Jagged Little Pill was my album. It’s personal. It’s phenomenal. You Ought To Know opened doors, like it allowed us women to express true anger and not mindful of what people are saying that it’s unbecoming and unrespectable to show this raw rage. That women should be nice and proper. That line “did she go down in you in the theater” was a shocker and yet it was also freeing, like it showed the world the humiliation we go through to please our men.

Forgiven resonated with me as a formerly Catholic school girl. The hypocrisy, the irony, the guilt-tripping that goes on and on. I always thought that it’s hard to please God, with all these rules, these sacraments, these rituals, these boxes. The questions she asked were the same questions I asked and more.

And it’s so revealing here, what Alanis said in this interview about patriarchy not allowing her to have You Ought to Know as the carrier single. Patriarchy telling her, no, you cannot be angry. No, you cannot be raw and  uncouth.

And my college blocmate reminded me that I used to sing a lot of Alanis during those days. Whenever he hears Alanis, he remembers me driving around in our maroon pickup truck, blasting Alanis on our car stereo, windows open.

Alanis allowed us to be angry and not apologetic about it. And happy (Hand in My Pocket) without it being about love. And heartbreakingly sad (that song Perfect is still sad).

We are having a PS5 party here. My nephews and daughters playing The Last Of Us. Goodness knows when they will end.

Maybe I need to upgrade my TV to a 43″ screen…

And oh yeah, my living area got a little more sunshine as I put up the new curtains I had sewn a month ago.

I can’t buy a new TV though. Not yet. I’m already asking for a quote for a 6kW solar power, grid-tied system with hybrid inverter ready for batteries. I just don’t know if our roof can accommodate 20 solar panels because a 6kW system requires 10 panels and my mom wants to have hers installed as well.

My Meralco bill doubled this month and it’s shocking. I better have the solar system installed now so that when I retire, no electric bill will eat into my retirement fund every month.

I’m about to pass this 4-year-old, 11″ Samsung Tab S8 (complete with original pen and keyboard folio cover) to Twin A as I await my 8.8″Lenovo Y700 Gen 4 2026 tablet from Lenovo China. It has 12GB of RAM and 256GB of ROM.

Why the heck did I buy that?

Well, you can have emulators in it and play Nintendo games…

But wait, the real reason is that it’s small enough to be tucked into my handbag. I still needed to carry another bag when I bring this Samsung tablet to coverages because it won’t fit into most of my bags. If I only want to carry one bag, I would have to lug around the heavy, wine-colored Kate Spade leather tote bag I have in my closet. It’s so heavy that it hurts my shoulders. 

The second reason is that I want an e-book reader. I tried reading e-books on this Samsung tablet but it’s still too large for one-hand media consumption. I have tons of e-books in my Kindle app and some more in my archives, still waiting to be read. I realized that buying a Kindle, with only 3GB of RAM, is just waste of money. I’ve read online that if I want a paper-white feel for my e-reader that is actually an AMOLED IPS LCD tablet, then I should just buy a matte screen protector and set my screen to gray/black and white mode. There’s a tutorial somewhere out there that makes gray/black and white screen turn on automatically when you open your Kindle app or other e-reader apps.

Twin A often commented that I don’t use the pen enough to write down notes or draw on my Samsung S8. She often borrows it to draw and do stuff on it. Actually, she’s right. I’m not maximizing its potential and I think Twin would appreciate it more.

So far, so good. I’m using the folding BT keyboard to type this blog. The letter “T” and “V” are awkward as they were cut smaller than the rest of the keys because they are on the hinges. Otherwise, typing on this is fine. It takes me back to the days when I was still using the first generation netbook — the Asus eeePC — way back in 2007. It had a 7″ screen and cramped keyboard. My orthopedic surgeon blamed that netbook for giving me carpal tunnel syndrome because it was terrible ergonomically. But I loved it for being so handy and I could type stories on the fly while in a cafe, or on the bus or UV Express. I didn’t have to worry about not being able to submit my stories by 3 pm or 5pm, depending on my editor’s mood, because I left my heavy laptop in the press office or at home.

I used to carry a 15.2″ Toshiba laptop that was several kg heavy. My back ached as I wasn’t driving in Metro Manila at that time yet. I took the LRT/MRT or UV Express to get to my beat. It was so heavy that I had to leave it in the locker of the central bank press room.

