answered prayer. my testimony.

the singapore government enforced new policies. they limit the number of foreign workers to give way to their local citizens. or at least that's how i understood and simply put it.

on the onset, i thought we are all unfortunate to be affected by it. so this is what it means and how it feels to be laid-off. in our twenty-something glorious years, i thought we are too young to be facing such situation. in my previous jobs, i call the shots. i stay as long as i want to, as long as i'm happy. and i leave the moment i feel i'm not in the right place. but there's one more good thing about being twenty-something. most of us, if not all, were not crumbled by all this lay-off drama. we still believed we are invincible, that we can find new doors after one closed behind us.

what i thought was easy, wasn't, really. at the time, it was a futile attempt. the ones i knocked to wouldn't let a foreigner in. then there is this thing called timing. there were some doors that they kept open, but the opening is too small it can only accommodate one, or two. and i wasn't knocking at the right time. and someone else was. one good friend got in. and i'm happy for her. that was her luck and blessing.

so while i still have more than a month to stay in the company before my contract finally ends, i do the works on the side -- updating resume, submitting applications online, calling up potential employers. 

then my boss called me aside and told me she's talking to the human resource and she's doing her best to keep me.  i didn't expect that. i did not even ask her to do so. but on that moment, my heart swelled with pride and hope. maybe she can do something. maybe i didn't have to risk going to unknown. maybe i wouldn't have to step out of my comfort zone. maybe i'm destined to stay. and maybe i wouldn't have to spend money anymore for placement fees.

so when i received a few calls for job interviews, i didn't go. precisely because i am half-hearted about the job, but mostly because i was hoping and waiting for the good news my boss will give me.

at the very last minute, on my very last day at work, she tried and did the best she could. but the management cannot do anything. and i said it was fine. because it is, really. i don't do much to change a situation. i don't push and fight a losing battle. i change the one thing i can -- my mindset.

then unsolicited pieces of advice kept on coming. one really concerned friend told me to work harder in finding a new job. that i am too complacent, that i need to be serious about my search. that night, i came home crying. wasn't i doing enough? were they right to think i am negligent and slacking off? self-doubt tried to get the better of me and lodge somewhere. but that was only on that one night. i don't have to assure anybody that i'm doing the best i can. and i won't let them set the barometer of what's enough and what's not.

then i figured what these concerned people were looking for. they want to see the signs of panic, of urgency, of pressure, of worry. it's human nature. but i didn't show any. as my days of stay in singapore were numbered, i didn't think of it as the end of the world. if i don't find the right opportunity at the right time here, i can always go home to my country.

here's my deal. i'll stay until my special visit pass expires. i'll exhaust my luck. and only then will i go home.

here's my prayer. if i am to work in a retail and sales industry again, it has to be a direct hire, meaning, i shouldn't spend a dollar. i'll only seek the assistance of recruitment agencies who pocket a huge amount of money from applicants if it is an office job. i even bargained that a one-year contract will do.

here's what i did. the following day, after my last day of work, a recruitment agency called and scheduled me for an interview for a sales job. i forgot about my deal and went. i passed the first interview. i proceeded to the second one.  throughout the process, i felt something was wrong, i don't completely like to get the job. and i told Him to let His will be done. i did not hear from the company again after that. and i was relieved.

here's His answer. direct hire, no placement fees. service-oriented and not sales-related office job in an established institution. reasonable working hours. good pay. and overwhelmingly, a three-year contract.

the answered prayer was delivered in full yesterday. today, i am still over the moon. i learned and relearned a whole lot of things after this crazy chronicle. for one, we can never outdo His generosity. i realized i wasn't praying properly, i limited what i ask for when He can actually give so much more, when His blessings are limitless. also, timing has a lot to do with all these. i quoted this before and i'll quote this again, "it is never too late or too soon. it is when it is meant to be." had my previous boss not tried her best to keep me, i wouldn't have something to hope for, i would have grabbed any early opportunity that came my way. it was the pause i needed, the "hold-on." then there was that sales job that i failed to get. it was the comfortable "no." 

and it's only now that i put the pieces together, it's only now that they make a clear sense. that "hold-on" and "no" are what led me to this "yes." indeed, it was worth the wait.

all these were bound to happen. sometimes, we have to be uprooted and be planted somewhere else so we can grow new roots and bear new fruits.

freedom and what it means to me

my two-year work contract ended this past friday. i'm a bum for almost a week now and i thought i'll have a lot of time blogging and reliving stories i am unable to put into writing. but there are just so many things that ate up most of my reclaimed freedom. too many old friends to visit, interesting movies to watch, fine books to read. to top it all, my bed has been really tempting lately i didn't let a day pass without oversleeping.

sometimes, waking up at whatever time we want without worrying about getting late to work, doing things we dreamed of doing and grabbing that book on the shelf we longed to devour and finish prove to be life's sweet pleasures.

5 out of my already 6-day freedom were spent outdoors. i spent the days in every way i want. i walked without hurrying. i took my time. and although i pray and take the necessary steps to find my next right job, i am thankful for this transition.

this meltdown is a preparation for yet another milestone.:)

don't date a girl who reads.

i came across a lengthy piece that is just too beautiful to miss.

You should date an illiterate girl.

Date a girl who doesn't read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in a film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you've unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale or the evenings too long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn't fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn't, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn't read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent of a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, goddamnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn't read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so goddamned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life of which I spoke at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being told. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. Or, perhaps, stay and save my life.

- C. Warnke

listen up and/or shut up.

i'd like to believe that long before i turned into a mature adult, i am invincible. that i am headstrong and self-assured. that i don't mind anybody's opinion about me. that whatever people say do not hurt nor affect me. sure, it elates me to hear compliments. i flinch a little on every bad comment. but whether they approve the way i set my plans or not is none of my business.

i'm not saying it's good. i'm saying this is how i live my life. 

i believe firmly that everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt, and that though we have all the right in the world to create impressions, good or bad, we will never earn the right to judge. 

every single one has a unique story. our brains don't work the same way. we plan and operate differently. we have different strategies. and even if you're a friend or a family, you don't know what the other is going through exactly. you'll never know the real score until you walk a mile in his or her shoes. and it's never gonna happen. you'll be stuck to your own shoes as much as i'll be stuck to mine. you don't even have to understand. no. you don't need to attempt to.

let people plan and make mistakes. let them learn from personal experiences. or at least find out what works for them. if they ask for advice, give them. if they need you to listen, listen. if they should be left alone, by all means leave them. 

importantly, keep your criticisms, especially the destructive ones, to yourself. save one heart from breaking.