(Going Through A Quarter Life Crisis was posted on www.peyups.com on Thursday, May 15, 2003 @ 12:30:20 PM )

It’s 5 PM and I am going off to work in a couple of hours. To something I promised myself I would leave as soon as possible and now it’s funny I’m still working there after all my declarations that I would rather be unemployed than stay at a job I hated. Other friends have made the move before me. You see, I made a deal with myself the start of the year that I was going to endure this kind of work for until May, at the very least till April 17th, the end of my VL. I guess I should be grateful that I have a job when so many out there are still looking. I try to convince myself that I am blessed I earn a good enough salary considering I just graduated last year. As someone I talked to last time online said, for a first job it isn’t too bad. I suppose one flaw I have is that I can’t get over how salary could possibly compensate for what I have come to realize as true torture: helping ungrateful Americans with whatever programming, billing, technical problem they get with the service we provide.
Considering I graduated with a degree in Broadcast Communication, I wonder why I did end up with this job. Here I am, writing on the same computer I used to make my thesis on whilst listening to anime mp3s, and I wonder how on this past year events have led me up to this… writing an article on how much I miss college and how much I miss dreaming about what I would be when I graduated. Because face it, I have graduated and I have the whole world at my feet. I can be anything I want to be. Problem is, what do I want? How does anyone really know?

I remember that I’ve been going on about my career dilemma even on my past article… it just doesn’t seem right to be whining when so many would love to be in my shoes, is it? I don’t know what I’m complaining about, really. Probably my lack of direction or initiative. I cannot say I am satisfied with my career life. (Hmm, does the lack of a love life have anything to do about it?) Have any of you felt that the future was an empty void? The uncertainty of it all excites me and frightens me at the same time. Will I finally convince myself to settle down with one particular job? There seems to be something wrong with wanting to either be a lawyer, a journalist, a writer, a TV producer/director, an actress and an office clerk every now and then. Can I really have everything? I think I have convinced myself that I could be everything all at once and that is an idea doomed to fail and disappoint me. Compared to my best friend’s seemingly continuous string of problems I suppose I can be considered as being petty, making a mountain out of a molehill... if you think so too, stop reading this article. (Hehe. Joking. Just bear with me, I’m about to wrap up.) I have come to the obvious conclusion that perhaps it isn’t just me. Heck, I hear these kinds of stories all the time. People in their 20’s have this issue with “the real world”, meaning being thrust out into the cold, hard world, earning a living long before they actually want to. We are conditioned we want to by society, that we have to do something for pay until retirement at 60. Anyway, who in their right mind would want to go out of bed like me late at night to work until the early hours of the morning like a vampire/wind-up doll? It all boils down to salary, compensation, the medical and dental benefits… Deep in our hearts, do we really need to do this? Unless we’re the breadwinners in our family, (isn’t it obvious I’m not and I’m just milking my family for support even while I’m earning money) what is the point in all of this? Don’t get me wrong. I like getting my salary, being able to buy stuff without asking my parents for the money. Up to now I feel like it’s Christmas when I get my pay slip two times in a month. I like having officemates I get along fine with. I like not having to sit at home, watching hour after hour of TV while my brain slowly rots… Have I answered my own question? In my thinking, yes, to some extent, but not satisfactorily enough. There has to be a deeper reason why anyone would bother sticking to this job but since you can’t read minds then I guess I still have countless hours of self-reflection to go.

One of life’s greatest questions is: what is the meaning of our existence? At one point in our life we stop to wonder if what you’re doing is in line with what Fate has planned out for you. I always thought it was going to be more grandiose, more interesting… Maybe Fate can’t do anything if we ourselves impose what we don’t want to on ourselves. Funny how when you think about it, you really can’t blame anyone but yourself if you are suffering, because it was your choices that have led you here. As I have told others before, we all have free will. There’s no such thing as a decision you had no choice but to make. No one can force you if you really don’t want to, except, probably at gunpoint. Even more funny is the fact that I can leave whenever I want to really, but I’m just all talk. I won’t leave my job until something good comes along. Well, at least until May or April, that is. At the back of my mind I still feel something big is going to happen, that there must be something more to being 23 and being a UP graduate. So much time, so much opportunity but I can’t channel it to anything I’m really sure of. That’s it. I don’t have a game plan; I don’t know where I want to go to. I’m torn between rejoicing in that realization and tearing my hair out in frustration. I’m happy because I already know the root of my problem and frustrated that I am nowhere near an answer. Chalk it up to quarter life crisis, I guess… if there is such a thing. It’s that First Job Syndrome, where you’re just itching to resign and move on to the next job you may want to grow roots at… Whatever the case, I should stop talking and start doing. That, or I may well get stuck here for the next 10 years and then I won’t have youth to blame on but myself.

