the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

 #writing in #sunstarcebu again after almost ten years!! :D And funny enough, it's the first I've ever done with internet access, so I could actually verify historical facts through Google and geographical features using Google Maps haha! This one is on last year's #birthdaytrip to #follybeach #charleston #southcarolina, which I never posted about before. It was truly a stunning place for #photography. I have lots more #sunset shots that didn't make it here. It's not literary, but it's a start! #nofilter #nature #outdoors #fall Published on August 31, 2017 What do you do when you long for the sea and you’re thousands of miles away from the nearest tropical island? You head south to the Carolinas. It was almost December in Washington DC. Most of the leaves had fallen from the trees outside my office. The days were getting shorter. And there I was, busy chasing after deadlines just as I had for the last twelve months. “You need to get away,”...

STRANGER THAN FICTION by Jeneen R. Garcia Published in 2002 Never fails. Every time I walk down a grocery’s toiletries section, an overly eager, mestiza sales lady blocks my path, wielding the latest whitening product. It’s as if I had a sign on my forehead saying “In Need of Whitening: Approach at Will”.  It’s weird how even in this age of political correctness and Naomi Campbell, Filipinos still automatically equate beauty with fair, cancer-prone skin. And have you noticed how they use naturally white people like Lucy Torres and aforementioned sales lady to endorse their product, in a strategy to make us brownies insecure? In fairness, it’s generally easier to find something that’s bright than dark. It’s less straining to the eyes. Bright surfaces reflect instead of absorb light, making everything else around them brighter. My mother most of all has always wished my skin were whiter. She says I was born reddish, and was worried I would take after my kayuman...

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...

The von Garcia family singers strike again--this time with a different name! ;) Song written and recored on the same day.... This is the last installment of Mama's birthday present: the video we somehow recorded in secret even though she was just at the next block :) As usual, we didn't plan it, it just happened that it was the only opportunity we had to do a recording before the party, and somehow the color schemes worked out, too. You just need to believe that it can be done ;) Besides it's promotional for our career HA HA! (You have to watch the video to the end to get the joke). Make sure to click on the HD button to see the high-res version! ============ QUEEN OF QUEENS I. She's the queen of Queens You know what I mean She's here to stay forever She's making a scene She showed me how to hustle And make them greens She has that kind of love So I can live my dreams She's my mama (2x) (Queen of Queens) II. She brought me out to ...

For Papa who still refuses to come see Kaizen! In Tagalog, with English and Spanish subtitles :) This was my first attempt at using iMovie. Did it around 2 AM on a Saturday night since it was already Father's Day in the Philippines.

The header of my Multiply site -- http://neenerish.multiply.com . I started my Multiply site in 2004 out of a fascination for the concept of having a social networking site where I could actually have my own website--posting my own content for the entire world to read, and at the same time keeping family and friends updated without having to email all those bulky pictures and articles every time I had something new to share. At that time, only Friendster was big, I was writing freelance for a couple of publications, and the thought of having an online audience where I could write about the work I did both for travel writing and a community-based environmental NGO was like a whole new world of possibilities. Eventually, I decided to name my site after one of three columns that I had in Sun.Star Cebu, Lost and Found, which I started later that same year as a way to share my discoveries and rediscoveries on the endless journey of gathering fragments of my soul that I had forgotten i...