Four Seasons

My column for the March 4 issue of this paper entitled “One too many beers changed this life forever” spawned quite a frenzy from readers who thought I was glorifying a rapist. To those who commented and reacted, thank you for raising the questions that I obviously failed to answer in the previous article. At this point, I do not even need a second thought to write part 2. Did I write the column to glorify the rapist Smith? Or was it to say Nicole, the victim, lied about the rape? No, for the first, and yes, for the second. I am against rape, but I am also against injustice. I am for truth, I do not condone lies. What people might have read from online reports were products of Nicole’s ivy poisoning each and every fragile mind of her dishonesty. She managed to make people believe she was raped. Truth of the matter, she was not. “The protests outside the court hearing were not in Smith's favor.” I agree. The protests were initiated by a few leftists whose members coul...

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. The title of the "Happiest State of America" goes to Utah. Utah ranks high in almost all indices of well being: life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, work environment, and basic access. On the list, Hawaii comes next, followed by Wyoming. South Dakota ranks very poor in "life evaluation"-the factor that measures a person's present life and the anticipation of the next five years. Ranking 43 over 50, most South Dakotans are unhappy with their lives and are unoptimist...

Say you found a stranger very attractive (however you define attractive). Would you want to have sex before or after gulping bottles of beer? Sex under the influence of beer is common and easy. All you need to do is get yourself drunk (10 bottles will suffice) and in a matter of hours you'll find yourself on someone else's bed, most likely with the stranger you often exchange smiles with in the bar, whom you lusted or dreamed so long to be with. Make sure that both of you are extremely intoxicated so that the alcohol will do all the thinking, talking and the strategic planning of where and how you would perform the sex escapade - hmmm, in the car, at the park, beside a big rock, behind a pine tree, in the garage or just to make it sound so nice, in the comfort of your own room. Under-the-influence-of-beer sex with a stranger you have just met once has a tag: risk, big risk. Take for instance the case of Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, a young U.S. Marine who went to the Philippines as...

Fried food is part and parcel of an Asian cuisine. Red or white meat, fish - finding a dish that is oil-fried on the table is no surprise by any means. In my country, lard, a type of oil coming from pork, is vehemently adored. Oh boy, the moment our neighbor starts frying dried salted fish deep in lard, I wonder if he's going to wake up the dead. Dried salted fish, or bulad (boo-lad), even in its raw state, smells terribly unspeakable. What more if you fry and combine it with the reek of burning lard! For foreign nostrils, it sure is out of this world. While it spells heaven for almost all Filipinos, it is extreme hell for those not immune to the aroma. Never a rose without the prick, indeed. A single frying event, when I was living in the Netherlands, had gotten me into thinking of the possibilities of being killed by flatmates for no other reason but dried salted fish. In a flat with nine others - six Dutch, two lady Russians and one Pakistani - stupid me, I should have known t...

Do your friends take your childhood disappointments and misadventures seriously? As for mine, sadly, never mind. In a conversation I had with close friends yesterday, never have they been sorry about my stories spiced up with sour remembrances of days past. Am I inadequate with attention? Fine if they laughed. It was worse when those moments I wanted them to hear didn't seem to have significance of sorts. Not meaningful enough. Maybe, it's funny for me to be forlorn over spilt milk. Come on. Is there really no sense in looking back and basking in the afterthought that I can still dignify, by dint of memory, even the foregone moments I once detested but now merrily summon. Like when … … I graduated a notch lower from the honor roll after my lady adviser in sixth grade favored a classmate less deserving but much better-looking than I was (she never missed admiring his white-as-a-sheet shirt during classes). ... I became the talk of the school campus after my classmates lear...

Did he just ask that? "Are you a terrorist?" Jeremy threw that question at me as I was about to part my jaws for a big sigh of relief for completing a stressful day at the office. Caught in an awkward situation, I answered, "NO" straight to his face. Jeremy is no friend. Neither is he an acquaintance. He merely saw me going out of Wecota Hall at around midnight last weekend after I finally called it a day from work. Suspecting that he was waiting for a friend to come out from the back door of the Wecota student dorm, I calmly strode past him with one thing in mind: to get myself home. Such was my luck that when I started pacing fast, he shouted, "Hey!" With only the cacophony of the snow drifts between us, I knew he was trying to catch my attention. I stopped. I looked back at him with my hood still covering my head. "Were you the Vietnamese I saw in the bar?" he asked. "I'm afraid I am not," I responded while trying to gestur...