The Journey. It’s Mine. [Daragang Magayon’s Personal Blog]

What career?! Hahaha. I have always believed that my career went up in smokes the moment I became a mother. Not that motherhood is to blame. It’s just that my priorities have changed since then.

Well anyway, I’ve been wanting to come home since I got pregnant. First to hide my ‘demise’ (read: pregnancy out of wedlock) and run away from it all and from everyone.

But I didn’t for practicalities’ sake. I needed the job after all. It was then I realized that my old job has just become that, a job. No more fire and excitement burning to do it. My heart was somewhere else. I didn’t know where and what. I still don’t know at this very moment.

I just know I gotta reinvent myself, find a job nearby so I can come home at day’s end. Nothing hifaluting, nothing of grandeur, nothing for a bigger cause. Just something I can live with in all honesty and put food on the table. And oh, something that will pay my SSS contributions.

I’m not looking for jobs in Manhattan, a job in Sorsogon will do…for now.

I can’t remember the last time I wrote a cover letter with success (read: landed me the job) — I guess in those days application letters as I remember them being called were still handwritten. Ha ha.

Since I got pregnant with Raine, I’ve been wanting to leave the lab and so while still on board my last day job, I’ve been scouring for other jobs. It has been more than two years since I left the last job, wala pa ring kapalit.

Hmmm…maybe I should get serious in writing those cover letters.

These days writing the best cover letters that can land your next job is as easy as purchasing a template from Land That Job -Resumes and Cover Letters.

It’s as easy as purchasing a template that will help you make that cover letter that will convince the reader to look at your resume. I guess it really pays taking a look at Land that Job!

There was a time I was a real estate agent ! Sorta. Believe me, I never sold anything. What I was able to do never went past a site visit.

Then this reminded me, I never sold anything. Nothing at all. I have never been a sales person. I’m still not.  My principle remains that if somebody doesn’t want to buy anything I’m selling, then don’t buy. I’m not going to insist.

I guess the most difficult job in the world is convincing people what you believe in. Like in sales, you must believe in the product you are selling, before you can convince anybody to buy the stuff from you.

Maybe that’s why I was drawn to lab work/research. Because whatever I produced wasn’t exact. It has always been relative to anything, a correlation of not just one parameter, but at least two.

Ahhh…like in what I have been doing in the last two years, I need not convince anyone right? Anybody is entitled to either agree or disagree. After all, that makes a lively discussion.

If there’s going to be problogging forever, why not? Sometimes I do get restless. Unknown to many, I have been looking for day jobs here and there, where opportunities are. Unfortunately, I have not been hired by anyone. I am confused myself what job I want.

Twelve Ten years of lab work (professionally) and add the four years of lab classes before that — I’ve had enough of that. I can do labwork and manage/operate a lab even with my eyes closed. You know, I know that stuff like even more than I know the back of my hand.

I’m in a sort of limbo (my new friend’s favorite term!) regarding my real career. But then, I do not really mind, I’m a”jack of all trade”. Although I cannot really put that in my resume, can I? Who would hire me if I did?

Career-wise (what career?!) - like my life - is a big adventure.

Bottom line, if all else fails, I can always pick a shopping cart software, right? And put a shopping cart, somewhere…

That. Or try out those freelancer websites newly given to me?

Wherever (whatever!), only one thing I can say: definitely exciting!

I can’t remember how many times I decide on one thing, do the preliminaries and then later, when my excitement and interest have waned a bit, I don’t follow up anymore.

Like when how many times I completed an EOI form at the NZ Immigration website. I always submit but never paid it. If I don’t pay the process, my EOI (expression of interest) will never get to the pool and be considered to be invited to migrate in kiwi land.

Just one of the many plans I started to pursue but never gotten round to finishing the task.

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Like what I promised those signifying interests about jobs – blogging or otherwise - in the networks where I currently blog…here are some more:

• Kinkaa, Europe’s Best Travel Search Engine is Looking for Developers
• Creative Weblogging Seeks Web Developers
• Ready for an Internship at Creative Weblogging?

