on sale!

Seen this?

Today is payday and tomorrow is Labor Day, a holiday.  I'm sure working moms all over Ortigas are contemplating their lists: school shoes and school bags, socks and underwear, school supplies, and while you're at it, check the trendy little boutiques and the home section.  And if you get exhausted, well, come back the following day.

I like checking out sales.  Nothing beats getting a pretty black blouse for P99 at Karimadon (well, except when you bought the white version for P750 a couple of months ago.)  Or finding picture frames usually sold at P100 apiece, now at P35, perfect for mounting my Japanese greeting cards.  Or bargain-hunting at Uniwide Coastal mall and finding a Chester the Cat mug-- selling at $38 in Amazon-- for an unbelievable P25.  

But when Megamall goes on sale, I avoid going there, even if it means taking a breathless detour to an overpass outside the mall to get to the other side of the same mall.  True, I would have saved up to 70% on their great selections, but the amount I would spend on a dozen little things that I do not need but could not resist buying would exceed the original price of the things I had actually planned to buy.  Such is the temptation, and we mortals often succumb to it.

There are people who would go there just because there's a sale, and they are 'looking for something to buy,' maybe some advance Christmas gifts.  Most working mothers can't do that.  They live on a budget and they'd probably go on a guilt trip if they buy a spur-of-the-moment pair of heels at 50% off, if they thought their kid needed new school shoes in June.

I'm not trying to sound righteous about my buying habits.  Who wouldn't love to go shopping?  Lucky you if you'd need a van to bring home your purchases on Friday night.  It's just that I've had a conversation with myself, and it went like this:

There would be very nice Celine dresses on sale.

Ok.  Do you need a new dress?

No, but I'd like one.

How many dresses do you have?

Shut up.  I'll go home.

ate jenny and my grandmother

Sometimes there are people who, through no fault of theirs and no desire of ours, become an influence in our lives.  They become part of the reason why you're fucked up, or why you're a star in your own right.  And they don't know it.

I had Ate Jenny.  She was a first cousin on my mother's side.  She was already sort of grown-up when I was a teenager.  She lived in Manila, I lived in the mountains.  Back in those years when you only saw your relatives when there was a wedding or a funeral, I didn't know if she was a knockout or a nerd, but boy, they said she was smart.

My tyrannical grandmother brought me up.  She had high esteem for smartness.  She had respect for noble professions in medicine, law, accountancy, architecture, all those fields of study that could give you additional abbreviations before or after your given name.  Needless to say, she had the opinion that writers, designers, and poets die of hunger. She was a teacher (and so are both of my parents), so she thought teaching was nobler than all those professions combined, but she didn't want me to become one.  Lesson plans gave you prematurely white hair.

All my teenage years I heard about Ate Jenny.  She studied in Far Eastern University back then, and her grades were always wonderful.  She could write really well, even her sisters said so, and they would recall with misty-eyed fondness how her writing could touch their hearts.  My grandmother was usually quick to find fault in my mother's family, but she had a grudging admiration for Ate Jenny and how she was raised.

My grandmother said I was also smart.  Suspiciously, I was sent to Far Eastern University to study high school, and I was encouraged to write.  So I wrote letters to my grandmother every week, in English.  I wrote poetry.  I wrote short stories.  I wrote in my diaries.  I hid what I wrote.

Ate Jenny was in medical school then.  I would accompany her when she did her reviews.  I was impressed by the fact that you reviewed for the medical board exam by going to Parks and Wildlife, sitting on the grass, reading those thick books.  And then she passed the board.  Ninth place, I think.  Back home, my grandmother waxed ecstatic, as though she paid for the review sessions.  And when I went to college, she declared that I would take Psychology, which could lead-- in a roundabout way-- to Medicine.  Then she declared that I would take advance summer classes to hasten the college process, after which I was supposed to become a doctor.  Of course.  Like Ate Jenny.  I didn't know if I hated her, but she has unofficially become THE idol whose accomplishments I could unquestionably surpass, with a grandmother like mine.

Life interfered.  I didn't become a doctor.  I grew up, got married, had kids.  I still write.  Once upon a time Reader's Digest Asia published a story I wrote about my grandmother, and I know she would have been proud.  But every now and then I would start thinking, would my grandmother have been prouder if I had become like Ate Jenny?

Maybe.  But this is who I am now.  Ate Jenny is in the US, a heck of a doctor, and she praises what I write when she finds the time to read my blog.  I met her husband a couple of weeks ago, and he said that their daughter writes well too.  He said he told Jenelle to write me.  How about that?  It gives me a warm feeling.

If my grandmother was still alive now, and if she would mention that one could still study to become a doctor at 37 years old (and that she would pay for medical school)--- AND if Ate Jenny would second that, maybe I would.

the perfect job

What is the definition of a perfect job?

They say it's when you do what you love for a living, and it no longer seems like work, but all fun.

Nice answer when you're being interviewed for a job, when you're twenty-two, fresh from college, and the goals in life include getting a studio-type condominium unit and summer vacations in Boracay to improve your lovelife.

But when you're in your mid-thirties, with children in school, a mortgage on the house and a car loan, a perfect job is the one that gives you payday-to-payday assurance that the bills will be paid, that the cat has cat food and the dog has dog food, the twelve-year-old goes to her field trip and gets new eyeglasses, and that there's always toothpaste in the bathroom.  You don't say that the perfect job is the one that allows you to fight poverty in the Asian region.

I used to say that I loved working in the university because it gave me a chance to make a difference.  Every day, I helped solve little problems, and what I did made an impact on the well-being of the student and the people around me.  The sense of accomplishment is immediate, and I felt good about what I was doing.  I see Jabez on Facebook these days and remember that eight, ten years ago he was doing Approj in a blue uniform, and now he's a college instructor, and I'm still proud of him.

It's a different thing when you're in the corporate world.  My official position title now is Senior Treasury Assistant.  Most days I am simply a highly-paid secretary.  It's not exactly what I wrote in the slam books when I was younger, in the blank for 'What's your ambition?' I dreamt of writing for a living.

Don't get me wrong, I am proud of what I am doing.  My job is the reason why we have the house, the car, the children in private schools, the tablet, the five-inch-heels.  There are times when it feels like logging 87 documents in a single day is a thankless task, but you learn to look at it as increasing your typing speed to 80 wpm, and not as the beginning of carpal tunnel syndrome.

It's not exactly 'writing for a living.'  A couple of months ago, the only significant writing I got done was panel minutes.  These days, it's minutes of meetings. But when you can't do what you like, it's time to start liking what you do.  There is something good in every little thing, no matter how insignificant it may seem at the moment.  There is something to learn in the mindless little tasks, no matter how small you may seem in the scheme of things.

I don't see myself sitting in front of a 17-inch HP monitor for the next 23 years.  I have not decided what I want to be when I grow up.  But you see, when you're older (and hopefully wiser), you learn that whatever you do for a living, it becomes a perfect job when you give it your best, every day.

And well, if I want to write, I can always blog.  :-)