Tag Archives: philippines

Here But Not Here

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As you can see from the date on my last entry, I have been ignoring this particular blog of mine. Not for lack of topics but for lack of a self-owned computer and a life.

I moved back to the US last September 19 and in the weeks since my last post, my energy was on upheaving my existence from Manila to D.C. to Tallahassee. Since arriving, I’ve been doing a First Ninety Days Back in the US Series on my other blog.

My daughter is still in the Philippines and will be following me here this November so my days are filled with readjusting and re-acclimatizing myself to my old/new life in the US.

So in case you wandered in here from a Google search on Malu Fernandez (which gave me the highest hits on this blog) or on announcing tips, or maybe even on my former morning show, welcome. I hope to be back to my old, frequently online self soon.

For now though, I’m just here but not here.

Cheers!

The Blog-Lynching of Malu Fernandez

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I’m back from outerspace. Or shall I say, “earth-dwelling”, in the words of my Twitter friend, Kevin M. Keating. That’s not entirely true though since I have been finding the time to update my other blogs. Mea culpa.

I’m still in the process of defining what it is I want to say here on my WordPress. I revamped my categories to free me from my self-imposed restrictions. Out of all the blogs I maintain, I feel that here is where I want to be the most “serious”. Then again, one should not take oneself too seriously. Life is too short.

Before I jump back into The Radio Files series that was rudely interrupted by life and work, there’s one topic I wanted to go off on. Countless blogs from the Philippines and Filipinos all over the globe have contributed to the space in cyberspace labelled “Malu Fernandez Hatred“. I wanted to put my two centavo thoughts into the fray.

Continue reading →

Going Home

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I grew up in the Pacific Northwest until 1980. My Dad died of Cancer in 1978, leaving me and my mom in Portland, Oregon, with a house and a small pension to live on. My Mom, a Filipina-Italian-American, had been living in the US for sixteen years at the time and decided that life without my Dad was too unbearable in a foreign country, so she sold our house and moved us a continent away – back to her homeland, and away from mine.

I was eleven at the time and had no say in the matter, as any child of that age does; my opinion and protests did not matter to her. She was lonely; a grieving widow with a daughter to raise. I acquiesced.

My first visit to my mother’s country of birth came four months after my Dad passed away on February 20. It was my summer break. I had missed out on a lot of school since the night he died. The months following his death were a blur – for both of us. Life was sadder, scarier, simpler, without Daddy. And all of a sudden we were on a plane to go to an island I had only read about in a book called “Let’s Visit the Philippines”. Continue reading →