The last time I found myself crying inside a bus in the line of work was on a rainy night in the summer of 2004, when I was working as an intern for Seventeen magazine. I wasn’t doing it for school (I just wanted work experience), but I was coming home late every night, and struggling to maintain an honors standing in school. That summer was also the time I learned how to commute on my own, and having been brought up in a private subdivision and driven to school every day, the experience proved to be a huge culture shock that overwhelmed me at times.

Looking back, those were some of the most character-building times of my life, and proved to be more useful for my career than my college degree in journalism probably did (don’t get me wrong; I learned a lot from school, but the years I spent as an informal intern did a lot more in introducing me to the industry). I pulled out clothes from stores and styled shoots, checked pages, went to events, met people, and most importantly, got articles published on a regular basis. I wrote my first magazine cover story that year. Sure, I wasn’t getting paid for most of my first year in the industry, but I skipped the entry-level positions when I graduated from school and worked for a magazine back home. I enjoyed it, but after a few years, restlessness and disillusionment with fashion magazines set in, and I hied off to grad school.

This was me at 19. I did a fashion ed for YStyle which featured me as a journalism student from UP, back in ye olden days when I thought I wanted to model. I feel old now.

Now, I’m 27 years old and not as energetic as I was when I started working at 19, but certainly in the same position as I was in on that rainy evening seven years ago. I had spent several hours running around in the Bronx, was late for a meeting, and frustrated by my inability to produce stories for my reporting and writing class for the J-School. Then I realized that I had missed my stop, and the express bus was coasting down a dark highway. So right there, in the middle of a bus bathed in fluorescent light, I burst into tears.

I was still puffy-eyed when I arrived at the meeting, but the attendees graciously ignored my “allergies” while I took notes. In the middle of the discussion, my reporting and writing class professor emailed me her midterm evaluation, which turned out to be a lot better than I hoped. She called me out on spending too much time on certain stories and getting discouraged when they didn’t pan out (guilty as charged), and that I needed to discipline myself in writing news stories, but tucked in between the stern lectures were glimmers of praise and hope. At the end of the 700-word evaluation, she said: “Bianca has all the raw talent, and the desire to do this well.”

At that point, my pretend allergies were at a fever pitch, and I batted my eyes repeatedly to prevent the tears from falling and embarrassing me further. Never mind that at 27, with a few years of editorial work under my belt, I’m still considered a “raw talent” in this part of the world. That professor’s assessment of my skills was honest, a little brutal, encouraging, and at the end of the day, hopeful. She was rooting for me, and I never needed someone to believe in me so badly.

Absorbed in my thoughts on the train ride back home, I initially didn’t pay attention to the subway musician strumming on a guitar and singing in Spanish. It took a minute or two for me to realize he was a possible source for a story I wanted to work on; had I seen him three hours earlier, while I was drowning in self-pity, I might not have noticed him at all. But bolstered by hope, I went up to him, smiled, and introduced myself as a journalist.

My first day of work at Metro was on April 28, 2009. I had gotten back from a month-long vacation from the U.S. just the day before, and my instructors from the editor-in-chief back then were to “hit the ground running.” It’s been three years since that day, and I haven’t stopped running. The first issue I appeared in as part of the staff was for June, featuring a sultry-looking Bea Alonzo shot in black and white. I still think it’s one of the magazine’s best covers, and I’ve seen a lot (especially since I had to dig up two decades’ worth of Metro for the anniversary issue).

The next month marks my last one for Metro; the last issue I will be closing will be June as well, making it a solid three-year tenure with the magazine. It’s changed a lot, and so have I—hopefully, for the better in both cases. In the meantime, I will be focusing on my imminent leave, getting ready for grad school, and spending time with the people I love before I head off to New York. I still have to work on so many things, and time’s running out fast.

As I won’t be doing so much for our June issue, allow me to plug the one that’s out on stands now, primarily because I’m proud of the content. In the three years I’d been working for the title, Metro evolved from a general women’s lifestyle magazine into a hardcore fashion magazine. I admit I never really saw myself working for a high fashion magazine, but even if you’re not into glossies, the May issue is still an interesting read. It’s the product of a lot of hard work, days of shoots, and endless research (plus many bleary-eyed hours in front of the computer, and some drama on the side). I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed working on it as a whole.

