…a JoUrNeY wOrTh ReMeMbErInG

I always kept reminding myself, life is a journey. We are all pilgrims towards our future, and that we often meet some heartaches and problems as we go along. But we should always bear in mind the quotation that goes, “Beyond the hills of difficulties lies the valleys of success.” I always remind myself of that especially when facing hardships along the way.

As I added colorful pages to my life, I always make it a point that they are worth remembering. Just like my travel towards here. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for us, we were two. I couldn’t even believe we made it.

From Cebu, Philippines, we took a plane directly to Hongkong. I felt perfectly great ‘coz t’was my first international flight, and at the same time, my first board on a plane. I was kinda scared yet excited. It took us almost three hours to reach Hongkong International Airport. I was really astonished for it is very huge. In fact, it’s one of the world’s largest international airport. Additional, it was voted by air travellers and it won the first place in the 2007 world best airport survey. We arrived there 30 minutes after midnight. We just roamed around the airport and stayed in the passenger lounge and waited for the morning. At 5:00 am, we started moving out.

What we had that time was just a print out instructions from our agent. So we tried asking around. Good that there are a lot that can speak English in Hongkong. We rode tram 13 from airport to the subway station. T’was pretty tough ‘coz we were bringing our luggage in a busy morning and we didn’t know how to purchase a ticket or use the electronic machine. There were a lot of people going to work and to school. We just paused for few minutes and observed as if we were resting. Then, we’ve learned how. Successfully, we did. From subway, we changed another train to Shenzhen.

We were really tired as we arrived in Shenzhen. After around 30 minutes, the agent’s men arrived and picked us up. They showed us to the train station and bought tickets for us to Jinan, where our agent is waiting. Shenzhen is a big and beautiful city. But we didn’t have time to roam around ‘coz of our luggage. We bought a lot of food like instant noodles, bread and cookies for it is close to 24 hours travel by train, as they said. It really is. We did nothing while we were on the train, just peeping through the windows, watching the beauty of nature, remembering our families back home, sleep, for t’was really a very long journey, almost 20 hours. Kinda tiresome and boring. We had no choice.

We arrived in Liaocheng and another guy met us at the train station there and we proceeded to the bus station for it’s still 2 hours away. Really exhausting! Then we arrived and met our agent. At long last, we were able to arrive at our destination and eat rice for we didn't have one for more than two days. We ate lunch together at around 3:00 pm.

We just stayed for around three days in Jinan, Shandong province. Then, we moved to our schools in another province, meaning, we had to travel around 9 hours by bus again. Terrible! I said at that time, we just kept traveling around China. But it’s just somewhat nothing for the entire China. After, we parted ways for we are in different schools. We met our respective bosses. Finally, our work life here started. We are in Hefei, Anhui Province, China, our final stop. Thanks for the safe travel. See you here!

…mY wOrKpLaCe

Everyone has a work to be done and this entails responsibilities. Logically speaking, everyone has responsibilities. Do you agree? How do you perform your responsibilities? Are you a dependable person? Can you be trusted? How do you execute your job? Are you happy with it? Are you satisfied?

Success in our work depends on us, how we carry them out. Another factor is the workplace, the environment, both the external and the internal environment. Sometimes we can’t perform our duties very well because of these factors. We are not happy with the environment. Am I right? So, why stay if that’s the case? Isn’t it that the reason why we’re here in this world is to be happy?

My work environment, both external and internal, is pretty conducive for productivity and development. I kinda like it here. Our location is somehow perfect. We are almost near to everything, supermarket, restaurants, hotels, banks, bus stations, malls. In other words, we are in the downtown area. We are on the third and fourth floor of a building. One thing good is that we have an elevator. We have a big, clean and well ventilated office for teachers. All of us have our own computers in the office. Kinda great! My colleagues are also easy going, kind, helpful and supportive. I unquestionably like it here. I was just lucky I was assigned in this branch school, as I heard, the most beautiful among the 10 branches. Well organized!

Well, you, friends, do you also have good working environments? I wish you all have. Make your workplace your second home and you will feel great. You pretty love to do all your stuff. You can do your work better and be productive. Thanks for journeying with me. See you!