A Couple of Tips When Migrating Abroad

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

Migrating abroad maybe one of the most life-changing decisions to anyone making that leap. You literally have to carry your whole life on a couple of luggage bags wishing you could just take more with you, and for good cause - there is no turning back from this one, well at least not in the immediate and foreseeable future.

Many of us leave never ever feeling that we are going to be ready for the long haul hiatus. Despite the preparation, anticipation, despidida's, and visits to Antipolo Church, we can only bring as much stuff that we hold dear. When you look at the things you pack, there's always that dilemma of leaving that d-day shirt/sando/short/brief that we've worn since childhood, those deeply sentimental artifacts that symbolizes bits and pieces of the life we're leaving behind. 

This is the reality though and we all made our choice. There's been way too much emotions and money spent (or owed) that we simply must do what we ought to do. So, we pack our bags and go.

In the dark and unknown universe waiting for you on the other side, wherever country you set out for, it's always good to get some insights from people who have been on a somewhat similar spot. Yup, you have not been alone in that feeling, my friend. Please know that I don't claim to be a pro giving rock solid advice that I'd go on a blood pact and bet on with my job. But its always good to put out some thought out there with the best intent, and I wish you the very best. So, here it is - 

1. Create your own story, the one you'd like for yourself that you'd be happy to share to people. 

When I came to Australia, I had been forewarned that I needed to leave not just my family, and not just my friends. I was told over and over that I also needed to leave my pride. As they said - 'Bawal ang ma-pride sa abroad. - A lot of anonymous people'

I was just shocked by the strong dogma against having that pride when you arrive as a migrant. While I barely knew anyone in this new country, the Kabayan's I've come to meet by chance have all been tamed to this defensive mentality - that notion that their isn't much out here and life's tough. Most are seeing the scarcity more than the opportunities available. For a fact, I must have heard so many stories of hard times, experienced by apparently everyone when they're starting out, that for the first few nights abroad, my best sleep was 2 hours. 

I had those tales creeping in my mind and I started to worry more. The truth is, we are strongly moved by stories, specially those that we can see ourselves fit into. We identify ourselves closely to stories of people who we see ourselves being in the same position with. In my case, I was concerned to hear about how terribly difficult it was for new comers to find a job and get settled. Or, how some starters have been bouncing between any available odd jobs just to get by. I was beginning to see myself in that same situation, dreading the already monumental, if not impossible task ahead.

On my 2nd day in Australia, I chanced to meet a fellow Filipino on a bus stop waiting for his line. He carried a plastic bag with some leafy vegetables amongst other ingredients to what I suspect is Sinigang. I greeted the man, he was in his late 40s I think. And I said to him, 'Kamusta po? Mukhang sinigang sir ah...' The man looked at me and smiled faintly. We talked for a bit while waiting for our buses.  I learned that he came here some years ago, he couldn't recall the exact number, and he was a successful engineer back home. He was really excited telling me about his past career, position and memories from before here, while asking me about what the familiar places he used to go in the Philippines. He sounded excited about the Philippines and knowing I just recently arrived. Then, I asked him how he is now and where he works. His face changed and from him I saw someone who has never looked so defeated in life. He said he's doing odd jobs whenever he finds one. At the moment, he really wants to get employed as a construction worker, which even that, he said is very difficult with all the competition and all his disadvantage against younger people and other nationalities. He's on his way home to cook lunch for the kids because his wife is at work and he didn't find a gig for that day.

That encounter made a strong impact on me. It validated all the stories I have heard. It's all true. Life here is indeed tough and could even be punishing. But then, that moment made me realize that, really, you attract what you think. I have been thinking about the negativity for sometime and low and behold, a testament to that showed up to me. It made me wonder, what if, I started thinking the contrary? What if I thought differently and go the more positive route to be optimistic and hopeful instead? Will that attract me a different story for my own? 

It didn't took me a long time to find out the answer for myself. When I started to think more positively about things and changing how I perceived my circumstance, I switched on to a nothing-to-lose mentality. I kept a guard at the thoughts entering my mind. It's like my brain always hosted a party and on that party with all my thoughts socializing together, there's just one rule: No Negatives allowed. I became more determined that I will have a better experience to tell for new starters. And I imagined being able to do what I am doing now, sharing you the kind of story I want. 

