Thank You

Since I got back from a 2-week vacation, I’ve been thinking about being not appreciated by some of my classmates in high school. A thank-you note (or a text message or phone call) would have been sufficed. Only a handful of them will make an effort to send you a thank-you note. No, there’s only one who sent me a thank-you note.

A thank-you note encourages a person to feel that he/she is being appreciated.

At work you find your boss or subordinates giving you a tap on your back or saying thank you for a job well done. I don’t want to sound whiny about this but everyone deserves to be thanked. Nothing is big or small when you send a thank-you note to a person.

I didn’t join my classmates to their out-of-town in Nakar, Quezon because of my conflict schedule so I offered to prepare and cook one of my specialties, paella valenciana, for them to bring to their overnight outing. I wanted to be special for them so I spent days looking for the right ingredients. Practically scouring the whole Metro Manila, I went to Pure Gold, Walter Mart, Shopwise and even Farmers Market and Q-Mart only to look for those ingredients I needed for my paella. And that effort was not even appreciated.

I felt bad about myself when I didn’t get any feedback from them.

I believe there’s always a room for improvement if any so I could use constructive criticisms from them.

Except for one person whom I really consider her a great friend did thank me. The rest of them, who dey?

One of my high school classmates, now lives in Canada, has suggested that I should be used to it by now. But I don’t understand that because in our culture we always say “po” and “opo” to express our respect and appreciation. Why a thank-you note is not part of it? Am I missing something? Have I lived in the U.S. long enough that I’m no longer aware of my own culture? Don’t think so.