Careers and Changes

Way, way back in grade school, I wanted to be a doctor.  Or a lawyer.  Well, I thought I did.  

Fast forward to the early part of my senior year in high school, I made my choice.  I can NOT be a lawyer because of my moral convictions.  So a doctor I will be.  I applied to a university to take Medical Technology as my premed course and got accepted.

A few weeks before going off to college, I visited a sick relative in the hospital.  While walking down the hospital ramp, I suddenly realized that I can NOT  be a doctor either!  Why, I hardly even want to go to hospitals even just for short visits!  How much more show up for work there every single day of my working life??!

I might as well have played the eenie-meeni-minie-mo from there on.  I didn't have a single clue where to go. What to do.  It was too late to apply anywhere else, and I didn't know what to apply for anyway!

Well, fortunately for me, my grades were high enough to be exempt from the entrance exams in one university.  So, enrollment day, I walked through the gates of Central Philippine University (CPU) ready to enroll in college.  As to what college, I was clueless.  Hmm, let's see.  I'm quite good with numbers, so maybe I can do well in Engineering?  

Yeah, why not!  I got excited at that thought.  I had finally come up with something. I walked to the college of engineering, took one look, and backed out.  The whole building was full of men!  They might as well have posted a big sign on the entrance saying, "For MEN only!"  I don't know what came to me, usually I like hanging out with guys, especially the funny and intellectually-stimulating ones, but the sight of a whole building teeming with people of the opposite sex only, kind of scared me.  Or was it because I did not see any of the good-looking ones?  Could be. ;D

Anyways, so I ended up enrolling in the College of Accountancy.  From day one, I got caught up with the challenge of staying in the program.  They had this rigid screening which downsized seven sections of bright-eyed, enthusiastic freshmen, to just one class of forty-something seniors.  Seniors who walked around campus with their calculators and worksheets. Oh but if you think those college days were all about debits and credits,  you're wrong! I had a lot of fun learning how to skip classes (see this post), sometimes just to hang out; other times to watch guys play soccer or baseball at the field!  Oh, and did I mention I did meet some cute guys from the engineering department in some of my classes? ;D

The happy ending to that part of my story is that I never got to practice Accounting.  The winds of fate blew me across the ocean and I found myself working with people who didn't understand a word I was said.  I could have talked in Ilonggo (that's my dialect) with them and they wouldn't have known the difference! They were insurance adjusters, and they needed help writing and editing their English reports.  I forced myself to learn all the engineering stuff I should have learned in CPU.  My engineer colleagues had to explain to me how they build roads and buildings. I had to wear that hard hat as I visited oil refineries and cement factories.  Now, you can ask me to write a short story, or a journal entry, and I can somehow conjure a presentable tale, and a balanced debit/credit, but when it comes to machineries and equipment, you must understand that my mechanical aptitude test showed borderline idiocy!  How I managed to write reports on construction, machineries and equipment, how they were damaged and repaired, is still beyond me!  Those were miracles that God performed everyday for two long years!

Whew! Don't you just wish the story stops there?  I do.  This saga is getting long.  But if you're still with me, you will smile when you discover what I will have been doing next.  You see, many, many years ago, I told myself that the last thing I would ever think of doing, is teaching.  And yes, you guessed it right.  I became a teacher!  It wasn't something that came overnight.  Oh no!  It was a long and tedious process, I now think, of the Holy Spirit working in me, and changing me into someone He wanted me to be in the first place.  You see, I've never really asked God what He designed me to be.  It was always about myself.  What I wanted to be, and what I dreamt to be.  When it was supposed to be, what He thought it best for me to be.

So a teacher I became for five wonderful years!  I love kids and being with them, and seeing them grow and learn, was such a delight!  The job kept me busy all day, and sometimes all night (that's when I dream about lesson plans, and disciplinary stuff).  I saw myself blossom and grow with the kids.  I tackled the challenge of engaging their growing minds and facilitating their learning with interesting and relevant life lessons.  I learned patience.  I showed love.  I experienced grace.

Little did I know that God was preparing me for something more wonderful and amazing. Motherhood. Before I became a mother, I had thought that teaching was the most tiring, most exhausting, yet most fulfilling job there is.  I was wrong.  Mommying a little baby who hardly slept when he was newborn made me experience and know the meaning of the words, tired and sleepless.  Let me tell you though that this 24/7 job, with no day-off and no sick leave, has made me the happiest person alive!  No words can describe the feeling that wells up within me when my boy looks up at me with a twinkle in his eyes and he declares that he loves me all the way to the moon and back and back. I will never be able to explain the pride in my heart when he oh-so-patiently tries to explain what's on his mind (Mommy, what I'm saying is...).  And nothing can beat the peace in my soul when he kneels down each morning, and asks Jesus to be in his heart.

I don't really know what God wants me to do next.  I'm content and fulfilled in my current post: being a mommy to my little Roo.  One day I could become a full-time medical transcriptionist. I could finally start a business.  I could perhaps go back to teaching.  I don't know.  Things change.  I change.  One thing I know, mommying Roo is something I will do, with all my heart and soul, for the rest of my life.