Girl Unobserved

Thoughts Out Loud: How I Thoroughly Dislike Rejection but Liked the Past 24 Hours

A day ago one of my best friends, Billie, told me to go get a Pinterest Account. “Yeah” I said to her “I tried to start one a couple of weeks ago but it was asking me to request for an invite, and you know they might not send me one, and I don’t like that.” She looked at me as though I was crazy and told me to just go request for one. So I did. 

Eight hours later, there was still no Pinterest invite in my email and I wondered out loud why I still didn’t have one, following this by declaring to Billie and our other best friend Den that I didn’t like rejection. 

But then really, who does? 

I don’t keep tabs on the number of times I’ve been rejected in my life. If there are two instances of “great” rejection that I can name off the top of my head it’s: one, not passing the entrance test for this high school I applied to (blame my left hand brain or slight dyslexia) and two, having my heart broken a few years back. But these things happened a long time ago, and are now memories that I can mention in passing when I write blog entries. I’ll be honest and admit that these two instances of rejection did have its specific effects on me, but I wouldn’t say that these changed who I am as a person. For a while the rejection I experienced threw me off and made me question certain things about myself, but ultimately still wasn’t enough to turn me into one of those people who are scarred by rejection for life. Something I’m thankful for, but still, I don’t like being rejected.

I know that it’s human to not like rejection, and that this is probably a thing I share with other people as well. But I’ve been thinking a lot about how sometimes my immanent fear of rejection clips the things I should be doing. Whether or not I do so knowingly, I’m not really the first person to put myself out there because I don’t want to know what would happen if things didn’t turn out the way I planned. 

Awfully hypocritical for the girl who claims to live free and believe in how things happen because they are a part of God’s greater plan. I don’t think someone who lived free and believed in a greater reason for things would let the fear of rejection stop them from trying.

I wish I had a more concrete conclusion to my little encounter with understanding my concept of rejection, but I don’t. What I did though was type down a note on my phone which I labeled “Things to always remember” under which I wrote: 

Don’t be so scared of rejection. Things happen because they are part of a greater plan that’s YOURS. So when things don’t go as you thought they would, it’s just because there are things in store that are better, and meant more for you. Put yourself out there because you’ll never know if you stop trying. And when rejection happens, pick yourself back up, move on, and put yourself out there again. 

It’s a little too inspirational and campy, and it doesn’t really sound like me, but as writing things down always does, it made me feel so much better.  Maybe whenever I have moments wherein I decide certain things about how I live my life- such as this, I’ll add it to the list. It actually seems like a good self evaluation exercise, as well as a nice way to document meaningful self realizations such as yesterdays. 

And since I started by mentioning this, I did end up getting that Pinterest invitation. It’s one of the highlights of my past 24 hours. I think I’m already addicted to it! Other highlights of course include a sleep over with Billie and Den where we were able to group FaceTime with our other best friend Meg, who lives halfway across the world in California. We also did very girly things like watch Same Day Edit wedding videos online, talk about the ideal engagement ring, as well as big gimmicky proposals which are way over the top. Oh and we made our own girly cocktails too! Our Watermelon Mojitos weren’t very good, but we did make amazing frozen Daiquiri’s which were just icy glasses of yum, perfect for a summer night spent with girls friends who you know will never reject you no matter what.

Thoughts Out Loud: So I realized…

That it has been a year since I left home to live and intern in Bangkok for one whole month.  Granted I did come home 30 days later, and I did live right across the hall from my godmother (who is one of the best people on earth- I love her so much), the experience still taught me so many things. Things about myself, the kind of work I want to do, my independence. I know that I’ve talked (even written) about these things countless of times, but I’ve always felt as though my words don’t do justice to what the experience really meant to me.

A year later, leaving home for a month to live and work in a foreign country where I only knew three people and didn’t speak the language is probably still the bravest thing I’ve ever done, but I’ve also come to realize that it was such an awakening for me as well. It’s ironic that I found so much of myself in a country which I never thought would feel like home, and where half of the time I literally could not comprehend what people were talking about. But in the midst of a foreign language, unknown practices, and unfamiliar places, I found that I understood perfectly.

And while we’re talking about Bangkok, my friends and I are all booked! I’ve been back to Bangkok once since the month that I lived there, but because I’m going with some of my best girl friends this time around, I’m doubly excited. 

