THOUGHTS FROM THE PAST
Was going through my archives while I was trying to prepare for my meeting in AZ tom. I came across something I wrote more than two years ago. On August 20'00. I've just been in OR for about two months then. Am feeling a sense of deja vu...

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I must have played backed Martin’s VCD 10 times already in the last hour or so. Ironically, listening to him croon “Kahit Isang Saglit” gave me comfort in my solitude. Watching him sing those 4 songs over and over again was far more appealing than any of the NBC network comedy shows. Not to mention I felt like I was out with the crowd in Hard Rock Makati, on my usual Friday/Saturday night gimik.

Here I am once more in the land of milk and honey. I have joined one of the biggest tech industries three years ago, and since then, I have traveled to the U.S. back and forth, on mid-term intra-company assignments. I was never one of those who had the American dream. In fact, I spent my youth marching the streets fighting the puppet governments who imposed oil price hikes, and who encouraged prostitution by selling our country in the guise of tourism. But times do change. I am now on the other side of the tracks through some ironic twist of fate. I try to avoid my former comrades fearing that the word hypocrisy is written on my face in bold red.

But I am really deviating from my own thoughts right now. As I sit here, choking on the smoke I exhaled a few seconds ago, I try to organize the multitude of words going through my head. Years ago, I’d be writing away in my journal, then have trouble reading my own writings afterwards. Thank goodness for Microsoft and computers! Haha.

So about that American dream… The first time I was here, I thought to myself, so this is what all the fuss is about. This is what all those people are lining up for through rain and sun, and even paying a hefty amount just to get someone line up for you in the wee hours of the morning. This is what people are shedding their dignity for – exchanging a life of mid-income comfort, for a life of double jobs in the blue-collar economy. Filipinos come here, shedding their own identity, just to be subject to racial discrimination, albeit subtle.

So, okay, life here is more comfortable. Better infrastructure, services, and goods. The toothy smiles from Wal-Mart salespeople are very addictive. You’d think that these people who just stand in front of the store to welcome you should have better things to do, but I admit they make you want to buy more. The U.S. is definitely a place that takes customer service seriously. Back home, if you dress down while shopping, the sales ladies would shrug you off without even thinking looks are not indicative of your buying power.

Here in dreamland, I get to live in a nice apartment, with more high-tech gadgets than the ones I have in my matchbox-sized apartment back home. But not everyone is as lucky as I am. Although most of my friends live comfortably here, some are also victims of downsizing or the crash of the dotcom myth. Our skin color is a liability. And though I work in a company where the culture is altogether different – much more tolerant, if not accepting of interracial differences, the real world is a tad different.

Yes, it is cleaner here. The grass somehow greener. And I like the way things are in this side of the world. But at the end of the day, I long for the sunny, warm country that I was born and raised in. I dream of better things, but I want to dream it in the place I call my home. I want to dream it FOR the place I call home.