I just finished an hour-long interview with somebody in Thailand. I have three stories from Switzerland and Singapore pending now. Another interview with somebody from Cambodia. I need to fly to these countries this year (except for Switzerland) as I lack reporters to cover these markets.

I hope I have enough energy for those. Then I have to do performance reviews and goal-setting in the next couple of days.

This is just my second day back at work. 🫠

I think I need to walk again. To clear my head so I have enough space for the things I must do.

I need a raise.

I didn’t walk today because I lacked sleep so I was bit fatigued by 4 pm. Why? I was busy researching until the wee hours the Laguna Volcanic Field a.k.a San Pablo volcanic field, which just 10-20 mins away from here.

I was first researching whether there was a way to hike these small “mountains” safely because there are no trails there. Same goes for Mt. Kalisungan and Mt Bulalo. Forget about Mt. Cristobal, that mountain is creepy as f*ck, similar to the suicide mountain in Japan.

Then I fell down the rabbit hole of volcanoes, so to speak.

It blew my mind to learn last night that the maar lakes (the Seven Lakes of San Pablo) are active volcanic craters 😱. And to think that I wanted to bring my kids to one of those maar lakes (Lake Yambo or Lake Pandin) for hiking and and picnic. Some friends even went swimming in them and camped by the banks. I mean, I knew they were volcanoes but I didn’t know they were still active. 😱 Hmmm, but there is like 1000:1 chance of it exploding while we’re there so I guess we can still go there and have lunch and swing on ropes and drop in the lake, just like what my college friend did with his family a few months ago.

I learned in college (?) that this area is part of the Macolod Corridor, a 40-km-wide stretch that is theoretically a rift or something similar that’s why this geothermal field is very active. And Macolod is the name of the mountain in my parents’ hometown that we regularly climbed when we were bored during my teen years. Yes, it is also an inactive volcano. The last time I climbed it was in 2000.

That peninsula at southwest (north of Mindoro) is Mabini, Batangas. Mabini Peninsula is an inactive volcano (Mt. Panay) but there are hot springs dotting the town. There is even a part of Anilao called Barangay Mainit where the bubbles are coming out of vents underwater. We had experienced one of those hot spring bubbles when we went to Anilao during partial lockdown season in August 2020. One kid roaming the beach that I talked to said that one of the vents just outside the resort walls had burst open some years before and killed one child.

Meanwhile, right smack in the middle of Laguna Lake is Mt. Tagapo, in Talim Island. I had scaled that mountain/inactive volcano in August 2018. It’s also part of the Macolod Corridor, as is the ancient volcano that formed Laguna Lake. Geologists believe that Binangonan, Talim Island, and Jala-jala towns in Rizal province were parts of the crater of this massive volcano. They still classified it as inactive, just like Mt. Pinatubo was inactive prior to its massive eruption in 1991. 🫠

And as my mom said, there is no such thing as a dormant volcano in the Philippines, as proven by Mt. Pinatubo.

“Mommy, why are you writing about that?” asked Twin I after seeing me typing away at my phone.

I told her, we will be doing another Laguna half-loop and one full loop in the near future so might as well acquaint ourselves with the geology and topography of the places we will visit.

So many things to do, so little time. 😕