One time, I was debating whether I should bring the laptop home because Typhoon Milenyo was coming the next day. But we were having dinner with central bank governors that evening so it would be cumbersome to be dragging that machine around.

Big mistake.

It was raining so hard and wind was picking up by the hour the following day. I had asked my then husband to drive me to Netopia at Robinsons Galleria to type my story and beat the deadline because I left my effing laptop in my locker at the pressroom. As I was finishing my piece, the roof of the mall was peeled open by the strong winds and rainwater went gushing from the rooftops down to the basement of Galleria. The staff at Netopia begged me to pack up so they can close shop but I yelled, “wait, wait, wait! I need to send this soon or I’ll be dead!”

I don’t want a repeat of that ever. After that, I never left my laptop again in the press room or at home. I got terrible back aches as a result.

I was an avid reader of T3 and Gadgets magazines then so when I learned about netbooks, I immedidately went straight to the mall (can’t remember if it was Greenhills or SM North) to check out these lightweight, underpowered (Intel Atom) word processing machines. I mean, hey, they’re so underpowered that all you can do with them is type documents and surf the internet. It was November 2007 and Asus eeePC 701 was very new to the market. I believe I was the first business journalist who carried that in coverages. That Christmas season, it was a favorite raffle prize in every party we were invited to.

That eeePC was my multi-media machine. It was my e-reader, manga reader, and youtube machine and I almost didn’t finish my thesis for my master’s degree because I was spending too much of my spare time reading manga instead of writing my manuscript. It was with me while I was putting my twins to sleep or when I breastfed them. I had to give it up when the hinges broke. I later graduated to a 10″ Gateway netbook. It was still underpowered but it had a faster processor and more RAM.

After that, I was always on the hunt for a portable word processing/internet machine. I was tempted to buy a Chromebook but editing stories on them would be a headache because everything was done with a browser and at that time, wifi was NOT as ubiquitous as it is today.

Nowadays, I bring my tablet if I know I would be very mobile (like attending conferences and expos) and do not expect to be doing heavy editing. I bring my Acer laptop if I know I would be working in an area where I can plug my machine or would be mostly stationary and do not need to carry my backpack around all the time.

Can I write on an 8.8″ tablet? Probably. I’ve done it before on a 7″ screen and smaller keyboard. Can I edit on it? Probably, but not much. I will just carry the Lenovo Y700 for the just-in-case moments that I need to write on the fly. I guess I would mostly be doomscrolling on it or watch YouTube.

My handcarry would also be lighter when I fly and it’s easier to watch movies on it while in the plane. Some seatmates are kinda nosy, you know, and I don’t have to pop up the tray so I can put my 11″ tablet on it to watch my downloaded movies.

So this is how it is to be a passenger princess in my own car. I’m getting dizzy. No wonder my kids are complaining that they get dizzy at times.

The past few days were hectic. I had our weekly Monday call while I was in my car because I was on the way to an interview. Tue and Wednesday is about chasing people. I only got a breather yesterday but majority of the time I was just taking naps in between editing and writing because I was exhausted.

Perimenopause sucks. I easily run out of energy and everything aches.

I am accompanying my mom to her pulmonologist (near PGH) and cardiologist (at Asian Hospital) so she can get clearance for her hernia surgery. My mom is 76 years old and she’s already slow and has a terrible sense of direction, so she needs a chaperone for doctor visits.

I edit and write stories while waiting for our turn at the doctors’ clinics so I don’t have to waste a PTO for chaperone jobs.

I just realized that I need flexibility with my schedule because doctor visits will become more frequent as my mom gets older. My older sister and I take turns in taking care of her needs; my younger sister is useless.

I didn’t know how exhausted I was until I woke up at 10:30 am today. My body was compensating for the four-hour-sleep-a-day work-week I just had.

Last night I had a 5-hr dinner with two friends near T. Morato in QC. I brought M a 250g slab of mozzarella cheese made from carabao’s milk, which is one of the specialties of my hometown.

I asked M if I should go for the Manila bureau chief position of a rival newswire. I was told by Fairygaymother K that position was vacated by MS, who moved up to a more regional role.

