Update: Guess who came back home from Canada to the Philippines and it's for good already?

Hello everyone

It has been years since I updated this blog and the funny thing is that it was when I was still relatively new to Canada and now I'm back home here in the Philippines.

A lot of things happened throughout the years that I wasn’t able to update this blog, whether it was good or bad. I encountered a lot of new people that became a part of my life in Canada and now they might just become a story I tell to people as we don’t live in the same country anymore. Looking back at my old blog posts, you can see that I had lots of frustration in that part of my life but fortunately, I also had a good moment here and there that shaped the way I think of the country. 

I was able to gain quite a few friends from my work place and it still didn’t compare to the way that I had with the people I had relationships with here in the Philippines but I was still grateful for that. I had troubles with gaining friendships that I feel comfortable that struggle is not relative to the country, it is just my personality in general. 

When it comes to my relatives, I had a falling out with my cousins in Edmonton and I know for a fact that it is my fault. I’m guilty of this since we didn’t really have a huge fight and it was just me being fed up with how they are treating everyone and the uncomfortable feeling that I have every time they invite me anywhere with them. I know I didn’t grow up in Canada and I'm not as fluent as them when it comes to the language, but I could say that I did have a huge improvement throughout the years. I can’t be myself when I’m with them is one of the reasons why I can’t be comfortable and I don’t put myself into situations that I don’t feel comfortable with. In the end, I didn’t even say goodbye to them and some of my family members/relatives that I am close with asked why I did that. I felt a bit guilty but stood up to myself and reasoned out that I didn’t have to do that if I felt uncomfortable. I am setting up boundaries within myself knowing what I want and I don’t want to do, even if it might offend some people. I said goodbyes to the people I know that mattered and I was satisfied in the end as I know those people helped my life in some way when I was still living in Edmonton.

I was able to update my journal yesterday as I felt a bit sad seeing my close cousins gathered up together and hanging out. I thought to myself, I kinda miss that feeling since they’re not here and I spent a lot of time being with them and having fun. I am grateful that I had the chance to be with them in my last years in Canada and can’t help myself to miss that. They called me yesterday saying that they miss me and I appreciated that. My mom is always asking me if I am sad because I wasn’t able to stay in Canada and I told her I was not and I'm happy that I am back here in the Philippines. I wasn’t lying about that since I'm really happy that I am back with my family and I'm especially able to spend a lot of time with my brother knowing that he has kidney disease. There’s a lot of things that I missed in this country and I'm always trying my best to appreciate those as I was gone for a long time. It was nice that I didn't struggle to interact with people because of the language. 

I still have things that I struggle with because I came back here and it is mostly on the career aspects. I’m grateful for the experiences I gathered in Canada, especially with my English speaking skills as I was able to utilize it in my job interviews here in the Philippines. I can say that I'm doing better than I can ever imagine before going back here since there was a lot of doubt and worry on my mind because I don’t know what will happen once I am here. I am starting out on JPMorgan Chase this August 20 and the job pays well compared to the other companies I applied to before. I was able to enroll back to FEU to finish my degree, even if there’s still worry that I might drop out because of scheduling issues. My little plan before going back home is manifesting itself and there might be some changes but I still expect those. 

This update might be all over the place but I wanted to update this as I will try to continue doing it in the next months/years.

Here’s to a new era of Roiji exploring his life back in the Philippines again, back in the motherland :)