The Green-Eyed Monster Strikes!
I just saw an old batchmate of mine in High School while I was browsing through National Bookstore. We got to talking, and apparently, she just came back from studying in a culinary school in Australia after college. She’s been here in the Philippines since September and is on vacation. All the while I was talking to her I was thinking, some girls have all the luck! Her parents can afford to send her to Australia, while mine are barely scrimping to send my siblings to school.
Studying in a prestigious exclusive girls school such as ICA, you get to rub shoulders with the daughters of the elite Chinese living here in the Philippines. People who live in really, really big houses in upscale villages, whose idea of school breaks usually meant traveling to another country. Most batchmates of mine with rich parents don’t even have to worry about money.
For instance, I have a Chinese friend whom I would like to say, lives in a bubble. She’s a very sweet person, very sheltered, and I doubt has experienced any sort of life’s hardships at all. Last year, she got married to her long-time boyfriend. Good thing he was Chinese, or she’d probably be disowned. (Oh yeah, here in the Philippines, especially with conservative Chinese families, you’re forbidden to marry anyone who’s not Chinese) Her parents shouldered the expenses for their condo & furniture, I think, while the guy’s parents paid for the wedding & all. I also know someone who got married a year ago, also Chinese who studied in Xavier School (the prestigious exclusive boys school across from ours), and his parents bought him a house!
Well, as for me, if I want to buy a new house or even get married in the future, my folks certainly aren’t gonna pay for my wedding or even buy me a condo… We don’t have any money! So I have to make my own way, and pay my own way. According to John Maxwell’s Failing Forward, success does not come from having a good family background, because apparently, a lot of successful people came from broken homes. Well now! I guess this means that I’m more than qualified for this!
