This Lady Can Cut You Up

She is one very remarkable lady!

She can sew you a garment, keep your house spic and span, fix your computer, input countless data on your files, create financial reports for your business, take dictation from you and transcribe it, sweet talk your clients, supervise your workers, stick a needle in your arm, and slice you up with a scalpel!

Still spunky and beautiful at age 32, with laughing eyes and a winning smile, Nikki Dejolde Balibay Tolentino has a string of skills that anybody would envy, and her list of accomplishments could make any person feel inadequate.

She graduated a Bachelor of Science in Accountancy, worked for more than two years as an internet café Supervisor and acting Manager, even finding time to interpose an eight-month stint as chat or non-voice Call Center Agent and another eight months as a Data Encoder / Accounting Clerk in their Provincial Agrarian Reform Office during an interim in the same period. Coming to Cebu, she was Sales Executive for a marketing company for almost a year, then a Production Assistant in an information technology manufacturing firm.

Going back to Butuan City, she became Laboratory Front Desk / Secretary / Pathologist’s Assistant for a big hospital. She then worked in a similar facility overseas in Singapore, and in her desire to avail of working opportunities while overseas, took up a Caregiver course supplemented by vocational training in Garment Trades and Dressmaking.

It was, however, her work as a Pathologist’s Assistant that she found most exciting and interesting, where she would cut human tissues from various organs like the skin, eyes, kidneys, liver, colon, appendixes, ovaries, uterus, etc. and process them for biopsies. She also did pap smears from ob-gyne slides, and documenting all the results, and encoding or transcribing dictations by the Pathologist.

Nikki’s ever vibrant personality and high-spirited attitude belie the life struggles she had gone through. She never knew her biological father, and when she found out she was the adopted one in the family, opted to support herself through college, and strived to finish it, even when she had kids and considered herself a single parent.

She plans to stay for good in Cebu, where she lives with her three children in a small but cozy hut, in a spacious lot given by her fully-supportive mother-in-law, and within shouting distance from her estranged husband of ten years. He has been more interested in his personal extramarital escapades than the welfare of his own family, for which reason he has lost material possessions and has caused his disavowal from their congregation.

It is apparent that a strong spiritual conviction provides Nikki with the ability and mastery to cope up with all the trials and tribulations she encounters. Such an extraordinary woman with an absolute positive faith in the Almighty will beyond doubt succeed in all her endeavors - energetic, lively, and vivacious.