Religiosity

I was born Roman Catholic but when I was 10, my mother was converted to Pentecostalism. I was confused then because I attended Catholic schools and was dutiful to attend regular mass. Then all of a sudden, it changed. I am not a Catholic anymore and should not be attending those masses that they required in school. I became one of the iglesias, the term my classmates referred to non-Catholics. It took me several years to really get used to the new identity. My mother, as I remembered, also struggled as she attended 2 services (Catholic and Pentecostal)each Sunday for several months before deciding that she has to pick only one. The rest is history.

I always referred to the religion that I grew up with as Pentecostal. This way,I think, it explains my idiosyncrasies such as having no sense of style (baduy),feeling guilty all the time (or is this part of being a woman! Who knows?), not finding speaking-in-tongues strange and totally ignorant of pop culture.

At the age of 14, I decided to be baptized. I felt then that I was obliged to follow all the rules of the church. Our religion is not what you called a mainstream religion. It is kind of radical. There are so many ridiculous restrictions especially for women. Women were not allowed to wear pants, cut their hair, wear jewelries and wear make-up. These were difficult for my mother at first as she had worn her hair short for several years. Also, it was prohibited to watch movies in the theatre but maybe okay at home. Owning a television was discouraged. Also, Christmas and Fiestas were not celebrated. Men and women cannot swim together in a pool. Women were required to wear skirt even in a pool! There should not be any display of affection while dating. I can go on and on but you can see the point. It is like growing up in a convent. It is, probably, not a big deal if we lived in isolated place where we never interact with other people. Even our closest relatives found us strange and this made my mother isolated from her family and became more involved emotionally to the church.

Being involved in this religion was both a blessing and a curse. Curse is a harsh word but I cannot think of any word. Blessing and curse just go together. It is a cliche. Anyway, I will say there are different intensity of curse --slight, mild, moderate and severe. It is a mild curse. Blessing because it gave me focus in my teenage years. I used to feel different from every person in school because of my religion. I looked different. I did not know any secular music. It was a struggle but my religion became my crutch during those difficult times. It probably guided me to focus on my future versus the then immediate need to be popular or at least fit in. Curse because I was ignorant of everything else in life!

Then, during and after college, I decided to try other Protestant churches. I attended countless denominations but in my futile attempt, I realized I did not belong anywhere. Maybe I am just too rebellious for organized religion. However, last year, after my third miscarriage, I was invited by a friend to this church. I did like that particular church as it is closer in style to the church that I grew up with but tamer. It was a comfort emotionally to be in a familiar place and presence. I started attending regularly, hauling my reluctant husband and father who just ended up falling asleep during every service.

Then, one day, I stumbled upon this audio book by Christopher Hitchens God is not Great. He posed many shocking facts about major religions. This changed my perspective. I began to doubt religion again. Concurrent to this, the pastor would regularly include his own political agenda in his sermon and this turned me and my husband off. We would see people walk out during his sermon. Then, every Sunday after that, it seemed like my mind and heart were somewhere else but my body was in the church. I felt like a hypocrite. I have not been back to church since December when we attended a Christmas concert.

Guilt is in my mind every Sunday morning. I should be in church. The political pastor, I learned, just retired. The interim pastor called and checked on us for couple of months after we stopped attending . We still receive their bulletins regularly through the mail. Temptation to go back continues to haunt me. "Maybe this Sunday." I regularly tell myself. Then, there were chores and projects to do. There just not enough time!

I have been in both sides of religiosity - religious and non-religious. I will say at a current time, I am not religious. The good thing about it is I am less guilty (except for Sunday mornings) and less judgmental. However, I still crave for that feeling of peacefulness when I was in the spirit of praise and worship. Belief in omnipotent, kind and loving God is carved in my heart and mind forever. Someday, I hope, Spiritual is the adjective I can use to describe my state of being.

Occupation

I have this pattern of changing job every 1 to 2 years. Maybe I am addicted to orientations --being paid to listen to human resources staff go on and on about company policies and procedures, watching endless boring educational videos and learning my future duties and responsibilities. Yes , orientation is sweet and I did not mind it. Probably, I am afraid of long term commitment of dealing with the same craps with the easiest way out is to quit. For whatever reason, it is not easy to hop from one job to another. It depresses me to fill out those long applications as I have to list all the jobs I had. Also, I have to learn new routines all the time and it is stressful. The longest so far is my current job. It will be 2 years this coming July. This, according to Jason, is a cause for celebration. The miracle is that I have no plan to quit. I am not craving to view the job market section of Sunday paper anymore.

It's been eleven years! That's how long I am rendering service to people who needs me and in return I get a paycheck every 2 weeks. It's called work. Looking back it amazes me on how I grew emotionally (yeah, lots of it) and professionally. My regret probably is that I changed job so many times. Sometimes it was my own choosing, others times not. Don't get me wrong, I have never been fired (at least not yet). Sometimes companies lose their contract in a facility. Usually, in therapy world, a company is contracted to a facility to provide therapy services. It is not all like that, for example, hospitals usually do their own hiring, but in the 90's, most facilities and hospitals had companies contracted to provide them staff for their rehabilitation services. I apologize if I go on and on with this information but I believe that if you know how therapy staffing works then you might (lots of emphasis on might) understand what happened to my career.

