About the Pinay New Yorker

October 18, 2010 – I am writing this at a time in my life when coherence seems to be such a struggle. I tend to embark on a train of thought and lose myself halfway through. And yet I know I owe this blog — this tiny space in the vast websphere — a debt of gratitude for being the repository of my joys and griefs, my pains and triumphs, my accomplishments and frustrations.

So I have made a pronounced effort to keep my presence here constant.

Forget that I am not making sense — the purpose of blogging to me has always been to find a channel of expression. It has been a good friend to me in that sense.

So who is the Pinay New Yorker?

I’m a Filipina living in the Big Apple the last 10 years. Typing that somehow suddenly makes me realize I have been here a long time indeed. This blog, on the otherhand, has been around as long as my son has blessed my life — 6 years. I write about anything and everything under the sun — mostly focusing on the everyday life I live as a mom, a career woman who works full time, and a struggling crafter/artist who tries to cram as much creativity into the very few hours I am left in a day to do the things I love.

Scrapbooking has been a recent passion — something awakened by the mother in me. I didn’t really get into it seriously until I had Angelo. I am embarking on a personal project to create my own embellishments and papers for conversion into digitally uploadable elements others who are into scrapbooking can make use of, too.

I love paper and have several projects up my sleeve, more so since the holidays are almost here. I have been making my own holiday cards for most of my adult life. This year is probably going to be another photocard, using elements from my trip home to Manila in Christmas 2009. I want to make paper baskets again or simply do paper weaving but there are only 24 hours in a day.

When I have the time, I knit (basic stitches only please) and I crochet. (Time to get those precious projects out to wear!) This is the reason I have made a personal promise NOT to buy any scarves for the colder time of the year — I have enough to last me the season and the next.

I am giving online entrepreneurship a second go with an online shop, having tried once before without much success but coming out of it with a ton of lessons learned. This time I am lucky to have found an opportunity to have a hobby and a platform to earn off of that hobby through the wonders of technology.

I have a huge postcard collection and hope to resume trading even if only minimally. I have a ton of postcards I want to get rid of to focus on my collecting interests which are lighthouses, maps, anything Philippines (vintage and new), anything New York (vintage and new) and advertising or freecards.

I also started collecting Starbucks mugs when I moved here. I do not go gung-ho crazy buying collectibles but instead wait for gifts from friends or acquisitions from trips Alan and I have taken as a family or individually. I believe I have more or less a hundred mugs now — but believe it or not, I’m missing one or two New York City mugs that I should have in the collection.

There are a lot of other things that I love to do but which I have not had the chance to do only because there are only so many hours in a day, and there’s only one of me. I’d love to resume reading as voraciously as I used to, and I dream of the day when I can write poetry again. I get to play music only when I am in Manila, and my fingers will take a piano keyboard anytime to the computer keys that have been digits’ buddies the last couple of years.

I have been blessed to have had a good life despite its challenges before I moved to New York in 2000. My first job was as a newscaster for an FM station, and my last was with an insurance company, much like the financial services company I currently work for.

I came here not necessarily for a “better life” like most Filipinos who migrate to the land of milk and honey, but rather, I came to form a family after my heart took me here. Life in New York has been equally a blessing — because I now have my two boys (the honey and the baby) who make being 10,000 miles away from the family I grew up with all worth it.

I have a good job which isn’t quite anything close to what I had before, but which I find fulfilling for the great bosses I’ve come to work for and continue to work with. Part of settling down is prioritizing what is important — and family comes first, more so after I’ve had my heyday career-wise. As the smart ones are wont to say, “Been there.. done that..”

Yet there is a lot that I still hope to accomplish. While many say “Life is short”, I don’t look at life as a span of time but rather as a collection of what one has gone through and what one has become.

Welcome to my journey…

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