Check the links you might be what they are looking for. Boy, how I wished I majored in something else, like err, web development? He he.

Good Luck!

Finally, I can work at home. Woohoo!!!
There are so many “distractions” though especially when Raine is awake and bouncing.

BUT, I’m loving it…a LOT.

I’ve been working from home since I got back earlier this week.

I don’t miss going to town (at least not yet) and I certainly do not miss the gamers and chatters that I have to box-out elbows with in net cafes.

• speed: 230.4 kbps
• reception: okay, sometimes good
• signal on cp: 2 bars (2 bars lang po!)
• time that cp battery lasts on full charge at start-up: 4 hours
• average data session per day: 5 hours (equivalent to 5 x 20 PhP = 100PhP)
• perks: bottomless coffee, other drinks and food, stretch out or lie down in between sessions, afternoon naps, working at night or practically anytime of the day I’m least bugged by Raine. [But because Raine loves the fact that I am at home he doesn’t bug me that much, well not as much as i expected him to anyway.]

So I guess I’ll have to thank SMART 2.5G (even if I will pay that much monthly!).

The service, considering the above specs, isn’t much I know… could actually be better…BUT when i think of my post-milenyo internet woes, this is heaven. He he.

Like what I’ve been doing in most aspects of my life since Raine was born, I’d still take one day at a time, one step at a time…just one sunrise and one sundown after another.

Who knows what tomorrow might bring?

Satellite broadband? A brand new laptop? More problogging gigs? New revenue-generating projects? A trip abroad? (hint…hint…hint…)
Let’s see…nothing is impossible, especially when i see this (click thumbnail on the left) unfolding before me.

Last Tuesday, an ex-colleague and friend told me that I made it to my ex-world’s bulletin. When I got the text message, I actually panicked because i first thought there was an article about me and blogging and all I could think of was “patay buking na ako!”.

Anyway, it turned out that they apparently are tracking the blogosphere about what bloggers are saying about them and then they put a link to that post in their weekly bulletin.

Most readers of this blog know where I used to work but I never written at any post what the company/institute’s name was, until this post where I unconsciously let slip that 4-letter word.

Anyway, it’s not that I’ve committed a crime, it’s just that I feel a little queasy about the fact that I didn’t exactly tell them what I exchanged them for. (honestly, it all boils down to the $$$!!!, ha ha ha.)

I technically didn’t lie either because my reasons for quitting that job was purely personal (which was what I told them) even if problogging was the last nail to the coffin. It seemed silly at that time to tell them (especially my immediate bosses) that I was going to earn money by problogging. I mean…how do you exactly tell rice scientists about the blogging business at the time when I myself didn’t fully understand it? (not that i fully understand it all today, I don’t!)

My closest friends knew, however crazy they thought I was, they were supportive of my decision because I needed to be with my family, period. I told the ex-bosses that I had a teaching job waiting here - there actually was but I decided not to pursue that when I got home.

April 1st last year, I finally was out of there. It was liberating in more ways than one. Not that it was a prison or something, it’s just that I am done with all of those (LB, IRRI and living alone with Raine), I actually may have been for a long time and I was just waiting for a ticket out - problogging turned out to be that ticket.

Now I’m living an entirely different world. It is really ironic because I grew up here but I lived longest in LB than anywhere else. Everyday, rice fields between hills fill the scenery I pass by on my way to town (to get online). That picture and that particular smell in the air when you’re around rice fields, remind me only of one place: IRRI.

Like Ruth told me once: I miss the place, the people and the ambiance but not the work…I feel exactly the same. He he.

So, forgive me Sirs and Ma’ams and my heartfelt gratitute to you all…I am happier where I am now and would like you to know that I do not regret that difficult decision last year, not even for one bit.  ;-)

Okay folks, here goes my 2 minute claim to fame. Just excuse the occasional tagalog and the few typos.

