“It is with regret that the Company notifies you that it has no other recourse but to declare your existing job/position as redundant. Your employment will be terminated effective thirty (30) days from service of this notice.” (Lewis Silken)
These were the only lines I noticed as I glanced at the letter the director gave me in that room full of superiors. Earlier that day, I was looking forward to do a follow-up on an errand I assigned myself, hoping that despite several weeks of idle output from the production line I was handling, I would somehow find myself miraculously nearer to solving some of its problems. No biggie. I was just doing my job, something to make my stay in Lapu-Lapu city more meaningful while the world outside was being engulfed in flames.
Being retrenched for work was something I didn’t expect to happen on a certain Monday though. To think that I did all of the work week’s planning the day before. But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t expect it. I did. For a process engineer, several weeks of coming to work every day without any movement from the production line meant “no problems to solve” and as an engineer, I solve problems for a living. I felt lifeless and useless having to sit at work every day with nothing to do and very little to look forward to. No production line’s yield to stabilize, no operators to interview and tease for insights, no new defective products to analyze, nada. All the while I was isolated from my friends, an island away from my family, and terrorized at the very thought that I might get COVID-19 while mindlessly walking around Lapu-Lapu city and going through the turmoil alone, with no one to help me beyond what they can send through their smartphones.
You see, some moments in life are so intense to the point that it becomes self-defining, and that was what I went through several months ago. The pandemic came, and my stay in Cebu was put to a hard halt, all because of a virus brought upon by people 2,471 km from where I was (Google, 2020). I went through another trip in the downward spiral brought upon by mandatory isolation. Every day in isolation was an everyday fight of keeping my sanity. I tried to read, write, sweat, eat and Netflix my way to at least sense a bit of control over my life, but no matter what I tried and how much I tried, I finally came to a realization that I can’t do a darned thing alone.
So anyway, what is this story all about? This is a story of a girl, who realized she couldn’t do a darned thing alone.
I doubt if my parents knew all of these of course because they just named me after convenience from their own names, “Rogelio” + “Susana”. Creative, I know. 😌
My name is Roxanne Marie Lagas Lomotos. I am twenty-three (23) years old as I am sitting here and typing this. Fresh out of the corporate world, and currently a mess of person trying her luck on entrepreneurship, doing “ate” duties at home, trying and failing several times of being a responsible soon-to-be educator and navigating through a phase called adulting, the longest chapter of this never-ending roller coaster/obstacle course called Life.
I grew up in City of Tagbilaran as the eldest of three children and the only female. I’m pretty much a winner when it comes to the parent lottery. I have a dad who is an amazing provider, maintenance guy and consultant-- the person who I go to for advice on gadgets, structural engineering and electronics, and I have my mom, the one-woman boss/house/finances manager and the person I go to for lost items around the house.
We’re not really considered upper class and we’re not really folks below the poverty line either. We’re rightfully middle class and were provided with everything necessary, so long as we also do our part in the haul.
Tagbilaran is not really what you would call an urban jungle, and thank God for that. I was able to grow up accustomed to be surrounded by a lot of trees, and very little city lights. However, I needed to leave my hometown for college, and Cebu city was a place quite the opposite of what I was used to— a lot of city lights and very little trees.
Luckily, I was able to acclimatize myself to the new environment, I was about to spend “five years” there for college after all. In the end, I spent six years in Talamban for my bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, then moved downtown for review classes and then moved again to Lapu-Lapu city for my first corporate job as a process engineer.
Come to think of it, my last seven and a half years as a Cebuana was a phase of development and self-discovery. Being away from my nest meant being away from the mindset I was used to growing up. It brought a lot of challenges on my identity: Which parts of the culture I grew up in am I willing to unlearn? Which parts do I want to keep? Which parts do I want improved? Who do I want to be beyond my comfort zone? Its questions like these that described a lot of my time navigating in the urban streets of Cebu.
It might be a long time until I’ll be back in Cebu again, and reunite with friends who shared the same dilemmas and traumas I had dealt with, but rest assured, Cebu will always have a special space in my heart. It’s the place where my identity was most forged and paved the way to my currently many different personas:
I didn’t take good care of my eyes when I was in college, and that was possibly one of my many regrets until now. From having a 20-20 vision to wearing 200-something graded lenses in a matter of years, I felt like that my deteriorating eyesight didn’t seem to matter as long as I continued to get stuff done. College involved a lot of late night reading, a lot of staring at digital screens to do research work and making excel files, presentations, reports, projects and whatnot with little sleep. It’s no wonder it came to a point where I couldn’t recognize other people’s faces anymore without wearing glasses.