I wasn't able to sleep well that very night. Because I was in a job-application frenzy. I didn't stop formatting my CV to the best my English could provide. Then, 3 days later, I got a job offer from a multi-national company, with a full-time permanent role, with above average pay for the same work I have been doing for years in the Philippines. I couldn't forget how I had my fist up in the air, clapping, a tear swelling up in my eye, in awe and amazement of His grace, just right after leaving the building of my new company.

I believed then, that you really need to see it clearly in your mind. Paint your own story before it actually happens and simply trust that it will.

2. Don't go on Cruise Control.

If you share the life-abroad dream like me, then you would have been in leaps of joy in every step of that long journey. From the baby steps like finding out what requirements you need, gathering those requisites through requests countless submissions here and there, we all felt excited that bit by bit we are building the dream.

I mean, who could forget the drama, and sometimes trauma of those silly English-Proficiency exams? (Yes, IELTS, I'm staring at you with angry eyes, and eye bags all over). Who was not logging in to the Migration website every day, if not by the hour, to check for the slightest changes in their application status? Who didn't lose focus at work while waiting and waiting and praying for a positive assessment on their skills or on their sponsorship? Who didn't go an a cleanse diet to not get deferred from the Health checks? In many ways, we've gone through different flavors of these things before we got to where we are. It wasn't something that we just said we want as a lot of other people do. It's something that we said we wanted and will do everything we can no matter what. And that, I think is what fundamentally makes us not just dreamers. We are dream-chasers!

What I did notice though, is that after being able to settle in and be in our new country, all of a sudden we get comfortable. Now, that is not a bad thing at all, since after all that's the point in seeking a better life abroad - to be comfortable. We want a comfortable life for ourselves and our families. We've gone through a lot, paid the price for being where we are and we deserve that much. 

A thing that really bothers me though is that it seems this kind of comfort drives us into an ironic state where we easily become even more uncomfortable to a lot of things easily. When we become comfortable to how things are, we tend to want them that way and every other detail that delineates from what we're used to becomes bothersome. For instance, I see this ever so often on my train ride to and from work. People have been used to the 98.5% Train-Schedule guarantee that on that rare occasion we get that 1.5% of service interruption, you'll start hearing people cursing the train management, how it sucks and how unreliable it is. Now I don't know if they've just had to have a taste of our own MRT to be more appreciative. 

I noticed too that a lot of people are just way too attached to their jobs even if they're not happy with it, or it's not their real line of work, just to get by, make it through, and be able to pay the bills. While it's good that people are willing to do just any kind of job out there, I think it sucks out the dreamer-chasers in us when we continue on like that. Its simply leaving below our potential while we wait for something different to just happen. And then the tendency is to forget the magic of having gone through the monumental effort and hurdles just to arrive to where we are. 

To me, all of us have already arrived the moment we touched down. But it doesn't mean we should stop moving forward and pursuing the bigger dreams. And while they say, good things happen to those who wait. We have to realize that those good things are usually the one's left behind by those who hustle. 

So my friend, start strong and keep your that steady pace. Pray harder than you think and don't shrink your dream to fit your life. Instead, keep on growing to fit your life into  your dreams. I wish you all the best!

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”  

 2 Timothy 1:7

Cheers,
- Stephen

PS: I'd really love to hear from you. What's your story? Please leave me some love (or hate)  in the comments below. Thanks! :)

Building Up My Portfolio Site - Design 1

Design Phase : UI/Layout

This is my 2nd post on my way to build my own portfolio site. If you want to see my (groundbreaking) 1st post, here it is

So far, I've been trying to make up a design and layout for my site. (Disclaimer: I'm a functional developer and this is my excuse to say I'm not a UI guy!)

I've started going mano-a-mano, sketching and drawing by pencil and paper. I couldn't really create a design from inspiration so I just mocked up something based on what makes sense to me in terms of functionality and simplicity. I'd have to apologize for the very poor image, I don't know how best to enhance images yet, but here are my sketches -

Then, after about 4 hours of looking into Bootstrap, playing around with HTML, here's what my actual page looks like - 

I'd say it ain't so bad. The page itself is all HTML 5 compliant and Bootstrap-styled. The template is based from the Boostrap: Cosmo theme and I just adjusted some CSS to my liking.

