Angela’s Ashes is a difficult book to read just for fun, let alone for school!

I need to set a regular schedule of exercising. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be in shape.

I hear you about the exercising. I haven’t been to the gym in like a month, it’s been sporadic gym attendance for me lol The school stress definitely messed me up working out wise and I feel disgusting. At least there’s December and January to make up for my lack of attendance at the gym.

I think you’d like Haciendo caras. It’s an anthology, but not in the traditional sense. It’s a bunch of poems and essays and articles. It’s kind of refreshing, especially if you read traditional anthologies and wonder if there’s something more.

I think ethnocentrism is what you’re thinking of. We learned about that in class. Apparently, you can be ethnocentric, but not racist. I’m still confused when I think about it that way.

I do sometimes wish I had ties to the PI like FOBs do. Then it would give my loneliness a reason for existing. I do feel lonely because I have no other worldly ties than to America, and I feel wretched because of that. But why should I?

But from nine years old forward I’ve been here in the States and I consider this country my home. I don’t really consider myself a full “American” because I also experienced another culture other than American. Honestly I’m grateful for it. I embrace the value of you can be anything or achieve your dreams in this country. I like that in this country hope has a possibility. But I don’t like how a lot of people here can be very self-centered and just out for themselves. Patriotic is one thing, but patriotism to a point where you’re ignorant about your own foreign neighbors and don’t even want to bother learning about the outside because you’ve been spoon-fed the idea that USA is the best and everyone else that has an opinion is wrong and unimportant is something I can’t stand with a passion. Though I’ve been here for a while now, I still don’t feel accepted sometimes.

That being said, I didn’t really have a specific group I hung out with that were Filipino. I was part of a Filipino cultural group when I was younger and all the kids would always take part in the town’s annual Ethnic Day by performing traditional Filipino dances. I was never really close friends with any of them. Almost all of them were born here and even at a young age I felt that I was different from them because I was the FOB (even though Filipino schooling had taught me awesome English and my adaption to the English speaking world was easy).

My friends throughout elementary school and high school were a mix of cultures. I only had one Filipino guy friend and we were all in the same circle. I didn’t like associating myself with the ‘materialistic’ Fil-Ams because where I came from children weren’t like that. Being raised in the P.I. by relatives and then raised here by parents who still work their butts off, I don’t really take money for granted and I’m turned off by the spoiled kids and adults in America. People here don’t know third world except for what they see on television, and even with that, they could care less.

So, I have a love/hate relationship with this country. Some values of this country I love, and there are some Filipino values I love. I can understand and somewhat relate to some Asian-Americans(or any hard-working immigrants for that matter) who say they have struggled, because of personal and family experience. But I also get frustrated when some Filipino values conflict with values I’ve acquired from here.

Sorry so long-winded.