Special thanks to Ms. manila bulletin Annalyn Jusay. Now, if I could only get a hard copy, there seem to be no newspaper seller in this “sleepy” town.

Darn! Do I still have to travel 17 kms just to get a newspaper?! Ah. I guess I have to.

Update: There goes my luck of getting a street edition copy, the article appeared yesterday (Nov. 20).

Mind giving your copy to me (if you have)? My mother would really appreciate it.

ooopps…i totally forgot that my affiliation with Pinoy Travel Blog is responsible for this blog’s domain and hosting. Gets mo na yan Abe ha?

…and in my case, THANKS to blog networks who pay their bloggers with fixed monthly payment + traffic bonus and other frills.

Thanks too to the scarcity of science bloggers. At the moment, most scientists, doctors, medical practicioners and health workers are working in their respective industries, the academe, hospitals, research institutions, care-giving homes, etc. Even if they blog, I guess in normal conditions, they will not leave their work posts for problogging?

See Pinayexpat’s recent post for the carefully detailed description (including business models) of the different blog networks where she problogs and how to apply if you are interested in testing the problogging waters.

Apparently, I also currently blog for the 3 networks she specified, (b5media, Creative Weblogging and Know More Media) and I have been problogging fulltime for the seventh month this month (October) and in that course of time I have been supporting a household of 8: 6 adults (including me) and 2 toddlers, on top of building a house.

Well I know that may sound like crazy but due to personal family matters, it just happened that when I went full time problogger last April, everyone in my family went home a couple of months later. But that is an entirely different story.

Let me first clarify though that I did NOT quit my day job because of problogging. It just so happened that when I was done being a lab rat and decided to go home, problogging gave me a moving-out ticket.

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Someone once told when that when your intentions are good in taking major turns in your life (like quitting a job), God will provide you with your needs. That has been proven true: I was once on the verge of quitting my previous job even without an alternative source of income. When you are parenting alone like me, I am always scared that my son will starve and will get sick when I have not a penny in my pocket. Those fears alone prevented me from quitting.

Blogging changed my life and helped me sail the right course.

TJ doesn’t have any idea but bagging that CW blogging gig (Straight From The Doc) gave me enough guts to drop the job in an instance. I was able to break away from that “bondage” because SFTD will place food on the table. It isn’t much but my son will not starve anymore and so I decided that it’s time to go home. Just food. But was enough at that moment.

So I signed my resignation letter and while I was having a hard time convincing my boss, my application at KMM was underway. Two days after I handed in my application, I landed that blogging gig at The PharmVoice and provided me with a fat secure monthly bonus to make life in the province a bit more than the necessity. I am not allowed to say how much but blogging at both KMM and CW placed me in the 4 figure problogging, if I am not lazy and keep the needed blogging pace.

It has been more than 2 months and I have paid all remaining debts (mine and the family’s) and when the storm came, I have moolah to resume the house construction that was started before my father died last year.

Now I am just at a steady-still enjoying a laid back life and the regular blogging when new job opportunities came. I mentioned in a previous post that I wasn’t even looking but they just came, because these are old applications that for some divine intervention, have been recently activated.

Last week I declined flat the college teaching job that I pursued last year. Declined it because I have an interview coming up on the 13th as lab manager/supervisor at an SGS lab in Albay. And then on the 14th, I am going to take a pre-employment examination at PNOC-EDC, as Lab Chemist in the BAC-MAN plant in Sorsogon. Yeah, I will be in the Makati/Manila area on those days.

My point really is that, for once in life that I am not thinking of my life and just wanted to go home and take care of my family: my recently-widowed mother and my 3-yr old son. I was ready to do all that even with just the meager separation pay that I got. Afterwards, bahala na. God knows that I terribly need money (who doesn’t?) because I need to take care of many things and put our lives back in good order, so that’s what he gave me and now hopefully, that security of a regular job that I could probably retire with.

For the nth time, I have proven that God provides you with what you need and not what you want.

Oh yeah I will still be blogging…I cannot let the fat bonus get away…not yet!