by rossanahead | Dec 17, 2011 | career, Education
By Paula Bianca Abiog
Since I was a child, I have always known I wanted to become a writer. I learned how to read by flipping through newspapers and magazines at three; started writing my own stories (patterned after my favorite fairy tales) at six; composed long entries in lock-and-key journals by 11; and seriously considered writing as a career when I was 16.
Five years ago, I got my dream job. I was finally going to write for a magazine. And with getting my dream job came plans to eventually become an editor one day.
I loved my job. I got to interview and write about celebrities and inspiring men and women; I was able to tackle relevant, sometimes controversial, topics, and more. I was able to go to different places around the country and write about what I saw, from Batanes in the north to Bohol in the south.
But as the years went by, while I still loved writing about people, places, and issues, I found myself doing the same thing over and over again. I felt that I was stuck in a rut, and lately, I felt I wasn’t improving as a writer. I also wanted to try other things, to see if I can do more than just writing. And after a few months agonizing over whether to stay or to go, I finally decided to try my luck in doing something new.
Even if I knew I made the decision for career growth, I initially felt I was abandoning my childhood dream, my plans to become an editor, and the friends I made in those five years. But life doesn’t always pan out the way you envision it, plans don’t materialize exactly when you want them, and friendships don’t end when one leaves to pursue something new. More importantly, I realized that I won’t stop being a writer just because I wanted to try a different tack.
Sometimes, getting what you want, when you want it doesn’t always lead to the fabulous ending you’ve always wished for. Perhaps one day you’ll get what you want when you least expect it, when God, or the fates, feel that you’re ready to finally have what you want. And to be able to grow and move forward, you sometimes have to take a different and unfamiliar path to shake you up. You have to step out of your comfort zone, test the waters, flounder a bit, and find your footing once more, so your growth doesn’t get stunted.
Paula now works for the corporate communications office of a large corporation. And yes, she is still very much a writer.
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
by rossanahead | Dec 3, 2011 | career, woman
By Leslie Lee
A few years ago, I made the monumental decision to leave Manila and carve out a new life in another country, thinking—just like millions of other OFWs—that I would earn more than what I was getting in my previous job. And I did: My salary rivaled that of a regional manager’s in a multinational corporation back home. “I’m rich,” I thought, while staring at the numbers printed on my pay slip.
There were plenty of reasons behind that decision, and one of them was that I was sick of living in third-world Philippines. I wanted to experience life in a more progressive country. I longed for first-world conveniences. I wanted to live in a country one would be proud to call home.
Then the universe hit me in the face with a huge serving of humble pie to make me realize just how superficial and simply wrong I was.
I was at the Philippine Embassy to register as an Overseas Filipino Worker. As I was filling up some forms, I noticed that the guy next to me kept glancing at my papers, probably checking to see if he had filled up his own forms right, too. He seemed so anxious and unsure that I took pity on him and started chatting him up.
The Filipino I spoke to used to be a government employee from Cavite. Like me, he wanted to seek greener pastures; unlike me, he got a job that was worlds apart from his previous one. He was part of a posh hotel restaurant’s service crew and, even if he was already five months into the job, was still struggling with the locals’ language. Like me, he would be reprimanded whenever he misinterpreted the locals’ English (chicken drumstick is known as “dark part” but “dark” is pronounced as “duck”—thus the confusion); unlike me, he would always swallow his pride and humbly accept the scolding.
To this day, I feel ashamed whenever I remember how I had tried to hide my Filipino identity. When I first stepped into that foreign land, I disguised myself with the other half of my heritage and masqueraded as being from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or mainland China. I spoke with a Valley girl’s accent to belie the fact that I am a Filipino.
Hearing tale after tale of Pinoys being discriminated—from the domestic helper to the fast food service crew to the vice-president of a bank—broke my heart. Regardless of rank, as soon as we are introduced as Filipino or from the Philippines, the tenor of their voices and the look on their faces change. Because of the color of our skin, the way we speak English, and our inherent docility, we get bullied and belittled. For most of them, being Filipino was something to be sneered at.
That encounter in the embassy was truly an eye-opener. Why bother to keep up this pretense? What was so shameful about being a humble, modest, cheerful, hard-working, and multi-tasking Filipino? Without our community, who will take care of their children, clean their house, wash the dishes, and help ensure that their household is running smoothly? Who will process their payment in the grocery store, assist them in finding the right shoe or shirt size, and serve them dinner?