Bargaining my eyesight for academic productivity seemed like a good idea at that time. It kind of shows I really value productivity more than I would like to admit. I love having goals even though I spend a lot of time complaining on how to accomplish them, but I have to admit that without them, I would feel like an existential crisis with legs.
The reason why I am near-sighted is because majority of my attention is focused on things that are right in front of me, not things that are too far off. It took a psychiatrist’s analysis on me to finally have to acknowledge that I don’t lose focus that easily, and that was a huge factor on my myopia.
I realized that this was how I have always done things. Whatever I have in my plate, whether it’s a major project or an anime series, I see to it until the end or at least until I’m satisfied with the progress. I can’t stand multi-spearheading different projects all at once, or wavering course of actions. As much as I want to be versatile (and I am certainly working hard to improve this area), I’m the type of person who works at best when only doing things one at a time, with whatever that is in front of me. I find it easier and more effective that way to make a decision and stick to it, optimizing all the resources that can be allocated, to bring out the best quality of work possible; instead of shooting with blindfolds on hoping to hit any of the targets #engineering (I know lol). Am I a myopic engineer you ask? Honey, you have no idea.
I’d like to think of the way I talk about things as stories. Stories that make use of figures of speech, like similes, metaphors, personifications and hyperboles. I think the way I’m writing my intro is already clue enough as it is. Based on experience however, stories are not particularly useful in engineering school; data offers more value than all the stories we will ever have. That was one of the reasons I started doubting if I was cut out for engineering in the first place.
I am very wordy for someone who took up engineering, and it stemmed from having developed a vast vocabulary growing up. As much as I would like to think of it as strength, it was a weakness in the area I was in. There were many times in college where I’d be punched in my ego’s gut for that. Being too fluent in a certain language has its downsides. Aside from being partly dependent on other people who could simplify or explain things in a way that my professors would prefer, there was also an instance where it interfered with my dating life. Apparently my English or the way I handled my English was too “intimidating” for certain guys. Ugh. 🙃 Oh well. What can I say? I’m a woman who loves words.
How do you know when you are doing something that is really for you? When you feel that you are your best self while doing it. Momentum, grace, control, strength, grit, flexibility, athleticism– all my life I have never experienced these to its full potential not until I took up pole dancing and aerial arts. There is something about spinning and flying through the air that keeps me coming back to it every single time. Whether it’s nailing a new move, or being able to hold or stretch a new move further than the last time, I feel like being closer to God. I just feel the most alive when I am up in the air.
Personally I can say that the journey towards this venture wasn’t an easy feat, and it still isn’t. A lot of pain was involved, a lot of pain will still be involved in the future, and that’s okay. I’ve always trusted pain more than anything else. What I wasn’t good at, was deciding if the pain I was experiencing was actually the good kind. I’ve made many decisions in the past of holding on to pain that was unnecessary and life-sucking. You would think that being able to withstand a lot of pain would make me more holy and saint-like but it actually made me more of an entitled egoistic brat more than anything else.
When I was introduced to pole dancing and got invited to my first ever pole class by a very dear friend of mine, it was the first time in a long time I was given something I was absolutely not good at, at all. Body training? Exotic dancing? Flexibility? Body confidence? Are you serious? Me? But now, looking back, I did not regret not chickening out in that class and the everyday decision to continue despite all the screw-ups. Training in pole with Nanay Juli, Abby (@thegaillery), Anne and the rest of the girls was a daily reminder of humility for me which I think I really need. It keeps me leveled knowing that I don’t have all the answers as a work in progress. I made up my mind that would rather continue to be the frustrated acrobat than to stop being an acrobat at all.
I’ve always been amazed with teachers. They help form a lot of productive members of society even though they are often taken for granted by the students they are handling, or their parents for most of the time. It’s far from a 9 to 5 job. For most people, their life starts after 5 pm, coming home from work to either spend time with their families or do their hobbies or go out with friends, but for most teachers at 5 pm, their hard work is often rewarded by more hard work. The amount of dedication required in this career is amazing. This is the reason why I’m hella scared of handling senior high school students in the next two or three years to come.
You wanna know how I got myself in this road in the first place? Republic Act 10612 also known as the “Fast-Tracked S&T Scholarship Act of 2013” How does it work? Government gives me scholarship in college. I serve number of years as an SST-1 (Special Science Teacher 1) to Senior High School students by the number of years of Government support (Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, 2013). In my case, that’s three years.