So watch out lady boys and crazy tuktuk drivers, I’ll be saying sawadee ka to you quite soon!

One of My Favorite Poems of All Time

When I graduated last March my grandma got me a bouquet of flowers and wrote me a beautiful, beautiful letter. She’s a writer, so you sort of have an idea of how beautiful it really was. Along with the letter she included a copy of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. My grandma has a PhD in English Literature, but I think that only played a tiny part in her perfectly choosing to include a copy of this poem in the letter she wrote to me. Mostly it was love of a grandmother, and the fact that she has known me my entire life. 

Especially at where I am right now, I look to this poem constantly to remind and inspire me. It could be the most meaningful graduation gift I have and probably will ever receive. 

Thoughts Out Loud: Doubt and Rainfall on the First of May

Yesterday, Manila saw its first rainfall in what seemed like a very long time. It has been unbearably hot lately, the type of hot where it becomes impossible to get anything done in that kind of sweltering weather. So the rainfall that God lent us on the first of May, apart from being an awfully poetic concept, was also a welcome occurrence- literally so for inhabitants of Metro Manila, and figuratively for me.

I’ve been going slightly nuts recently doing a lot of thinking about what my game plan is for the future. I know what I want to do, in fact I have known for a very long time what I want to do. The hurdle I’ve been facing lately though is how exactlyI plan to go about doing the things I want to do. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been staring endlessly at my CV, editing and re-editing it to make it reach standards I admittedly know nothing about. I’ve also been at it for a week, working on a “skeleton” of a cover letter that I intend to submit to potential employers along with my resumé. But so far, the only thing I’ve come up with for this cover letter is one paragraph of nasty run on sentences. 

The past couple of weeks have also been about questioning whether the things I’ve always known I wanted to do, are really the things I want to do. I think because I’ve been so confused with how to go about things, it has lead to asking myself whether the type of work I want to do is what I’m meant to be doing. If I didn’t know how and where to start in the very first place, then what did that mean for me?

There was also the standard fresh graduate fear of rejection, or worse, not finding a job at all because no one will want you. I’ve just been so all over the place and caught up in doubt, that instead of feeling good and confident about the future, I was scared. 

When the rain started to pour yesterday I was sitting out a stop light in the car, thinking. It took a few seconds before I realized that it was raining, and once I did, I opened the window a little bit to stick my hand out, as if to make sure that the rain was real. It was nice to feel that even if just a little bit, the rain had made the city slightly cooler. Then I had my big realizations.

I don’t know what exactly the rain had to do with it, but at that very moment I felt as though things would work out for me. When you’re out of college, you aren’t suppose to know how to achieve what you’ve always wanted for yourself. You learn through a process, which I think would mean the jobs you take, and the experiences you gain through the work you do. I also felt this strange but calming reassurance that because I know I’m passionate with the work I want to do, this meant that there was reason enough for me to do it. I don’t remember who exactly, but one of my college professors once said that passion can take you places. It struck a chord in me. There’s no way I will ever let fear and self doubt get in the way of something I know I’m passionate about.

Funny how the rain brought about all these realizations, but in a way it was really as though the rainfall on the first of May washed away all the apprehension I’ve been feeling over the past couple of weeks.

I’m glad that May has come. It’s the start of a month where lots of great things are and could be happening:

• My best friends and I are traveling to Bangkok! Well, we don’t have plane tickets and a hotel reservation YET. But we do have concrete plans, and I think it really is happening. I hope it happens. Fingers crossed!
• A cousin of mine from the States is coming to intern and work in the Philippines for two months! So it’ll be great having him around.
• I’m going to get around to getting my license 
• and a new Macbook
• I start sending in my job applications which leads to…
• hearing from potential employers which is both exciting and scary.

I hope the rainfall on the first of May brought you reassurance as well.

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Nice things: Having Croque Madame for breakfast at Cafe 1771 with my wonderful mom (and simultaneously not having to shell out money for food)! 

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Just came from the graduation of one of the greatest loves of my life, my pseudo husband Stef, who graduated Magna Cum Laude! He ranked number six in his BA batch, and I’m obviously over the moon with pride!

Boracay Photo Diary

I’ve never really liked the lyrics from the song, but Wiz Khalifa sure knew what he was talking about. Oh to be young, wild, and free.

Boracay, April 2012