M told me that he would love that for me BUT my life as I know it would never be the same. That job is too life-consuming. Would I want that for myself when I have kids and I live outside of Metro Manila, he asked.

I know it would be like that because fairygaymother K doesn’t want the position that’s why he was passing it on to me.

I’m not sure… I quit being a bureau chief exactly last year because I was too stressed so joining this rival may not be the wisest thing.

I’ll think about it.

I’ve been driving to and from Manila everyday since Tuesday and my mistake was I didn’t book a hotel stay so I could at least have a good night’s sleep. Because I needed to attend morning panel discussions, I had to wake up early everyday despite coming home late the previous day.

Why didn’t I book a room? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Ah because I wanted to bring home pasalubong to my kids.

Was all the driving worth it? Yes. On Tuesday I had back to back expos in different venues. The first one was great because I reconnected with the CEO whom I’ve been trying to locate for quite a while. My last interview with her was 10 years ago.

I also booked another interview but the CEO, who came from the land of bubblegum pop, took a lot of convincing from his Philippine distributor to grant me the interview. Because 1) he couldn’t speak English and 2) he couldn’t see the benefit of doing the interview. The problem with people from the land of bubblegum pop is that they’re stuck in a bubble. He needs this interview because he has NASDAQ ambitions. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Nobody in the US knows his company or his products. It’s not enough to carry his country’s flag and just call it a day. He needs to convince investors that he can deliver growth despite serving only 52 million people.

The second expo yielded me two stories and some for follow up. Some people I met were nice and one invited me to a monthly club meeting on Monday to meet more industry insiders. However, I have an interview on that same day so I won’t be able to make it to the number coding window.

At 6 am last Monday, I barfed while I was showering. My chin spent an inordinate time on my toilet seat as I tried to empty my stomach of acids. It was so painful that I fell into a fetal position on the bathroom floor while the shower drowned my cries — my hyperacidity was acting up again. Then diarrhea came. And never left.

The entire Monday was like that. I got a terrible headache and got so weak (probably got dehydrated) that I got confined to my bed. My plan to drive to Ortigas to attend the first day of a 4-day conference was scratched out from my calendar.

And yet I had to edit a story because we were very short of editors this past week. The bureau chiefs were out of town for the annual meet and this is the first time that I wasn’t included. It was fine by me since I no longer want that job and the stress.

Anyway, my soul was floating and I was in and out of consciousness, so I don’t know how I managed to get the job done. I slept in between. It was so terrible and I prayed for healing so I can work the next day. I needed to get stories because I was on leave the previous week.

Tuesday was better and I risked going to Ortigas even though my head was still swimming a bit. On the sidelines of that conference, I got to interview one guy from the land of bubblegum pop. But he was so rude!!! Had I not been desperate for stories, I wouldn’t have tolerated his rudeness. 🤬

Another interview with a company founder from Malaysia made up for that earlier rude interview.

Wednesday was a bit better. However, I didn’t have a chance to have lunch or any snacks because I was busy chasing people, attending panel discussions, or editing. Editing jobs were piling up.

I was so busy that I only got to eat at around 7 pm. I got to my car, had a call with a source, and I was only able to drive out of the parking lot at close to 9 pm.

I was sick and oh so tired.

I decided to skip the last day of the conference and just write some stories at home and edit for a bit.

One of my bffs dropped by at home to have lunch with me since she has to tell me her uprooting plans. She and her kids will be leaving for Bangkok by the end of the month for her post doc work. Her research institute has a program with her uni in Europe and a uni in Thailand so she will be shuttling between Bangkok and our uni hometown for three years. She is also assisting her advisor in advising a PhD candidate in Thailand.

So for today, we went to Caliraya to give her a breather. We had lunch in Pagsanjan and went to Lake Caliraya to have coffee.

But we checked out Kaliraya Surf Kamp first to see if it’s still worth camping there again after five years since we first pitched our tent there.

To give my bff’s kids a treat, we rented a boat to go around the lake.

There are more camping sites now around the lake than resorts. Lagos del Sol closed down during the pandemic and our boatman told us it is already sold to a new owner.

After the hour-long boat ride, we drove down to have that long-delayed coffee break.

With this view.