Malling In Love

Another tourism program Malaysia is proud of is the Homestay Program. For RM50 a night (about P700), students can learn the culture by living with a Malaysian family, eating with them and even seeing them at work.

However, the main attraction for most Pinoys is still shopping. Kuala Lumpur alone has a wide range of cheap-to-luxe shopping establishments, and here is a quick survey of the best:

• Petaling Jaya - Petaling Street market is made for bargaining, and its night market is famous with locals. Though the usual bags, watches, clothes, shoes and fakes are on offer, you can also find Chinese artifacts, gold jewelry, gems, home décor, traditional herbal remedies, fresh flowers and textiles.

• Central Market is where you can score ethnic souvenirs. This souk-style indoor bazaar is where local artists hawk wares like batik, labu sayong (the gourd-shaped carafe Malays use to keep water cool), Sarawak pottery, and traditional Malaysian kites to fly or just hang on your wall. Non-shoppers can sit and have their portrait sketched or sip a white coffee at one of the quaint cafés.

• Mid Valley Megamall - This was the mall connected to our four-star digs, the Boulevard Hotel. Popular brands like Topshop, Zara and Mango compete with local labels like Vincci, Seed and Philosophy. Anchors include Jusco, Carrefour and Metrojaya, plus there's a one-stop IT center, Pet Wonderland, large MPH bookstore and feng shui outlet. Mid Valley connects via bridgeway to...

• The Gardens Mall - Anchored by Japan's Isetan and Singapore's Robinsons, this high-end mall -- connected to the brand-new, five-star Gardens Hotel -- features designer brands like Coach and Ted Baker. Concept store M houses labels from Tom Ford to Alexander McQueen's McQ. Local designers show their stuff at 2201 Fashion Avenue, where you can shop for batik resortwear, edgy streetwear and funky jewelry.

• Sunway Pyramid - Malaysia meets Vegas in this hotel, leisure and shopping complex housed under an Egyptian sphinx and pyramid. Sunway's 700 shops include fast-fashion and high-street stores such as Miss Selfridge and Diva accessories. For men there's Camel Active, Timberland and Valentino Creations; kids have Sesame Street.

• Starhill Gallery - Home to Louis Vuitton, this sleek mall has seven themed floors. For example, "Indulge" boasts luxury fashion brands, "Adorn" has collectible watches and accessories, "Pamper" offers wellness and beauty, and "Feast Village" emphasizes civilized dining.

Did I also mention KL has its own IKEA? With our hectic schedule, however, there was no time to even locate it.

Taken from The Philippine Star

The Other Careers in Sports

You may be one of those sports enthusiasts who fantasizes about earning a living on the playing field. Unfortunately, you're not a superstar.

However, the sports industry is a big business, and there are ways to make a living in sports without being a professional athlete.

Here are some of the other sports careers:

• Coaching. Coaching can be a difficult, but rewarding job. A variety of coaching opportunities exists, ranging from those of a volunteer, recreational nature, to the ranks of the full-salaried professional mentors.

A coach is first of all an educator. Today's coach is in the people business. He or she is trying to develop and get the most out of each player.

• Sports administration and management. Sports organizations are just another business. Though not identical in structure, sports-related positions are basically the same in their job description as corresponding positions anywhere else. The skills and training involved in sports finance, marketing or public relations are no different from any other business.

• Sports medicine. The fitness boom of the '80s had one overriding side effect: an outgrowth of activity-related injuries.

In one year alone, the U.S. government estimated that more than one million sports-related injuries occurred at the varsity level in high school and college sports.

These injuries are often out of the ordinary, everyday practices of most family physicians. Athletic injuries have created a need for specially trained physicians and therapists.

Other sports-related fields include: referees and umpires, grounds keepers, sporting goods suppliers, insurance agents, marketing consultants, advertising agents, equipment managers, photographers, sports writers and commentators

- By Greg J. Cylkowski

Taken from Youth 90 magazine

On Her Own

By Michael Warren

When I met Shaaron that spring, she was living in a shelter for the homeless.

Before her, I had met homeless people mostly of the seamier variety--drug-addicted zombies, panhandlers, foul-smelling bag people.

But Shaaron was different. She was intelligent and funny. She was a college student, like me.

And in talking to her I wondered why she allowed me and a photographer to intrude into her life during a crisis. (Others had, understandably, seen the cameras and said forget it.)

She came to Los Angeles because of a fashion school she wanted to attend. Her parents had told her not to come, but she was in her early 20s and decided she could make it on her own.

The trouble began when her roommate, who was assigned by the school, decided to skip town with Shaaron's personal belongings, including her money. "I barely had a bag of clothes left."

Homeless and without work

Without close friends to stay with, she was eventually out on the street. "I couldn't afford it anymore so I left [school] and decided to look for work and I couldn't find any. That's basically how I ended up in a homeless situation."

Her first taste of a homeless shelter was a drug- and rat-infested place where she spent a couple of weeks. Finally, she said, "I told them I wasn't going to go back down there 'cause it was, like, really scary." She laughed. I spent an afternoon in the shelter she was talking about, and laugh was one thing I didn't do.

So she decided to live in the Hyundai that her brother gave her when she moved. One afternoon she was sitting in her car in the Salvation Army parking lot trying to figure out what to do. She didn't have enough gas to get far. With the window opened a crack she dozed off.

"I woke up to tapping on the window," she said, "and I looked up and there was a man there, and he was drunk. He started banging on the window. He was yelling in the crack, so I pulled my seat up and started to turn the engine on--I don't know what he had on top of the car, his liquor or whatever--and I started driving and it fell off... I heard him yelling, and I didn't know if it was because I ran over his feet or because his liquor fell."

After that she parked and slept in the emergency lot of a hospital because it was safer. She used a fast-food restaurant rest room to clean up before job interviews.

Once when she went to the store someone stole her car stereo and ruined the door lock. After that, she had trouble sleeping.

Humor and depression

I asked her: "You seem to have kept such a good attitude. How did you do that?"

"I just have a great sense of humor about things," she said. "I'm not the type who gets those attitudes, who really gets worried."

"It's an experience, it really is." She said her past six months have been enough to write a book about. "I get depressed lots of times. I've sat in here and cried lots of times... but it's a lot better than sleeping out on a sidewalk like the rest of them."

The shelter where I met her was one of the best in Southern California--a remodeled motel. She'd been there three weeks. "In the time that you get, you really have to get out there and get on interviews."

It's no easy task, though. She made the mistake of giving some potential employers the shelter's phone number. When they realized they were dealing with a homeless woman, they hung up.

"That's the only reason we're homeless is because we can't get hired," she said.

I asked her why she didn't just call her family and have them come to her rescue.

"I wouldn't want to," she said, "because I was bold enough and determined enough to come out here on my own.

"Basically they don't know because I haven't told them. Because I feel really bad."

She had a week left of her free month's stay at the shelter, but she didn't have a job yet.

"It is kind of scary, but like I said, there's a book coming out of it," she said and then laughed.

She called her experience "research," the same thing I was calling it. Only her research was more difficult than mine, I thought as I drove home that evening.

Editor's note: Shaaron had a lot going for her when she left home. Runaways--homeless teens--have far less.

Taken from Youth 90 magazine