UPDATE: Getting back to work at Essays.PH

So, it's been roughly two months since I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. I haven't been active online for some time — to be frank, I have quite lost interest in Facebook and other things my friends are currently doing. Checking FB has become a tiresome habit for me.

In fact, the only times I go online is to work. Yes, I'm a stay-at-home-but-working-mom for Essays.PH, a local online writing community. If you missed my earlier post in my other blog, I've already shared how I discovered EPH several years ago.

I started writing for EPH officially during the summer (I was 5 months pregnant). I got promoted from the red team to the green team in May, I think.

(For the uninitiated, the EPH features a team system to group the writers. Black team used to be the entry point—when you're still in the application process, and red team is the team of new writers who can claim assignments. After some time, you can get promoted to the green and blue teams according to your performance.)

I stopped writing around the second week of June because my EDD is June 22. Unfortunately, my son did not seem to want to come out of my womb because he was born nearly two weeks later on July 2. It was a caesarian section because my water broke without labor signs. I was induced to labor from 1pm of June 1 to 1am of June 2, when the CS was finally performed.

Anyway, because of my difficult delivery, I did not go back to writing for EPH for nearly two months. I also had a mild case of postpartum bleeding 2 weeks after birth. Suffice it to say, I only checked back at EPH once in July, and I discovered that I had been promoted to the blue team.

I was pleasantly surprised, but worried. I thought I could not put in as many hours to take assignments because of my son. I sent messages to my editors to inform them that I will be taking assignments again as soon as my bleeding stops.

I resumed writing exactly one month postpartum--August 2. Since then, I've managed to take a lot of sets in between feeding Ili and getting some sleep. It works for me because I get to earn and still take care of my son for the most part. I don't need to worry about traveling to work and entrusting my son to someone else, nor do I have to resort to formula feeding. And if only for that opportunity to stay focused on raising my son while working, Essays.PH is the perfect job for me.

Best of all, writing for EPH doesn't really feel like real work because I enjoy writing. I love the drill of research-write-edit-proofread. I love that I learn something new with every new assignment that I take. I love the challenge of a difficult set and the rush I feel when the deadline nears. And, of course, I love getting compensated for all that "hard work."

Are you a writer like me? If you are, I'm inviting...no, I am challenging you to join the EPH community and see for yourself if the kind of work fits you.

I'll be waiting. :)

Rage

I have just read the news item about Nicole recanting her previous statements, and the so-called "sworn statement" she released only now, more than two years after the bitter battle for justice began.

Profanities race through my mind as I try to rationalize this sudden turn of events. For the statement, it seems, was tailor-fitted to strengthen the defense of accused Cpl. Daniel Smith. As I read through it (or at least the citations), I can't help but think how incriminating and contradictory it was to what Nicole has been stating ever since the case began. It would definitely remove Nicole's credibility, in the eyes of the many who would believe anything they hear or read in the news without any sort of critical analysis.

And the more suspicious part is that, it all happened after Barack Obama called the highly-contested President of this republic to commend her for her moves against terrorism and to say that the US will uphold the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) on their end.

How Nicole was manipulated and maneuvered to recant, we can only guess. We could not blame her for reaching this decision (if she was not coerced into it), for the case has gone on for too long and still, justice has not been served.

In the anti-VFA rally held earlier ended on a dramatic note, with Nicole terminating her contract with her legal counsel, and her mother saying that there is no justice in the Philippines.

Add two and two together, and what do we get?

This event only proves the extent to which the government would go to protect the interests of its closest ally, the US—even at the expense of its own citizens.

Such a sorry state of government is more than enough for us Filipinos to be enraged.

Let there be no more excuses. Nicole's case should be more than enough reason for us to call for the junking of the VFA.

Crossroads (or depression, again)

I don't get this. I really don't get it. The feeling that everything you do is pretty pointless — be it academics or be it Kule. It's not like I deliberately think about it; it just comes on its own accord. This empty feeling, this alienation, this strange disturbance that I hope will go away really, really soon.

Lately, I've been thinking of doing something more than I already am (and I know it's near suicide, what I'm considering). That's why right now I'm thinking about joining another org outside of Kule (UP SILIP to be precise).

The thing is, I'm really confused about what I truly want to do.

My impending graduation, one year from now (that is if I finish on time), seems like a dead-end; a deadline to make decisions. Decisions which I have put off for as long as I could. I have options aplenty, but in the end I know that somehow I have already chosen, I just still haven't gotten around to accepting which options seem most viable to me.

Existential? Maybe; most of the time I just chalk it off as chronic depression that eventually goes away. Manic-depressive? Possibly. World-weary? Isn't that too early at this point in my life? I mean, I'm barely 18, it's not like I'm supposed to experience some midlife crisis now. I'm supposed to be at the height of my youth. I'm not supposed to be like this.

But then, and the more important question is, why? Everything's going well in my life. It's not like I'm failing my classes or anything. It's not like I'm having problems again with my working relations with the people I work with.

Problem is, it's beginning to come more frequently lately that I'm afraid it might be something more serious.

Moreover, I have no freaking idea how to get around this.

I need a diversion badly. I know as much. I feel removed (detached, I think, is the more apt word) from the height of things, like when other people are around me, I just simply fade quietly into the background, choosing not to mingle, choosing to be alone, wrapped up in my thoughts (or lack thereof).

Maybe I need to write more, since I have long since recognized that writing is my form of therapy. Like now.

Or maybe I just need to stop for a moment, and breathe.