I was 23 years old when I came to the United States. My only experience in the Philippines, career wise, were applying to several hospitals and clinics, ending up to be rejected so many times, and volunteering for a month. Also, it took time and travelling back and forth to La Union (where our agency was located) and US Embassy to process papers. At least those are my excuses on why I did not work in the Philippines. Well in short, I was young, naive and inexperienced. Despite these shortcomings, I was amazed on the ease of finding a job in my profession here in the US. There was such a shortage at that time. When I was interviewed in my first job, the rehab manager told me that their only concern was that I might get homesick. I was so proud to tell them "Never." Boy, how wrong I was to say it! In a week or so, just after excitement of having a job waned, I found myself lonely, stressed and intimidated by the daunting task of being responsible for my patients' well being. I thought I was too young for that kind of responsibility. In the Philippines, physical therapist is dependent on a physiatrist on what they can do to a patient. Here, physical therapist is independent and usually makes decision or recommendation on patient's placement, such as nursing home vs. home. Also, in my first job, I had people who are more experienced and better in English working under my license. I was very intimidated. These, in my recollection, were never taught in school. Damn you, E.A.C. (Emilio Aguinaldo College)! To be fair, my managers and other therapists were very helpful and patient to me during those long learning times.

I also found the culture very different from what I was programmed. In the Philippines, we have so much respect, bordering on worship, to people with authorities. Here, everyone is equal --everyone is vital to the organization. So, we call our bosses by their first names, not ma'am or sir. It is okay to question doctors' decision and to speak your opinion. It is confrontational. Honesty is also a culture here. Everyone logs their time accurately all the time. They finish their paperwork on time. I, on the other hand, am a procrastinator. Managers do regular reviews of your performance. They usually start with the positive then, here we go, the dreaded things to improve. One Filipino therapist told us when we were just an ignorant new graduates that Americans are generally lazy and a lot of them are not educated. He also added that most of them have never been out of the country. Well, I did not find those Americans in my first job. Most of the people I work with have Master's degree, always on time, hard worker and spent some of their college days in Europe. Do not get me wrong, I work with very diverse people--some are highly educated and others are not. Overall though, I learned that generalization does not apply anywhere!

Anyway, I changed job frequently in my hope to find my dream job. I have not found it. Actually, I don't even know what my dream job is. It is sad but work is work. I need it to pay my bills and be able to live the life I want. I feel lucky to have a good job in hard times like these when unemployment rate is higher. My goal right now is to keep this job for at least 5 years as I will be vested for retirement. Well, it is a big goal for me and hopefully I can make it. Let's wait and see. Abangan!

Speaking in English

My friends and family in the Philippines expect me to be fluent in English now that I've been living in the United States for more than 11 years. The truth is I am not. I don't know if it's just that I am not an eloquent person, or conversation with the Americans requires to use only simple English words. They also use tons of idioms, for example when Jason gets irritated by my nagging he will say cut it off instead of saying stop nagging.

Many Americans asked me if I learned how to speak English in my home country. I answered yes but it is different because in school we were taught the formal way. Conversational English is very different. Well, I'll say American English conversation is different. Most people will say that I speak good English. I think they meant I speak relatively well. As many immigrants now moving to Iowa, many Iowans are grateful that at least they can understand most of what I meant compared to other foreign people who are very limited with English. The challenge for me is talking to people who are hard of hearing. About 90 percent of my patients are hard of hearing. I need to speak loudly and slowly. This makes my accent worst. I think this leaves my tongue and lips raw and vulnerable to twist with certain words and I am more apt to mispronounce the words. Also, at the end of the day, I tend to jumble Filipino and English words altogether because I am more tired and it requires certain amount of energy for me to express what I want to communicate in English.

My writing did not improve as much because my vocabulary is limited. I wish I could use more descriptive words to describe how I feel. I think the reason is that I have to use simple words. One time I used the word masticate and people just looked at me with confused eyes. Also, my job and educational background did not help much with this because we need to write concisely in our daily notes and assessment. We eliminate unnecessary words and jargon as medical reviewers do not like these. Actually, we cannot even use any other punctuation except for period. The words that we normally use are very unromantic and uncreative such as anterior which means front or facade. We have to use these scientific words to sound professional.

English is a very complex language. I explain it this way to many Americans -- Tagalog which is my first language has only 5 vowel sounds but English has a lot of vowel sounds (I am not really sure how many). Also, in Tagalog, you pronounce it as how you spell it. In English, there are silent letters. We do not have c, j, th, q, v, f, z and x. In pronouns, we do not have male or female. Also rules in the use of verbs in English are very complicated. Tagalog is relatively an easier language .

My Tagalog also suffered. I think I am very wordy when I write in Tagalog. In the end I am not fluent in any language. Welcome to the expat life-caught in between 2 cultures and languages, where I do not belong 100 percent to either.

