Brain Contour

Miss Earth USA

Read what she posted:
“I hardly made it to manila and we already attended a ridiculous tv show. So annoying!!! These people want to touch you and be with you all the time!! I can’t understand a word they say. I can’t wait to go back home. This country is so dirty and noisy. I’m scared to eat!!! What a mess. On a lighter note I don’t see any real competition. Will keep you updated my loves”

Thinking of home.

I have been in and out of the Philippines many times. Most of those times, the travels were short — like those few days in China and a week in Singapore. My more than two years of residency in the Netherlands had brought good memories worthy of treasuring, and a whole lot of curious town folks who could not help praising how my look had changed while abroad. Although there was nothing that I changed in myself, except for cutting my hair short, I was told by many that my living abroad made me looked “fairer” (whatever that means…).

A friendly competition between rival universities is common and healthy. Sports, for instance, foster and engage friendly competition and cheers between group groups. While each team may want to become the more popular and stronger squad, it is the boosting of comradeship and interactions that must come first.

Abby Duling on The Volante

Whatever that begins as a friendly competition must end as it is. Human as we are, we are all competitive in nature. However, we should not allow this human nature to fuel hate in us. Abby Duling, a columnist of The Volante, the student publication of The University of South Dakota, may not know what friendly competition is all about. In her column “Home of the Coyotes, not the bunnies“, she encouraged violence against specific innocent parties, in this case the students of USD who wear SDSU gears. The “incitement to violence” is clearly described by Ms. Duling’s statement, “All of the people walking around campus with SDSU gear need to be kidnapped, smuggled into the dome and then hurled onto the floor at halftime. Then all of their SDSU backpacks, binders, pencils and SDSU lanyards need to be thrown in after them.”

Franzine Cole Salas is my niece. We call her Zee. Everyone in the family knows Zee could sing when we saw her tapping the table while watching a variety show on TV. That was when she was still 2. She is now 6 years old and has been singing in school programs. My younger brother who has more exposure in this kind of talent development, suggested that we should enroll Zee to a voice lesson program this summer 2011. This is one way for her to develop self-confidence especially when performing in front of a crowd.

The last time we recorded a video of her singing was when she was 2 years old. Watch this video of her performing a Filipino song “Hindi ko kayang iwan ka” by Sheryn Regis. She could not read yet that time and had to follow what she was hearing.

The doctors said there was no hope for recovery because of too many complications. For three days in the ICU, daddy was fighting for his life under all the hoses connected to him. Manoy Wingwing, my older brother who watched him all day and night, had witnessed how daddy suffered in a very dire condition.

With teary eyes, each stare my father gave to Manoy felt like a plea to end his life. Unable to articulate his pain, he looked as if trying to beg to cut his life support so he could finally rest — right then. That was the time Manoy made a long distance call from Chung Hua Hospital in Cebu to South Dakota, US.

How would you describe a dear father you’ve just lost? One way: by counting the moments you had spent with him and wishing that there could be more. My father, Amado Salas, died of stroke on September 8th, 2010. He was 63.

Daddy never had a favorite child. All four of us siblings were treated fairly. While there were times I delighted at the thought of me being closest to my father, he did not show signs of leaning to my fascination. The only time dad finally gave in to his feelings and revealed a clue that my name occupied a portion of his mind, was when he called my two brothers by my name (in separate occasions, of course). These incidents happened when he was already under medication, after his second mild stroke.

CNN’s GPS host, Fareed Zakaria, is the only CNN host worth watching on TV. The rest, like Anderson Cooper and Larry King are a joke! Fareed Zakaria is the voice of wisdom and he is the only one who can dig beneath the surface. I love this guy and his show.

Watch the video below as he broke his silence over the BP oil spill.