For the previous year-enders, you may click on the links below:
2023 - "Tested in a Crucible" Part 1 & Part 2
2022 - "2022 = Courage" Part 1 & Part 2
2021 - "Anticipating 2022 and Potentially Moving On"
2019 - "惊喜 (Don’t worry. This is an English blog entry.)" Part 1; from old blog & Part 2
I have titles identified as my pending blog posts for 2024 but with only less than 24 hours remaining for the year, I am just going to share a number of them as concise as I can, so that I can at the minimum take these off my list before we cross to another new year.
You see, my most recent post prior to this one was in July, which is essentially my public appreciation message to my girlfriend Shine. My time for blog posting became even more limited since then.
Sigh. So many topics, so little time.
Let's get to it.
BRIEF LOOKBACK FOR A DECADE OF WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK. Let me give you one Chinese idiom that can perfectly describe my career so far: 事与愿违 (Pinyin: shì yǔ yuàn wéi; Interpretation: things turn out contrary to the way one wishes; Source: OMG Chinese)
I was a teacher for eight years. I took up Chinese education in college, in China, to become a Chinese educator in a Chinese school. It would be sensible if I were to remain teaching, right?
Right??
But it was not the case, the ideal teaching career does not exist. My plans failed; they are now as good as food crumbs. Besides, my teaching career took its toll on me.
To give a candid example, this is an anecdote from my final school year. It was in an online class, I was introducing the word "猜" (to make a guess) to grade schoolers:
Me: 谁能猜出来老师今年多大了？ (Can anyone guess my age right now?)
[Oh yeah, some did give out good guesses, but...]
That One Student： 四十岁。 (40 years old.)
Astounded Me: 四十岁？！ (40 years old?!)
That to me was incredible! I was freaking 28! But kids tell as they see. Horrible it may seem, but that was an innocent guess. I cannot blame her.
The real horrible one, horrible looking and horribly working, is me.
After that year, I jumped ships, first to the call center industry just briefly, then to an American IT company that works on websites. Quite a change, huh? Not "quite", it's huge! However, little did I know, my Mandarin skills and basic knowledge on HTML which I learned way back in high school would come together and will be of essential use to my present job.
Looking back, it was never my plan to go corporate. But I am glad I came out of that comfort zone. With this, I have lesser worries, I am in a way better position to provide for my family.
GROWING ATTENTION FOR BREADWINNERS. Working for a decade is parallel to me being the breadwinner of the family as I earn the most. I did not initially choose to be one because I actually had a different vision after finishing college, but realities of life intervened, so I had to take on this responsibility, out of necessity, since I think it would be better to help than to leave my parents and siblings behind.
These recent years on social media, even before the Vice Ganda-starred movie is released, I observed that recognition for breadwinners is gaining traction.
Well, by definition, a breadwinner is someone who earns to support the family financially. While parents are the most common and natural breadwinners in other countries, in the Philippines, it is becoming an unfortunate prevalence that children are stepping up to be one. I do not have exact data now, but if you can ask around, a lot of Filipino youth are tagging themselves, my girlfriend and I included, as *the* breadwinner of their families.
Admittedly, I have had episodes of repetitive frustrations and sorrowful nostalgia, the latter being filled with "what might have been" thoughts. Finding encouragement from peeple was not easy as I find it hard to identify who can totally understand my predicament, not until these breadwinner stories came out of social media sites, I can largely, if not completely, see myself in them just by reading and listening to their narration of struggles: huge financial sacrifices, outdated wardrobe, delayed purchases, discrimination at times, making-do of what's left, and the most striking of all - dreams that were given up in favor of realizing someone else's.
It is comforting to know that I am not alone in the battle. I am not the only "silent sufferer."
Besides, my toil is not being put to waste, my younger siblings are doing well. One of them is now working, the last two siblings are in college and are not taking their chances for granted. Note that I never had to remind them to study well, for them it's innate I guess, and I hope they will continue in their academic commitments.
 |
| I wonder how true this image is. |
I hope there will be a "National Breadwinners Day" someday, since we are now starting to give collective appreciation to cats, dogs, coffee, pasta on a certain calendar date. Is this too much to ask?
SPECIAL REMEMBRANCE. Mrs. de Guzman was my kindergarten teacher and also my EPP (home economics) teacher in the final years of grade school. All I remember about Mrs. de Guzman were her words of encouragement. My very first "You can do it!" from a teacher came from her when I was about to participate in my first-ever intra-school academic competition.
In our EPP class, she highly appreciated those work our little hands made without parents substituting for us. She would always remark, "Mas maganda ang gawa kapag ikaw ang gumawa." (It becomes more beautiful if you yourself do the work.) Mrs. de Guzman's final assignment to us was to make paper bags out of Christmas wrappers.
Mr. Yulo was our high school disciplinarian. I have three most vivid memories of him, the first was him cutting an awkward part of my hair as his punishment as my hair was too long. The other one was his advice about humility, he told me to keep my feet on the ground. Yeah, I was getting overly confident and becoming proud of myself and his words made me feel like I took a punch. It was a good punch.
