Pretend

When I was young, I used to play “PRETEND”. I don’t know if that is the actual name of the game or if kids in other places play this game too. The game is easy and can be done either by groups, pairs or individually. The mechanics of the game is simple, choose a setting that you want, prepare materials to make the setting as realistic as possible and pretend as if you are in the actual setting. To make my point clear, I will give you an example.

Setting:

House ( local term would be , “Balay-Balay”)

Materials needed:

–Bed sheets: this will serve as your house’s walls

–Pillows: this will serve as pillows, carpets and whatnots for the kids

–Cans, Toys, Utensils and other trash that your parents will allow you to use: stuff like these will serve as furnishings and appliances in your make believe house.

Mechanics:

An older kid usually serves as the leader, that kid will be responsible in appointing the mother, the father and the kids. After the roles are made clear to everybody, the pretension begins as they re-enact the actual life of people living in a house where the mother gets to cook food, the father goes to work and the children goes to school. In cases where a lot of kids are present to play this game,   it becomes a whole community with several houses and families playing the game of pretension.

We used to play this game in my neighborhood. Setting of the game would be from simple houses, offices, superhero’s den and so on. In our world, we can be anyone that we wanted to be. I can be a teacher in a school setting, I can be a manager in the office setting, I can be Kimberly in the Power Rangers setting, I can be a driver in the train setting, I can even be the rape victim in a Police Station setting.

At school, they say anybody can be anyone that they want to be. And I believed in that, until now I still believe in that though I know that there are requirements and other necessities that needs to be done in order to be something or someone. What I mean is that, if one wants to be a lawyer, going to law school is a must. If want wants to be a welder, training is needed. Whether it is a blue collared job that you want or not, it is understood that several processes and some procedures needs to be done in order to be that someone that you want.

Life is not a simple game of pretend where after a few seconds I can be as rocket scientist or an engineer. (I’m poor in Math, these things can only happen in dreams and I know for a fact that even if I undergo a thorough process of becoming either one of them in real life, it simply is not possible)

My first dream is to become a teacher. Until now I still dream of becoming one though I don’t want to go through the process of being one. After wanting to become a teacher in my kindergarten days, I wanted to be a chemist when I reached grade 1. We were in our science class and my teacher said that a chemist is a person who invents medicines and the like. It was the early 90’s, Aids was very common at that time and I wanted to be the one to find a cure to it.

When I reached 3rd year high school, I gave up the idea of being a chemist as a simple chemical balancing makes my nose bleed on Chemistry classes. After high school, I made up my mind into becoming a lawyer but I got so jaded by the system, besides the fact that I don’t want to go back to school anymore.

I imagined myself to be this and that but I have never pictured myself working at home. I don’t know for how long am I going to be able to work on this kind of job but as of now I still enjoy what I do. Nothing can beat the fact that I earn in a currency that is much higher than the currency of the cost of living needed to get by.

I have experienced working in an actual office and I enjoyed every minute of it. I am a people person, I love talking to my office mates, I love meeting new people but I hate the low salary. Two years ago, when my friend introduced me to the joys of home based jobs, I immediately quit my job and sent my application to her client. Working at home is less expensive, less stressful, less time-consuming but very boring. Considering the fact that I am a very sociable person, working at home is a huge sacrifice on my part, a sacrifice that I am willing to make in exchange of money.

In times when boredom gets the better of me, I start to play my old game. As I mentioned earlier, this game can be played individually and I am very much used to playing this game on my own because when I was young, there were times when my mother would not let me out of the house. I used to pretend that I am a teacher and I would arrange all the monobloc chairs that we have as if in school. Sometimes I would pretend to work in an office where I would use my study table, put the typewriter on it and punch it like crazy as if I’m a secretary trying to send something important to the boss.

At the age of 24, I find myself playing the same old game, only now I have real equipments, only one I have a real job.