I personally think it was divine intervention that put me in this road in the first place. Right after I got retrenched from my last job, the local DepEd unit contacted me to report to their sector for my return of service. A lot of things could have happened in between, knowing our government, and how many of these scholars walked out of the deal hands free. How is it that despite the pandemic and people losing jobs, I still was presented an option, a direction, and at the right position (fresh unemployment) and time (COVID-19 economic decline)?
Until now, I still am wondering if this was a road I was supposed to have been on in the first place. Because despite all the signs pointing to this direction, I still carry with me a baggage load of anxiety on the amount of responsibility it takes for someone in my position. Will I actually help in molding young Gen Z to become assets for the betterment of the country or will I fall short and make an unprecedented exit?
I will have to soon find out.
The ability to laugh at myself is admittedly one of my most redeeming qualities. When I ask people what they like about me, I bet half of them would mention my smile or my laugh, and having enough confidence to make a meme out of myself. It’s nice to feel welcomed and being made to smile, but it feels way better to do the welcoming and making people laugh part. Things like these are good enough to brighten anyone’s day.
I think I got this from being an "ate" or big sister to two big little brothers – brothers who grew up naturally rowdy and mischievous. Since I was the only girl with “girly” interests and the eldest, I was often made to play the role of the responsible babysitter. My two brothers are each other’s best friends despite their very different personalities. Because I have no one to share my “girly” interests to, being a big sister can sometimes feel emotionally isolating, especially when my brothers and I were not particularly raised to be emotionally open. What we do instead is use humor as our way of showing affection. Our regular taunts, meme-making tendencies, name-calling, witty comebacks and occasional rowdiness are our way of endearment.
That’s where my love for memes comes from. The wittier the comeback, the better and plus points if you add in a bit of facial expression and body language. I have to admit that it these helped me become better at communicating with different people, especially people my age. In this world where we heavily rely on the internet for entertainment purposes and having the rest of our needs met, memes have become a daily staple for millennials and Gen X users alike.
There are just times when words and actions aren’t satisfying enough to express the intensity of what we have to say. That’s why I constantly upgrade my meme vocabulary for the following basic reasons:
- To not get my millennial card revoked
- To be able to relate to other people more
- To teach others a euphoric and creative way of self-expression
So if you ever need an “ate” to teach you witty stuff like these, following my page is one of your best options 😉😉😉.
I like telling stories
If there is one thing I like doing, it’s telling stories. Sometimes, the stories I tell aren’t fun. Some of the stories I tell are either actual happenings being told from my perspective or a piece I orchestrated in my highly functioning thinking box. Some stories maybe bias-filled accounts that may or may not be valuable for the situation, while some of the stories I share might possibly trigger an epiphany. What’s the bottom line? All stories have their own intrinsic value.
These stories are what define the human race as a whole, and when we stop telling stories, we die. In attempt to contribute my efforts for this cause, I am making this my personal mission to continue the telling of stories in this community, and also listen and learn stories by people from all walks of life.
Gail made me do it
Secondly, my ever-supportive and ever-encouraging friend Abegail (@thegaillery) who is one of the few who believe in my abilities so much convinced me to do so. She is already an active contributor of the Hive community and because of her I was able to meet other aspiring writers who are on the same journey as I am (so lucky to have her 😍). I’m looking forward to gain insights and inspiration from her and this powerhouse of resources – the community I am welcomed in.
To all of you who have never heard of me before and never met me; here is a short list of what you can expect from my content:
Memes, books, movies and series that shaped majority of my personality and ideals. That’s right! Anticipate that I will be making references from time to time of Hamilton: The Musical, The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fk*, Attack on Titan, Lucifer, 12 Rules For Life, Napoleon’s Buttons, The God Delusion, Grey’s Anatomy, Conversations with God or whatever new and enlightening books or media that is the trend in my life nowadays.
Unpopular opinions: Pineapples DOES go on pizza, gif is pronounced /dʒɪf/ (Gross, 2013), my least favorite character in Le Casa De Papel is Tokyo (I have my reasons), and I think Levi Ackerman in Attack on Titan is hot. Change my mind.
Word of the day entries. My entries will be using a cornucopia of weird, meagerly-used words. Who knows? I might help vamp up your vocabulary skills 😉.
Stories about chemicals and how they changed the world. Cloves, nutmeg and other spices were the reason why Europeans set out expeditions to the East to look for Moluccas. They found the Philippines instead, and colonized it. Cotton and sugar was the main reason why the Africans were spread throughout different parts of the world during the African slave trade (Le Couteur & Burreson, 2004). You will never know which molecules next are going to result in great historical shifts in the world, that’s why I’m going to nerd about the ones that did.
