< hmmm... >

   "The grass is always greener on the other side," so they say.  Of all the many things I know about all sorts of grass, there's always a different view from where you stand.

   Somehow, I still have the distinct advantage of having to talk to my mother on a face-to-face basis every day.  At least it works that way for me: an interaction mediated by air.  I take it for granted, perhaps even take it as an annoyance, that I can talk to my mom whenever I feel like it.  But for others, it's different: for the kid beside me, it's having to talk to her Mommy through a headset connected to an electronic contraption that is the computer.

   Since I do all of my writing in Internet cafés, I am always privy to the many people who interact through webcams, most of them the families of OFW's.  I don't have to take the commercial to the extreme, to celebrate Christmas through multiparty teleconferencing in Yahoo! Messenger.  There are things that I don't have an empathy for, but I do sympathize.  I don't know what it's like to talk to my mother online, but maybe there's a certain pain I will feel.

   Call me a lesser form of a nationalist, but like everyone else, I believe my future lies in a passport and a visa that takes me to another nation.  I'm talking about financial futures: a future that would line my pocket with enough money to get me through a 15-day salary cycle without worry.  It's a future that I measure in how many of my nephews and nieces will receive chocolate bars from me on Christmas morning, and wads of foreign currency I could give to my parents as a gift.  Much as I hate to admit it, this is the yardstick by which society will measure me.

   Poor kid beside me.  I will never know... until a few more months when I finish off the requirements for passports.