FDIP Toastmaster Club -- Member's Corner -- Featured Speech of the Week

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Featured Speech of the Week
This site area is created to give special publicity to our member who was voted as the Speaker of the Day. It is published here to highlight the key strong points of the speech in which the speaker was able to meet speech's objectives.

Been There, Done That
Maridel Torres
Date presented: January 18, 2002

Good Morning, Fellow Toastmasters!

My full name is MARIA DELIA VELASCO TORRES, nicknamed MARIDEL. My mom, Delia, loves her name so much that she named me after her. I was born and raised in Batangas City. Presently, I am living with my mom, two younger brothers and two nephews. I am the third child from the brood of five.

My mom used to be a school teacher, but she got tired of getting up so early in the morning for the flag ceremonies and doing the lesson plans so she decided to shift career and now works with the Environmental Resources Office in Batangas. My father passed away five years ago due to a cardiac problem. Our eldest, Maria Teresa, my elder brother, Jose Antonio and younger brother, Winston are all married with beautiful children while my youngest brother, Earl and myself remain unattached and “available”.

As a child, I was a very active kid, always running around. I was not the type who would stay home and play with my dolls. Rather, I preferred outdoors and had gone into different sports. Dancing is also one thing I have loved to do since I was young. In fact, I have been a member of almost all the dance troupes during my school days, from grade school through college. Many of you may not be aware that I am a NURSE by profession. I took up that course due to my father’s insistent request. He was then working in the Middle East and thought it would be very practical for me to take it up because of the high demand for nurses.

After graduation in college, I went to Manila to attend review classes for my licensure examination. While waiting for the board exam results, my friends and I decided to look for some job and got hired as Nursing Assistant by a Chinese hospital in Manila. It was one hard work for a first timer that I only survived three days before I quit. But that bad start did not discourage me to work in a hospital and was lucky to be hired as a Staff Nurse at the De Los Santos Medical Center in Quezon City. There, I have enjoyed my work as a nurse not only because I loved my patients but also because I had the opportunity to meet celebrities like Robin Padilla, Dennis Roldan and others. Surely, I enjoyed that especially when they actually paid attention to my presence, if you know what I mean.

But I guess, I wasn’t really meant to be a Nurse for a long time. After almost a year, I met a friend who offered me a job in the pharmaceutical industry as a Medical Representative. Because of better pay, I grabbed the opportunity leaving behind my dear friends at the hospital. After months of training and having been assigned in Batangas, I had to quit again. Not that I did not love my work but the “personal” interest of my senior officer to me made it impossible for us to click as partners on the job.

From there, I have tried other opportunities as they come my way because I wanted to survive in the stiff world of professionals. I’ve worked with a ForEx company for one day, been a Message Handling Specialist with EasyCall for two months, and an Administrative Assistant with the Legal Dept. of Duty Free Philippines for six months. Then finally, My brother-in-law, who was then working as the Personnel Manager of Fluor Daniel Pacific, Inc. offered me a position for the STAR Project in Batangas. Given the opportunity to work with better pay and in my hometown, I gladly took the offer and that’s where my career with Fluor Daniel started.

Since I joined the company in 1996, I have been to every project of FDIP in Batangas. I have enjoyed the learning and the way I have grown since then. To me, Fluor Daniel is a second home, just like it is to most of my friends here. Like you probably feel once in a while, there were days I felt like I didn’t want to go to the office but always, “the merits outweighs the negatives”. Being here makes me feel at home because I have my friends here who are on the same age bracket, share the same interests as mine, enjoy the same things I do and most of them are Batangueños too.

I could not be happier with my career as I have been with Fluor Daniel because I believe that if you love and enjoy what you are doing, you will definitely succeed for when you have the right motivations, you will surely strive to be the best.

That, my friends, is my life story.

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