Some site's I really found are the following - 

Bootswatch

Get Boostrap

On my next post, I will be talking about the functional-side of things - AngularJS, MVC 4, my solution structure - all that fun stuff. 

/* TODO: Until then, keep coding (message to self). */

Cheers,

Stephen

Why we need to be emotional?

Reminders on how important it is to be filled with emotions and not succumb to the more apathetic world of practicality and logic.

                               
Around 7 years ago, as an associate trainee, I missed doing something at work that I was specifically asked to do. My boss even left me a note so that I don't miss it. The task itself was really simple. But somehow, somewhere, I misunderstood what I was supposed to do and left some details to my assumptions. In short, I blew it for the very first time which warranted me being sent to my managers corner-room (aka the 'Principals Office') to get a good lambasting.

That first time that I ever got scolded at work really taught me a lesson - more than learning how to avoid that same mistake again was that it's necessary for me to not take anything personally and not let any emotions be mixed up in my beating. And I had to convince myself that taking out the emotions was really crucial for two reasons - 1.) so I don't go home feeling sorry and regretting what I could have done instead; and 2.) so I can come to the office the coming days and move forward not carrying that chip on my shoulder, doubting my confidence and self-esteem.

Professionally, leaning less on emotional decisions all seemed logical and I could really attest that, at least, for me it worked that I deal with my job not taking anything personally and leaving out all my emotions to rest. It made me think logically. I was more rational and practical and in many ways, more efficient in making my decisions at work which got me noticed and lead to my progressive career, in my humble opinion. At least from where I saw it, I had the winning formula. So far so good... or, so I thought.
                                  


When I entered into a relationship, years after rolling solo and enjoying my early years as young professional, single and ready to mingle, my entire perspective on staying more logical than emotional became really problematic.

I never thought that being single minded on what's plain and practical could go against so many basic aspects in a relationship. For instance, sharing a meal to eat at the same time when one of you has to wait for hours just to make it so. Or when you are dead tired from work but a still voice inside you insists that you see you're special someone, then you go the stretch just to have that short conversation. I mean, why wait when you're already starving? Why push out for some more time to make that visit despite the fatigue?


As I look at it now, I believe that the reason being logical and practical takes the back seat towards a genuine relationship is because we are not meant to build relationships out of these two. We can't deal with our lives with that distant approach of not being involved emotionally specially when it comes to the people we chose to love. Really, how can you love without the emotion of it? If loved worked under specific terms of mutual benefit, then I'd say that's not love more than it is a business deal. And that as my first point, is that emotions are necessary for building strong and honest relationship with our fellow human. And relationships are the design with which we are made - it puts meaning to our existence and purpose to the people around us.

Another reason, I believe, why we need emotions in our lives is because it is the driving force behind our motivations, our commitments and our reasons for doing what we do. We need emotions to be fully functional. And here, I mean to distinguish and differentiate what it means to be fully functional in the basic, menial sense compared to someone operating inspired and highly motivated - driven. I believe that the stronger the emotional attachment we have towards a goal, the better the likelihood of it becoming a reality. Steve Jobs said, you have to love what you do. And I believe that because, I think, the fact behind it is not easy chasing a dream. If it were in fact easy, everyone would have made it happen for themselves to whatever desire they cherished in their hearts. The sad truth is, life is tough. More often that not, it's more rational to quit and hang the towel, than to press on and keep fighting. And here is where emotions empower the heart to be relentless and ever hopeful. 

The last reason why I believe we need to be emotional in life, is because our emotions simply escape all sense of logic. Our emotions are limitless because they could not be quantified, objectified or subjected to norms and boundaries. No one could have a universal definition of what it is like to feel joy, or sadness, or despair. Because it comes as it is and it is simply lived in the moment. And because it is boundless, it allows us to transcend our current obstacles, challenges, and circumstances. It allows us to see something magical out of the ordinary and appreciate how beautiful life is. It makes us more than rational minds making logical sense of the world. It makes us truly human.

