goodbye, philippines!

let's see... on april of 2006, four of my cousins and an aunt left the country to permanently settle in canada. during summer of the following year, another two cousins joined their wives who are working abroad, one in london, the other in the united states. this year, there is a good chance that manoy gang-gang's family will, too, be leaving for canada in search for a greener pasture, what with the two kids fastly growing up and the money still slowly coming in. yongyong and tess are hurriedly working on their papers for canada(yes, again!) and new zealand. hopefully, depending on whose embassy approves them first, they would like to get out of here before the baby comes out. newly weds rocel and jericho are, at this very moment, boarding a plane to manila for their interview at the canadian embassy. (promise, himuon jud na nila ang canada ug urgello!) the adverb lastly would have been appropriate, but since this is definitely not the last, i'll write next instead. therefore next, nang maris just sent me a text message asking how to get an nso-certified birth certificate. the british embassy needs it, she says. so roughly, that's fifteen people out in only two years, should everything goes well.

i know my mother secretly pins for me to follow suit and, eventually, be some other nation's citizen. but this is going to be the one request i can't indulge her. i am going to keep the word i gave to myself, despite spending each day finding all the reasons to justify doing otherwise. i will leave this country for either of these three reasons alone: i finally have some extra money to spare for a grand vacation OR i'm working on a master's degree OR i'm officially on a business trip. nothing else. so please remember that the moment you find me enjoying some show on broadway, sipping hot latte in a street cafe in france, sporting a really short school girl anime costume in tokyo, dating sheikhs in saudi arabia, or even chasing kangaroos in australia. but should the united states' cia decide to include me in their roster of agents, give me the identity of princess kitty lovelock, and send me to monte carlo on an all-important spy mission with only a gold bikini in my suitcase, i might just reconsider.