(Life Is Too Short to Waste Employed was posted on www.peyups.com on Thursday, September 05, 2002 @ 11:51:59 AM )


In truth, I actually miss the liberation and irresponsibility that comes with being a bum; all you really have to do is make a half-hearted effort of giving out resumes to virtually every company in the Makati and Ortigas area every other week. At that time I was able to chat all night, wake up in the afternoons and finish virtually all the anime series that I liked on TV. Aside from frequent bouts of boredom and the frustration that comes with not having the job you expect to be there when you graduate, as well as the dawning realization that your course is completely worthless unless you specifically enter the media industry, I guess it was a pretty good existence. Sure I didn’t have a pay check and my parents kept on hounding me to get a job, any job, when I prefer to be choosy, but at least I got enough sleep everyday, I was updated on Peyups posts and I can watch all the TV I want. Hmm. Sounds selfish and lame, I know, not to mention shallow and worthless but then again, you only live once. I guess what I am griping about is that my job feels too much like a job. If I could only get a job that requires me to do the stuff I like and I’d still get paid for it then I’d be as happy as a clam. Maybe this article should be retitled: Being Employed Feels Too Much Like a Job.
I remember that story of the fisherman that was sleeping on a riverbank and then somebody asked why he didn’t go make the extra effort to catch fish. “What for?” he asked. “So you could get lots of money” the answer was. “And then what would I do with the money?” he asked again. “Well you can get retired and spend the rest of your days relaxing” the busybody answered again. “Well, that’s what I’m doing right now, sir. Just moving things along…” the fisherman said, before returning to his nap. I totally agree with the fisherman. Personally, money and position don’t mean that much to me. Just as long as I can get to do the stuff I want, the reason why most people want to earn money, I could just go ahead and shortcut to what I really want and not waste the time and effort. Come on, isn’t retirement the main goal of every working person? I just want to feel retired at age 22. Personally I guess I cherish my weekends and holidays too much. Hmm. That must mean something.

Come to think of it, yeah, maybe it isn’t being unemployed that I miss so much but the feeling of being eager to go and do the stuff I like. Which goes to the question what do I really want to do for the rest of my life? Well, for my career life at the least. Probably get a shot at applying what I learned in school, try working for radio or TV, which I did try to get into those times I was looking for a job. There also is no denying that the economic crisis has left us new university graduates with slim chances of getting that dream job… Probably glorifying the state of unemployment would be one way of dealing with that. Just chalk it up to my tendency to romanticize reality, I guess…

I guess I should be happy. After all, I don’t have anything to whine about lately… As I did once tell a friend, I do have a knack for whining. It’s my favorite past time, in fact. What should I reveal first? Hmm. I have decided that this blog will be my homage to my non-existent lovelife. No names, no definite references to anyone, they might see this, you know. Just an exploration of glitchy’s 23 years of one-sided exploits.

23… this is the age my mother was when she gave birth to me! Amazing how I got to be this age and have never even been kissed! OK! I admit it! And I haven’t even been on an honest-to-goodness real date yet… Sad but true. Well, look at it this way, Drew Barrymore didn’t get kissed for good until she was 26. There’s still hope yet. Heehee! 3 years and counting. Actually, since my birthday is on January its 2 ½ years to go… *groan* I’m getting a headache just thinking about it…

My cousin, who is 6 months younger than me, already has a year-old baby. Well, that and he’s married and had to drop out of school… Anyways, that isn’t the point! :P What I was ranting about is that I am soo destined to be an old maid! My cousin already got married and I better hope the other one doesn’t get hitched or I’ll be next in line, making it so glaringly obvious that I am without a lovelife! I’m the only one left in our barkada who doesn’t have a boyfriend… the fact that they always have problems isn’t that big a consolation either… *sigh* I hate to admit it but the clock is ticking… and for whom does the alarm bells toll but for me…

Where the hell is HE??! Grrrr!! Am I blind or stupid? Or is he blind and stupid? I’ve been waiting all of my life to fall in love… consciously so for the past 10 years… why didn’t he ever bump into me when I was walking the halls of A.S.? Or sit next to me in one of my G.E. classes? It isn’t reasonable to expect to meet a guy in my college… Guys there are few enough as it is and more likely, gay… well, in my course, anyway…

