Monthly Archives: May 2013

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Thoughts while on a bike

May 27 1:53 pm ,
Love, on wheels

Love, on wheels

I was 12 and my dad just bought me one. It was not a BMX, the “in” bike at that time, but impressing others really did not matter in those days. The world was younger, life was simpler, and material pursuits were not a concern.

My cousins and I – we would roam our fiefdom in Imus, Cavite, nodding our heads to people we knew (like little ladies and lords). We stop at a sari-sari store to get our softdrinks in plastic bags. It had a straw peeking at the opening and was met by grateful, thirsty, puckering lips. Or we would buy our favorite bread boling (never figured out how it is spelled but they were ball-like small hard bread smothered with margarine and the name maybe is the colloquial equivalent of bowling and depicted, maybe, little bowling balls). It tastes of heaven.

We had the wind in our hair, steered free of jeepneys and trikes, we had speed, the sun, carefree laughter. We had no destination and no concept of time and we did not care. We went over bridges and humps, through cemeteries, rough roads. We stopped to repair our bikes some of the time, or walk a flat tire.

It was fun.

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Posted in: Canada , Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Are Filipino families going to be reunited in their lifetimes?

May 22 2:46 pm ,
raincouver

4 seasons in 1 day

Immigration is a topic close to my heart. After all, I myself am an immigrant. Below is an article I wrote for PCI after I interviewed Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. To those parents or grandparents of Filipino-Canadians  who are waiting to immigrate to Canada, or to anyone interested in starting their lives in Canada, read on.

Canada, going the way of America—at least in immigration—is the fear of most Filipino-Canadians. In America, family reunification is a farce, or at least the 25 years or so of waiting makes the lives of separated families seem like one. Those who leave have to reckon with their guilt; those who are left behind are despondent and desolate. The tarmac bears witness to their goodbyes.

The long immigration lines have started to appear in Canada as the waiting period for family reunification stretched to almost a decade. It would soon be overwhelmed with the growing numbers if nothing was done, so Citizenship and Immigration Canada decided to freeze the lines in 2011. Very recently, however, they announced that the bars are to be lifted as solutions to the backlog have been found.

But at what cost?

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Posted in: Immigration , Tagged: , , , , , ,

Is happiness (or being happy) really an advantage?

May 17 3:35 pm ,
The simple things

The simple things

Who can resist a show featuring  a Harvard researcher doing research on—of all things—happiness?

I could not. So despite the many minor interruptions (irritations), like the selling and upselling of Shawn Achor’s books and videos, I kept at it.

Here are some of the stuff I learned (and remembered):

1.  Those in Harvard, despite Harvard being Harvard, are not happy. Researcher Shawn Achor says that in his experiment, hapless freshmen are only happy for the first 2 weeks—happy to be accepted and besting a thousand others for the coveted slots, happy to be in Harvard’s hallowed halls and relishing its old world smell, happy to be at the center of the intellectual universe. But when the reality of pressure—ever present, permeating the walls (and their every capillary)— becomes apparent, they get lost into the vortex of competing with themselves, forever justifying (to themselves) that they deserved to be there.

At the end of it all (if Achor is to be believed), the Harvardians are just grateful to be let out alive and to smoke the Harvard pipe (misery, they say, loves company).

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Posted in: Positive Thinking , Tagged: , ,