A nice way, I think, to introduce myself

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Day 01- A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself

Day 02- The meaning behind your Tumblr name

Day 03- A picture of you and your friends

Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn’t have

Day 05- A picture of somewhere you’ve been to

Day 06- Favorite super hero and why

Day 07- A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you

Day 08- Short term goals for this month and why

Day 09- Something you’re proud of in the past few days

Day 10- Songs you listen to when you are Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad

Day 11- Another picture of you and your friends

Day 12- How you found out about Tumblr and why you made one

Day 13- A letter to someone who has hurt you recently

Day 14- A picture of you and your family

Day 15- Put your iPod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play

Day 16- Another picture of yourself

Day 17- Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

Day 18- Plans/dreams/goals you have

Day 19- Nicknames you have; why do you have them

Day 20- Someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future

Day 21- A picture of something that makes you happy

Day 22- What makes you different from everyone else

Day 23- Something you crave for a lot

Day 24- A letter to someone who has caused you a great deal of pain

 Day 25- What I would find in your bag

Day 26- What you think about your friends

Day 27- Why are you doing this 30 day challenge

Day 28- A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?

Day 29- In this past month, what have you learned

Day 30- Who are you?

Feb. 1, 2011

A thought I’ve been drunk on lately.

On the top of my list of schools I want to get into, it’s the School of Visual Arts in New York City, which also happens to be the place of my birth. But to be honest, I didn’t stay long enough to remember it, so it’s not something I go bragging about (the two summers ago I visited it felt like my very first time being there).

The city lived up to its name, but it’s special to me knowing that it was my mom’s first home away from the only home she had known for the first 22 years of her life. Her story coming to America sounds like a lot of other stories I’ve heard from my Aunties, and of the mom’s of my Filipino friends, in that she received her bachelor’s degree in nursing, and gained passage to America at a time when the U.S. health care system was in demand for foreign trained professionals.

My portfolio has been taking up a lot of my time, which is why the idea of living in New York has been in my head a lot. But last night, I had the longest conversation at dinner with my mom about what her time was like.

I bombarded her with questions:

“Were you homesick? What was your first apartment like? What about the culture shock? Did anyone try to date you even though you were with Dad?”

I liked learning that her experience sounded a lot like my first time away from home. But I take it to heart that she left home to work, and mine was pretty much a vacation.

The majority of it sounded blissful: sharing a nice apartment in Manhattan with my Auntie Nen, paychecks spent on luxury goods and Broadway shows and still having enough ot send money home, the experience she gained in and outside of the workplace, going out dancing with friends, road trips along the East coast with friends, etc.

But I admire my mom more for the sacrifices she made: all her family being back at home, the 2-year separation from my dad (visited home 5 times during that period), dreams she pushed aside to pursue nursing. She said she would have stayed in the Philippines if it guaranteed a comfortable life for her and her family. But she knew where the better opportunities lay.

I don’t expect livng there to be the butterflies and rainbows of a Nora Ephron movie- learning the area, extra caution as a single girl living on her own, knowing basically no one there in the beginning, a super-budgeted lifestyle, a period of homesickness.

But if the Big City could be my starting point for my education and my career, it would make me happy knowing that, in some way, I’d be following in my mom’s footsteps.