"Watching" TV at work and that American Idol song

I missed the American Idol finale last week because it was my first day at work. Yes, you've got that right: I've finally rejoined the full-time workforce. As of today, I've been a distance English trainer for, well, a day. The current challenges of going back to work include having to reorganize my television-viewing schedule. And again I say, thank God for replays!

For the American Idol finale, I was really counting on the replay, but training took up most of my time and drained most of my energy, so by the time Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis were battling it out onstage for the nth time on Star World, I had pretty much conked out on my bed. Which is not to say that I had no idea who won right from the beginning, because as soon as it was announced live on television, my cell phone and those of some of my officemates were already beeping with the news.

I guess that's how it is with workers these days? I hadn't held a full-time job for so long, I don't even remember what it's like not to monitor my favorite shows. As far as I'm concerned, it's part of my lifestyle to wake up early for The Amazing Race and American Idol results, as well as morning reruns of all three CSI shows if I missed them the previous night. But not anymore. It's bye-bye to all that.

Coincidentally, the human resource person who talked to my teammates and I last week said that the company's pretty much open to our surfing the net for personal stuff (so long as we don't overdo it and check out anything that's NSFW-or Not Safe For Work, for those of you who aren't up to date with all those acronyms), but we should be aware that if the server's overloaded, the first thing that's going to be cut off are connections to non-work things. Lately, she told us, they've been having to cut off access to NBA websites, being that it's the finals season and all.

This reminds me of my what my brother-in-law loves to do. He works for a bank, where their access to the Internet is strictly limited. Often, as my sister and I are preparing dinner, he goes to the NBA Live website, where he plays with stats and a bunch of numbers I can't even begin to understand. "That's how they watch the NBA," my sister told me.

I also remember the time I used to work for a dot com. We had a television going all day, but it was permanently on a local network. Come Oscar Awards night, we had browsers open to www.oscar.com, refreshing it every minute or so to get updates. If I recall it correctly, we also did the same thing for the EDSA 2 rally. Before our bosses told us we could go to the EDSA Shrine if we wanted to, that is. Minute by minute, our excitement built up as we read the developments on a newspaper's website about which person arrived, which person crossed-over to the side we were rooting for, which celebrity finally decided to put his or her popularity to good use.

I'm pretty sure work will eat into my television-watching time. But there's always the reliable Internet to turn to! And I'm loving it, especially, that in case I miss any good stuff on TV, some angel's going to put it up on YouTube.com anyway. Now, YouTube is banned from my workplace, so, like the good old-fashion boob tube, that'll have to wait until I get home. Even so, it gives me comfort that I won't be missing much, even if I'll have to wait just a little bit more time to get my fill of my occasional guilty pleasure.

And while I may have missed the American Idol finals, and have yet to look up online videos of it, I've already listened to the song, and the lyrics just resonate with my current experiences: "This is my now,/ and I am breathing in the moment,/ because I look around/ I can't believe the love I see/ My fears behind me,/ gone are the shadows and doubts/ That was then, this is my now."

You have another chance to join the FLEX (Foundations of Leadership Excellence) seminar I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago. It's going to be held on June 2 to 4, at 5F Emerald Bldg., Emerald Ave., Ortigas Center, Pasig City. As always, contact me at the details below for more information. There's also going to be a FLEX seminar nearer to Cebu, in Iloilo, sometime in June! Take this amazing journey, people!

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