According to a “peeping tom” lady, the man she saw naked inside his home while brewing coffee is pure indecent exposure. So the lady reported what she saw to the police and the Northern Virginia man, Eric Williamson, is now charged! WTF!

Eric Williamson, 29, said he did know he could be seen. “Yes, I wasn’t wearing any clothes but I was alone, in my own home and just got out of bed. It was dark and I had no idea anyone was outside looking in at me.”

According to the woman, Williamson wanted to be seen naked. What? Why did the woman look at the window in the first place? She said she saw Williamson walking back and forth from one window to another. So what? It is his home and the woman does not have the right to peep through or follow which window he goes next.

Warning to all those planning to get their family pictures developed in Walmart — Walmart employees are very strict on bath-time photos! Even if the photos are clearly innocent family photos, Walmart employees will look at it as very sexual.

This is what happened to a poor couple who took a memory stick to a Walmart store in Arizona for processing. There were 144 photographs taken mostly during the family’s vacation in San Diego. There were seven to eight bath photos of their three girls partially nude and playing in the bath tub. The ignorant Walmart employee found the family photos offensive, lewd or pornographic and so Walmart turned over the photos to the police.

My Collegian column this week.

Roosters here are known as gamecocks in the Philippines. Sundays can be celebrated in so many ways by so many common Filipinos living in faraway towns. It is the day off for most house helpers and they usually enjoy their free time at town plazas. It is the day for the faithful to go and hear mass. It is also the best day for a “sabungero” to exercise his gamecocks. For the locals, the smell of fighting cocks, the sight of tricycles parked in already crowded streets, the sound of people shouting for bets … all tells the same thing: There’s got to be a derby going on.

This is my column for the Collegian this week.
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Some of my Filipino friends back home have asked me about how clean Americans are inside the house. I could not answer straight to the point, because the term “clean” is relative: cleanliness in the Filipino perspective could be a far cry from the American viewpoint. If cleanliness is the absence of dirt or offensive odor, then based on the number of American homes I have been into since 2006, Americans do maintain a clean surrounding.

It has been a while since the racial slur occurred. Yet the incident still continues to torment my days. There are times that I find myself staring blankly at the PC monitor and thinking about the racial discrimination I got because I ordered coffee mocha.

Forgetting is not easy since the incident happened in a place that I am starting to call home. The incident in New York, about two years ago, was easy to let go, since I only stayed there for a week and it is very unlikely that I’d be seeing the place again. But this one in Brookings may take months to heal.

I counted the number of “HOW ARE YOUs” I received today. Nine. This doesn’t count the other “how are yous” I heard from students at the Union, the pathways, hallways and other possible places where people meet accidentally or intentionally.

I told a friend about this kooky feeling I am having against the greeting. “How are you” could easily qualify as the most overused word next to “hi” and “hello” in this part of the world.

Here is a personal rationale. When someone says “hi” or “hello”, the addressee is anticipated to either smile or wave or answer back with the same word. Example: Maria meets Peter. Maria says, “Hi, Peter.” Peter answers, “Hi, Maria.” Simple and quick communication. Conversation ends. Single words that when said demand a simple and snappy comeback.