I’ve had numerous crushes all through my young life and perhaps it’s better to start at the beginning. My first crush was someone in my class, in Kindergarten. Hehe. You read right. He was a cute, chubby little boy who acted like he knew everything and taught me how to hold a long-stemmed glass properly (at that age! I’m beginning to realize how mind-boggling it is!). We graduated, he went off to the main school in Tandang Sora and I went to another co-ed school along Edsa. And that was that. I don’t even remember what he looked like but I still know his full name, and the fact that his lolo and lola are buried in Himlayang Pilipino like mine are. Hehe. The topics kids would discuss.

Anywho, I found my calling in terrorizing my male classmates starting 2nd Grade, I think… If Luis or Chuck sees this, hi to you! :wave: I had fun, didn’t you? >:D Don’t get me wrong, I just did the normal, typical, kidsy pranks stuff… hiding pencils, notebooks, reading journals, name-calling, ear-twisting… yup! There was a lot of love going around when I was in grade school! Good thing our school was so lenient, I would have been sent to the guidance office for half the stuff I did! ( There was this time I found out Luis had a crush on Julia and I was planning on photocopying the notebook but then my teacher had me give it back. Drat.) Speaking of Julia Dereja, she was my partner in crime, my ka-schoolbus and classmate til we finished elementary… I miss my childhood bestfriend. If you gets to read this, my cell phone number is… Uh, in person na lang… I saw her once but then she was hurrying and crossing the street or something… Fate will probably help me contact her again. Or I can write her. Hehe. I did that once, when I saw her at U.P at freshman year. She has changed. Or maybe we both did. If we were to talk again would we find ourselves reverting back to that old friendship? The few times we did bump into each other we were somewhat playing footsy… like that time we ended up as classmates in Nat. Sci. II … so I guess things wouldn’t be the same. But then, hello! We are adults now! (I hope so! J ) Time has made us less barkada-centered as we were in high school, college so there may be hope for us yet! How about a reunion? Here, here! And I do remember I had this recurring crush with… hehe! Definitely not Luis. Guess who? :D As if he will get to read this… fine, fine… the other boy I terrorized. So there. Even my mother knows about it so it isn’t like it’s a grand secret…

I digressed! Arrgh! What am I, 2 years old? :/ My attention span has never helped me, I’m sorry. It’s also one of the reasons why guys never got anywhere with me. Freshman high school there was this cute guy who I had a crush on for 1 quarter of the school year. After that he started noticing me, making goo-goo eyes and even calling me sweetheart! Yuck! The nerve! The minute he started liking me I started avoiding him. It has always been that way. Another instance was with my cousin’s friend and our classmate. Turned out he was also G’s friend. Anyway, I started liking him but after a month finally stopped when he started sitting next to me for no apparent reason and paying more attention than usual. What is wrong with me? I liked him fine when he didn’t notice me. This is what my bestfriend P and I refer to as the “chaser” mentality. When we finally get the guy’s attention we start running the other way. Weird but inexplicably predictable when it comes to me. If I truly wanted to have a boyfriend I could have flirted back then and had any one of them. But then, that isn’t me… My other years of high school were uneventful love-wise since I transferred to an all girls’ school… There was this one time, though.. when I enrolled in Acting Class before senior year… Best summer of my life. This was when I met Seth, one of my more intense crushes. (Hey, liking someone is the best kind of feeling, though it may seem juvenile to some that this is the most my romantic experiences extend to... It’s the highs without any of the lows… just a slow, gradual fading of emotions because of lack of contact… And no, I wasn’t in love with him. I still maintain that I haven’t fallen in love yet. I’ll know it when I finally am) Seth was a playwright, he wrote the play we acted out for the final project and through sheer lack of courage I never really got to know him more, or get him to notice me. I was always so quiet and unresponsive. I get that way when I’m with a guy I like. I know, it’s dumb, but then I couldn’t help it! And I was a 16-year-old Catholic school girl and he was this dreamy, artsy, brooding Atenista… No contest. I was struck dumb every time I saw him and he will always be one of my biggest regrets... He was nice, though a bit arrogant and full of angst, and he was willing to be a friend, I think. Hay. I’ll go jump into the lake now. :egg: Well, I think I will eventually get to meet the guy again. Manila is small and I do so love the theater. Speaking of which, I even dragged P to FEU just to see them stage a play there. Hehehe! All in the name of l’amour! That has got to be one of the more gutsy things I did to get to his direction… though I never did go backstage and I have yet to see him in a play again. This whole Seth episode can turn out to be one long article by itself. ;)

I have more to tell. Ja matta ne.

