introductions

I've been blogging for over five years now - first at Livejournal, then cross-posting to Multiply (for no good reason, really - everyone was on Multiply, so I suppose I jumped onto the bandwagon there.) Both blogs have been largely personal, containing rants and raves frivolous to all but myself, apprehensions, gloating over little victories, dreams. However this blog, I hope, will serve an entirely different purpose altogether.

I had known my family would be immigrating since 2004. Back then, I had just entered college, so I did what was expected - ignored it, kept it at the back of my mind. Three years later we received our approval, and yet even with the chaos of countless medical tests, miles of red tape and enough paperwork to get the environmentalists up in arms, the prospect of leaving for Canada was always just abstract at best. It sank in eventually, two weeks after graduation day, as a stewardess demonstrated the safety features of a plane that would whisk me away from Ninoy Aquino to Lester B. Pearson.

When I stepped out of the airport the first greeting Canada offered me was a blast of freezing cold air. At that moment, I had two things on my mind:

(1) At least my life would automatically become better now. Sadly, this is a typical Filipino mentality drilled into the minds of grade-schoolers: "the grass is always greener abroad." So I took solace in this, even though...
(2) ...there would surely be much loneliness and alienation. Nothing would ever seem like home.

As I type this entry it's been a year, a month, and 28 days. And I learned that statement (1) is hopelessly wrong. I've had colleagues with Masters' degrees in Molecular Biology, Anthropology, Chemistry - and we all worked in the warehouse of a WalMart, together. One of the taxi drivers I chatted with once was a Physics professor in his country. Licensed doctors are making your cappuccino. Former businessmen collect your coffee cups and discarded napkins as you leave your table. So when people say namimitas lang kami ng pera dito ("money just grows on trees here"), it isn't true, not by a long shot.

Luckily though, neither is the second statement. Ride any of the buses that ply the routes through the commercial areas during the 5pm rush hour, and you are bound to hear people chattering in Tagalog. Local supermarkets are stocked with bagoong, patis, and pouches of Mama Sita's instant offerings. You go to a friend's house for dinner and you come upon them watching Eat Bulaga! in the living room - it is 7pm on a Friday. And although I have yet to see carts with deep fryers full of fishballs, or boys on bikes peddling balut...just less than a week ago, I was able to spot a man sitting outside a (pirated) DVD stall, selling taho.

Life abroad is hard and it's these little things, little glimpses of home, that make it all easier. And maybe, in retrospect, that's part of the reason I started this blog - because moments like those don't last longer than a bus ride, a grocery trip, a pajama party, or a quick walk to the dentist. But here they are frozen, etched in ones and zeroes.