the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

STRANGER THAN FICTION by Jeneen R. Garcia Published in May 2002 One of  the more embarrassing things about my parents is their love—no, compulsion—for taking photos. No opportunity passed up, the flash goes off everywhere: malls, hotel lobbies, sidewalks, parlors. Even bathrooms. And I don’t mean cutesy shots of naked babies in a bathtub. I mean me and my siblings, all grown up, with the bathroom mirror of some resort as backdrop. Father’s orders, don’t ask me . They love to travel. Thus, we have pictures of cockpits with amused pilots and stewards, the beaming captain and crew of different sorts of ships (including a submarine), but fortunately none with a bus driver yet, though the Davao-Manila bus route is a favorite. I didn’t think it was that bad till I graduated from college. We were in a classy restaurant for a joint graduation dinner with my friends’ families. As we stood looking for a table, my parents whipped out a camera for the waiter. My epiphany ...

STRANGER THAN FICTION by Jeneen R. Garcia Published in Sun.Star Cebu in 2002/2003 When I graduated, I swore I’d never take a job that would make me wear closed shoes. Let me put it this way: I’m what you would call “in perpetual beach mode”.  Ever since I can remember, I’ve always preferred tank tops to t-shirts, shorts and billowy skirts to jeans, sandals (or better yet, bare feet) to sneakers…you get the drift. This is a tropical country--why should I suffer in the heat for some 400-year old dress code imported from Europe? During those last few months in college, people around campus were in corporate (pronounced corprit) clothing, going to corprit job interviews at high-rise, corprit buildings. Our placement office held seminars on power-dressing--how the right shoes, suit (earth tones, not black, and never pastels, or you’ll look like a pushover) and stripes (nothing too aggressive) could get you that big, fat paycheck. I said to myself that if a comp...