My grandmothers are more than 80 years old. My grandfathers died in the early 90's and I regretfully wasn't able to know them too well. As years go by, they grow older and weaker, and at times, I wonder if I want to grow that old to do what they do.
On the Lozada side of things, my Lola's favorite hobby is looking for people's faults. She'd call you, scold you for being worthless as a kid for about 30 minutes, then abruptly puts the phone down. She also has a habit of making you hear all her self-pitying. She'd ask you to bet on the lottery, pull out her wallet, look for change, and say that that's the money she uses to buy her medicines, which she'd rather spend on a lotto ticket because "her kids don't give her money anyway, so might as well sustain her life by trying to win big money to buy her own medicine". It gets worse. It's almost funny sometimes that there was one time my aunt actually called her bluff and let her ride a cab on her own.
On the Coo side of things, my Amah has a convenient room that my uncle built for her: cable TV, a nice comfort room right beside it, and an altar for my grandfather. Yet she maintains that her kids "threw" her there like it was some kind of trash bin or something. Every single time that you see her, she'd cry as if she's been convicted of some crime and then let go by the authorities. She spends her time calling my mom or whoever she can call, and then she reports stuff that no one really cares about or shouldn't care about (i.e. what time I got to the office, house help sleeping while there's no one at home) or playing solitaire. I find it difficult to talk to my Amah about stuff. I barely understand her (she speaks broken Tagalog, as she's a pure Chinese), and sometimes she asks too many questions.
Then I realized, what else do I want them to do at their age? Honestly, some of their friends are probably not with us anymore, so they can't hang out with friends. They're too weak to walk for long hours, so shopping's out. They spend time calling us up, asking for stuff we'd rather not share because we're too busy doing work or something, or if it's our rest day, de-stressing and wouldn't want to be stressed out by their rants. I don't know whether to pity them or get irritated by their constant calls.
It got me thinking, do I really want to grow THAT old? Staying longer on this Earth than any of my friends, being too weak for my family to take me places, and becoming overly interested in minding other people's business.
Then again, back then, our grandparents didn't have all these gaming consoles that I enjoy now as a kid. I know these may probably go obsolete real fast (I remember the time when that handheld Sega console was the most advanced console I've ever come across), but really, would these consoles change so drastically in the future that I won't enjoy it by myself? Maybe, just maybe, I'd grow old to be a cool lolo my kids and grandkids won't have to worry about, and just leave home alone; I just need a kick-ass TV and a nice console, and play my "classic" sports games. =)
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Everyone's leaving for Singapore. It's the new land of opportunity for us Filipinos, less the distance of half a world. It's difficult to make it big here in the Philippines. But working abroad can help one save up faster than any Filipino working locally can.
My sister's already in Singapore, a close friend decided to try her luck, and a few others are planning, if not already booked, for their own exodus. It saddens me to know that they wouldn't be just a single text message away from me, but I understand that they're just grabbing an opportunity to build a better future for themselves.
As for me, it never crossed my mind. I took up Computers as a major elective in Don Bosco, but decided against pursuing related courses in college because I know that I must go abroad to earn money in that field. I decided to take up Philosophy, because I really wanted to pursue Law, to become a politician, and try to make the Philippines a better place, so that people wouldn't want to bolt out the first chance that they get. Then I became disenchanted with all the politics in the country. I figured, I have to work within the system to beat it. But in the process, I become something that I loathe. So I stopped studying after my undergraduate Philosophy degree.
Obviously, it was difficult to find good work with my major being shrugged off by HR people. I got into a call center job with a GY schedule, an online English tutor for Koreans, and landed a pseudo-marketing gig at a multinational company with the help of my uncle. For the longest time, though, it felt as if my life would be stuck in mediocrity (the marketing gig didn't end up with a permanent post, what with regional direction and stuff). I couldn't find work I'd like to do or would accept me for what I took up, until finally, I decided to suck up whatever hesitation I may have working for a relative, and accepted my uncle's offer to work as a sales executive for his company.
It's my second week on the job. They're still pacing me, before being directly thrown into the fire. I'm still excited. I want to do this. It sucks that it's a 6-day work week and at 8am to 5pm at that, but somehow, I want to succeed in this job so bad to prove to people that I can. That staying here was a good idea, that leaving the country and being away with family and friends is the only way to go and earn good money.
(I'll edit when I have time.=P)
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