checkpoint 1: failure so far

Normally during this time, faced with such a cold reception in my fledgling part time career, I'm tempted to call it quits now (haha you can see the amount of perseverance in my veins).  But in the interest of furthering my 5 year plan (more about that in a new post), I will not surrender. And just to foster good habits, I've made a promise to churn out essays in this blog everyday. Every. Damn. Day. Even if I have nothing of substance to say (like today).

So just a quick update:

no takers so far for my online work :( really really beyond water level pathetic.


I am reading up though on SEO writing as this seems to be the in demand topic. And my sister has very nicely sent me a link to another site for some online work. 


My sick, clingy baby is crying out now. Gotta go!

discovering new talents: not exactly masterchef material

It's been almost a week and I haven't won any bid at all on my attempts at freelancing. I even got desperate enough to enter a contest on shoe design. Shoe design! (my fashion style doesn't exactly invite accolades).

So in the pursuit of expanding my choices of business ideas as a future WAHM (ehem), this week I have started to expand my culinary expertise. Hey, don't knock the carenderia idea down ok. It simply is location, location , location. I've seen the simple carenderias near USC Boys High in Cebu City become airconditioned eateries last time I went there. Pfft.(enter my daydream about owning restaurant one day, never mind that I'm not really a kitchen person).

So anyway, my first try was to do a pork embutido. I got it from my favorite site for Pinoy dishes: http://panlasangpinoy.com/2009/06/18/embutido/. Hubby and I bought this anodine fryer with steamer a year ago. The fryer, as you can imagine, has been abused extensively. This is the first time I will be using the steamer though. I'm never a good fan of following instructions, but as this is my first time, I followed the recipe to the letter. (if to the letter you mean without 3 important ingredients including the relish. haha).

I was able to make around 10 decent looking cylindrical rolls. The first five got into the steamer successfully. I even had it go for almost 2 hours just to make sure the meat is cooked (wouldn't want to die of salmonella).  I was feeling pumped up.  I even had time to put baby to sleep while the first batch got cooking (or steaming har har har). The first batch turned out fine and delicious. UNFORTUNATELY, the gas decided at just that moment to turn itself off. We were out of gas! In the middle of my steaming! Murphy's law nga naman.

(not my embutido but from the website link I gave below)

I found this site where you can oven bake the embutido. I was rather doubtful but faced with having meat that I can't cook rolling in my freezer overnight (the bacteria! shudder), I had no choice. So the rest of the embutido batches are baking as I distract myself from my cooking woes and write this blog entry.

*sigh. Hopefully they would turn out fine. I spent so much effort mincing those darn carrots and onions. Argh. The way my luck is going these days, they would probably burn.

UPDATE: my embutido is a success! at least the restaurant option isn't closing. And they liked the baked ones even better.

being an online freelancer

I suck at part time work.

You see, I am the type of person who goes through life according to the 'correct phase'. I don't skip stages, nor go back a phase (or two). For example, I went togradeschool, high school and college during my correct biological age (no hiccups along the way because after all, I walk the straight and narrow haha). Then after graduation, I found employment first before I had my first boyfriend (as I was supposed to). I promptly followed it up with a heartbreak, a job abroad etc etc.

The point is, I do one thing or experience one thing at a time. But I never multitask. Even when I was scraping by during college financially, I was too timid toenter part time jobs like teaching and tutoring or even becoming a fast foodstaff. I could have (and I really should have, on hindsight) but I didn't. 

Because I feared I would totally suck at it.

So now it is quite funny that at the ripe old age of 30, I am trying to do an online part time job.  And if my first try is any indication, I think this one is bound for a colossal fail.

I recently joined this freelance website where it offered jobs up for bidding.The jobs can range from some technical coding to tutoring online to being a desk assistant. I am not quite sure how reliable this site is but I have signed up for a few writing assignments (website content and research), basically tasks which I felt would fit in better with my schedule. And just for experience, I also signed up for the menial tasks like copy typing and data entry.

As expected, it was easier to secure jobs for the latter two. The first one I totally gave up on because I was to copy some words on a jpeg image and type it on word. Before I saw the image, I was like 'heck ya, I can do that!'. Once I saw a sample though, my brain just went into its own panic room and refused to come out. The image was a paper filled with single spaced paragraphs just bursting with words. I mean seriously, someone actually writes like that? Even an encyclopaedia seems less daunting. And I was given 3 such images to 'test my skill'. I retracted my bid.

The second one was data entry. I didn't really have any expectations at this point. But it was rather amusing to discover that the job involved typing captcha characters. And that I would be paid less than a dollar for 10000 captcha correctly inputted. Less than a friggin dollar! Wow.

I got discouraged from my experience so far. But maybe part time is like this.

And I still have a lot of other bids and hopefully they would work out fine. I will keep you guys updated. Ta-ta for now. Have to go back to my day job that actually pays me more than a dollar. :{

Not being Que Sera Sera anymore

I used to think I would be working in the corporate world until they can legally kick me out. Never mind that I've always been warned about being in the rat race, that Oprah always preaches the passion philosophy or that I attended an entrepreneurial-leaning management course in college. I felt (and still feel) that I don't have the "business genes" or enough money to run my own business. Or even be talented enough to sell something and run my own business. So I simply surrendered to a corporate (albeit not a high flying one) life.

First, I think it was History Channel, I saw this documentary regarding the founders of Tom & Jerry ice cream. These were two men who knew nothing about food or ice cream (at least it wasn't showing initially in their resume of many talents). These were just men who wanted to do a business about something and were going about systematically checking which was the most achievable one.

Second, this year I had my baby. And as much as I loved my work, I realized that there are ways to be able to earn and still own your time so I can spend it with the people most important to me. Plus with future plans of having another one, hubby and I prefer that at least one of us is at home watching the help watch over the kids. All those youtube videos give me the heebeejeebeez in leaving my baby at home with some paid stranger.  

This triggered my earnest search for a job, a business, anything where I could still pull in my financial weight but be at home.  This search (via google mostly. hahaha) led me to a vast network of like-minded women who by choice or by circumstance are WAHMs. And enjoying it too! Some of my friends have joined in as well with careers ranging from event management, to online BPOs and online stores.

Of course, I still like working now. And the change won't be overnight. But now I have a goal in mind. I'm playing with a few ideas (ok a lot of ideas, the machine gun theory that I have to hit a jackpot at some point!) which I will document in this blog in the hopes that it will help someone out there with the same dream that I have. (and please don't hesitate to give me ideas too. I am soooo open to them).

So now join me as I attempt to juggle family, work and online work(s). hahaha.