I am not trying to prove anything. I am trying to survive the long middle of migration and am curious about what emerges from it.
Experiments from the long middle of migration — what happens to newcomers in Canada after the welcome stage, when life is uncertain, bodies are tired, and identity is still shifting.
If I had to put it into one question, it would be:
What grows in the middle of things?
This site is where I’m finding out, slowly, from inside of transition; the in-between.
What I’m trying to understand
Hi, I’m Maan Gail Manigsaca (mah-ahn 🇵🇭).
I spent ten years running a gym in the Philippines. In 2021, I arrived in Canada as an international student. Now I am in Kingston, Ontario. I am a temporary resident. I clean for work. I am a mother. My husband is still back home.
Somewhere in those four years, I started to find words for what I was living. Stage 2. The Neutral Zone. The in-between. The messy middle. The part where there is no map.
I did not find it in any settlement service. I found it in research — most directly in William Bridges' work Transitions, where he names Stage 2 as the hardest, most disorienting part of any major transition. Bridges helped me find the language. I started translating what he and other researchers said into language that an exhausted, confused person can actually use.
That is what I am doing here.
This page is where I keep what I have gathered so far. The gatherings, the writing, the field guide, and the experiments, I still do not have names for.
Who am I inside this
Current experiments
Kingston NetworkBuddy (KNB)
A gathering space led by peers, for newcomers who are still in the long middle. It’s a place to find connection and support while figuring out what comes after arrival in Kingston. It is imperfect. It is real.
Newcomer Transition Briefing (NTB)
A free, 10-part field guide and Evidence Wall for what happens after the counting stops. I wanted to gather what I wish I’d known, written by a peer and grounded in research, for anyone trying to find their way through the uncertain middle.
Exhausted Bodies (EB)
Notes, diagrams, and a newsletter about what happens to bodies and attention under chronic stress and manual work. I am trying to understand what this kind of exhaustion does, and what might help us feel a little better.
Writings in the middle
Sometimes the experiments start as sentences. These essays and newsletters are where I think out loud about precarity, communitas, and the labour nobody counts.
A few moments from Kingston rooms, hallways, and sidewalks where this work lives.
In and with community
During the launch of my Newcomer Transition Briefing PDF series, you’ll receive a weekly email with the next issue. After the series is finished, I’ll email occasionally with Kingston NetworkBuddy updates, companion notes, and major releases.
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