Adventures of Isabel

Prisoners in an overcrowded cell, La Trinindad Prison, Benguet
I’m usually pretty well insulated from the latest internet sensations, but given my interest in prisons and prisoners in the Philippines, friends have seen fit to alert me to the youtube phenomenon of the dancing inmates of Cebu jail.[For those even more clueless than I am: a [...]

I have mostly been doing things that, while important, don’t make for very interesting reading.I got a new [old] bike yesterday, I sign a lease tomorrow, and will start moving to the East Bay after that. I finally made up my mind and made plans to go out to the East Coast for about a [...]

My desk, upon completion of my article on BasilanNow I just need a place to live…[Because as nice as this desk is when it's not totally overrun with books and tapes and papers, it's in the wrong city]

Writer’s block. A fancy word for procrastination?I just know that I’m having to rip every single word of the article I’m working on out of me like I’m pulling a tooth.I often wonder if everybody sometimes hates doing the things they love quite as much as I do.I spent some time this afternoon biking around, [...]

“If I look at the provisions of the antiterror law, I would not trust even the most upright government with them, much less a government which has actually a very questionable track record with respecting human rights and the civil liberties of its citizens.”Interview with Atty. Ibarra “Barry” Gutierrez, Director of the University of the [...]

“My street” in Quezon City
Apparently, I am now a real Californian, having slept through my first earthquake last night. I’ve been horribly jetlagged, wasn’t able to fall asleep until around 4 am, and the quake came through around 4:45, so I must have been completely passed out.I’ve generally been feeling a bit disoriented since I [...]

Arrived in California earlier tonight.It was actually supposed to be yesterday, but the flight was overbooked, they were offering a free roundtrip ticket between San Francisco and Manila to anyone who could fy out the next day, and I had an extra day on my visa, so…Looks like I’m going back next summer, maybe even [...]

Blogging as work avoidance.In any case, here are some photos in the thirty minutes I was able to spend as a tourist in Zamboanga city. Not the best composed, but I was conspicuous enough without waving a camera around all over the place.
Fort Pilar

Rio Hondo Mosque

The very tip of the Zamboanga Peninsula

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I have just 4 days left in the Philippines now. And I have to say, I’m ready for this trip to be over. At the moment, it’s not even so much that I feel like I want to be out of the Philippines, as that I’m totally sick of not having my own [...]

I imagine the news about what happened in Basilan over the past few days [attacks by rebel groups on the Philippine marines that left at least 14 dead, including at least 9 beheaded] may be trickling in to the Western media.In case my last post wasn’t clear enough, I’m back in Manila, and fine. I [...]