As I bid farewell to my fellow countryman at the subway station, a thought popped into my head: I was not meant to seek greener pastures, but to realize that the greenest pasture is the one you were born and bred in. I understand now that to conquer this colonial mentality, and consequently change the way others view us, I have to remain true to my roots, and be proud of my heritage.
Photo by Helen Stegney on Unsplash
by rossanahead | Oct 16, 2011 | career, children, family, home, Jing Lejano, woman
By Jing Lejano
Sometimes, six days is just not enough to finish all the things that I need to do for the week.
Apart from my usual writing and editing chores, which I do in the comfort of my bedroom, there are interviews to be done and shoots to be attended, sometimes in places not so very near. There are bills to be paid, mail to be answered, errands to be done, and papers to be sorted out.
There are dishes to be cooked, which will go straight to the freezer for the kids to reheat during the week. There are clothes to have laundered, water to have delivered, grass to have cut, and the kitchen roof that needs to have some sealant plastered over because of the incessant rain. There is my bedroom to be cleaned, which I always never do, unless I absolutely have to.
There are the four kids to take care of and looked after—although these days, they don’t need much taking care of as they could very well take care of themselves. There is the granddaughter to embrace, cuddle, and play with. There are family and friends to have lunch with, to chat with, to joke with, to cry out your heart with, and to laugh with all your might.
There are books to be read, movies to be seen, and music to listen and dance to. There are words to be written, pictures to be painted, and baubles to be made. There are my nails to be done, my hair to be colored, and my body to be kneaded into something like soft spaghetti.
Six days just ain’t enough to do all that, and so, on some Sundays, I have tried to my very best to cheat. I’ve tried tinkering with my desktop to see if I can get a little work done. But no matter how hard I try, no matter how great my resolve, I never accomplish anything substantive. It’s like my brain is wired to shut down on Sundays. And so, after a couple of hours of trying, I give up. I give in to the sacred rule of Sunday to relax and get some rest.
The Lord rested on the seventh day, who am I to argue with that?!
by rossanahead | Sep 15, 2011 | career, family, grandparenting, Mari-an Santos, woman
By Mari-An Santos
My maternal grandmother is 96 years old. She has led a very full life and is actually still very strong. More importantly, she is also very lucid.
She was a teacher all her life. At 19, she started teaching at a schoolhouse in a small town in Mindanao. Her job had her traveling for long distances to get to work every day to remote locations. She eventually became a public school principal and that’s how she met my grandfather, who was a Schools Division Supervisor.
She speaks and writes in Visayan, Chavacano, Spanish, English, and Tagalog. Even now, she’s a voracious reader. Hearing her recount details of her exciting life is like watching an exciting movie.
She tells of how some of her first pupils were older than she. Being farmers’ sons, they could not yet read or write very well even as teenagers. Then, they would also need to help their parents with soil preparation, planting, and eventually, harvesting the fields.
She narrates how she had to come to Manila to pursue higher education, traveling all the way from southern Philippines to the nation’s capital. It was a time so far removed from all the present-day conveniences of rapid travel and automobiles.
She even recounts how she aimed the barrel of a shotgun at my late grandfather one night when she had had enough and gave him an ultimatum: stop his philandering ways or say goodbye. He chose the former. He still survived years beyond that and saw his daughters grow up. But he passed away due to a heart attack not long after he retired from government service.
When I was a child and my grandmother would visit us from the province, she would busy herself with either making rosaries or translating the Bible into her native Chavacano. During breaks in her “work” she would go into the kitchen and make jams or cook snacks like empanada.
Later on, she would take on a project to compile a family tree, tracing from her roots of Spanish migrants to the present generation—with cousins dotting the globe. This is her life’s work that she has, thus far, not seen come into fruition. She has asked the help of some other relatives, but to date, the task is not yet completed.
I used to notice her, poring over her big manila papers, drawing and writing to complete the project. When I approached her to “mano”, she would look up and smile long enough to say “God bless you”, before resuming her work. I wondered at her perseverance then.
She recently had a minor accident in the bathroom. Because she had a slight fracture, she is now confined to a wheelchair. She finds it difficult to feed herself and does not talk much.
Somehow, this sudden change in her attitude has also changed us who are around her. Now, I have decided to take up where she has left off to complete even just a fraction of the family tree project she loved so much. I only hope that I can competently pick up from where she left off, and at last, present her with a project fulfilled just as she had envisioned.
by rossanahead | Sep 11, 2011 | career, woman
By Romelda C. Ascutia
A little over a year ago, I took the biggest risk of my career: I decided to quit the corporate world and work on my own terms—as a freelance editor.
