Hi all,
Dianne and I had taken a week and a half off from each other, but are now back together again. She seems to have changed from before in that she no longer gets angry and loses her temper easily at little things, even when I look at other girls or text other people. She said that she realized that it wasn't good for her to be angry all the time and wasn't a healthy way to live too, and besides that, it accomplishes nothing anyway. So I guess there is hope after all. Perhaps Rocky was right in Rocky IV when he said at the end "If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!"

Anyhow, last night when we were out with my advisor and new intellectual friends, she told me something disturbing. Last week, during our time off from each other, she had been back to working at the bar again to help support her family (a duty that has been brainwashed into her which she can't resist) and getting off at 4am each night. One night, after collecting her salary from work, she went home. After getting off the jeepney at 4:30am, as she walked the rest of the way home, suddenly a van pulled up, and four guys with black cloth over their faces came out and grabbed her and threw her in the van. She said they tried to rape her at first, but it proved too difficult, so they just held a knife to her throat while covering her mouth, and told her that they were going to kill her if she didn't give them all her belongings. There was nothing she could do, while they emptied the contents of her purse and searched her pockets. When they were done taking everything of value on her, they tossed her out into the bushes.

She said that was the worst experience of her life and traumatized her because she thought she was going to die during the violent struggle. And she had never experienced anything like that before. It kind of reminds me of when I was beaten and robbed in Russia, which traumatized me for a long time too and left me with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. She didn't even tell her mom about it yet, probably cause she didn't want to upset her. But she did report it to the police. But there was little they could do since she could not see the muggers' covered faces nor did she get a license number on the van. They did patrol the area though, but came up with nothing. I guess you have to fend for yourself here and can't depend on them. Dianne said that she's lucky to be alive though, because last week another girl was kidnapped, raped and killed afterward. Perhaps like me, she has an angel watching over her too. I wish I could hunt down those four bastards and slit their fucking throats. They don't deserve to live and ought to be executed. It's times like these that make me feel like turning into Rambo!

Anyhow, she lost 2300p (around $45) that she was carrying from her salary at work, and obviously the new cell phone I bought her too! What luck huh? To get robbed on the exact day that you pick up your salary?! What a terrible coincidence! (Maybe the universe or God is trying to tell her to stop working in the bar?) She is pissed that all the money she earned from her hard work is now lost. It seems she and her family have a lot of bad luck. In the two years I've lived in this neighborhood, I've never been attacked or robbed, even though I'm the only foreigner that lives on my block (the other foreigners in this neighborhood live in gated areas with security guards). Yet I hear about muggings that happen frequently here, but they usually happen late at night and the victims seem to always be women. So I guess these crimes are gender-targeted.

And unfortunately, with her cell phone being lost again, that makes it the THIRD freaking time she's lost a new cell phone from being robbed!!!!!!! The first one she lost last year was a Motorola Razr V3i that her aunt in Canada sent her. She lost it when she and her sister went to the crowded market in Angeles, and some kids pickpocketed it from her purse. Apparently, they saw her use it and then put it into the SIDE pocket of her purse (not the main center like she should have), which is easy to snatch from if you just unzip it and grab it in a crowded place. I was pissed cause she shouldn't have gone to that market just because her sister wanted to go. That wouldn't have happened if she had gone with me.

The second one she lost was a pink Nokia sliding cell phone that I bought her from Ebay. This one was odd. She lost it in her own home one night when they were all sleeping, and some thieves broke in and stole all the purses in her home right from their own bedrooms while they were sleeping in them! WTF? Wouldn't you have to have ninja skills to move around unnoticed in an occupied house and get away with it? I had trouble buying that story, but Dianne doesn't make up stuff like that, and there was nothing to gain from such a story anyway. Her aunt from Canada was also there and lost around 80,000 pesos in cash that was in her purse as well. The police told them that the thieves were probably distant relatives of theirs, because they knew that the foreign aunts were there and where the purses were kept exactly.

After that, I didn't buy her another cell phone for a long time. But when I finally did, I told her that this would be the last one as I cannot keep replacing stolen cell phones. I got her a nice Samsung sliding phone, the E250, that could hold a hundred MP3 songs in its memory card and take pictures. She promised not to lose it again, and hasn't, until now. I'm still in disbelief about it. How can she have such bad luck?! God damn it!

She is no longer working at the bar now, as she detests it and is always looking for an excuse not to work there. Plus she missed the last time she was supposed to renew her license.

Anyhow, I told her that I would start a Sympathy Fund for her on my list to try to help her recuperate her tragic losses. So, if you would like to donate a measly 5 or 6 dollars to help compensate her losses from the recent kidnapping and mugging, you can send it to us by PayPal to this email address.

Thanks for listening to this vent and disturbing update.

Sincerely,
Winston


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“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

"The greatest awakening I underwent in my travels is that nations in reality are the exact opposite of how they are depicted in the media." - Ladislav