High Gas Prices

The region's gasoline prices climbed to record highs over the Memorial Day holiday with seemingly no end to increases in sight, AAA Mid-Atlantic reported Tuesday.

Concerns over declining U.S. oil supplies and increasing global demand are likely to keep crude oil prices -- which are driving gas prices -- high in the days and weeks ahead, AAA said.

The holiday weekend provided insight into what lies ahead, AAA Mid-Atlantic Manager of Public and Government Affairs Catherine L. Rossi said. "The Memorial Day weekend is to convenience stores who sell gasoline what 'Black Friday' is to shopping mall-based retailers," Rossi said. "It is typically a big volume weekend that sets the pace for sales for the rest of the season."

Gas prices have increased by a quarter over the past year, while the price of crude oil has more than doubled. The July futures contract for crude is trading around $132 a barrel on Tuesday morning, after hitting a record high price above $135 a barrel last week. Crude prices have been pushed to hit record highs on supply concerns, a weak dollar and increasing global demand for diesel fuel.

I am hoping and praying that the tipping point is near, that as a people, we will actually clamour for alternative power resources.

And to think, mag-pe-people power ang mga tao if gas hit $4/gallon. . . I didn't think we would allow it.

Hubby and I realized how slaves we all are to oil products, in particular gas. Conservation has been key, but to a finite resource such as gas (it will run out!), untangling our dependence on it has become a major thought in our heads these days.

The kids will have to walk home more. My daughter will have to switch to a closer school. I take the bike to the gym and I am considering placing a quiet protest sign "NO TO HIGH GAS PRICES" around my neck while biking. (Well, I don't know about that!) But we opted to pull out my pre-school daughter out of her free preschool sessions to save 3 miles worth of gas a day.

I am hoping to get an electronically-charged bike or scooter. But these things are so small an effort to become free from fossil fuels. In a perfect world, I hope to drive a solar-powered car, instead of scrambling for bio-diesel sources--which will add to the bureaucracy of acquiring it.

In the meantime, Memorial Day here was spent closer to home due to gas prices. When most of the time, people leave the Bay Area to get away on this 3-day week-end with wonderful weather, the big American V8 SUV's just can't be fun when half of the the energy and money goes to filling up.

My family and I spend an afternoon in the bookstore and had an overload of fried onion rings and root beer floats in A&W.

Second-Generation Immigrants

A decade-long study of adult children of immigrants to the New York region has concluded that they are rapidly entering the mainstream and doing better than their parents in terms of education and earnings — even outperforming native-born Americans in many cases.

The results of the $2 million study are detailed in “Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age."

Meanwhile in 1992, Herbert J. Gans, a Columbia University sociologist, published an influential essay suggesting that members of the post-1965 second generation might do worse than their parents, refusing to accept low-level, poorly paying jobs and adopting negative attitudes toward school and work.

But the authors of the new study found that Professor Gans’s fears have not been realized. Most of the young people studied worked in white-collar clerical or service jobs in retail and major financial services and most had achieved “real, if modest, progress over their parents’ generation.”

One important reason why, according to the authors, is that even poor, uneducated immigrants have often “shown that they have the drive, ambition, courage and strength to move from one nation to another,” and transmit their determination to their children. And the new second generation is able to take advantage of civil rights programs, including affirmative action policies, in applying to universities and for jobs.

The authors acknowledged that it was hard in some cases to explain why some of the five groups studied appeared to do better than others. The relative success of Russian Jews seemed clear: They immigrated with high levels of education, benefited from government programs because they came as refugees and received aid from established Jewish organizations.

The authors said it was more difficult to explain why “Chinese youngsters have achieved the greatest educational and economic success relative to their parents’ often humble origins.” The Chinese have a fairly cohesive community with “a high degree of social connection between its better- and worse-off members,” the book argued, while ethnic newspapers, churches and media served as a link between middle- and working-class immigrants and helped share “cultural capital,” like information on how to get into the city’s best schools.

Finally, Chinese parents were less likely to divorce, and they encouraged their children to put off marriage and children until their education was completed.

May I add that the Asian's capacity for good Math understanding seems to be innate, while the Filipinos, who are educated in English and are American-oriented, often do well in assimilating in the culture. I noticed that Filipinos have a higher standard when it comes to finishing college, unlike Americans who do okay after just high school.

Parent-child involvement and communication is key in the success of adjusting to life in the States. In Manila, we take this for granted as we have trusted nannies and relatives to leave our kids with. Here, I have seen teens so lost and without direction simply because their parents work two jobs each to meet their expenses.

