Carpe Diem

Life is like taking a train ride. In the long journey,
you see places and people, some are pleasant but some
are not. If it is as scenic and as beautiful as the
White Rock rail ways, you wish to slow down and try to
enjoy the majestic sea and hear the waves as it
touches the rocky shores. The train crawls slowly
along those tracks until everything is gone from view
and a new place to conquer approaches.
In life, nothing is permanent--everything is a
fleeting experience. No happiness nor despair will
stay forever. Life moves on, like the train in the
tracks. It's not about how fast or slow I want to pass by
these journey points in my life; it's about deciding
when to move on.
I hope this simple reflection will inspire you, as the
beautiful White Rock did for me.

I passed the probationary period and received a good performance review. It’s a wonder for me how my boss was able to say nice words for me, when all the while I was always on my toes.

Today, I was walking in the rain at 8deg C with fairly strog winds. Cold rain. Short and gloomy days…but I was with a smile.

I have yet to decide if I will go back to school and earn a bachelor’s degree here in Canada, or should I go for certificates or diplomas to get me a better chance on landing specific jobs. Whilst a bachelor’s degree is always preferred, most high paying jobs around Canada belong to the trades. Take for example a licensed practical nurse (LPN) who are raking $24/hr as compared to an office assistant, who most prolly is a degree holder, but only $13/hr. What would it merit me then to have a Canadian bachelor’s degree?

Two days ago, I was discussing with my friend Frank on skills-upgrading options and how it would impact on successfully landing an arguably decent paying job in relation to our qualification. A couple of things came out: (a) is an unemployed person running away from the problem if s/he decides to go back to school? (b) will skills-upgrading give any assurance about faster absorption into the mainstream labour market?

After about 3 months of pondering over these issues, I’ve come to a realization that qualifications, in itself, is not a guarantee for employment. The interplay between the applicant’s plea to the company’s prevailing selection process and the society’s observed founded principles on job recruitment. Despite having the legit credentials and formidable qualifications, one cannot demand to be accepted in a company. On the other hand, the company has to exercise fair, non-discriminatory recruitment practice. The applicant is often caught in the void between these two concepts, like a stale mate in a chess match. By the way the recruitment process operates, it is neither flawed nor too exhaustive and perhaps the only way to look at the situation is by considering a third element called “networking”.

To be continued…

My mind is riddled with options, which I fear would lead to a cul-de-sac. To frame my thinking right now, I throw you this:

Proposition 1: At the height of my teaching career, I thought it was my passion.

Proposition 2: At the height of my teaching job–which I’m passionate about–I thought it was my career.

Believe me, I could run a lengthy argument on proving and disproving both prepositions with a simple play of words and twisting them to create an entirely different meaning. I could relate to the second preposition though.

…but this is not I wish to share with you today.

I’m beginning to wonder what a “career path” truly means for me, if I’m charting my destiny. When I look back at my trail, can I actually tell that every step was deliberate and with purpose?

Lately, the approach for job hunting has been a sporadic and desperate attempt to be the productive person that I am; it’s when putting on a positive attitude until it feels like compromising standards and pruning one’s self-esteem; it’s when to ’sleep over it’ wouldn’t actually change a single bit of what’s yet to come.

I guess Robert Frost perfectly captured my state of mind and how it is bent on the idea of living the consequences when he said “how way leads on to way”.

To be continued…

I’ve written quite a long essay on this one, and this is the 4th time that I was booted out of Blog.com and all I wrote were erased. This is not good.

From now on, I’ll not compose here. In fact, I may not post in blog.com anymore. This is just too much.

I’ll be collecting my Permanent Residency card later today. If not for my friend who visited me here yesterday at my place, I wouldn’t be prompted to phone the person whose address I nominated for the card delivery. Didn’t really expect it to arrive so soon, and it has somehow fast-tracked everything that I wish to do while I’m here in Vancouver.

I’m also celebrating my month-sary today. Just can’t imagine how I tried to make sense of what was happening within me and around me. Nothing special about how I managed living for a month. In fact, it’s really pathetic how I would stay in my room and only come out when it’s time for me to cook, eat, wash dishes, and laundry. I have the Internet, my Roger’s connection (Globe Int’l Roaming service partner), my Fido ($10 prepaid unlimited phone calls between 6:30pm and 8 a.m.) to connect with the outside world though, and I must say it isn’t enough.

Today is celebration of a month of broken routine. Friday spells easy back in Manila. Weekends too. Now, I can only wonder why Friday lost it’s appeal to me.

My coming here to Vancouver has displaced me in some way, and to a certain extent has impacted on how I live my life at the moment. It’s this process of accepting new lifestyle is one thing that I have to yet to come into terms with.

No, there’s no culture shock for me. It is mind conditioning that I did during my first few months living alone in Manila, so shall be my strategy here. In Manila, there were moments when I was overcome by deep loneliness and sometimes gripped by despair. Candid realisations stream in my mind, unchallenged by reasoning—foreshadowing what is yet to come. I dissuaded these sad feelings and confronted it as a feeling that I could possibly encounter once severed from my family in the Philippines. From there, I decided how to deal with it and somehow learned the ropes of immediate processing my emotions and thoughts. You see–it’s a form of self-preservation that vested me with self-confidence and self-respect. In my daily brush with reality, I keep my feet planted on what I think is best for me, despite the odds.

Having a PR card would mean a lot to me. It will buy me mobility, opportunity, freedom, potentiality. I need to head off now, see you in a bit.