#44: Irony: Self-Importance

The more important you feel about yourself, the less the people around you deem you so.

#43: Lessons While in the Middle Part 1

I feel like I am in the boundary of being considered young and being considered a fully-grown adult (aka known as old). I can still remember how I felt when I was a child, the dreaminess of playtime and Christmas, the slowness of summer and the fizzy excitement of swimming outings. I remember how I felt when I was a teenager, the textures, the warmth of my face with the surge of new emotions, the pursuit of being totally cool, the sharp pains of teenage heartaches, however petty and juvenile.

Now that I have two daughters, I feel like the mysterious door of the adult perspective has been opened to me and revealed a whole new world of wisdom that was simply beyond me during my youth. Everything my parents and elder friends told me before that sounded killjoy, narrow-minded and inconsiderate now actually makes sense. Yet, I still understand why I thought what I thought before. The sentiments that I held before still hold value for me. I just see now the gap that keeps these two generations apart in their thought.

So being here in this unusually eye-opening boundary, here are the insights I learned:

#42: A Wedding Message

"Really? You want me to write that?"

Yes, my friend asked me to write a wedding speech for her mother-in-law who is going to speak at the wedding of his son. She said she thought of me because I wrote well.

My dear, being able to write well does not mean I can write a wedding advice that should sound like it came from a marriage veteran. I have only been married for 6 years after all. Well, she insisted. So I prayed, breathed in and mustered all the bits of wisdom that I collected from my mentors, friends and my own experience. I tried my best to make it sound motherly. Here is what I came up with and what I actually sent her:

#41: To the Corporate Planet and Back

Hi friends! I have to apologize for being invisible lately. I went through a hormonal phase (probably post-partum crazies) and a job application phase. You see, I started submitting my resume 2 months ago for a few marketing positions. I submitted a copy to an international company but initially got rejected. Apparently my resume was too creative for their taste so I had consulted with friends and they were gracious enough to lend me some tips on how to make my resume more "corporate and professional." I resubmitted my resume for their active file and proceeded to forget about it and move on. My husband and I started submitting auditions for voice-over jobs (which I do on the side by the way.)


Two months later, I received a call saying that I am invited for an interview the next day. Being a freelancer for most of my professional life, I panicked that I have to be able to put on the corporate persona in half a day after your mind has given up on the idea for the time being. I have to be yanked out of my tree-hugging, breast-feeding self and be the savvy, sharp, ass-kicking, tailored-suited version of me which I have kept in the closet for about two years now.


Interview day. I filled out an application form, wrote essays and answered an exam that gave my brain a good shock of ice water. Imagine, I was asked to give a recommendation about which country in Europe will be a good place for a certain economic super-power to make a cross-boarder investment in. And then make a pitch about how their company will be a great partner in this investment. I am aware that for some of you this may be peanuts but I come from a background of writing poems, about the silly and profound insights I happen to find in some corner of my mind, about food and eating. So this was violent alien territory. Geez. 


Okay control tower, we have to make an emergency emotional shutdown. Over. We need to direct all power to Anne's brain. There is some major neural process that we need to support there. Over. Yep, controlling palpitation now. Easy girl, easy...


God is good and very gracious to me. After 2 hours, I looked at my written exam. There is a point when you know you have given it your best shot, when you know that you have to make yourself stop nit-picking and just let go. I smiled and knew that was it, chuckling inside knowing that I nailed this one. After the preliminary interview with the HR associate, to my surprise, I was continuously endorsed by one team member to another. I stayed there the whole day, talking in English, convincing them I will be good for the job. By the time I am done with the 5th interviewer, I was dazed with exhaustion! What do you know? I was informed that there should have been a 6th interviewer from Europe but they were not able to schedule it properly so I had to go back the next day. Thank God. My talking was getting a bit slurred already.


I'd like to continue my story but my daughter is tugging my pants now and asking me to help her look for her green crayon. I will continue my story in the next entry, okay?

#40: Parental Workout

Now that I have a two year old girl, I realize that you cannot be lazy when you are a parent. And when I say lazy, i do not mean simply physically. Most of us are usually diligent physically: we wake up very early, we battle our way to work, tackle our tasks and our chores. We try to be as nimble as we can so we can get more things done. But there is a certain emotional laziness that will be checked once you become a steward of a child. I can say this now because I myself looked it in the face and struggled with it.