[Bio] Apparently Marketable in Norway

I was aimlessly scrolling my Gmail account a couple of weeks ago when I noticed a suspicious notification from LinkedIn. I usually don’t check the LinkedIn emails because they are mostly spams and/or one of those seemingly AI-like posts that are quite absurd and rather stupid. But this one email really caught my attention. I read it, raised my eyebrow, and then immediately looked up whether it was a scam. And when it was clear that the message I received was not from a pretend-company and that the person who sent me the message through LinkedIn was a legitimate person, working for a legitimate company and representing their Norwegian subsidiary, I lost my mind.

It is not a stretch that I just stared at my laptop screen for quite some time, with my mouth agape and sometimes whispering, ‘What the f*ck’, to myself, totally disbelieving what I just read. I wanted to scream to the world and to tell everyone I know who would care to listen that my bachelor’s degree and my work experience are plausibly transferable in Norway. And even though the former was already recognized by HK-Dir as equivalent to a Norwegian bachelor’s degree, an ‘invite’ from an actual Norwegian employer from the mining sector ultimately sealed the deal for me.

And yep, this was big for me. I have been really insecure about my job prospects in Norway ever since I got married to my husband. I have no Master’s degree and I know how difficult it is to get a job in my sector without having one here in the West where everyone has one. In my head, I already accepted the fact that I needed that master’s degree to matter in the job market here. I was already imagining how I have to take on odd or non-related jobs, not that they’re menial or below me, in order to earn money here. That the absolute rule was Master’s first and then I can practice. But I actually forgot one thing. I seemingly disregarded the fact that I am not some new undergraduate that doesn’t have any experience in my field at all. I have some actual real life skills and practices that make me marketable here in Norway too.

I told my husband immediately and he was actually very much ecstatic about it. Being ‘headhunted’ in Norway felt like a fever dream and I told him over and over again that although this is actually ‘something’, we shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. It is not a done deal after all because I have to do the application and the interviews too. And so I opened the hiring page of the company and saw for the first time the qualifications for the job. I immediately panicked.

The thing is, I absolutely can do the job with a workable learning curve. Everything is transferable if you already have prior experience with something. But then there was the required amount of experience. And then I saw the Norwegian proficiency that they require. On top of that, they need someone with a valid driver’s license. I also have a personal but temporary caveat that I have to disclose to the employers first and foremost. It was one after another and it really made me doubt myself if I even had to bother submitting my application for this position.

I did the crazy thing and messaged the recruiter to ask if she was sure I am actually qualified for the position and if I should really apply. She messaged that I should and that she was excited to go through my application once submitted. And so, I painstakingly curated a CV and application letter for this position and sent them.

It has been two weeks since the day I received that email that led me to that message on LinkedIn. A lot of things have already transpired since then. Aside from the two screening interviews that I did with the recruiter, I also got one informal call with the ‘chief’. That latter call woke me up from my slumber and was an introductory welcome to how recruitment is done here in Norway (and apparently in some parts of the EU as per one of my friends). I found out more about the job, the current situation in the location, the pay and all the perks that come with it.

The opportunity on its own is very exciting. It’s one of those ‘critical’ projects that a young professional aspires to partake in because they can gain a lot of experience from it that will probably set them up for life. The location is very exciting and I am always down to move places and explore more while I don’t have children yet. Aside from all that, I have been thinking how nice it would be to earn more than what my husband is making. This is not going to be an easy feat in the long run because he’s a psychologist here in Norway who is already working on his specialization. At the moment, he’s already earning more than the average annual salary here.

But yeah, nothing is set in stone yet. It feels like a Schrödinger's cat moment for me to be honest. I am always finding myself imagining two lives simultaneously: one with me staying in Bergen and going through my original plans for myself and the other one where my husband and I uproot our lives and start a whole new adventure somewhere else. Both seem to be net neutral and only time would tell what the outcomes are.

[Geology] Mock Board Exam - Petrology and Mineralogy Part 2

Note: Hi, guys! Publishing practice questionaires WITH NO ANSWER KEYS at the moment. Hopefully, this would be beneficial for all the takers of the Geologist Licensure Exam this year. Good luck and share it as much as you want. Regards!

[Stoic Meditation] One Day It Will All Make Sense

I often find myself doing this: questioning all the things that has happened around me. There are times that I've grown bitter about situations because I just couldn't understand it at the time. I could give a lot of examples but there is probably nothing that can beat what happened to my professional life back home in the Philippines.

I thought I was an okay student of Geology. It is so funny because until now, from time to time, I often rerun the comments of my peers and professors in my head; deliciously savoring every word of it. I guess it is for my vanity as well, fine, but the real truth of the matter is that I am just trying to placate my low perception of myself. I am often scared that I am not good enough. I need reassurance that I will make it, that I will have a good paying job that will be able to send me to post grad studies. I wasn't even aiming for something grand. It was just the minimum per se.

But it came to naught. I got my first job before my board exam. It was from the company which gave me the scholarship to begin with so I was already expecting a lower salary. That's just how it is back home if you're hired by the sponsoring company for some reason. I got just above minimum wage around that time. I told myself that it's okay since I don't have my license to practice geology yet. It might change afterwards. And so I passed the board exam in just one take.

Nothing happened. My colleague, who was also a scholar but didn't passed the board exam, was still earning as much as I am. I am doing more technical work than him but the pay was just the same. It kinda got icky for me in the company. Aside from this "semi-resentment" (because c'mon, I think it wasn't full blown), he's also some kind of a yes-man and a person who you can just like tell things but nothing will happen. I find him pliable while I was too headstrong for the management. Anyway, I resigned only after a year of working in there because of countless reasons. There was the fact that they refused to regularized me (aside from the no increase in wage after getting my license) and that I was having problems with the consultancy company that they hire. My values also don't align with them. They call me ideal when I am just trying to be an actually "good and upright". This company has been in the industry for so long that their way, whether good, to be frowned at or just illegal in some ways, should be the only way.

I worked for the government afterwards. This experience put me under a lot of stress and anxiety due to the fact that there is no job security. I do earn a lot but I don't have any benefits. The Philippine Government is the number one rule-breaker of Labor Law, in my opinion. It took me two years to break away though because the pay was higher than the Geologist jobs being posted about. I remember Eagle Cement offered me a 6-day work week which only pays Php 17.000 in 2018. I was already a licensed Geologist back then WITH EXPERIENCE.

I was truly becoming disenchanted with my degree. I don't know a lot of people that can get me a job in my field. I have no relatives with high positions that can bump elbows with another higher up to secure for me even an interview. I don't have any padrino that can recommend me even to the most menial of jobs in my field that I can think of. So, I decided that if I can't be a fully-pledged mining geologist, I can just be an environmental geologist or something close to that. I care for the environment and I want to use what I learn to make a difference.

I got a job in the renewables. It was fun and promising at first and although the pay wasn't good (but there was a promise of raises and bonuses), the vision and mission of the company aligned with my principles. Until it wasn't. It was just a running political scam heavily veiled by environmental wokeness. 

This was all happening during the pandemic. I was in a state of panic due to the job insecurity. I felt hopeless for the future and my dreams of getting a master's degree. I didn't even know how I was able to do all of the things I did then to get where I am today. The series of misfortunes I have experienced is truly just a prelude to a promising future. I am not completely there yet I am continually working on it. The pieces are falling slowly into place and although I don't know the "bigger plan" or the "universal reason" at the moment, I will just continue to work on myself now knowing that one day, it will all make sense.