User:Rbasa/sandbox

The smell of smoke and pollution in the air, the sounds of countless cars honking from the bumper-to-bumper traffic, and the sight of tindahans, small family-owned stores, lined up on my street. This is what I experienced on a daily basis living in Manila, a metropolitan city in the Philippines. When I compare these experiences to fast food restaurants on every corner, fast-paced work and school schedules, and extremely-developed cities, you would expect to place the Philippines and California on opposite sides of the spectrum. I always missed the Philippines as I was living in California, but as I found myself back in the Philippines, I would long for the missed opportunities I would have in California. Not only did moving back and forth across the country take my focus away from the present, but it warped my feelings of home altogether entirely. I was never satisfied with where I was and what I currently had, and those feelings of ungratefulness increased the weight of my guilt. These experiences, no matter how small, definitely shaped who I currently am: a Filipino-American student living in San Francisco.