Data, citations, I might even use statistics and aesthetic visual data charts. I hold color theory and creativity to a high regard, but I also am a math and research teacher as well. So expect me bombing my articles with colorful charts from time to time. I hope you’ll get to appreciate them someday as much as I do.
Entries about my current dilemmas, my progress navigating through my existential crisis and how I am dealing with life in general, because everyone deserves a genuine “How are you, really?” from to time, right?
Entries about mistakes I’ve made, or have been making so you can actually learn from my epic fails and not screw up like I did.
Since all healthy relationships require a strong give-and-take traffic (White, 2020), here are some of the things I also expect from this community:
Authenticity. I appreciate authenticity to a high degree, and I bet everyone does too, because if we are just going to go around producing and forwarding the same factory-powered, cookie cutter ideas, then what are we even here for?
A healthy environment to speak up and learn. There is a reason why I hesitate posting on social media, there is way too much unchecked passion and polarity, and not much opportunity to learn through healthy exchange of ideas. These are what I think manifests in what people commonly describe as “toxic”. In fact, these days there is an overuse of the word “toxic” in social media platforms as I’ve noticed and apparently, a lot of people agree (Lutz, 2019; Brogunier, 2019; Braverman, 2020). What’s even sadder is that there is not much embrace on the concept of accountability. I personally hope that this platform is different.
Opportunities to laugh at each other and laugh at ourselves, because we all need it to stay sane in this chaotic world, right?
Lots of lessons shared, I have mentioned earlier that I will be talking about some mistakes I’ve made and are making, and it would also be nice to learn from other people’s screw-ups, especially when it comes to areas I am still ignorant in, like dealing with difficult people, and “adulting”.
This article is just the first step in a long and rocky but hopefully fulfilling road, and I wish myself and everyone here the best in navigating through all of the obstacles we are being presented with.
Braverman, B. (2020, August 29). Social Media Feels Increasingly Toxic. What Do I Do? Retrieved from Outside Online: https://www.outsideonline.com/2416426/social-media-work-toxic-coping-strategies
Brogunier, T. (2019, February 22). 4 Reasons Why Social Media Has Become So Toxic and What to Look for Next. Retrieved from Entrepreneur: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/328749
Cambridge University Press. (2020). Acclimatize. Retrieved from Cambridge Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/acclimatize
Google. (2020). Google Maps - Distance from Wuhan, China to Lapu-Lapu City. Retrieved from Google Maps: https://www.google.com.ph/maps/dir/Wuhan,+Hubei,+China/Lapu-Lapu+City,+Cebu/@20.1968072,110.1198172,5z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x342eaef8dd85f26f:0x39c2c9ac6c582210!2m2!1d114.305539!2d30.592849!1m5!1m1!1s0x33a999fed973c41b:0x1ae9af03b1a02e2c!2m2
Gross, D. (2013, May 22). It's Settled! Creator Tells Us How to Pronounce 'GIF'. Retrieved from CNN Business: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/22/tech/web/pronounce-gif/index.html
Le Couteur, P., & Burreson, J. (2004). Napoleon's Buttons. New York: Tarcher Penguin.
Lewis Silken. (n.d.). Restructuring The Workplace Post COVID-19. Retrieved from Lewis Silkin: https://www.lewissilkin.com/404?item=%2finsights%2frestructuring-the-workplace-post-covid-19&user=extranet%5cAnonymous&site=website
Lutz, A. (2019, July 3). Toxic is Becoming Toxic. Retrieved from Amanda Lutz: https://iamandalutz.com/hot-take-toxic-is-becoming-toxic/
Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. (2013, August 23). Republic Act 10612. Retrieved from Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines: https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2013/08/23/republic-act-no-10612/
Think Baby Names. (2020). What does Roxanne mean? Retrieved from Think Baby Names: http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Roxanne
White, L. (2020). 7 Things All Healthy Relationships Require. Retrieved from BeliefNet: https://www.beliefnet.com/love-family/relationships/things-all-healthy-relationships-require.aspx
Special Thanks to:
Holly Mandarich, Jordan Wozniak, x ), Lukenn Sabellano, Bryan Agua, Bud Helisson, Jelleke Vanooteghem, Helena Lopes,
Brett Patzke, Shane Rounce, Stanislav Kondratiev for the Photos on Unsplash