I’ve always built stuff if I have a manual for it. I didn’t have to rely on any man for manual labor if I can help it. Maybe at the back of my mind I knew I would be living alone in the foreseeable future? I don’t know. I’ve always been self-reliant.
And I built one of the drawers for the girls but I need to return it tomorrow since it had a faulty hole for one of their proprietary screws.
After I return this tomorrow morning at Ikea, I will just work in some coffee shop in BGC and meet with our Manila reporter since she has a presscon tomorrow at Shangri-la Fort. Face-to-face meetings are coming back, methinks.
Thus ends my working in isolation. I would have to dress up again. Yey. I kinda miss that.
As I was saying, I try building or learning to build by myself because I can’t rely on other people doing things for me. If it’s way over my head, then I will gladly pay for it like plumbing and electrical jobs. But I if I can learn it, I will always try to do it myself.
Like fixing computers. I learned how to set up a home network, from laying cables to setting up modem and routers/repeaters. Later on, I am the one being called back home to set up my mom’s internet connection and fix her laggy laptop (clean it, reinstall the OS, or add RAM, which I did the last time). My sister-in-law (my brother’s wife) calls me Ms. Butingting (tinker) because I was always tinkering with something, even if I end up destroying the one I am tinkering with. That’s how I learned. Now I can add RAM or swap an HDD to an SSD. I learned how to install or reinstall operating systems. So far I haven’t bricked some motherboard because of an attempted BIOS update (because I haven’t; too scared because an internet connection hiccup may ruin it). I learned how to dual boot my computers (Windows/Linux) and worked around UEFI setups. I learned Linux by myself.
Simple home repairs I can deal with. Workarounds and manual labor are ok with me; I don’t have to act like a damsel in distress, unlike some stupid female out there who acts like she’s dying if no guy can help her. I have little patience for women who knew nothing but open their legs and have something between them. Use your brain, girl! When it comes to car repairs, I had to learn how to deal with them. Even when I had a husband, I never relied on him to do my car repairs for me. Besides, he won’t do it for me anyway.
There’s some kind of freedom knowing how to do things on your own. I don’t have to rely on any man to do things for me. I can figure it out on my own. If can’t physically do it, then I hire somebody to do it. No big deal. I can’t be like my mom when my father died; she was so lost when it comes to home repairs and dealing with tradespeople. She was kinda helpless…she always said it was my dad who had to deal with leaky faucets and broken doors.
That’s why when I was on my own, the first thing I bought for my apartment were home improvement tools. Now I’m completing my power tools as I am about to order my jigsaw tool. Circular cutters occupy too much space.
One day I will have a shed in my garden that can be my workshop. Like this girl: