Here
She Comes...
Marixie
She
has just started her life as a graduate student at the
School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia
University. But Marixie Mercado has already turned into a seasoned
New Yorker
as if she has lived here for decades. As other New Yorkers do, she curses
how frustrated she is with
time management. She is dealing with a mountain of school assignments
and is hustling with tons of errands. In addition, she is as tough
as a lady on the subway
who abuses a coward
who stepped on her toe.
"See, I have 50
million things to do besides answering your question," keeping her
black eyes on the
computer monitor as she spoke. 
It
was bad decision to try to have an interview
with the former news reporter
as she was surfing the Internet.
"What do you wanna know about my family?" Casting a frown,
she reluctantly gave her background
information. She was still surfing the net.
Mercado was born in Manila,
Philippines in
1970. When
she was 4, she left her country for Thailand
due to her father’s job. Her father’s work for the United
Nations took Mercado to Italy in
1994.
She has one sister
and three brothers. Mercado is the youngest. Her sister is in
San Francisco and her
other three brothers are all living
abroad such as Vietnam. She has just
visited San Francisco over the weekend. Now, her parents are back
in Philippines.
Since 1995,
she worked as a news reporter for Gannett.
Covering general assignments in Yonkers, NY for two years, she moved to
Paris as a reporter for the Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
"I don’t know my career goals yet," she said. "And I don’t
know if I’m going back to be a reporter or not. Maybe
not."
"Give me
a call if you have further questions,"
smoothing her black hair, she said. Her eyes were still stuck to the computer
monitor. And the poor interviewer was left alone.
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