Four Seasons

Whenever you hear a non-native English speaker, a Filipino specifically, uttering broken "carabao" English, or a version you are not used to hearing, please reserve your criticism. Entertain, instead, the notion that the English language might be evolving, that nobody owns the language any longer. To a certain extent, it is already shared across continents and cultures. Just as there are American English (read: the ever prestigious), British English, Canadian English, Australian English and Indian English, there is also Philippine English. In this day of unimaginable innovation, English is no longer a singular term. Numerous Englishes exist around the world! "You are like constipation, you take my breath away." Here are two more: "My blockmates and I took on different roles as Supreme Court Justices." "I stayed in some barong-barong in town." These are sample lines to show that we, Filipinos, are fond of coining, compounding and innovating word...

Friday blackness. That is how it is this very moment. Interstate 90 looks like one of those highways in horror movies where creatures drop dead from the skies and into your windshield. The absence of light that could have come from civilization along this area in Wisconsin makes it hard to know what lies out there at this time of the night. Corn fields, lakes or just deserted plains, I could not exactly tell. Where few lamp posts stand are billboards pointing to eateries and gas stations. A car or two crosses the way once every 10 minutes. Other than that, nothing disturbs the blackness that takes place in the expanse where light seems to be unheard-of. Not even the starless skies connecting to the horizon somewhere is able to muddle up the supremacy of the swallowing darkness. Blackness creates a way for the horizon and the skies to mate with soft oohs and ahhs minus the spying eyes of traveling creatures. I suspect a heavy rain would come sooner. The short dashes on the middle of t...

I do not care about evidences of heartburn, anxiety, high blood pressure, hyperactivity and many others that caffeine, a type of drug or stimulant found in coffee beans, appears to be a causal factor. Let the medical experts and researchers keep themselves busy gathering compelling evidences of the side effects of drinking coffee, just let me have my daily dose of caffeine. When I was still in the Philippines, there was one coffee shop that I spent most of my "coffee night" in. Bo's coffee club was my source of a short mug of dark brewed coffee that went very well with my attempts in solving three crossword puzzles from three news dailies. Most of the time, I went home with the "across" and "down" filled to the last box. Coffee had something to do with my every crossword puzzle success. You see, I please myself many times with the piece of information that caffeine used in moderation is not particularly destructive (read that as me being defensive)...