10 minute read
MEMBER’S CORNER
MOTHER KNOWS BEST
We ask our Members to share the best lessons their mothers taught them
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Toni Gregory
I came across a book with the title “My Mother, Myself.”
This gave me a serious look at what I learned from my Mama Aurelia.
I was the eldest daughter in a family of 10 siblings.Growing up, I observed her extraordinary skill in managing time. She planned our daily meals, posted on our fridge door, set aside payments for utilities, our school allowances, supervised the household like a well-oiled machine.
I mastered her legacy of time management. During my work and family life, I always maximized available time to be productive.
There are so many lessons learned from my Mama but I would need a whole book to fill pages and pages of lifetime lessons my siblings and I pass on to our next generation. I think the best thing that my mother taught me was perseverance, to keep going regardless of how difficult the situation might be. She also taught me to be practical and to balance my actions with the head and the heart. I think these lessons are life lessons that help me manage my day to day life in a better way. On a lighter note, she also taught me the saying “a place for everything and everything in its place” and made me live it! I think this was her smart way of ensuring that I kept my room neat and tidy at all times!
Kunal Chadha
Bambi Garcia
The best thing my mother taught me was how to be a good mother. To be selfless and to put my children’s needs above mine. To be a guiding light to my kids so that they may grow up to be responsible men. Leading by example, she showed me how to treat others with kindness and humility so that I could teach the same values to my children.
Rhoda Aldanese
She taught me that there is no love noble enough to break someone else’s heart. It has always guided me for the most part of my life. And when I fail to follow this rule... it always does not end up well. My spiritual journey further strengthened this teaching. It follows the golden rule of love: God first, the others next and yourself last.
Peter Maquera
She taught me the power of kindness, and how it fosters trust and confidence, and not to mention, it’ll make you feel great.
COVID 101
We find ourselves today at a critical juncture in the fight against Covid. The vaccine roll-out has begun; Every day more and more people are being vaccinated, mostly with sinovac, although there some were able to get the first round of Astra Zeneca vaccinations. At the same time, positive cases of Covid-19 are surging, so are deaths. We hear about hospitals having no more beds, entire households getting Covid, from grandparents to the helpers, people we know getting incubated and not making it. It’s quite frightening time for everyone.
Discussing the realities of Covid-19 today, from diagnosis to treatment to vaccines, was the Medical Director of UST Hospital, Dr. Charito Consolacion. She gave a most informative and comprehensive presentation that covered everything you might want to know about the disease that has brought the world to a standstill. The vaccine, she said, was our best hope to control the pandemic and she believed it was safe for everyone to take, except in rare instances, which she detailed. Her advice was simple: take the vaccine as soon as your turn comes up.
Dr. Concolacion is an Alumna of UST, having obtained her degrees in nursing and medicine from the university. In 2019, she obtained her masters in hospital administration, graduating magna cum laude. She is also a previous winner of the prestigious Gawad Santo Tomas award in 2018 for research and community service.
Dr. Charito Consolacion
Presented in partnership with:
A TRAVELER’S TALES
A2A Safaris’ Co-Founder and Chief Wildlife Photographer, Jose Cortes III shared his his spectacular album of wildlife and landscapes in three continents: Africa, South America and the Antarctic. He shared his top photography tips for both smartphone and SLR cameras.
Jose Cortes III
BASUKA THE GORILLA, UGANDA
EMPEROR PENGUINS, SOUTH GEORGIA, ANTARCTICA SALYAR DE UYUNI, BOLIVIA
SUNSET AND STARS, BOTSWANA
For wildlife photos, I always tell people try to get to be on eye level with the animal. It’s just more flattering if your background is not the ground, if your backdrop is the sky. For this photo I actually went on my my tummy photographing this silverback and he actually did the same thing and we had a little kind of moment that went on for 10 minutes.
This is an island called South Georgia. I snapped this view with my iPhone, and you know, when you look at it you see all the penguins, but you know there are no rocks in this photo, that’s a proper beach. All those brown blobs you see there are all southern elephant seals. From January to April this whole thing - the salt flats - floats. When it floods, it becomes like a giant mirror that you see in this photo, it’s very hard to discern the horizon. If you like landscape photography, this is probably one of the best places in the world to do it, go hang out there for three days.
For night photography or astral photography, people ask me, how did you manage to get the sunset with the baobab and the stars? But this orange light in the background was a distant forest fire which was not even visible to the naked eye when I took this photo. I actually had the shutter open for 30 seconds, and the orange just came out and it worked!
To watch the full webinar, visit our YouTube channel Presented in partnership with:
ASIAN PRIDE
We’ve heard the news, we’re seen the videos. One day an Asian man is slashed form cheek to cheek. Then armed man shoots eight people in two massage parlors in Georgia. Six of the victims are Asian. An Asian Woman is literally trampled on the street near Times Square while the doorman or the building on front of her shuts the door. Each time we’re horrified. Each time we wonder, when will it end? How do we stop this hate?
Joining us was an incredible panel of prominent Asian Americans, all leaders in their field who lent their voices to today’s discussion.
DANTE BASCO STELLA ABRERA MARITA ETCUBAÑEZ
“I’ve never actually felt discriminated against, I’ve always felt special and that’s kind of propelled me to do the things I’ve been able to do... I felt some sense of responsibility as I’ve grown up in industry and try to pass it on and have the next generation do better than our generation. But as far as the best thing about being Asian American - I mean Filipino… you know specifically it’s like, now we’re cool, we like the coolest people, y’all. You’re the coolest people your friends know.” “I will do what I can to play my part to have the next generation of artists that I can help encourage to pursue their dreams, help them [and] encourage them and and be the best role model I can be to them. I will say that in general what I love about the Filipino culture and Filipino people is their warmth and their generosity and their their wonderful sense of hospitality. Everyone who comes to their home is like family. I want to speak specifically to being Filipino, Filipino-American whatever we’re going to be called: that is something that that resonates with me and is part of my truth.” “Representation matters, telling our stories matters, but one of the things that I think has the power to effect real change in the long run is teaching our history as a part of K through 12 education. So I didn’t learn any of this when I was coming up in school here in the United States. I didn’t learn about Asian-American history till I reached college. So we need to know more about the fuller history of all people in the United States, all minority people, all people of color, and understand the struggles for civil rights and social change for us. We all need to be learning this and it shouldn’t just be what is available to people who are fortunate enough to be able to take Asian-American studies when they reach college.”
VINCE RAFAEL
“At the same time [AsianAmericans are] were realizing that privilege was very precarious and that they remain vulnerable, and that they had a responsibility. This is the thing that strikes the young people more and more, they have this deep sense of responsibility to engage in social justice issues using their privilege to further protections and justice for everybody else. You know, you think of rappers like Ruby Ibarra, you think of film makers like Isabel Sandoval, you think of a lot of Filipino intellectuals and Asian-American intellectuals that are now growing and are at the cutting edge of many of those fields. So for me, I draw an enormous amount of satisfaction from seeing this development happening both within the University as well as the larger society.
MIGUEL SANGALANG
GORDON QUAN
“This is the Asian century. We have played a secondary role oftentimes in American society, but now it’s our time and it you know, the theme of Asia Society is, this is where East meets West. How we bridge these societies together... I think we play a very vital role in that as Asian Americans because we know both societies and we can lead a new kind of a global movement of how we can work together.”
MARCUS TEO
“Being Asian American we have our privilege, and I think that’s one thing we don’t always own because we’re always told to not, you know, rattle the boat, don’t shake and make that much noise. I think it’s time to recognize we are privileged to be Asian and we are privileged to be American, and so we must really recognize our pride being Asian American and continue to tell those stories so that we have more representation.”
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FRESH DROPS
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CLEARANCE SALE
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Pillows by Elements (Assorted Rectangular)
