Six Months and Counting

I missed my six months of being back in the US mark . It came and went uneventfully last week on March 19. I celebrated it sans blog and nose to the grind at the new job. Yes. The new job that has been keeping me from blogging. New job that has me on my feet for seven and a half hours straight and teen-age daughter, that is. Teenage daughter who has our laptop perennially attached to her hands to be exact.

So today, as said daughter was in the middle of reviewing for her college placing exam, while I checked my e-mail, I sneaked in this blog. I don't know what has been tiring me more. The having to stand on my feet all day long, the constant refilling, re-stocking and replenishing of food and beverages where I work, or the thirty minute break for lunch that never seems to be long enough?

I have so much more to say than the nothing I have been saying since my last post but let's keep this one short and sweet... and painless, and limit my thoughts to a simple "Thank you for cheering me on while I looked high and low for a job."

Now that I have one, the question now is whether or not I should find another one to bring more money in. Or another job altogether. Or be still and keep this one and see what happens.

The nametag? I decided to use my old radio name. It makes for an interesting conversation when guests ask if my real name is Josephine. I get to tell them that I used to have a morning show... in the Philippines. No one seems to be shocked that nowadays, I make coffee and clean tables at a lounge. If anything, they are amused at my sense of humor and enjoy that I keep the coffee and pastries coming.

Call it a captive audience. Only this time, I don't have a microphone but I have lots of food.

Dear Blog Reader

It's been exactly 62 days since I last posted an entry. Assuming you have been dropping by periodically to see what's been going on and whether I finally got a job, I have good news and good reason to explain my absence. I did get a job!

I am not at liberty to divulge the specifics of where it is that I work (pending further research into the organization's blogging policy) but I can say that I am at an important hotel here in Orlando and that I am a Concierge. I am having a blast putting all of my past experience to good use in this my first Hospitality/ Hotel position.

While I have much to say on how I'm transitioning into this new role, I'll save this for another blog for when I have more time to write and when I'm not rushing an entry. Like now.

The biggest challenge of not being my usual cyber-addicted self is having to share a laptop with an eighteen year-old. We need another computer! This, and the tired that hits me after work and the need to make dinner or wash dishes clamor for my time. This concept was alien to me in the Philippines. More on this in yet another future blog.

(Notes to self to blog about: working in operations, the "luxury" of live-in help, credit or debit, joining the diaspora.)

So that's where I disappeared to. Thank you for your visits!

As ever,
Thelma

Kyera Cover

She's the token Asian face on the cover of the multicultural brochure we hand out at Orlando World Outreach Center.

People say we look like sisters but a very small handful, including myself, see how much she looks like her father. Well, I do have taste, you know. I can only take credit for half her genes. The other half belongs to my ex-husband.

A Page from the Nanny Diary

As I wrestle with thoughts on moving yet again, I took on a babysitting gig yesterday. Out of the forty-something job applications I have submitted, ranging in varying levels of... experience, I finally found something that hired me on the spot - nanny for a day.

My body still aches from the exertion of helping a mom take care of twin toddlers but it's a good ache. Not just from an exercise standpoint but from the perspective of forcing myself to re-evaluate why I'm hitting walls with my applications.

Forty-five and counting?

Communications Manager, Training Manager, Morning Show Host, and now - Babysitter.

I think it's time to move... Maybe.

The One Thing

The most prominent thing on my Wish List for 2008 is:

To work at a job I will love at a place that has great benefits.

I'll think about the other stuff like going back to school, or learning CSS, HTML, XHTML and Adobe InDesign, later.

Excuse me, while I re-strategize my job hunting...

New Year's Eve 2008

Will come up with my list of goals for the new year soon enough. And will post a timeline of events that brought us from the Philippines to/back to the US too. That, and the obligatory gratitude blog for the year that was.

But for now, as I sit in my aunt's quiet living room with the TV competing for my attention (why I cannot turn it off is fodder for another blog), I'm missing the chaos of Manila's New Year's Eve. Firecrackers going off around the neighborhood as early as... 7AM; the busy kitchens abuzz with the clash and clang of pots and pans; the squeals of happy children in the streets; the busy driveways filled with guests; radios at full blast; heavy traffic at open air fireworks venues.

I miss it all and then some.

As the Style Network lures me away from this blog to put me in a numbed state, my eyes will soon glaze over from non-stop channel surfing. At least, I won't feel the sadness of missing the madness we have left behind.

18 Candles

8AM on December 28, 1989 I underwent a C-Section to deliver a healthy, 6.15 1/2 lb, 19 inch baby girl. It was an anti-climactic delivery to the preparation I had put into the nine months I was infanticipating - child birth classes, Lamaze books, Leboyer books, active birth books - you name it, I knew it.

But a visit to my OB-GYN coupled with a possible miscalculation on my part - plus a nervous mother who didn't want anything bad to happen to her daughter (me) or grandchild (Kyera) - left me and my then-husband with no choice but to agree to the expensive operation.

Seeing that we were twenty, both unemployed at the time, and living under my mother's roof, we didn't have much of a say in the matter. So we went home to pick up my and the baby's diaper bag, said good-bye to our bedroom, and promised it we would return with a baby. I turned to my husband and said, "Our lives will never be the same again. The next time we come home, we'll be parents."

You don't really no how much your parents love you until you have your own children. And the revelation doesn't end at birth. Here I am eighteen years into parenthood - sixteen as a single mom - and I still find myself profoundly grateful for my parents, albeit they are both dead now.

A former boss summarized it perfectly. "Becoming a parent ruins you. You are done for. You don't know how much you can love another human being until you have a child."

Welcome to the most joyful destruction of life.

Now that Kyera's eighteen, it's only a matter of time before I will happily gloat over watching her ruin herself. She's been warned that her children will be spoiled.

I can only hope that when that time comes, she will have been well-prepared. The one thing I know she will always know, is how well-loved she has always been.

Aaah, parenting. I've loved every second.

More Library Lovin'

Today I'm sitting through three levels of Photoshop. I can only crop and do basic photo alterations like playing with brightness, colors, etc., but when it comes to the more complex stuff like working with layers, brushes, etc., my eyes glaze over. Hopefully after today, I'll know what ALL the tools and tricks are. Or at least, MORE than what I know, which is very little.

We just applied for K's SSN yesterday so as soon as it arrives, I'm having her sign up for library classes too. That, and get a part-time job.

I have a feeling she'll get one sooner than me.

If that's the case, at least one of us will be working. The other one can stay at the library. Everyday.