MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
It’s six months to Christmas 2021! Mike L, who reads three newspapers over breakfast every morning, complains, “All I see are headlines and stories about COVID, COVID, COVID!”
For Mike’s sake and other readers who need a breath of fresh air, here are three short stories to start the day on a cheerful note.
Patrick Fernandez is known in the Philippines as a feng shui advocate whose familiarity with a centuries-old belief system allows him to collect, analyze and interpret data in the language of modern believers. In California where he is a fulltime banker and data analyst, Patrick recently added another feather to his starry cap by scoring a perfect 100 in the final exams at Harvard University, for which he was conferred an MS in Data Science (MSDS). Culminating a three-year course, the exams were timed for 180 minutes on-line. Patrick completed the test at the last minute – in 179 minutes exactly.
Congratulations, Patrick! As soon as your data give you an idea of when the pandemic will be blown out of this planet, let me know so I can broadcast the news to Mike and other impatient citizens of the world. Whether it’s feng shui or futuristics they believe in.
“From probinsiyano to provincial” read the title of a video presentation produced by Jack Orendain for his brother, Fidel Ma. Orendain of the Salesian Order of Don Bosco. Father Fidel, one of many nephews on the Daza side, is the newly installed Provincial Superior with jurisdiction over the Visayas, Mindanao, and Pakistan. As a Daza cousin puts it, the Father Fidel who has educated hundreds and hundreds of children and young people is now the family’s candidate for “Holy Father” – from the probinsiya of Bicol to the Vatican, Urbi et Orbi!
From banking to cooking – that’s the leap three ex-bankers took when the entrepreneurial spirit bit. And why not? Now they’re their own bosses, cooking out of a brand-new kitchen and taking orders has found a whole new meaning. Food deliveries being the darling of the lockdown, business is flourishing with so many branches of their bank ordering food for their meals and special occasions. Call Happy Tummy at +639954293519 for home-cooked food fit to serve the chairman of a bank.