La Dilettante

 “The difficulty for me is that I’m interested in so many different things. I could never really imagine myself doing one thing.” — Emma Watson

I’ve always had an eclectic mix of interests. Hats I wanted to wear, things I wanted to be. Some complemented others, some straight up contradicted themselves.

On Writing

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a journalist. I was actually the editor in chief of our high school paper for two years. I was also a constant delegate to the annual schools’ press conference — even won a couple of awards in the news writing and editorial categories. I guess I just have a natural tendency to organize and be a grammar nazi, so this was kind of a no-brainer. As much as these traits stayed with me, I did not really bother to pursue this career.

On Reading

I love books. I love reading. My hair is always in a bun. So at one point, I thought, why not be a librarian? But no, I did not become it. Simply because I didn’t look therefore didn’t find a library to work in. Also, if I’m being honest, I didn’t know what a librarian does besides looking cool, mysterious and smart.

On Food

My first dream was to be a chef. Like most, I am drawn by sight and smell. My grandmother used to call me takaw-tingin, that’s someone who likes to eat food they see in passing. I love food, but I found that cooking is another matter altogether. And a painstaking one at that. So yes. This dream was quickly a hit and miss: I am meticulous but I don’t see the appeal and significance of garnishing a spoonful of food on a plate; I love food but not so much to battle pressure, heat and sweat; I love the idea of cooking but not really having to cook (apparently, I only wanted to do it for fun and won’t cook unless I’m about to die of starvation). It also didn’t help that my mom discouraged me to go down this path, calling it one downer term like that, so it simply became yet another entry in my “could be” list.

On Photography

A very recent time ago, I thought I could do photography. “Why not?” was my only reason. Cash was what brought me back to my senses. Now I use my phone to take a handful of shots a day — because I’m crazy about preserving snippets of moments — bookmarking posts about camera tricks but never really following any of it.

On Therapy

I am fascinated by people. I am fascinated with stories. I am fascinated with the connection between these two. I am a good listener, an empath. So I figured, I’d go into Psychology and be the therapist I’ve always wished I had. And to be honest, if I’m not in tech right now, this is where I’ll be. Understanding people has been my greatest fascination, then and now.

On Modeling

Growing up in Asia, I was considered very tall. In my teenage years, family and friends fed me with words of encouragement about how I could make it as a model. “You’ve got the body and height for it!”, they said. I admit, I genuinely considered it (still do, sometimes). But now I have a non-model bod and at the end of the day, I guess I simply never had the posture and confidence needed to strut my way into the glamorous fashion life.

On Tourism

I wanted to be a flight attendant. Again, because I am tall 🤷‍♀️ And also, because I love traveling. I could’ve started this career in college but my mom killed off the idea as soon as she heard it. A word of discouragement here and there and it slowly lost its appeal on me. Coincidentally, I also found that being in airplane going through even just one turbulence is among my top 3 nopes in life.

On Technology

Ah, the peak. I wanted to be so many things in tech — I was into a lot of things.

Quick note: I wanted to be a hacker. It was all the rave back in the day, and I wanted to be cool. So yeah.

Initially an application developer using Visual Basic, I moved on to web development with PHP and MySQL. The eventual transition from that to using CMS marked the beginning of the slow death of my love for web.

At a loss as to what I’d do next, I found myself in IT Administration and Tech Support — and was in that space for a while. I got certified in Java Programming and Database Administration as well during this time. I honestly thought this is it, but years down the line I realized how unfulfilling it really was for me.

I wanted to do something else. I wanted to do more.

So, I entered a 4-year career hiatus. I experimented, I explored. I delved into DevOps, learned Android Development and dabbled in Cloud Computing. Brushed up on web dev and instantly recoiled from it — I immediately drowned from the volume of things that now come with it. It was a big and instant NOPE. On the other hand, Android Development was the best part of that period. I was able to use the knowledge I got from the programming stint I was into some years back; it was new yet familiar, I comfortably challenged, I was in love.

But then, just like others things, it still didn’t work out. Ever-present compatibility issues.

Get this: it’s not like I didn’t know what I want. I do, I just didn’t know how to get to that…yet.

Fast forward to the final stage of my hiatus (aka pandemic era), I finally got tired of floating, being indecisive and grappling with the burden of the constant uncertainty I’ve casted upon myself — I decided I’d choose a path and this time really, really stick with it.

And that’s how I ended up becoming a product manager.

I still want a lot of things. I’m still figuring out who I am and what I like and what makes me tick. So I guess I’ll be updating this entry once in a while, as I journey through life meeting, pursuing or neglecting yet another hit or miss dream.