Looking Back

To my old elementary classmates… Would you still remember me if we met up in the street? Maybe I would, but then I’ve always thought of myself as being more sentimental than most. After graduating from U.P., it seems more improbable that I would be able to get to see my childhood friends again. It’s harder enough catching up with your friends from college and from previous jobs, right? My grade school years will always be a fond memory, filled with the happy optimism of youth. We thought that we could grow up to be anything. Personally, I wanted to be a private detective when I was younger. I had this shoe box with my tiny notebook, pen, a penlight, magnifying glasses… My cases were relatively small, the occasional missing pen, lunch money and petty thievery of rulers, pens and such… There was even a rumor going around of my classmate being a kleptomaniac… but then we never did get to catch her in the act. Besides, she was a sweet, unassuming thing in glasses… we had no concrete evidence. Another dream of mine was to be an investigative journalist, somewhat related to the spy idea, to dig up whatever controversy I can find and make that Pulitzer-worthy news piece… I only got around to publishing one copy care of the dot matrix printer at home and Printshop… I don’t even remember what I wrote. Something mundane probably, like the foundation day or my last Christmas production.

What I enjoyed most was writing scripts, directing and getting to act in them. At the age of 10, I was already getting ready for a career in the spotlight. That was another thing I wanted to be, an actress or a writer. I guess I never got around to doing any of it yet though it isn’t too late to write the great Filipino movie/play. =) I had these grandiose ideas of staging adaptations of Disney movies… I would be the first in suggesting these things to my teachers and they would gladly let me handle the reins. I was even the lead in our play about Andres Bonifacio. Yes, I played Andres, not Gregoria. Hehe! No one else was willing to so I said yes.

Looking back I must admit that I was a gutsy kid. I wonder what happened to the old me? I stuffed her in the background because when I turned into a teenager I was faced with so many changes, insecurities that I know realize are all in my head. As much as I did try to in college to be as abandoned as that little girl, full of hopes and dreams, I realized I can never get her back. She is in the past and I am an adult now. I have to act mature and responsible and I have to face my future head on. Hmm. I could use a few tips from the person I was, though. Maybe I’ll get her back if I meet the past again? I hope I could track my old classmates down. It’s nice to reminisce over the past 10 or so years. I miss them a lot, especially my best friend then and partner in crime, Julia, who did seem to have changed so much that last time we got to talk to each other. Heck, I even miss Luis and Chuck who I terrorized all those years ago (and who got me back every time) with my endless series of pranks through the years... fun stuff like hiding their bags, pencil cases in the window ledge, reading their journals and threatening to expose their secrets… Hehehe! Those years never fail to amuse me. If only things could be as simple and seemingly complicated again. Though some adults may react that it was needlessly cruel of me, well, it was all done in the spirit of fun. Thank God the school was so lenient or I would have been traumatized by the number of times they would have sent me to the guidance councilor.

I miss climbing the sprawling branches of those trees that look like old men with their hanging vines… I miss playing among the slippery, moss-filled rocks that seemed so big then but may really be nothing now. I miss candlelight vigils and going on rallies for peace. They have already put up another building on the fields we used to run through. I can never buy sago, bananacue or mangga with bagoong from the vendors before dashing off to my school bus again. I will never again drink from a Coleman filled with ice cubes and orange juice, or have half of the class drink from my jug, though reluctantly.

It has been years since I last dropped by that school, though it is just along EDSA and a mere jeepney or taxi ride away from UP. Most of us eventually studied in UP, I heard. At the time I had hopes of us meeting somewhere on campus for an impromptu reunion but then that never happened. Now that we’re older, will I ever see you guys again? Wouldn’t it be funny if we did? I could probably write Julia, I just have to look for that old address book of mine… Or I could get her number through someone I know who was her friend in high school. But how can I reach the others? Chuck isn’t from UP, last I heard he was in La Salle. Luis I think I could contact through some of our common friends… Our other classmates like Hiyas, B3 I hope I could eventually contact. Hmmm. Perhaps it may work. Failure would just give me fodder to write more. And if we do meet the first thing I will do is thank all of you. Despite whatever hardships we may have willingly put ourselves through, dear friends and fiends, I couldn’t ask for a better childhood. =)

Testing. Is my blog working? :) It works! Here goes...