when the pesos or dollars get mixed in usually innocent or candid friendly activities, I’ve found the relationships more difficult to maintain, and in the long-term, strained. Money is good. But thrown into intimate and deep private connections, it can be problematic.

Thoughts?

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”

In spite of my not so ideal job, I’ve managed to get through the days with a simple goal in mind. And that is to save enough money to secure some financial certainty in the coming years. If anything, I’m not well-versed in personal finance. My goal has always been simple: to be financially independent from my folks. What I know of saving, spending, and investing, I’ve learned from my parents’ experiences - both the good and bad. Other lessons come as success stories from friends, or practical advice from my siblings and their colleagues. Of course, I do my own research. I’ve discovered bearable investment schemes with regards to my income, and I’ve found independent writing opportunities to augment what I earn. Along with it, I’ve managed to live on a budget. Save first, spend later: that’s been a critical financial mantra I keep to heart.

If you asked me for financial advice, you’d most likely go nowhere because my idea of being “financially independent” is questionable. Kidding aside, I’ve never been aggressive when it comes to money, mainly because I like my risks low to medium. I don’t have disposable income, so I prefer to weigh my options. Understanding risks is something I’m slowly developing, and not just with money, mind you. I’m averse to uncertainty, and friends could attest to how uptight and controlling I can be. When it comes to money, I want to make sure I do it right.

If there is one virtue you need however, it is patience. Like what I wrote before, mansions are easy to built, palaces take time. I do believe it applies to any sort of investment: financial, academic, social, or even personal. You reap what you sow, but growth is gradual, and not something that should be hastened. Easy money is good, but based from my experience, it’s also easy to run out. When you invest on something long term, you manage your risks better.

Read More

my pseudonym franco levi

franco: is a common surname (also as a first name) in Spanish, in Portuguese and in Italian which derives from the word “Frank”, in reference to the Germanic tribe of the Franks, who invaded the modern-day France during the Migration period

levi: the term Levi may mean priest; scholars therefore suspect that “levi” was originally a general term for a priest, and had no connection to ancestry, and that it was only later, for example in the priestly source and Blessing of Moses, that the existence of a tribe named Levi became assumed, in order to explain the origin of the priestly caste.

a frank priest, an honest preacher

Hello everyone. I usually forget to welcome, or even thank, new followers. So to those of you who were kind enough to click the follow button today and the past few days, and steer through this clutter of personal distress, minor victories, and grand moments of infatuation, pseudo-romance, friendships, relationships and love, welcome. Before anything else, read my About Me page to avoid questions that could be answered by it. Plus, it frames in a context why I write, how I write, and who I write about. At least, I suppose it does. 

If you feel the need to say something, I have, like everyone else, an ask box. You can be grey if you have something bad to say. You can be grey if you’re offering sex or spam. But I appreciate it more if you ask without fear. It’s enough I am anonymous. Two strangers asking each other things just won’t work. 

You can also follow me here where I try to be post fragments of my thoughts alongside incessant links of my latest written works from this blog. We can converse there even. And of course, follow the Writer’s Block as well as the other members of the said blog. I help run the blog (or at least reblog works I deem deserving), so support and recommendations are always welcome. 

some practical matters.

Tumblr is such a huge chunk of cyberspace, and the creative writing community is growing by the minute. Culling works from new writers can be quite daunting especially if you rely only on tags. As a member of the Writer’s Bloc, I hope to find other writers who haven’t been as exposed to or read by a wider audience. It’s difficult, and I know pretty well, some may find my choices biased or even limited. But I’m juggling this task with my day-to-day work, so I’ve only afforded to scratch the surface. I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m quite glad because I’ve never been so invested in reading through so many beautiful works which deserve a million likes and reblogs.

So, as a little request, if you know or find new blogs which you think deserve more than just a passing, feel free to message me here on Tumblr (fan mail or ask box), or email me at manilapoetry@gmail.com or even tweet it (there’s an icon linking my Twitter account with my blog in my sidebar). I always take a look.

Next, are a few of my recommendations. I don’t get to like and reblog every poem that I like but I’m sure to browse through these pages to be moved, touch, and inspired.

For exquisite chunks of love and life, I go to this lady elisabethpfeffer; for some poetry soup to the soul I love takingstockofwhatmattersmost; for the philosophy and poetry I go to awakenedphilosopher; for a good dose of beauty in words I read leaveyouapen; and lastly, for a combination of force and tenderness I visit lonestardown.

Have a lot to say? Let me hear you out. Maybe you can do the same for me. Share your thoughts, or vent your frustrations. I wouldn’t recommend going to me for advice though. I kid. I kid. I always try to give an answer the best way I can.

So let me hear you out: manilapoetry@gmail.com

I forgot it’s still Thursday and I still have work tomorrow. Good night everyone. If you have erotic messages or violent reactions to anything, there is the ask box, the fan mail which I don’t know how to use properly, and manilapoetry@gmail.com to make life easier.

But what I’m really trying to say is thank you to all the new followers I got. I will take a look and try to follow back those who interest me. Thank you to whoever featured a work of mine in the #poetry tag and to all the amazing, amazing people I’ve had a chance to converse with online. Sorry if the last post was hardly poetic but even an indifferent man like me has an opinion about politics, especially when you live in the Philippines. I will return with a bit more refinement and eloquence tomorrow, if I can and if I remember not to drink vodka while on St. John’s Wort.

I’m calling in early tonight. Cheers!

to meet

I have not met anyone on Tumblr aside from my friends. Some of my friends have attended meet-ups but only to return with a disheartening report of how it was more like a dating club rather than a community. I have sort of desired to attend one but I’m prevented most thoroughly by one thing: I am a writer using a pen name. What purpose would it serve to disclose my identity to complete strangers? What thrill in the anonymous gay writer who so immodestly expressed his most profound joys and trivial feelings? What if I disappoint? What if in real life, I come of as dull?

All of that aside, I still entertain the idea of going to one, or at least, having my own. But only for a few people, of course most likely, all of them locals of Manila. People I know, from what and how they write, will remain true to a secret. It would be a great thrill to also meet the other writers and personalities from other countries I’ve grown to love but I’ll leave that to the future, when I can afford to actually leave the island of Luzon. Have I told you? I’ve never left the island of Luzon since I was born. It’s a fact.

It would be nice to come to a meet-up as someone else. Even when I was in the university, I saw a few of my followers (who were far more open in their blogs), and I wondered if they would be disappointed to see the physical representation of pinksubmergence was already bumping them, sitting beside the, looking at them with such a humorous but murderous glance. I kid of course. I always have a great time keeping the mystery. Quite a thrilling experience, really. But perhaps, it also pays to take a risk sometimes, and not listen to what people say. To reveal a part of me to a few.

Just a thought.