My only (and younger) brother (a.k.a. Kuya Monster, a.k.a "Gifted Child") will be arriving dawn tomorrow from his 2 years in Europe to earn a master's degree in Vision and Robotics via the Erasmus Mundus Programme. The lucky guy has been studying in 3 different university campuses is three different European countries (Edinburg in UK, Girona in Spain and Burgundy in France). He did the semester of research in Barcelona, Spain. He has spent his semestral breaks and free time road-tripping in Spain, watching a football game,  visiting Paris Disneyland, and resting for a while in Italy on the invitation of a classmate. He even saw the Pope pass by in the Popemobile while he was in Edinburg. 


The wonder of modern day communication is that, by just using Skype, it sort of felt like he was never away. I personally do not even feel like I missed him (although I'm sure our mother does). The female members of the family can just badger him regarding the length of his yet uncut hair, ask him if he has found a  European girlfriend already or inquire about any asthma attacks. He was usually just a private message away on YM when you wanted to schedule the video chats. Emails were exchanged back and forth when his passport was lost to a pickpocket and we had to settle his documents at our end and send it back to where he was. His pictures of the myriad of places he visited (albeit without any captions - he's always been a man of a few words...) are well within our reach via his Facebook account. There was even one or two times when we "met" one of his fellow scholars who was around while we talked over video chat.


This was a far cry from the time we only had long distance telephone calls or snail mail to count on with regards a loved-one who was at a distance for a time or permanently.


Welcome home, Kuya!


I wonder what other things you are planning with your life, from hereon now...