I can't say I'm not a little envious -- okay, a lot envious. Ten years ago, when I was still an active member of the Antipolo Midnight Society, which Abe, a few other friends and I founded for no reason other than to have an excuse to drink the nights away together, I was among those who were doing rather well financially. I mean, I wasn't rich but I had a car, I lived comfortably, and I owned shares in my dad's small, er, hospitality business. True, a lot of what I had came from my dad -- I couldn't have very well afforded to buy a car myself, not on my university researcher's salary -- but I didn't actually sponge off my old man; I rarely asked him for anything.
Now though, it's obvious that my friends have left me so far behind that I can't even eat their dust anymore. And largely it's my fault (though the government is to blame as well), having chosen the life of a starving teacher and artist. While many of my friends upped and left the country to work in places like Korea, Singapore, Dubai and the US, I opted to become a teacher instead. Which isn't exactly a decision I regret. For the first few years, I did enjoy teaching in UP, despite getting a measly 13,000 pesos a month (and it stayed that way for seven years!). I loved being able to conduct classes in the lagoon, surrounded by trees and a bunch of eager, upturned faces. I loved having to work only 3 hours a day for only 4 days a week. And, of course, I loved the feeling of being stuck in a time capsule, which is what teaching in a university felt like for me. It's as though I never got out of college, never aged a day beyond eighteen, and I could spend my life shuttling back and forth in my yellow Toyota between my small cubicle in the department and my favorite table at the CAL library.
And even when, eventually, I decided to leave UP to work in a call center, it wasn't money that drove me to do so but something else. I just tell people it's the money that made me do it because it's the easiest reason to understand.
Don't get me wrong. I dream about becoming a millionaire everyday. Daily my mind cranks out images of me in a black BMW, a hot dude in tow, and ordering one of my minions to put me and my ten closest friends on the first flight to Saint Croix, business class of course. But truth to tell, if I do become a millionaire, the first thing I would probably do is have a volleyball court built in our backyard, so my friends and I could play any time we wished to. Then I'll get that BMW and the hot dude.
Thinking about all of this now, I am inclined to believe that it is my unambitious, unadventurous nature that has made me stay where I am all these years -- same house, same country, and, despite my shift from the academe to call center, same line of work. For even as a UP teacher, I could have gone places, like my mentor and friend Neil Garcia who, after earning his Ph.D., found himself the recipient of so many international grants which not only took him to the US and the Netherlands, among other countries, but also left him with more dollars than the average Filipino will see in his lifetime.
But though I listened with awe to his sun-dazzled descriptions of Cambridge and UCLA, I didn't really feel the urge to join the qeue in front of the US embassy and beg for a visa. My thought was: if I went there, I'd end up missing playing volleyball in Ateneo too much.
But what do I know? Right now, I am happy enough to be able to eat in Jolibee and shop in Bench anytime I want to, but if by some stroke of luck I manage to wangle a ticket to Connecticut or L.A. or New York, I might, like many of my expat friends, never even want to return to the Philippines after my first snow, not even if I don't get a high-profile job that can pay for a new nose.
2 comments:
Obviously, i am so surprised to be part in one of your blog pieces, let alone be a subject matter. hmmm.. or rather just an intro. wahahhaha!
But i guess what you may want to know, and this i told Joseph, one of the AMS and my considered best friends, is that - i now live an independent life. As in to it's fullest and deepest definition. I envy everyone around me who have the support of a family. For example, you who have a dad who can give u a car, or ur family staying with you in the same compound. This i don't have. I mean, i have a mom, some tita's and tito's, loads of cousins, nephews and nieces. But they are just that. This is the part where I say that I miss my lola and lolo who raised me until i finished my secondary schooling. They were my support. My family.
Now they are long gone and here i am in Singapore alone. It's tough to live alone.
Probably I may have what you don't. But let's just say that God is always fair... We can't have everything.
Ang galeng hehe! Wagi ang answer mo, Ms. Puerto Rico hehe.
But lemme say what I wasn't able to say in the post, which is that I'm very proud of and happy for you. And even prouder that you haven't changed a single bit, despite everything you have now.
Thanks for being a friend all these years.
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