Happy 5th Anniversary, Adulthood!

I took up Creative Writing in college which then became Philippine Studies. Both courses aimed at being undesirable to employers. I wasn't smart enough to get a degree in Business Administration or any of those "useful" courses but I was thankful enough to be in a decent university with very affordable tuition. I spent years writing poems, short stories, plays, essays about the Philippines, its people, and everything in between. It was great but it did not promise me a career of sorts.

I loved writing prose but everything I wrote was so sad and so bad because I was super depressed. The stuff I wrote mirrored the things going on at home, with my mom leaving us then coming back then leaving us again while my dad squandered around town, womanizing, jobless and in debt. Eventually, I stopped writing.

I focused my energy on getting part-time jobs with what life skill I had acquired at that day and age. I was 17 when I started working for a Korean tutorial center for some extra cash for school. I would go all the way to Ortigas from Diliman so I could meet my Korean students and teach them some conversational English for 2-3 hours everyday from Monday-Friday. The job was easy but the money was not enough so I applied for a call center job. I could only part-time since I was still studying and most call centers in QC don't offer part time. I ended up applying for Telus in Market Market. I took orders for Domino's Pizza in the states. For one year, I had to wake up at 4am, ride the MRT to Taguig before 6am, clock in at 7am, talk to angry Americans following up on their pizza, clock out at 11am, travel to Diliman before 1pm, try to eat decent lunch while all of this is happening, go to class until 5:30pm, then go home to do homework before collapsing in my bed.

Call center life was not easy. I tried to last because the money was good but my body gave up so I resigned and just resorted to an online writing job via Craigslist. I wrote a gazillion SEO articles on topics such as: How To Grow Tomatoes in a Greenhouse, How To Grow Tomatoes in a Pot, How to Start A Toy Train Collection, How To Avoid Ovarian Cancer with Natural Remedies, etc. I got paid in cents for each word I wrote which was not even enough to pay for my college expenses. Soon, I accepted some writing jobs from students who were too lazy to write their thesis. It was easy money so I obliged. After four years and a couple of odd jobs later, I finally graduated college. Whew. I am so glad that part of my life is over.

I graduated October of 2010. I took my first job at MEGA as a PR Assistant then moved to agency life for 2 years. Now, I'm about to celebrate my 2nd year anniversary with PLDT. It's currently my 5th year of working and it never fails to amaze me how much I grew up since I took that first job 8 years ago.

Whenever things get too stressful at work or in life, I just need to stop and take a breather to remind myself that everything will work out, eventually. I mean, I never would've imagined a career, or even getting hired in the first place. Happy anniversary, adulthood! You funny funny thing!