https://casualsavant.typepad.com > Barkada

In Filipino, the word "barkada" means a group of friends. As with many things Filipino, the delineation of closeness is not exact. I've heard it described as a group of close-knit friends or simply a peer group. The best definition I can come up with is that to a Filipino, one's barkada is another form of family. This may sound frightening to foreigners, since surely one group of relatives is enough! While it must be admitted that our loyalties do beget corruption and nepotism, the upside is strong networks. The barkada has the best of both worlds, people who know you and love you anyway, but who will allow you to take them for granted... to a certain extent. This motley crew is my barkada.

Cliff

Cliff

Cliff has the priviledge and the punishment of being my bitter half for the last four years. He is very barely right wing, anarchistic, libertarian, very zen in a catholic way (or very catholic in a zen way), corporate swine, frighteningly charismatic, inimitably handsome and the most wonderful man alive.

I can only ascribe the sucess of our continuing relationship to a combination of overweening arrogance, a mutually flagrant lust for power, disdain for mediocrity, twilight and a goat.


Damian

Damian

The ever erudite, debonair curmudgeon. Damian made his online appearance in my life through a misspelled google attempt for Herman Hesse's "Demian". He appeared off-line as he crossed the street, clutching an HMV shopping bag by the neck. I was standing outside a Cambs sandwich shop, listening to Chicane's Saltwater. Since then he has had the pleasure of taking my google virginity, offering my hand in marriage in return for the BBC's postal address and been a strangely wonderful confidante.


Kristine

Kristine

Kristine is the piglet to my pooh. She offers this explanation for why we are, admittedly, the best of friends: "Maoi is what happens to you when you think you have enough close friends... She will drag you out from under your rock, though you may flail any free limb in protest and desperately claw the ground."

Resistance was futile.