my life in 5's

Instructions*: in five sentences or less, write the story of your life by focusing on the five-year intervals (i.e., when you were five, ten, fifteen years old, etc.). Then forward to/tag five friends whom you wish to know more about.


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When I was five years old, our family had just moved to Rizal, following the transfer of operations of Mattel Philippines from Bataan Economic Zone to the Greater Manila Area. Mattel, as most people know, makes the Barbie dolls, so we had shelves of Barbie dolls (Barbie and the Rockers, Magic Moves Barbie, etc.), and a single tennis player Ken doll, which -- upon my insistence -- was opened for me so I can "properly" play dolls with my sister and cousins. Ken replaced the stuffed koala bear I was using to play the role of Barbie's pet (thus I was upgraded to Barbie's brother). I still have the Ken doll, sans the tennis racket (which he can't hold anyway), socks, and tennis shoes. And yes, the Kens produced back then do have bulges.

When I was ten, my father succumbed to complications brought upon by colorectal cancer. I was in fifth grade that time, my second year in the all-boys school I transferred to (and eventually stayed with until I graduated from high school). A couple of months before his death, I held my first birthday party -- first in a sense that I had dibs as to who were invited (and not just relatives). It was a bittersweet event, mainly because at that time my father was still throwing up the side-effects of chemotherapy. It was the first of the three times I saw my father cried -- the second was when he cried out of frustration when I disobeyed an order, and the third was when I was cheerfully saying goodbye to him at the hospital a couple of hours before his death.

When I was fifteen, I came out of the proverbial closet. It was during my senior retreat, when I received several palanca letters saying that I will be loved no matter what. I figured that maybe Jesus also feels the same way. If not, then screw it, might as well go to hell. I had this mindset until college, where most of my term papers should have something to do with homosexuality (a la gay rights activist), and up until now, though not as angsty as before.

When I was twenty, I had my first job working as a technical support engineer (aka call center agent), supporting an ISP in the US. I got to practice my fake English accent that my callers could not understand (maybe the fact that I had/have a very nelly voice was a factor). While working there I was actively searching for a documentation specialist job (or something similar -- I figured that's the path of someone like me who has an IT major and lit minor). After eleven months (and after not getting promoted to QA), I quit my job and worked for another company as a technical writer.

I am now twenty-five, and still working for the same company I transferred to almost five years ago. Not as a technical writer anymore, though, but more on the market research side. I'm still single and looking, and at times clueless as to what I really want to do in life (read: currently undergoing a quarter-life crisis, whatever that really means).

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*Inspired by the recent influx of surveys, I decided to create my own (let's see na lang kung bebenta din. LOL!). Actually, this is more of a recycled one -- I unconsciously did the same thing when we were asked to write an autobiography for the team building we did last year.