Truth: I am writing this essay completely stripped of the full mask of make-up I wear each day. My hair uncombed is gathered up in a messy bun and expressing what adventures I may have stirred in my sleep. An impressive expression of hot messery. Also true, I am wearing under eye patches made … Continue reading Phenomenally.
I had been quite engrossed in my daily work at the office these days. This is the season in academia where we are ending the year with events, finals, and commencement. Where I work is no exception. My day job consists of juggling many balls in the air, and being cognizant of avoiding any … Continue reading A Grandfather’s Love.
My daughter has no idea how easy she has it. She walks into a Sephora and finds a plethora of make-up that will suit whatever kind of looks she wants to portray on her face on any given day. Smoky-eye with a wing eyeliner: available! Foundation color that suits her olive/peachy complexion: over 100 … Continue reading Surviving the 80s and 90s: The Filipina-American Version
There are truly no handbooks out there on the best way to raise boys. Yes, there's plenty of suggestions and guidance for mothers as they stumble through life determining how to raise young boys into decent human beings. But, in all actuality, we (as in those mothers or fathers out there) just go with the … Continue reading On Raising Boys to Men.
Folks. Let's get real. When a person commits to Whole30, you know it's about to go down. To commit to going 30 days without sugar, bread, carbs (the bad ones), dairy (and I don't know--everything else that we call decadent, and comforting) is downright borderline psycho. So, of course, I made my family try … Continue reading Ma Vie En Rose: To Whole30 or To Fake Whole30–That Is The Question.
My Dearest Boy, You have been the one who gave me the least to worry about, but yet--I still worry. You have proven that studies of middle children, and people lied when they talked or wrote about the middle child syndrome and all of its characteristics. You have never been one to fit the mold. … Continue reading A Letter To The Middle Child On His 21st Birthday
Cold for Alaskans means it has to meet the -20 threshold. If it's above -20, many of us consider the weather not too bad. On Saturday, March 24th, the weather was somewhere between 20-30 above zero. A perfect day to be outside and for Fairbanksans to hold a rally in support of March For Our … Continue reading March In The Cold
I first read "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft when I embarked on my undergraduate studies in English literature. It's a pretty complex, and heavy read. In summary, Mary's argument was that women, in particular mothers, are the first teachers of their children, and as teachers--mothers must be educated so that … Continue reading A Vindication of Warriors.
An excerpt from A Reason For Being Fairbanks, Alaska 1994 In 1994, my youngest sister became ill with encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain that could’ve been deadly. She had a mosquito bite on her ankle that she did not pay attention to nor bothered to tell me. My parents had separated at this time, and … Continue reading Sunflowers (an excerpt from A Reason For Being)
Truth 1: no one ever realized that the state of Alaska was sitting on a gold mine that didn't include gold. I was told at a peony class I sat in that a few scientists from Europe had visited Fairbanks, Alaska, and during that visit they had mentioned to some agriculturalist that Alaska was … Continue reading Ma Vie En Rose: Peony Loyalist
The Echo Muse 