mine is the god of typhoons and volcanos, yours is the god of bake sales

[cris]

A couple of weeks ago, while in California, I was hanging out with pyrric and she said, "I just learned the most useful Tagalog phrase recently."

"Oh, yeah, what's that?"

"Ay nako"You know that's basically our equivalent of "Oh My God", right? Like, it literally translates to that

Comments

[lilmissnever]

I thought that you would appreciate the way my co-worker once introduced himself to a room full of people.

"My name is R___ Esguerra. As you can tell, when you're looking at an Asian guy and he has a Spanish last name, I am a Filipino."

Like all nice Jewish atheists, I have a certain fondness for Catholicism--or at least Catholic imagery. I credit this not to having ever been beaten by nuns.

[cris]

I have a certain fondness for cheery Russian fatalism, and I credit that to a common history of living under the thumb of cruel and corrupt rulers, in a land that is alternatingly beautiful and sublimely murderous.

[brigid]

I was going to poke you but figured you'd be inundated with queries

I hope any news you do get is positive

[sirendipity]

I feel bad about receiving it or that it arrives with this sense that my friends are more worried about my relatives than I am.

Americans take a bit longer to process this stuff, especially if we've lived in the North East all our lives. Up until 5 years ago, the worst we would get was some flooding. Well, I guess I should rephrase that and say that *I* take longer to process that stuff. I think that's why Sandy shook me up so much. The realization that disasters like that can happy here, too, now.

In any event, *hugs* to you.

[cris]

Thank you, and, seriously, don't feel bad. You've never met my family out there, whereas you have a personal connection with those colleagues, so you ought to absolutely keep the latter in the forefront of your thoughts; and I don't take it as a slight that you didn't ask.

Manila wasn't skipped so much as not flattened the way Samar and Leyte were. The storm covered the entire archipelago over the weekend, so there's been flood and wind damage in the city, as well as some fatalities, but it isn't destroyed in the way Tacloban is.