... 'just my two cents.

Cheers,
Stephen

 

..Success Stories..

The rain was pretty thick and the winds were just as bad because of another tropical typhoon. I wasn't able to go out and the sleepy cold weather drove me past any mood for productive stuff. Which explains, why for the most part, I found myself laying down and googling randomly (as usual) - but no, I'm not lazing around... its just bad weather :)

Fortunately, and maybe out of a stroke of some fine luck, I chanced upon two great videos in YouTube that have really given me a surreal idealism again about entrepreneurship, making your own business, and living your dreams in life. These are about two people - Ryan Blair and Gurbaksh Chahal - two great entrepreneurs of our time having distinctively different stories of success, but both incredible men with such great stories and lessons to share.

I haven't heard about Ryan Blair until today. He is the CEO and co-founder of ViSalus, a multi-level marketing supplements company, an author and speaker. I learned about his story through a documentary in YouTube covering the production of his book, 'Nothing To Lose, Everything to Gain'.

Hearing stories of people coming from rags to riches, or from bad to great really has that appeal to me because, I think it appeals to the very nature of life - that no matter where you came from, or what you've started out as - it won't need to be the definition that you make for the rest of your stay on earth. Ryan's tale of how he came from being a thug in the ghetto to becoming a successful entrepreneur, author and investor is awe-inspiring. The fact is that life will always get to you no matter where you are, and what you've already overcome in the past, it will throw you bigger challenges and would constantly try to beat you down.

Even after overcoming the hood, with his mother going through a very long period of coma, and his son being diagnosed with autism in the middle of the most monumental success he was attaining, he stepped up to show how the battles are fought even by those that are already successful and have seemingly overcome worse. Ryan's animosity, tenacity and persistence not only allowed him to stand his ground, but it allowed his greatness to come out from the dire situation as it is. This is an important reminder for me - I should stay hungry and strong enough to battle out complacency; and that, I try my very best of not being derailed and unfocused. After all, I have nothing to lose but everything to gain when I just keep going at it. Not stopping, always striving to be the very best that I can be.

Gurbaksh Chahal, on the otherhand, is a serial eentrepreneur who came into business as early as 16 years old. He founded a number of startups and have sold a couple for hundreds of millions. What I like about him in is how mature and real he gives his perspective of business and entrepreneurship. In essence, he says that in order to succeed in life you simply have to had the ambition, discipline, and purpose. But not as easy as how we know to define those three ingredients, does come the real grind behind running a business, or a start-up for that matter. 

Like he said, there are many misconceptions in business. One is, for instance, that you have to be first or the original. Or, that you be perfect and narrowed down to a single path or outcome. Instead, entrepreneurs must come to terms with the fact that innovation is key, not originality, that pushing forward to a goal and having the audacity to embrace change in the process is crucial, and that, starting a business from the idea of selling it off later should not be more important than pursuing a business for the passion of fulfilling a need and creating real, tangible value.

I've taken in a lot lessons from these two men today. But I think the most important thing I can take away is that I have been given the same opportunity and freedom, if not more, to create my own story. I'm am no less talented or disadvantaged compared to them. But only, I am a little less as determined as they are. And that should not keep me from trying. All it really takes is to keep on fighting the fight to better what I've become so far and to keep the persistent attitude and go on and on and on. No matter what.

Building Up My Portfolio Site - Design Planning 1

Creating my personal space in the web has been an ambition that I had for the longest time. Ever since I started my career in IT, I have always wanted to create that personal space. To me, it would be cool, awesome and useful because not only do I get to showcase what I can do, but more importantly, its a constant learning hub for myself, and hopefully to others who can pick up a thing or two with the content that I place in there. 

But whenever I think about the implementation-side of things - the content, the layout, the technology stack, the platform, the cost - I can't help but be overwhelmed until eventually, my mind shuns the idea off and flushes it on very long cycles of procastination... Honestly, because even as the years have passed, even if I had transitioned from the early days of being a trainee to a senior developer, the first step is still as hard and as daunting for as long as I remember - Where do I start?