Gas price

It was a tough week for me! Well, I think the main reason is hormonal. Also, everyone seems to be off in my place of work. I've been covering territories that is someone else's. This is very hard because of the price of gas. It is now $3.65 per gallon. I will not be surprised if it will hit $4 and beyond this summer. It is painful in my line of work which is home health. We go about 50 miles radius from the hospital. I normally goes to east side of Des Moines and other eastern towns. I have a Nissan Sentra which gives me about 32 miles per gallon. Mercy reimburses us 50.5 cents per gallon. However, with the wear and tear in my car plus the seemingly-constant-upward-climb of gas prices, it has been tough. Added to this is we are the main transport for my father. He works night shift, out-of-town, in Ankeny which is another suburb of Des Moines, for Wal-Mart. Bus system is not really good. I have no choice but to reluctantly ask him to buy a tank of gas monthly to ease my pain.

Not too long ago, gas price was not an issue here in the United States. I remember, in Summer of 1999, I was driving 60 miles one way to work but it was not a big deal because it was 79 cents per gallon. Jason said that it was strange and uncommonly low price for gas. Maybe, it was lower here in Iowa because of ethanol. People were into SUV's. All my Filipino friends were driving SUV's. When you buy car, they were more on luxury and safety features. Now, it is the mileage.

Oh how times change! I feel nostalgic to the old good days of cheap oil. It will not come back. It is simply an issue of supply vs demand. With China and India's economies growing in this high rate, there are more demand for fuel and the supply never grows. Oil is non-renewable.

In reality, it is bittersweet. I know that high prices in the gas pump make it difficult for a lot of people. There is a domino effect. High fuel price equals high food prices. Then, consumers confidence drops which means many businesses will not make it. However, there is a silver lining. We are forced to conserve energy. We become more aware of the immediate need for renewable source of energy! Also, crude oil is dirty! It causes global warming which will be more devastating to all. I am optimistic that in not-too-distant future, we will be free from the tyranny of oil.

P.S. I am sorry for this rant. It is just hitting me hard in my pocketbook. I fill up my tank about 2 to 3x per week. It's about $100 dollars or more.

JUAN

Jason, my husband, went to the bank yesterday. It was busy. He needed to go to the teller to pay our mortgage and talk to a banker to inquire regarding setting up for automatic bill payment. He needed to write his name in a sign up sheet as there were many people waiting to talk to bankers. So, he decided to write his name in the sign up sheet and then waited in line for the teller. He got done with the teller and sat down in one of chairs in the lobby where people were waiting for a banker . Then, this banker #1 came and looked at sign up sheet and called "Juan. Juan." No one stood up. Banker #1 ended up calling some other name as Juan did not show up. Jason is the only non-Hispanic person waiting. He had a feeling though that it was supposed to be him. How could it be? His handwriting was clear. Probably, there was a Juan. So, he waited a little longer and he was not called. He checked the list and his name was skipped. So, he approached banker #2 and told him that he was JUAN. He came home and told me this story. "Do I look like a Juan?" he asked animatedly. "No, far from it," I answered while looking at his brown hair, blue eyed, light skinned, 6 feet frame.

Assumption is never a good thing!

Things I learned in America

• Using north, south, east and west in giving direction.
• How to read map.
• Use the word pop instead of soft drink
• It's okay to say hi and smile to strangers
• To be direct and honest
• Flattery will get you nowhere.
• It's okay to say no
• Driving and driving defensively in every road conditions especially winter. I learned how to drive at the age of 23.
• How to grow vegetables and flowers. I learned about topsoil , compost and composting, as well as proper watering. I still have long ways to go.
• Procrastination will lead to stress.
• To be on time.
• To choose my battle.
• To accept my situation.
• All jobs are the same. It's my attitude that I can change.
• To be assertive.
• To listen to my gut feeling.
• To caucus.
• To do more for the environment.
• To be a skeptical consumer and citizen.
• To listen more.
• America has opportunities but you need to work hard for it.
• Not personalize negative stuffs from everyone.
• It's okay to say I don't know and ask questions.
• How lucky I am!
• I cannot do my best at all times. (It's from a friend, L)
• Life is not all or none...or black and white...
• Schooling is expensive.
• Do-it-yourself attitude
• Self-sufficiency attitude.
• How to manage finances.
• How to prepare for retirement.
• To live below my means.
• Be myself.
• I cannot please everyone.
• How to cook.
• Listen to NPR.
• Watch Public TV.
• Listen to BBC for another perspective.
• To be liberal in thinking yet conservative at heart.
• Mother Earth Magazine.
• Not to be judgmental.
• Use the public library.
• There is poverty in America
• Importance of buying locally
• How to make soap.
• How to make lotion.

No Control

Life is fragile. With all the advancement in technology, we continue to have no control of mother nature.

Myanmar....about 35,000

China...about 10,000

Missouri and Oklahoma ....22

Number of people who lost their lives in just a week due to natural disaster. My problems seem so insignificant in comparison.