Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous

The life of a diplomat's daughter is vastly different from the life of a post-college grad.  This picture, for instance: No, this is not our house. This is the pool cabana next to the house. The Christmas-colored stars (here, parols) hanging from the deck? Decorations for the Christmas party we are hosting at the house tonight for my Dad's staff. A stylist is coming to my house to do my hair before the party. The meal is being catered. 

I am not feeling culture shock as much as socio-economic status shock.  I feel like I have been sucked into someone else's life, or a made-for-tv movie. I can see it now: "The Diplomat's Daughter - the Disney Channel classic about a Filipina-American girl coming home." Actually, they made this movie already. It's called the Princess Diaries. The only thing missing is the cute love interest who is wealthy and handsome AND charming (and are these three qualities really a possible combination?).

I wish I could get out of the house more. I really haven't done any exploring because we only have one car and it has be be available to pick up my brother from school for lunch. Bumper to bumper traffic here is a fact of life (just throw into that image some mopeds whizzing between the lanes and barefooted children standing in the middle of the road peddling newspapers), which means it takes a long time to get anywhere. Which isn't a big deal - a fact of life is a fact of life, but having to be back near the house by midday doesn't live much of a window to do things (I've been to a mall and a grocery store). After the holidays, my relatives are planning to take me to the countryside and to the beach, but that's still a few weeks away. There IS public transportation, but I don't as yet have the confidence to figure out how to use it. The whole language barrier thing is really intimidating me, and worsed by the fact that people assume I DO speak the langage, given how I look (aka, like I'm Filipina)

Maybe here is a good place to discuss terminology. The country: The Philippines. The people: if you're male, Filipino. Female, Filipina. Ok, glad we took care of that. I could see confusion in your eyes, dear readers (Yes, this IS the internet. I AM in fact, that omniscent). No, I do not know the linguistic-historical background for this spelling change.

While it hasn't (YET) been an adventure-filled time, I'm not having a bad time. Hanging around the house all day is a good excuse to work on my grad school applications. And to quote my mom "I've mastered the art of doing nothing." I was worried about the heat, especially coming from Alaska, but it really has been quite pleasant. Its actually cool in the mornings and evenings, and if the sun starts to beat down too hard at midday, there's always the pool.

Plus, I have a really adorable baby cousin. Technically, my cousin's baby. But the details aren't important. I have no clue why this picture isn't clickable for a larger view. Sorry about that.