I wish I could say that it was a calculated risk, born of long planning and preparation. Truth is, it was a precipitous leap of faith during one of the lowest points in my life. I decided to leave a job I loved because after four years, it had turned into a nightmare parade of unending deadlines, long work hours, and nasty office politics.
The thought of diving immediately into a full-blown search for another full-time job filled me with aversion. So I gave myself a few months to scope out the freelance job market. If nothing happened, I could always look for a regular job again.
I was confident of my chances of finding project-based work quickly. Modesty aside, my credentials weren’t too shabby. Over the years I had held senior editor positions, such as managing editor or editor in chief, at a number of magazines. I also worked as a section editor at newspapers and as a content manager for a website. I wrote and edited books, columns, and various print materials.
But to my dismay, the projects didn’t come rushing my way—like a dog bounding to her mistress the minute she steps through the door—as I thought they would. Openings for home-based work posted on job search sites almost always entailed long hours at starvation rates. I snagged a regular monthly gig and some accounts here and there, but they weren’t enough to raise a family on.
As the months passed, my anxiety mounted. If the work inflow remained at a trickle, my savings would dry up! Fortunately, with fervent prayers and a fresh new year came a welcome change of pace.
Suddenly all my self-promotion efforts began paying off, and the projects came one after the other. A publisher asked me to manage her newly launched website. She then referred me to her former officemate, an overseas-based editorial manager looking for a freelance business writer (I knew nothing about world finance but somehow I passed the writing test). The sister of another colleague introduced me to a publisher who needed an editor for one of their school magazines.
I look back in amazement at the heart-stopping journey I made and where it has led me. Just last year I was clinging to a precipice, blindsided, struggling to climb back up or plunge into an abyss. Now I have found a work style that allowed me to practice my craft again, but without the pressures of office life.
What I’ve learned from my career crisis? Setbacks may knock you down, but a good work ethic, perseverance, and helping hands from Someone up there and friends who believe in you, will help you overcome. The trials that land you on your butt may be opportunities to start anew in disguise.
by rossanahead | Sep 9, 2011 | career, children, Education, parenting, Rossana Llenado
By Rossana Llenado
One of the best ways that children learn is through play—this is one of the things that I discovered when we ran a preschool a couple of years ago.
You know how young kids usually cry when they have to go to school? Well, our pupils cried when they had to go home. That’s because they had so much fun at our school, WorldPrep School. We called it a school in a park because we had a big lawn in front and a giant acacia tree watching over us. I remember how the kids loved running around the yard, playing games or just hanging out. That was how we wanted things to be. We wanted children to learn amidst beautiful surroundings.
We also employed non-traditional ways of teaching. We went on trips to the supermarket. Just by going along the aisles, the kids get to learn about shapes and sizes. Our teachers would pick an apple, for instance, and point out its color.
Once, we asked our neighborhood firemen to visit us in school. The kids were just thrilled. The firemen talked about how they respond to emergencies, and shared fire safety tips in the process. The kids even got to climb on the fire truck.
When parents want their kids to celebrate their birthdays in school, we saw that as another learning opportunity. We incorporated educational games into the program and encouraged the kids to participate. We hit two birds with one stone. The kids not only learned a lesson or two, they were also able to sharpen their social skills.
We thought of different ways to put some fun into learning, and the kids, without knowing it, were absorbing all these information in a pleasant way.
There was a time when parents questioned our teaching methods because they thought we just let their kids play in school. They had become so concerned about this that they asked us for a meeting. Clueless about the prevailing misconception, we gladly arranged a meeting.
At the meeting, the parents asked what we were teaching their children besides play. In response, one of our teachers called one of her pupils to the front. Milk bottle in her mouth, donned in disposable diapers, the two-year-old happily complied. To the amazement of the parents, the toddler read three-letter words from the blackboard, pausing in between words to take a sip from her bottle. The youngster got the parents’ loud applause. Our school got their seal of trust.
Unfortunately, a leasing problem forced us to close our preschool. That particular location was ideal, and we just couldn’t find another that equaled it.
On our last day, we held a ceremony at our front yard. We were all in tears—students, teachers, parents, and staff. It was a magical experience that we didn’t want to end. I think the heavens heard us as well because for one shining moment, a shower of acacia flowers rained down on us. It was truly an unforgettable experience.
Today, we are bringing that dream back to life with Victorious Educational Network, and this time we are going to do it better. We want to develop young learners who are happy, smart, and ready for the world. For this endeavor, we are gathering the best minds in the education industry to get our school in a park up and running by next school year. We are also looking for partners who share our passion for education.
I am very excited to see this dream come true once again—and I know that this time, we will come out victorious!
