Lucky to be coming home again.

So it's Friday night, and I'm stuck here all alone in the condo instead of enjoying the Manila nightlife. Why oh why do I have to fall sick? Despite the inconvenience, I'm not exactly surprised since there hasn't been a time when I came back to Philippines that I did not fall sick. I blame excessively sanitised Singapore for the development of my weak immune system. Stupid alikabok (dust).KJ (Kill-joy) talaga. O well, I'll just stay home tonight, drink lots of calamansi juice and boiled ginger and water, stick to strict medication and thus hopefully fasttrack my road to recovery. I will not be beaten by a stupid flu/cold/cough/whatever it is!


Because of this, one of my things-to-do-before-i-turn-30 is to live here for a couple of years to train my immune system. Haha. Of course, that's not the only reason. I need to learn how to live here. I feel like an extremely pampered loser whenever I come here. I'm 20 and I still don't know how to commute in mind boggling MM (even puny Tacloban City)- and taxi does not count. And I'm still intimidated by the brashness and other attitudes of Filipinos I'm not regularly accustomed to. I am but a mere observer to the organized mess that is the norm for people here, and I watch, mostly from my semi-comfortable air conditioned taxi/hired car. It's a city(cities) whose ugly side I've been protected from most of my life, a culture I've been selectively immersed in. In a sense, I don't understand. I know bits and pieces, but I can't confidently say I understand. 

Straddling between realities, neither one feeling completely right. How do I reconcile this conflict in identity?