Remix: Santiago Bose

More than a month’s worth of rain fell in just 12 hours.

The Philippine capital Metro Manila recently experienced a devastating typhoon. Dozens have died, whole houses are underwater, and the Philippine government is ill-equipped to deal with the disaser. BBC’s report is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8276347.stm, but I don’t think anyone will know how just how much damage there is until much later. Imagine this: Katrina dumped over […]

I love the Oldies

Last weekend, Adam and I were in a car accident in Barstow, on the 247 by the Mojave desert. Because it was a Saturday and there were no body repair shops around, I had my car towed to Loma Linda, where my grandmother lives. We ended up sleeping in Loma Linda and getting both my […]

Juvenalia, care of Sunshine

I was fixing my published fiction files when I found a short story I wrote  with my one of my best friends from high school, Sunshine. It was for the teenybopper magazine Candy in 2002.  So I put it up. I wish I had gotten PDFs — the illustrations of this story were AWESOME. Anyway, […]

R.I.P. Cory Aquino

When I was a freshman in high school at St. Scholastica’s College (which was incidentally President Cory Aquino’s alma mater) being president of the country was a popular aspiration. Sunshine wanted to be president, I remember. So did Margaux, or maybe it was Debbie. For the 12 and 13-year-old girls in my class, Cory Aquino […]

Crying in Cambodge

We traveled in the heat from Saigon to Siem Reap aboard a Vietnamese bus that stopped at various roadside canteens. Hungover from Tet activities, I threw up at bathrooms that slowly degraded — from tissue papers in toilets to just holes in the ground, until we passed by Kampong Thum, the town closest to the […]

Joy Luck Club-ish? An immigrant story

A story for Claire Light’s ‘Joy Luck Hub’ Blog Carnival: —– I made the decision to move to the United States in increments. At first I was going to stay a month, then three, then I found myself the lead singer of a rock n roll band and decided to stay. Now I’ve been in […]

My top 10 experiences of 2008

This year proved that what I am really best at is either a) looking on the bright side or b) deluding myself. Because despite getting laid off (RIP, MKE), I traveled a lot, developed new relationships, discovered what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. At the very least, 2008 was waaaaay […]

I met Erap today. And I have no proof!

A good friend from high school is deposed president Erap Estrada’s spokesperson. (Don’t ask me about hows or whys.) If you’re not Filipino you may not know that he was an actor-turned-mayor-turned-president who was impeached on corruption charges. He also inspired a revolution by the poor, then was imprisoned by the current president’s administration. For […]

Notes on Reverse Culture Shock, part 1

The first thing you forget about the Philippines is how poor everyone is. And how cheap certain things like labor and food is, and how expensive other things we take for granted are (like gas). There’s cigarettes they sell in packs of five sticks, and shampoo in little travel sizes, etc. cause sometimes that’s all […]