Then in my senior year, he told me the school would be having an official website soon as he was in talks with a provider that will help him build it, and my help might be needed content-wise. I was glad since it would help promote the school; we were celebrating our school's 110th founding anniversary then. It would be a great milestone.
Mrs. de Guzman's final assignment never came to be. Mr. Yulo's vision for a school website did not come to fruition in his time.
They both met tragic ends, both in the last month of the year. Mrs. de Guzman was 20 years ago on 11th December in a vehicular accident in Cubao. We were told she was "beyond recognition" as the impact was so severe; we never got to see for ourselves as it was a closed casket. Mr. Yulo's on 7th December 15 years back, he was mercilessly cut down through multiple shots. I was on the crime scene mere minutes after it happened and was very close to seeing him but was prevented by the police cordoning off his doomed car.
Justice is elusive unfortunately; I did not hear further developments on both teachers' cases. All I can wish for is that Mrs. de Guzman and Mr. Yulo are peacefully resting.
I was actually planning to write about them on this blog many years prior. I felt the need to honor them all the more now as this year marked the 20th and 15th anniversary since their passing.
[Note: I did not reveal both teachers' full names as I do not have credible information if their cases have finally come to legal resolution. You can message me privately or anonymously share your thoughts in the Comments section, but I suggest you to not reveal their full names, too, if you're going to leave a comment here.]
2024 IS A BETTER YEAR. If you were following my blog in the past couple of years, you would know what I went through. Those two years were not easy to say the least. My family went through two consecutive bouts of grief with the passing of my father and my sister April. I found myself becoming more susceptible to sickness having contracted COVID-19, RSV and Dengue fever all in six months' time.
I came to 2024 with a cautiously optimistic disposition. I was crossing my fingers and praying to God that this year would finally be different.
And thanks be to God, despite the few times we faced emergencies, He did spare me and my family from further harm and tragedies. God graciously provided for us, as mentioned earlier, both of my two youngest siblings are now in college, and their matriculation and allowances are adequately met.
I was apparently getting healthier as I was not sickly for the great part of the year, thanks to the perks (health card, flu vaccine) I am getting from my current God-sent employer.
I also did not expect 2024 will be a year of ministry expansion. I was attached with Christ's Commission Fellowship (CCF) Gateway satellite in Araneta Center-Cubao and has already been serving there as one of the bass guitarists for close to two years.
This year, I came to a decision that I have to relocate to CCF Manila since I am a resident of this city, and it is logically convenient for me in terms of distance. To clarify, I was introduced to CCF Gateway first; it was only later I found out there is indeed a Manila satellite.
 |
| Courtesy: B1G Manila Facebook page |
I also volunteered to be a bass guitarist at CCF Manila and at one point, due to necessity, was tapped to do cajon (beatbox) which I never did in my life, but God helped me through it. I still do bass at CCF Gateway in sporadic schedule.
My relationship with Shine is stable. With the months that had passed, we gained much understanding and maturity and became more forward-thinking. On February, on our first anniversary, we committed ourselves to purity and loyalty through promise rings. We pray to God that we will be a good testimony of His faithfulness through our relationship.
Wedding? Not that quick, but we had begun prospecting on the specific date, possible venues and on which peeple we may ask their honors to be part of this wonderful occasion. I'm giving Shine the liberty to plan. That's all I can share right now.
KEEPING IT LOW ON 2025. I remember back in the final days of 2019, I was highly ecstatic on what the next year and decade would bring. I was sad to pass my amazing youthful years of 2010s on to history, but I took on 2020 with a leveled-up sense of optimism, anticipating that the new decade would usher in exciting years ahead.
And we all know how 2020 disappointed humanity. Not only 2020, but the stagnation and mental instability most of us had to endure went on through 2021 and some months of 2022.
It gave me a lesson: not to be *overly* optimistic, to leave some room for the unexpected.
While tagging 2024 as a generally better year for me, I shall taper off my expectations for 2025. Keeping it low-key as Gen Z peeple say. In older generations' terms, cautiously optimistic.
I will continue to stay low on social media. It proved effective in keeping a low profile online when I drastically decreased postings on my socials. I will still continue doing random updates, but that would be my maximum for my social media engagements.
Just a disclaimer on having 2024 as a better year, I do not mean giving out insensitivity feels to those whose 2024 went the other way. I pray for you to have a turnaround or a breakthrough this 2025.
As for me, I am praying that my 2025 will generally be a good one as well, that, just like in 2024, my loved ones will be kept safe, secure and healthy. This is my utmost wish more than anything else.
Happy New Year everyone!
MINI BLOG PLUG.
Got more time reading? You may want to explore more on this blog by reading these two about the author (Outer Layer and Inner Core), or by finding the all-time most popular posts at the bottom part of this page.
Also, you may want to leave some of your thoughts in the comment section below. You can post your comments whether anonymously or by using your Google account. Either way, all comments get moderated.
Thanks for dropping by, peeple!
0 Comments