This, too, is life! Shh!

Posted on May 20, 2008 By Emmanuelle Friend, if I could, I would take you by the hand and lead you to this place, my place. Enter this gate, and walk through paths that had withstood the pounding of decades – of feet, of cars, of wheeled beds and fast-rolling stretchers.  Here, run your fingers [...]

Riding out the storm

Posted on May 27, 2008 By Emmenuelle It was the most awful day to have a birthday, but then, no one knew it would turn out so. The cake was bought a day before, two other cakes were to be brought down from the city. She so loved cakes, especially when creamy-smooth mocha icing is [...]

Re-evaluating our values (Conclusion)

Posted on May 12, 2008      By Emmanuelle Not to be confused with its numerical successors, the first EDSA revolution will always remain a phenomenon in the perception of the international community. The personal experience, however, had awakened us Filipinos to the surprise that the values we had looked for, or had presumed long-dead and buried, [...]

Re-evaluating our values

Doctors of the mind claim that our realities are stuff that dreams are made of. On the other hand, they also claim our dreams cross-over to the reality of our days. Usually, the lingering waking effects of these dreams diminish to nothingness. Sometimes though, these escalate to the status of walking stalking nightmares. Who among [...]

A kick in time

There is this true story of an adorable first grader, with dimples so deep on both cheeks, on both knees, and just at the region of both kidneys. This is not descriptive overkill. We said adorable, didn’t we? To exercise our creative imagination further, let’s call this adorably dimpled boy Dimples, shall we? One day, [...]

Sugar-coatings

Posted on June 2, 2008 By Emmanuelle Surely, our penchant to sugar-coat almost all things unpleasant, so as not to seem unpleasant, shall get us as near as can be to being guilty of duplicity. Duplicity meaning dishonesty, deception, unfaithfulness, fraudulence. At worst, duplicity in this sense signals a defeat of the original purpose of [...]

OC’s

Posted on June 9, 2008 By Emmanuelle Everything must be just-so. This ten-year old child carefully rips-off a sheet of paper so as not displace the red glue keeping the rest of the pad intact. She pairs the paper with the soft cardboard of the pad removed just as carefully earlier. The cardboard-and-paper must pair [...]

OC’s (Conclusion)

Posted on June 16, 2008 By Emmanuelle The following notes are from research on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder conducted within the two weeks this article took to be written: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is not choosy. It strikes people from all walks of life, male or female. Or child. Symptoms may start at an early age, [...]

Control lost

Posted on August 27, 2008 By Emmanuelle The Muslims, the Moros, the Ilagas, MILF, Bangsamoro, ultimatum, lost commands, terrorists, murderers, pillagers, bodies beheaded or decapitated, defiled. Of late, these words have the capacity to chill the spine of the most ordinary of citizens, but especially those who live in the Mindanao areas most affected. One [...]

Last words

Posted on August 19, 2008 By Emmanuelle There are tales too short but so true to life I just can’t let them go. These, too, are seeds from which rice or wheat grows. She said: I will wait for you till the end of time. For two years, her voice and her pink, full lips [...]