Leslie Maclang is the creator and host of the Busy Gallivanting Podcast.
Leslie was born and raised in New York City by two Filipino immigrants. Her story is one that many second-generation children can relate. How can I make my parents' sacrifices worth it?
Leslie's mother moved to the US in 1988 at 22 years old as nurse while her father joined her in 1991 after 3 years long distance.
Leslie's parents in the early 90's shortly after reuniting.
Leslie's mother worked as a night shift nurse in the Neurosurgical ICU in NYC so she could pick up Leslie from school during the day. At the same time, she went to NYU at night to receive a Master's and become a surgical Nurse Practitioner. In the meantime, Leslie's father eschewed his Civil Engineering background in the Philippines to work odd jobs, such as a KFC cook, a delivery driver across the 5 boroughs and New Jersey, and finally, managing to secure a position as a security job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Her mother is still a nurse while her father recently retired after 25 years of working 80 hour weeks at the Met to help support the family.
Leslie's childcare was often split between the break room at the ICU or roaming the halls of the Met on her own since they couldn't afford separate childcare. A sense of maturity, independence, and responsibility was impressed upon Leslie from an early age. There was never a doubt of her parents' love for her, but their time was not always available as they were working to provide for her.
Perhaps the most telling moment of Leslie's childhood was when she was 7 and caught a bad case of pneumonia that none of her doctors were able to diagnose for weeks, writing it off as a bad flu or cough. It wasn't until she crawled into her parents' bedroom in the middle of night in pain that they ran her to the ER and discovered at that point, her lung had collapsed. Leslie was awake as they put in an emergency chest tube and woke up the next day in the ICU. Her father still tells her that he would never forget the sound of her screaming. During her 3 weeks in the ICU, Leslie continued with her school work, asking her parents to pick up her homework and simultaneously self-taught the new school material while re-learning how to breathe again.
Leslie maintained her position at the top of her class and received an award for her academic success during a time of unusual circumstances.
This was the usual story throughout Leslie's educational story. She received high marks, awards, was accepted into a magnet high school for engineering, was valedictorian of her graduating class, and went to NYU double majoring in Chemistry and Economics with a minor in Urban Design & Architecture.
College was one of the highest and lowest points for Leslie— excelling in achieving her education goals while taking on involved extracurriculars. It came to a head in her junior and senior year where the multiple responsibilities weighed on her and a serious mental health decline and depressive episodes.
Nearly 10 years later, Leslie has come out of the other side of it but still struggles with feeling like she's not doing enough or hasn't accomplished enough. Through travel and the invaluable education it brings by experiencing other cultures and ways of thinking, Leslie makes a conscious effort to learn life's gentle lessons: everything is deserved, go slow, and don't feel guilty about it.
Leslie's 20's were a huge chapter of self-discovery, as they are for most people. It was recently after the release of the Busy Gallivanting Podcast that her mother recently told Leslie that she was proud of how successful she was. And that other family members called her isog, or brave in Bisaya (her mother's dialect).
So that's what Busy Gallivanting is about. It's a mixture of heart-to-hearts, ridiculous stories, and advice for anyone who's been where Leslie was and sometimes still is. It's all a journey but one thing Leslie's learned is that it will always be alright in the end.