Before today, I have tried to brush up and read up technical papers and watch videos that I feel would help me be more ready to embark on this ambitious goal again. I've learned about Bootstrap to ease my way through UIs because I am honestly not strong on that end. I've practiced and learned more about AngularJs because I do feel its a skill that I want in my bag of tricks for the next years to come. So, what's stopping me from taking that leap is to clearly define what is the purpose of my site

Just to get things going, here are the things I explicitly want to accomplish -

1. Publish Blog content with support for code markup, indexing, table of contents, images
2. Apply the near cutting edge technologies - AngularJS, MVC, C#, SQL
3. Easy Build and Deploy through a very good hosting framework
4. Complete this as a birthday gift to yourself and share and post it to friends, neighbors and the world - site launch!

Those 4 bullet points are seemingly easy to read and go through. But heck, in my mind, the neurons are firing fast to try and logically catchup to the how's and what's behind the site's ground work to finish. Its a lot of work, but it can be done so I better get started. 'Till the next stop!

Cheers,

Stephen

A Dude's Guide to A Wedding - Episode 1

Episode 1: 96 Days to Go

In 96 days time, me and my fiance will be getting married. Like most couples, we have been working hard towards our goal and our plan for quite a bit of time now. The last year leading up to the wedding day has been all about details. Unlike most couples though, we are on a long distance relationship (LDR). My fiances working in UAE and I'm based in the Philippines. So, as the guy left behind, I have been on top of things for our preparations and whether that's good or bad, we have yet to find out come our wedding day. But for my bride's sake (and mine too), I do hope everything pans out accordingly.

As a true bro, I know this experience of being hands-on over your wedding isn't really a guy-thing. We men are genetically engineered to be hunters, women, on the otherhand, are gatherers. They love anything that has to do with home-building, cooking, and being up to date with the latest news (aka gossip), and that goes back to prehistoric times, I believe. As hunters, our original disposition was to be out in the jungle and look for something to kill, and eat. As such, I believe men are both predisposed to a chance at instant greatness, or stupid death, yeah I have remembered you, Robert Baratheon. We dudes, go after what we want and do what we can for the hunt. How we do so is usually secondary as the details will just come about. Because what matters the most is we just get what we want - the hunt.

I understand that most dudes don't really pay alot of attention to the small details that make up for a wedding. Like me when all these talks of colors schemes, dates, food choices, venue, church, flowers, etc., have started, I was clueless like this poor guy -

Before my fiance left, I was always relying on her to make every little note on every small details. And trust me, there's a lot of it. Eventually though, specially since she went abroad a year before our wedding date, I had to up my ante and take care of business. This my friends, is a premiere on my first hand experience to our wedding day. See you next time!

Cheers,

Stephen

Googling my Blogger site

My first blog site.. ever!

Since my Blogger account is fairly new, I couldn't remember it's exact URL so I googled 'Stephen Cate Blog'. To my pleasant surprise, the result that came on top was indeed my blog. But not this one from Blogger, it's my throwback-blog that I have completely forgotten to have ever existed!

So, here's it is -

Link to my first blog

This first blog attempt was done in June of 2008. What the - 6 years ago?! Honestly, reading through the text doesn't make any sense to me now. Did I really write that? Haha a blast from the past!

But just like old photos of ourselves, when we were perhaps younger and less conscious about our self-image, getting a feel of the kind of ideas you had years back is a nostalgic experience. 6 years ago, I was a different person. I was always eager for attention and I wanted to insight peoples opinion because I wanted to expound on what I have to say, not really because I want to hear them out. But more of because I just had to let out what I have in mind. Well, maybe that simply is the spur of young age, a young man seeking his way through the thick forest of the new corporate landscape.

I like the title I gave that first ever blog though - 'A New Day'. Now, when ever I hear that phrase, I always get that thud bit of hope for a new beginning, a fresh start. Which ironically is quite the opposite to how I went with seeing a new day in that first blog - 

Everyday, I wake up with the delusion that life is celebrated by embracing things anew.

Now, I'd like to think that I've learned more about being truly hopeful and positive. I've come to agree that life is not all random and Now, I could at least say I've carried on a more mature tone. Less dramatic, less eccentric, and hopefully, less confused.