6/05/2004: Something I wrote...

...while I was en route to the US:

What was I thinking, to bring myself into this strange place, all on my own and for so very long? Why leave behind the comfort and familiarity of family and friends? Observing the American flight attendants, I was trying to look for any warmth, a sign of welcome, but there was none. Somehow I was looking for something to ease my anxiety. I needed to know things will be well on this one year US assignment. Genuine smiles would have been nice but they aren’t to be found today.

Looking out my window, I see rocky jagged mountains capped in cold unfriendly snow. It reminds me what this is I bring myself into. Who will survive such frigid conditions – more so if that would extend to the kind of reception you will receive in a strange land?

Then I realize how truly great a sacrifice it is for many Filipinos to uproot themselves from the Philippines and establish new roots in this land of the free. New land, new home, new faces, unfamiliar faces, foreign culture, all by yourself, away from the place you’ve called home since your birth. If someone such as me can think this fearful thoughts on a relatively short stay in the US, what more they who have chosen to make this their home and had bought no return tickets back?