Doctor Turned Story Teller/ Film Maker: Nokia Project Gener8

Reposted with permission (http://absoluteawesomeness.blogspot.com/)

This may come as something new for my beloved 100+ readers who follow me here, for it is not really my custom to write common , day to day events. But like I always say, there’s a time for everything. Recent events sort of force me to tell you a more true to life story of a very surreal experience.

I’ve been writing here for over a year and a half now, I think, and mostly about love and what not. This is my past time to de-stress when I get bored over the things I do in my eccentric life. Well, actually I have a lot of friends to blame for this. I think all your compliments during the past months over my works went to my head somewhat for I have sought to seek confirmation of my writing mettle on a much grander scale.

Nope, I haven’t compiled my works into a book yet. I haven’t found a sponsor for that. But as you will most likely find out, I have joined a writing contest…. Or so I initially thought it to be a writing contest.

If you have heard or seen ads on this guy named Pier Roxas... Yes, dear friends, I have joined Nokia Philippines’ Project Gener8, a contest to retrieve the poor guy’s memory in exchange for a chance to win a Nokia N8.

To be honest, I’ve never heard of all these things up until a couple of weeks ago. My partner in crime, Gly told me about it after we heard Gino and Fran talking about him over RX 93.1. I asked Gly on what was that all about and she was surprised that I never heard about it, for it seems to be very visible over various forms of media.

I got curious and decided to check it out when I went for my customary night coffee at Figaro. I found the Nokia website as well as the You tube video of Pier Roxas.

I thought, this seems interesting, all I needed to do is write a story to supply the poor dude’s missing eight days using eight clues. It seemed pretty straightforward to me then. So after an hour, I texted Gly that I just finished writing a story for that thing we were talking about and I wanted her to read it if it was contest worthy. I e-mailed it to her but she didn’t want to read it at first because she was busy playing BRAIIIINS!!! on FB. But after much prodding I got her to read it and she said why don’t we send it?

I was hesitant, but after a flurry of text messages trying to convince me, I just said that since the contest was her discovery and the ideas in the story were mostly stuff I picked up from her, I told her that she should be the one to e-mail it and put ourselves as co-authors. We really didn’t care for the prize anyway, I just wanted to see how a story I wrote would fair in a story telling contest. Thus, minutes later, I get the text that the email was sent for what was to be our first entry.

The next day, we were talking about the story when we sort of revived a topic on hypnotism which she was interested in a month ago and that we spent hours watching You Tube clips on. I said, hey, we could make a new story on that one. I told her I’d give it a try later when I go out for coffee. Then an hour after arriving at Figaro, I texted her to check her e-mail again. She read it and another flurry of text messages were exchanged with the same end result, hence our 2^nd entry was officially sent.

We were discussing about other possible scenarios and there were actually others like reincarnation, time travel and stuff but I had other things to do then so we ended agreeing to talk about it some other time. But time passed and we never managed to put it into writing.

The deadline for submission of entries passed without our noticing, we rarely discussed about the entries after they were sent. It was just a game to us then, nothing to be lost for trying.

Then over the weekend, I was quite busy then, I found that I had a missed call from an unknown number. Since I on principle don’t bother answering back on numbers I don’t know, I dismissed it. Moments later, Gly was calling and when I answered she was ecstatically screaming in my ear that we got chosen for the final 8. I was surprised then pleased with myself that our entry got in, then I asked which entry and she said, she doesn’t know. We got confirmation later on in the day that it was the 2^nd story that made the cut. Not bad for an hour of typing with 16 oz. of Iced barako blend and an undisclosed number of cigarettes. Then we realized, we were getting a new Nokia N8 as prize. As I look at my relatively brand new, 6 day old Samsung Corby Wifi, I shake my head thinking, I shouldn’t have bought a new phone. What would I do with another one? Oh well, what are partners in crime for anyway? XD

Then what was supposed to be a simple test to confirm my so-called writing skills takes a turn for the surreal. We were called for an orientation yesterday at JWT, an advertising firm handling the Nokia account- the brains behind the Pier Roxas campaign. There we learned that we are supposed to shoot our story with Pier Roxas using our Nokia N8. Damn, there was a page 2 to the mechanics, why didn’t I see that before I decided to write???

But, being one who doesn’t back down on anything, Gly and I decided that it’s something inevitable at that juncture. So we’re going to get a glimpse of another kind of life, far away from the hospital life I am so comfortable with.

So in the coming week, we’ll be making a commercial or short film of sorts on the story we made with a real professional production team and Pier Roxas himself. I’ll be directing and Gly’s “punishment” for putting me in this mess is that she’s going to star opposite Pier.

Earlier, we were at Greenbelt for what they called a “Meet the Press” event where they announced all the eight winners, although technically we were nine since Gly and I were the only tandem winners. So much for the eight everything huh?!!

As of writing, I am at work in the hospital, waiting for new patients to come in through the ER seeking medical attention. As this is a government hospital, there’s no short supply of patients. It’s just funny that nobody here knows of this circus I’ve just entered. It’s like living a dual life, reminds me of Batman/ Bruce Wayne. But I guess the secret can’t be kept a secret for long. So here’s to me and my story and the riot of a video that’s to come. Stay tuned here for updates. I’ll keep you guys posted, wish us luck.