Firstly, typhoon “Ramon” has already entered the Philippine area of responsibility, and by tomorrow morning it will hit the Vis-Min area, particularly the areas near Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur. My mother’s hometown in Pangasinan had been badly hit by typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel,” and now it’s my father’s hometown in danger. I called him up earlier to inform him and ask him if our family in Surigao will be alright, and he reassured me that our home there was far from the areas that are most prone to landslides. He also told me that at least our family there was already used to the storms. That may be true — the entire Philippines is already used to monsoon seasons year after year anyway — but that doesn’t mean that necessary precautions should be taken for granted. After all, “Milenyo” and “Ondoy” took us all by surprise, even though we were all supposedly “used to” the typhoons already.
Nevertheless, his confidence in their safety reassured me somewhat, for of course he knows better, since he lived there during his childhood. If you have relatives and friends in the Vis-Min area, please remind them to do whatever means necessary to stay safe and be prepared, and please pray for them. If typhoon Ramon doesn’t change its course, it will leave the Philippines by Saturday afternoon or early evening.
Secondly, I received the happiest news I had in a while: I’ve been admitted for graduate studies in my university of choice! Apparently, by some stroke of good fortune, I passed. I suddenly felt so giddy, like the onslaught of a sugar rush, and it was all I could do to keep from dancing around the house like a maniac. Interestingly, when I shared this news to Selene, one of my friends, the conversation went this way:
Selene: As expected. But happy for you! When do you start?
Me: In November, but I still have to submit further requirements before I’ll know the exact date. I just feel so giddy right now! Finally my life has direction again!
Selene: The fact that you took the exam in the first place meant you already have direction. Don’t mistake being lost for having no direction.
And I realized… she was right. I’m reminded of that quote: “Not all who wander are lost.” I think that it can now also be said that it’s also equally true that “Not all who are lost don’t know where they’re going.” The weeks spent waiting for the announcement on whether or not I passed felt like a strange sort of limbo, and I fervently wished to just get the news over with (even if it happened to be unpleasant news) so that I could move on with my life already.
And yet, despite feeling lost during that time of waiting, it didn’t mean I have no direction in life — or that I didn’t know where I was going. I knew exactly what I wanted to do next — it was the waiting that was driving me crazy. It was the anxiety of knowing the very real possibility that I might not get what I want, and it was the horror of trying to figure out what I’ll do if things don’t go according to plan because I didn’t even think of having a “Plan B” to fall back on in the first place.
I was lost, in every real sense. But I knew where I wanted to go. I knew what my next phase in my life was supposed to be. I just wasn’t sure how to actually get there.
The interesting part of this is that before I received news of my admission to graduate studies, I’d also already committed to teaching at our vocational school by next trimester. So that means by January or February next year, I’m also going to be a teacher and a student. Fascinating, yes? It’s like having two sides of the same coin, two sides of the same blade. What I have yet to find out is whether or not I’ll be able to wield it properly, and I can only hope that I’ll have the proper guidance and humility to learn from whatever mistakes I’ll make.
It’s also going to be a strange transition from handling marketing and events to going back to the academe as a working student and a part-time teacher. Strangely though, I find myself excited. At my very core, I love working with and learning from people, so I don’t think this falls very far from events management (which I dearly, dearly love and immensely enjoy doing). If anything, I think this is just another way of learning, another way to open my mind and broaden my perspective. I have much to learn not only from my future professors, but from my future students as well, just as I have learned from both my clients and the production teams I’ve worked with.
I think I already have a vague idea of what I want to do for the rest of my life — and I say “vague” because I don’t want to look too far in the horizon yet. I want to concentrate on watching my feet, on watching where I’m going, because if I look too far ahead I might end up tripping and falling instead. So I’m going to take this journey and walk this life one step at a time.
Who knows, there might be interesting detours I can take along the way. There are many ways to reach one’s destination, after all.
“Not all who are lost don’t know where they’re going.”
