Category Archives for Reflections
Living in The Land of The Free
Did he just ask that?
“Are you a terrorist?” Jeremy threw that question at me as I was about to part my jaws for a big sigh of relief for completing a stressful day at the office. Caught in an awkward situation, I answered, “NO” straight to his face.
Festival of Cultures
Mom really knew what she was talking about after all
Numbers and complex solutions fuel me. I crave mind-boggling formulas and mathematical theories. I go where Pythagoras, Des Cartes and Pascal abound. These are the reasons I love the engineering profession.
I never liked the teaching profession. When mom advised me to get a degree in education and be a teacher, I retorted in complete disagreement, “Send me to an engineering school, and I’d make you proud!”
In my country, pursuing a degree in education is the cheapest and the easiest in town. Borderline students or even those below the intellectually deficient category, most often than not, would go for the degree. Only a few would take up engineering or medical courses.
Quality education is vital to getting better opportunities and leading better lives
The efforts of the Department of Education in the Philippines are nothing but little in comparison to the major bottlenecks facing the nation’s education system today.
I share the same thoughts with those who desire that the education in my country be given much bigger priority with regards to government attention and annual budget. You would agree with me that everyone has the right to quality education. It is the sure key to breaking the cycle of poverty and providing every youth better opportunities and venues to lead better lives. The quality of life for the future Filipino generations depends on the augmentation of the knowledge and skills through good education.
Cottonwood coffee shop ‘the place to be’
I do not care about evidences of heartburn, anxiety, high blood pressure, hyperactivity and many others that caffeine, a type of drug or stimulant found in coffee beans, appears to be a causal factor. Let the medical experts and researchers keep themselves busy gathering compelling evidences of the side effects of drinking coffee, just let me have my daily dose of caffeine.
When I was still in the Philippines, there was one coffee shop that I spent most of my “coffee night” in. Bo’s coffee club was my source of a short mug of dark brewed coffee that went very well with my attempts in solving three crossword puzzles from three news dailies. Most of the time, I went home with the “across” and “down” filled to the last box. Coffee had something to do with my every crossword puzzle success.
Falling of the Leaves Reflect Challenges of Change
Brookings SD Lake Scene
She said “I love you” and hung up the phone. A little girl ran towards her asking “Is daddy at work?” She nodded and gave the child a tight hug – a profound love that very instant, I saw.
I was glancing at them, a photo-perfect mother-daughter pair under the shade of a pale green tree. Leaves were falling on them and sprinkling her every kiss attempt and the girl’s every giggle of anticipation.
Uncle Sam experience gives rise to apathy, change in perspective
Dreaming is my constant companion. It has caused countless unexpected things to come my way, including my being a US neophyte and appreciating the scores of stuff most of my countrymen love about Uncle Sam.
Traffic, for instance. Traffic jams are virtually unknown in this place. There are lanes for bicycles – even for pets! No officer on sidewalks watching undisciplined pedestrians cross where crossing is prohibited.
Brookings’ night has its share of owls
Friday blackness. That is how it is this very moment. Interstate 90 looks like one of those highways in horror movies where creatures drop dead from the skies and into your windshield. The absence of light that could have come from civilization along this area in Wisconsin makes it hard to know what lies out there at this time of the night. Corn fields, lakes or just deserted plains, I could not exactly tell. Where few lamp posts stand are billboards pointing to eateries and gas stations. A car or two crosses the way once every 10 minutes. Other than that, nothing disturbs the blackness that takes place in the expanse where light seems to be unheard-of. Not even the starless skies connecting to the horizon somewhere is able to muddle up the supremacy of the swallowing darkness. Blackness creates a way for the horizon and the skies to mate with soft oohs and ahhs minus the spying eyes of traveling creatures.
