4/30/2015 ‒
You can be a manager too!

Today I put out my very first Facebook ad. It's for the night job. Suddenly I have to make good on my supposed marketing credentials. And yes, I apparently have them. I've been doing this for three years and I still say I just "apparently" have them, but anyway.

It's for an industry event, targeting professionals, and even if the depth of parameters you have in your hands when you're implementing a Facebook ad campaign - you do pay with your information, you know - can be intimidating, you eventually get the hang of it. As long as you make sure you only pay what you're willing to pay.

So. Target users from the Philippines. Target particular industries. Apparently the site can deduce what industry you're in from what you type on your profile. Target management. Target production. Target retail. Target transportation. Don't muck with the other things. Let's see where this goes.

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4/29/2015 ‒
Unintended consequences

In the past 48 hours I realize just how cynical I've become when it comes to what's happening around me.

Until yesterday, I haven't had a good idea of how the Mary Jane Veloso story actually went. All I knew was that she's in death row in Indonesia, and that our government is making a last ditch effort to save her.

All that time, I was thinking that those efforts will come for naught. Mary Jane will be shot in the middle of the night, a torch pointing towards her heart, helping the policemen tasked to execute her to aim properly. No matter what the Philippine government does - and not for lack of trying - nothing will change the mind of the Indonesian government. After all, in their eyes, she still violated their laws.

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4/25/2015 ‒
The penultimate night

Now I think of it, I would've had difficulty paying for everything because I don't speak Chinese. And yet people assume I am.

Jackie has been in Taipei for almost six years now. She moved here to study - a scholarship, if I remember correctly - and later worked for one of only two English-language newspapers in the city. She did everything there - write, edit, research - and while the hours were long, the work was fulfilling. Yet, she moved jobs after three years, and now she works for an industry group composed of industry groups. It was a better opportunity, she thought.

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4/07/2015 ‒
In shades

Maybe, if I didn't wear glasses, I wouldn't feel this way about people with shades.

I don't know. I think it's the fact that you can't really see their eyes. You can't get a read on them. Not that I'm watching strangers from afar and trying to figure out what they feel, but, well, you do need to have some idea of what they're thinking of to be able to make your way through interactions. Are they gleeful? Are they forlorn? Are they high? That sort of thing.

I can't wear shades. I have prescription glasses. I've had them since second grade. I've never had the privilege of wearing shades with the conviction of a man who just scored at... something. Life? Sex? Adrenaline? Never. I've been denied, from early in life, the privilege of adding a second zing to lifting my head high in cockiness.

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