“Whatever happens in this relationship, if it works out or it doesn’t, I should come out na buo pa rin ako. Na ako pa rin si Mariel. So I shouldn’t lose myself. Kasi sometimes when we are so in love, we tend to lose ourselves, ‘di ba?”

I read those lines from our October cover story before the Robin-Mariel Ibaloi marriage issue broke out, and before her wedding to Robin in India was confirmed. Before meeting Mariel, I wondered if she really knew what she was doing—she’s 26 years old, after all, and was getting involved with a 40-year-old ladies’ man. Some of her quotes reminded me of a high school girl, but they were usually tempered by the levelheaded sense of a woman who knew what she want and was determined to get it, despite opposition from all sides.

I’m not too sure about the marriage details myself (maybe I should start hanging out with the showbiz people in the ABS-CBN office more), but I’m somehow convinced that Mariel knew what she was getting herself into, even if she appears to be naive.

I’m turning 26 in a few weeks, and while I can’t say that I’ve ever been in the same situation she’s in, I think I understand her more now.  I’ve had a lot of people tell me what they think is best for me, and while I try to listen to feedback all the time, you sometimes really have to trust yourself enough to disregard advice and go for what you feel is right.

Of course, I’ve gotten into a few sticky situations that way, but you know what, I don’t regret much at the moment. Maybe that’s how Mariel feels—being in your mid-20s can make you feel invincible and vulnerable at the same time. It’s like stepping out of a ledge and learning to fly.

While shooting a situational photo for Metro a couple of months ago, Pepper the family dachshund came a-sniffing. She eventually realized that the food on the plate was merely a mishmash of spaghetti noodles, olives and uncooked tomato sauce and quickly lost interest.

I’m going to do a series of short, random snippets from work: photos, anecdotes, overheard stuff, etc. So many interesting things happen at work, and I’d like to share them!

As a lifestyle journalist, I’ve written all sorts of articles on a rather wide range of topics: food, technology, youth issues, fashion, beauty, etc. There were instances when I knew absolutely nothing about the topic I had to write about; one time, I hied off to Singapore to cover the first F1 night race, something that I had zero knowledge of or interest in. Of course, it didn’t sit well with my Alpha male friends, who would’ve gladly donned a wig, floaty pink dress and heels to be in my place (“You, covering the F1 race?” a friend moaned and buried his head in his hands. “There is no justice in this world.”)

Occasionally, I do get to write about stuff that I really am interested in (food, in particular) and the articles seem effortless because they were more fun to do. Today’s article on pole dancing was one of those; I interviewed CD and Mirell of GirlVSGirl, one of Manila’s pole dancing acts.

I started pole dancing back in 2008, for–surprise, surprise–an article I was working on for Metro (I’ve had to do many dubious things for the sake of an article). After one session, I knew I was hooked. It was a year and a half later than I found myself in a gold Bond girl costume, performing all sorts of tricks that I didn’t know I was capable of on a pole for a recital. I also didn’t know I had the confidence to show my bare midriff to the world (it took a few days without rice to muster up the courage to do it). I wrote another article about it last December for Metro’s body issue as a full-circle kind of thing. Here ya go!

* * * * *

“You—do—what?”

“Pole dancing,” I repeated to a friend, whose jaw had dropped to the floor. “I go pole dancing every week.”

“So I guess the journalism thing didn’t work out, eh?” he said, smirking.

“I do it for exercise, knucklehead. Apparently, it burns up to 400 calories a class, and you don’t look sweaty and gross while doing it—which is more than I can say for your regular basketball sessions.”

“What do you guys wear to your classes?” he asked, eyes widening.

“Hot pants, tank tops. High heels, if we want to,” I replied. “One time, we had a burlesque dancing workshop and people came in with feather boas and vintage hats. We actually have a mirror ball in the studio.”

“Um, d’you think I could sit in for the next class?”

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