HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Philip Cu Unjieng 1) In the Eat of the Moment If there’s an industry hard hit by the COVID virus and community quarantines it would be the restaurant industry. Food in itself is still a mainstay of our consumption patterns, so those who offer deliveries and...
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Philip Cu Unjieng Our Big Online Learning Experiment has truly commenced. Several private schools had a head start a month ago, but early last week, the 2020-2021 school year officially begun in earnest. Whether it’s Blended Learning or the other hybrid modalities...
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Philip Cu Unjieng While my sister was compiling research material for her Assumption velada (and all Assumption alumni, and their husbands, will attest to just how seriously they take these veladas); she stumbled upon an archival photograph of the very first Earth...
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Philip Cu Unjieng Don’t look now, but all the talk and fears of a global COVID second wave look very real – and this second “alon” should make us all count ourselves lucky, and extra vigilant, that we’re in a part of the globe where things seem to be...
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Philip Cu Unjieng My three sons are all in their 20s; and the middle boy left for San Francisco early February to start a year-long internship at a Bay Area hotel as part of completing his H&R Hospitality degree requirements. By mid-March, the hotel had gone on...
Philip Cu Unjieng HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Have you been keeping count? Or just letting the days, weeks, months slip by as one unfathomable continuum? Cause don’t look now; but on Tuesday, the 15th of September, it’s not only payday, but also Pay-the-Price day as we reach the 6-month...
Philip Cu Unjieng HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE We take words for granted. We use them liberally, with supreme confidence that we’re using them correctly; but do we really know how they’ve come to exist? And do we even understand their true meaning or etymology? The inescapable fact is that...
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Philip Cu Unjieng Earlier in the month, I had enjoined my friends and readers to get interactive with this column, to send their suggestions to completing the sentence: “You know you’ve been in lockdown or perpetual isolation for too long, when....” It was...
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Philip Cu Unjieng Five months and running, and establishing a world record for continuous lockdown/quarantine duration – the Philippines is now running first in this dubious distinction. While countries all around us have found ways to control the coronavirus...
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Philip Cu Unjieng Even before the pervasive influence of social media; momentous, historical occasions have always led to new words being coined, particular terms suddenly gaining popularity and entering the mainstream. And let’s face it, along with the good and...
I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Right Back Where We Started From – You have to extend some sympathy for the overworked medical community here in the Philippines. They’re at the front lines of our battle against the pandemic; but suddenly, because they were trying to raise awareness of the...
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPE-VINE Teach Me Tonight: If we canvassed parents of children about to embark on their new voyage of online education; it would be easy to draw up a Plus column and a Minus column, and draw some conclusions on how...
