Stranger

Tell us about a time when you were left on your own, to fend for yourself in an overwhelming situation — on the job, at home, at school. What was the outcome?

One of the most challenging moments I have experienced in my life was migrating. I was 16 years old when my family and I moved from my motherland (Philippines) to Canada. The preparation process was expedited. Everything happened so quickly that I was unable to grasp the gravity of the situation. I did not even get to say a proper goodbye to my friends. It was as if I space-travelled from one place to another. The next thing I know I was looking out the window in a cold autumn night in an unfamiliar land. Do not get me wrong– I knew where we were going. It was just the shock from swift transition that really caught me off-guard. But this was not the crux of the matter. It was my first day in a Canadian high-school that was the most terrifying and overwhelming episode. Even though English was my second language, I lacked the ability to carry a conversation any longer than a greeting. I understood the language quite well, of course, not accounting for vernacular speech. However, given the fact that communication was key to understanding my new environment, I was at a disadvantage. I knew I had to make new friends and interact with others in order to make sense of everything that was happening around me. The first person who approached me was a girl from Chile. It was nice of her to introduce me to some of her friends who were all Spanish-speaking, but it soon dawned on me that there was a misconception about language. My new friend thought that Filipinos understood Spanish. Though it is true that some Tagalog words were directly adopted from the Spanish language, it is not enough to fathom an entire conversation. I explained this to her and felt embarrassed for not letting her know earlier. A quaint observation I had was that our group was the most ethnically diverse among all other circles, which I did not mind, but was nevertheless overwhelming. We drifted apart, misconstruing our “differences.” I sought refuge from isolation and self-reflection but it only led me to an even more baffled state. 

At that time I thought every individual was visibly different: skin tone, hair type, eye colour, body-build, fashion, etc. Ignorant as I was, I could not believe how two people with dissimilar characteristics could possibly get along. But most did. And my unwillingness to participate resulted in ostracization. Thus, I learned my first critical lesson in this foreign country: do not be a stranger. In a world where unexpected events occur during unanticipated times, no matter what, we always need a friend. After all, no man is an island.  

 

Partial invisibility

 You have a secret superpower: the ability to appear and disappear at will. When and where will you use this new superpower?

As a sociology student I have a tendency to view things from a sociological perspective. I associate the concept “visibility” with one’s ability to access and depart the digital world. Manuel Castells, a renowned sociological theorist from Barcelona once wrote about a network society: the distinctive feature of the modern time. The elements of the social world (i.e. people, institutions, enterprises, etc.) act as interconnected nodes that converge into a network. The existence of individual nodes are supplementary but not absolutely necessary. In other words, as individuals who are members of a network society, we have the ability to appear and disappear in the digital world. With that we achieve partial invisibility. My experience with Facebook illustrates this idea. When school started on September 9, 2013, I decided to de-activate my Facebook account. I figured I should get rid of all possible distractions so I could focus on my studies. When I re-activated my account just a few days ago, my best friend immediately messaged me saying: “You disappeared from Facebook, but I see that you’re back!” Evidently, Facebook was my only link to the social world vis-a-vis digital world. Through social media I may appear and disappear at will.

 

And so it begins…

There are a plethora of things a girl could preoccupy herself with. It is only a matter of whether or not she will make productive use of her time. Today is the first weekday of study break before final exams. Needless to say, I am not mentally ready to immerse myself back into studying. The so-called “hell week” just finished and I am still in the period of “recuperation.” Hence, the blog entry. This is, or will be, a constructive way of de-stressing, letting off steam, ventilation, however you may call it. I say “constructive” because writing has a dual purpose: it maintains sanity, and it keeps the brain functioning. Perhaps it would be helpful to give you an example: merely on the second day after my last class lecture, I was surprisingly aimless and idle. I did not know what to do nor did I have any logical direction. I thought to myself: “what now?” Then my sister asked me to proofread her Master’s Degree write-up. To my disbelief, I noticed a remarkable difference between her past essays and her write-up. During that 10-month period of being out of school her writing skills had gone awry. Regardless, I finished editing her paper, and promised myself to continue writing with the hopes of improving my skill as well as talking about things that matter.