"Get With The Fuckin Program"

I admit, I have this fear of being a lemming. Living a prescribed life is like going to another country on a package tour.
Rebellious behavior is no longer part of my character. It still, however, dictates my day-to-day decisions, and consequently, my actions. Most of the time this desire to be different, to go against the grain, appeals to me still. It is mainly uncontrived nowadays, unplanned and often only evident in retrospect at times when I allow myself random bursts of thought. Like when exercising.
I think it is part of the reason why I haven't done the career thing and have only had jobs. I find myself resisting workplace culture. It is one thing I cannot embrace. I can be the star of achievement at my place of employment, but I would hardly find myself spouting the jargon, or planning extra-curricular activities with co-workers. If for some reason I find myself not on the clock with some colleague/s I avoid shop talk. The very thought of the Japanese workplace terrifies me: regular after-office drinks with colleagues; socializing with the boss after hours, inviting him to your home, or being invited to his? Socializing with the boss, period, isn't too appealing. The same guy who sits beside you at work doing the treadmill beside you at the gym, discussing the same people, places, & things? God forbid. Of course, your wives are social with each other. Of course, you share very similar tastes in clothes & shoes, even like the same music, see the same bands. Doesn't everybody at the office?
Of course. The prescribed life.
Naturally, this turns me off to potentially rewarding "careers" in which I may excel, like law, or hotel/restaurant management. My perception of those fields is that in order to get professional satisfaction one must embrace the workplace culture.
This tendency of mine to sidestep the mainstream also comes out in how I have refused to get colloquial anywhere I have lived. In Genève everybody said "ça va ou bien?" all the time, and it irritated the fuck out of me. Especially when said with a dissonant accent. Imagine a thick Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai accent trumpeting "ça va ou bien" as frequently as I say "fuck". I mean, I really can't blame them for trying to assimilate, right? It's what you're supposed to do.
In Boston I refused to use the word wicked as an adverb. Everybody there says shit like, "that's wicked cool". It particularly irritated me to hear it contrived in someone's speech, like when a black guy from the Hood or an F.O.B. Asian used it. You gotta know that this particular usage is really just Masshole (Massachusetts Asshole, which is a really white demographic). It probably also signifies something for me to not have worn any Boston Reds Sox gear then, but I might now.
In California the use of "hella" as an adverb I kinda resisted, but not as much as I resisted wicked. All sorts of people used hella: black, white, Latino, asian, gay, not gay. I may use it occasionally now, but I never used it in California, where everybody used it.
Here in Manila I refuse to use words like jologs, or phrases like "in fairness lang". I think it's jologs to say jologs. The word baduy works just fine. Another thing that doesn't sit well with me is how at the workplace part of the culture is to sling po or "poh" in all directions, whether superior or subordinate, colleague or outside contractor. I also refuse to speak Taglish. I think being able to speak both Tagalog and English fluently is admirable, but it's just really common to do Taglish.
The local contemporaries with whom I share a socio-cultural background and like electronic music are supposed to get hard-ons for names like Tiësto, Paul Van Dyk & Armin Van Buuren. If they think they're really cutting edge, their panties get wet for "Sexy House". They all have Hedkandi, or Ministry of Sound CD's. They don't dance, or if they pretend to, they don't really groove. You can't really groove to trance anyway.
My iPod is full of shit none of these people have heard, with none of the shit they have on CD or in their iPods.
I don't stop dancing, and I keep the groove all throughout. You gotta keep your feet moving or else they're gonna get caught in that sticky mainstream. I won't go where everybody goes, like Embassy, because there they play shit that everybody is supposed to like.
When someone ends an almost 2 decade long relationship with crystal meth he's supposed to turn to sugar, coffee, cigarettes and get really fat and look like he smoked crack for 40 years. That's the system.

Someone asked me, "so why do you speak Spanish so well?"
"Because I look like a chink", I said.
"So you took Spanish lessons because you look......Chinese?"
"I never took Spanish lessons".
"Um, so why do you speak Spanish?"
"Because I don't look like I do".
"Neither do I, how come I don't speak it?"
"Yeah, well, I'm special".

I don't even know if that conversation really happened or if it's a pseudo memory. Fuck, I don't keep track. At least I wouldn't be lying if I say something because I really believe it happened....