Category: grad school
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Study abroad, neoliberal education, and lockdown students
I’m putting this together for my students at the University of the Philippines Open University who missed our video conference this term. A friend had suggested I teach at UPOU after returning from my studies abroad. I said yes to one semester, while working for an American newswire and hustling for commissioned international projects. A […]
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That Day I Arrived in London
The day I arrived in London in 2018, nobody was around to welcome me at the airport, unlike most times I landed in a new home. In Singapore, it was my sister who was at the gates to hug me. In California, there were three relatives. In Aarhus (Denmark), our landlady was waiting outside the […]
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Shooting Memories, Robert Frank’s Street Photography, and Why I’m Not on Instagram
The California that is exhausted of how the political situation has impinged on private lives, but recently managed to surpass the United Kingdom as the fifth largest economy in the world.
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Asia’s Dragon Rises
By 2025 global political power will shift towards the east. As of 2018, super power China and other major powers have the strongest influence in Asia. In seven years, the world’s most powerful states will be in Asia. If you want to see where the center of global political economy is heading, look east. In 2018, […]
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GDP Per Head in Three Asian Powers Catches Up With Europe’s Big Three
In 2013 Singapore overtook the United States in GDPPC for the first time, and continued to stay above it in 2014.
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Who Will Fill the Wine Glass After Brexit?
On a Wednesday evening, a middle-aged Englishman enters a wine shop on St. John Street in Clerkenwell, London with an empty bottle. Anne-France Leray takes the bottle with a smile, refills it from an oak barrel taller than them and wraps it gently with craft paper before putting it in a paper bag.
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Russian and the Rain
Spring. I was in search of a new house and saw one advertised online. After texting the owner, I walked for an hour under the drizzle-rain combo toward a house at the south side of the UC Berkeley campus. When I arrived, there seemed to be a mistake: neither the house nor its rooms were […]
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America
A week before US President Donald Trump took over the White House in January, I arrived in America. I was flying from Milan with connecting flights in Lisbon and New York, and I just finished writing the 10-page exam that sealed my first semester at Aarhus University in Denmark. I remember, all I wanted to do when I landed in my […]
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Surfing
Today I was looking at the Pacific Ocean from one of the corners of California coast. The spot was a three or four hour drive from Berkeley. The waves were strong and the wind wild. Surfing comes to mind. One waits for the right wave to ride when surfing. When the big one comes, the […]
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Wine tasting in Sonoma and Napa
Whatever was I thinking when I thought California is small like a province? It isn’t. In fact, the state is so big and rich in resources – from farm produce to brilliant talents – that it can survive on its own. It’s even bigger than the Philippines. One of the state’s gift is wine. Napa, located in […]
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Russian-speaking prosecutor, Japanese foodies, and other people you interview for J-School
In the US and in the Philippines, journalists have been at the receiving end of unfair criticisms (“dishonest people,” “biased,” “failing”) from the government and its supporters. For journalists and students of journalism, this could be unsettling or discouraging or could be taken as a challenge, or all of the above. At the UC Berkeley Graduate School of […]
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Before I get swamped in Berkeley
Before I get swamped in Berkeley, here is an update. Time check: it’s midnight. I’m in the United States. In the middle of history unfolding, perhaps the end of Pax Americana. “We live in exciting times,” a professor said this afternoon. I heard there will be more protests to come, in response to the new leadership […]
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While people say “Good Riddance, 2016” I drink hot choco outside a cafe in Italy and laugh nervously
L’uomo universale. This is one phrase I picked up from a book I received when I won a storytelling contest in Denmark a long time ago (it feels like a long time ago). It means a “complete man”; says the book: “a man of action was supposed to have a soul and be tender-hearted and have delicate, aesthetic […]
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Resting in Milan
Where are you now? I seem to be getting this question a lot these days, and mostly my answer is on the bed? which is true. Minus the specific location, I am in Milan, Italy, staying at a relatives’ old, high-ceiling apartment. Three days ago, I flew here from Copenhagen with my cousin, my sister, and her […]
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Fika, hygge, and turning 30
Dear Micon, I’m happy you’ve reached this milestone, of turning 30. Congratulations on overcoming all the hardships of 20s. It’s one of the most difficult phases of life, they say, the 20s; but yours has been extra challenging. If people would know what you’ve been through, you will have to prepare yourself for warm, tight hugs. […]
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Two months in Denmark
Hello from Aarhus. It snowed yesterday and I make no secret of the fact that I’m ecstatic about first snow just as how excited I am about living abroad again. It’s been two months since I’ve taken a huge leap of faith and travelled to the other side of the planet to master a craft – and so far, the […]
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Crossing fingers for heaps of good news
It’s a shame that the world is crazy over news on Boston bombing while ignoring or ignorant of that bombed Afghan wedding where casualties were ten times more than the marathon tragedy. This is not to say that little attention should also be given to Boston, but that equally big, caring social media space be […]
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The so many questions after her death
There have always been those who have filled their bellies because they had no sense of shame, but we, who have nothing, apart from this last shred of undeserved dignity, let us at least show that we are still capable of fighting for what is rightfully ours. -Saramago’s Blindness The University of the Philippines freshman student […]
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empire state of mindlessness
So. I’m confused more than ever. I was admitted to New York University‘s
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still on ayala
In the Philippine American Education Foundation advising, I met Margie who plans to apply to Harvard. She’s a part-time teacher in FEATI while working for the Asian Development Bank. She seemed to start taking interest in conversing with me when she asked me how my TOEFL went, and I told her I was drunk when
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at ayala
Yesterday was the longest time I ever stayed in Ayala, Makati when I sought advice from the Philippine American Education Foundation (PAEF). And I left the city floating with
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Sky Over Dimas’ Review by Powerhouse Class
Dr Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo asked in class, “Why is there humor in a novel as tragic as this?” Thinking out loud I said, “Otherwise it could have been a Russian novel.” A classmate laughed, my professor sneered. Sky Over Dimas makes you feel good about how normal your family is–boring even. Its first line, “The fact […]
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