As a mother, I am very choosy about taking a job. In fact, I have been quite reluctant about accepting full-time jobs, keeping my choices to several part-time jobs. I have to be able to touch base with my children and guide them not only in homework but in adjusting to our new lives as well.

My eldest has practically put himself through Junior College by working a part-time job in food joints, and because of his grades, lots of grants and financial aid from the State. He was accepted to University of Davis but chose to go to San Jose State because Davis does not offer a strong Accounting (his major!) course. I tell the rest of my children that they have to go to College by hook or by crook, but preferably by scholarship.

Now, I know what the parents who sell their carabaos in the province feel like when they send their kids to college.

It excites me to think that we have made the right decision in providing our children with more opportunities in terms of education and employment. But wherever we are, I know that armed with strong and positive family-ties, drive, and ambition, I would like to think that we will find opportunities and seize them.

Good to be Home

It has always been said that home is where the heart is. I know now that home is where your bed is, with your favorite sheets on; where your bathroom is, personal toiletries lined up in a row. Home is where you wash and ride your own car, where you know that your groceries by heart, you know where the bread aisle is but maybe not the aisle number.

We just came from Manila for an unexpected vacation. A great bonus, in fact, to attend my father-in-law's lavish 80th birthday bash. And lavish it was--we checked in the Mandarin Manila, where the event was held, with a sit-down dinner of beef carpaccio salad, roast-beef, a lime ice sherbet in between to clean the palate and the loveliest mango panna cotta before an open bar. There was dancing, dance-instructors, local sensation and violinist Jay Cayuca serenaded the guests, decked out in formal wear. I was astonished by the glitterati.

The next morning, we had breakfast in the coffee shop where the buffet spread was encompassing: from delicate breads and pastries to crepe-pancakes (the best!) eggs the way you want it and omelettes, fruit and cheese, and wonderful fresh fruit shakes (I almost forgot how good the watermelon, mango and dalandan were!). The buffet cost about $20 a head, steep for our standards, especially if you convert to peso. But what the heck, dad-in-law is the most generous man in the world.

Mandarin Hotel Coffee Shop

After breakfast was swimming in the 5-star hotel pool and then lunch at the posh Tin Hau Chinese (and seemingly imperial) resto.


Just the first day of our stay confused my children about our current standards here in good ol' Antioch, CA, prompting them to ask, "Mom, are we rich in Philippines?" (They say that because we never eat in a hotel here and for special occasions, we go to Wongs, our local Chinese take-out).

Manila is the place to hang out. Friends always have time to see you. There's always time to catch up over lunch and coffee until 5 p.m., sometimes, you have to double-book and catch up with someone over dinner. Days can be spent lounging around, making kuwento (stories) and eating in and out. I was "talked out" this trip, not used to talking to someone or listening to other people's stories as I have no friends here who have time to chat, thus this blog.

This is what they call outstanding quality of life, for though the Filipinos may not be wealthy in terms of money, they are wealthy in terms of enjoying life, creativity, time (and food!)

We even squeezed out a day at Kawayan Cove, Batangas.

My friend said that since there are 85 million Filipinos, and 15 percent have the capacity to eat out, new restaurants sprout every week. If you do the math, you will figure out why they still make money. And why not, you can get the best Razon's halo-halo, with heavenly macapuno, sweetened saba, and leche flan for $3 anytime you want--so eat out it is. . .


Inspite of that wonderful lifestyle of hanging out and enjoying the sunset, I was kinda eager to get home to the US. That feels weird, calling the US "home." We are probably the only citizens who ask, "Uuwi ka ba?" prompting the kids to ask why going home can mean Manila.

But then I got tired of sleeping in my mother-in-law's room and living out of a suitcase. And even if all our clothes (underwear included!) came back immaculately ironed, I missed my bed, my room, my little workplace, my school-bus routine, the life I complain of--the life we have carved this past 3 years.

This bonus vacation gave me more than fun times. It gave me new perspective on what we have now. And it is good.

I realized home is where the heart is and that is exactly that. Home is a place INSIDE of you, and you can take it wherever you go. I realized home may not be a physical place, rather, it is a state of mind. It is where your family is, where your kids smile, where you take them to school. It is where you are master of your own home, where you chart your own schedules, where you draw out your life's dreams. So home can be Manila, Antioch, boondocks, lakeside, hilltop--or wherever you carve it out to be.

Our little lot in Tagaytay