Category Archives for People
Poverty and corruption will not change national pride
I write about national issues and also about touching lives. This is about two of my Filipino friends, Sharon and Mimi.
The oil-rich Saudi Arabia became Sharon’s home right after her college graduation. As an entertainer in a foreign land, money fills her purse with no trouble at all when she belts out her songs like no other could. Today, she is as rich as the country she is working in.
Mimi’s talent has brought her to a far away place. I knew it the first time I saw her twist her waist gracefully in a local dance competition. Precisely so, she boogied herself to Japan. For money and family, she dances with pride.
Youth may be nice, but ‘aging is not negative’
While having my daily dose of coffee mocha at Cottonwood, I gazed upon a couple who also frequent the shop, just like me, but for their evening tea and slices of sandwiches. She is not the usual lady who bends her head on her partner’s shoulder. Neither is she the one who smiles constantly and flirts. He is not the man who winks at her when trying to make a point. He does not hold her hand. He sips his tea without pretensions or fear of not getting a good impression from her. She is his wife. He is her husband. By the look of her gray hair and his balding head, they are on their late 70s or maybe even early 80s. At their age and still enjoying the regular Cottonwood visits and the sips of tea, who says this is a young world?
There are people I know who find aging so astonishing. I smile to myself whenever I hear someone say, “You have visibly grown older.” It gives me the impression that we live in a world made for and of the young. With the way we view youthfulness and revere youth above one’s ability, knowledge and experience, who is to blame? Our mind is partly corrupted with the idea that aging is a no-no in our society.
Neighboring states happier than South Dakota
For those planning to live a “happy” life, relocating to Utah, Hawaii, or Wyoming may be the best options. Rethink if you wish to live in these states-Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky and West Virginia. What about living in South Dakota?
According to the latest survey numbers released Wednesday last week by Gallup in partnership with Healthways and America’s Health Insurance Plans, South Dakota ranks as the 39th “happiest” state in the U.S.
A mother’s sacrifice reflects heroic patience and love
Mama told me not to build castles in the air, but of bricks. She was the one who constantly pushed me forward and stirred me to strive to be the best that I can. In the countless times that things went south and continued to fall apart, there she was, a wonder woman standing by my side swift to shield every unwilling part of me from the falling debris. She was there in each tear that was about to trickle or a smile that was about to break into laughter. She was there where superman failed to show and when any other superhero fell short to save.
Unlike Papa whose character could be likened to a silent harp, Mama harps her subterranean emotions out. The day when she defended my older brother from a wrongdoing and said how much she loves both of us and shed a tear afterwards, I cried with her.
Old Photos and Memories From Times Long Gone
Citizen Army Training Medal
There’s one good reason why this week I metamorphosed into an archaic-photo enthusiast.
A short meeting with a fellow Filipino in Brookings weeks ago got me into thinking to scan my old pictures and salvage them from further wear and tear. Each photo in her stack of albums, she insisted, carries brilliant stories of long ago that should not be expunged simply through waning and yellowing. In as much as she wanted the photos to be reinstated to their original grandeur, there was nothing so much she could do but to clean them from lizards’ debris, having been concealed in the filing cabinet for quite a time.
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.
