The rise of the super-rich hits a sobering wallThis is by far one of the most interesting articles I've read about the financial crisis. Beyond talking about why the rich have, for the first time in around thirty years, stopped growing richer, it discusses inequality. Apparently in 2007, the top 1% of earners in the United States pocketed 23.5% of ( Read more... )

There are holes in my world, geometric voids in Manila I know only be the places that surround them. On the map I see a constellation of stars, and glowing lines which link them. They're the streets I know, the buildings, the neighborhoods, the districts, lit up by a recollection I have of making my way between them. And then there are the voids ( Read more... )

My mom gave me her first month's pay for her new tutoring job ( Read more... )

Dear Dad ( Read more... )

Right now, nothing is more interesting for me than a first conversation with someone. There's the newness, the cluelessness, and the possibility of anything happening in the next five minutes. In five minutes, we could be talking, drinking, arguing, or fumbling each other's pants, or well, moving on to other people. I love those possibilities ( Read more... )

A family member of mine who was planning to leave the Philippines permanently told me that my optimism about the country was misplaced and that he was getting out while he could ( Read more... )

Today marks one year of being single. I'm not celebrating, not mourning, just realizing it's been a year to the day, and finding myself picking through the best and worst parts of us ( Read more... )

The internship shoot today took me to Manila Hotel. It took me about an hour of fighting through the MRT and LRT lines, walking through old Manila streets, asking bums for directions, and squeezing into one last jeepney, after I told myself it would be a little adventure. Adventures. I never learn ( Read more... )

It's academic: TV cures loneliness.Four new studies by the University at Buffalo and Miami University of Ohio found that watching TV can drive away feelings of loneliness and rejection. The studies are reported in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and suggest that watching TV provides viewers with the illusion that their social needs ( Read more... )

Our rooms are lined with cabinets my grandparents had installed. Every single room has an entire wall filled with cabinets. They're full of winter clothes we've never used, vintage appliances that don't work, bedsheets for beds nobody sleeps in except for Christmas when family from abroad visit, and all this other stuff we don't even know we had. ( Read more... )