I didn’t do what I set out to do, like start and finish a feature story that our Japan team is supposed to promote next week. I was drowning in hiring issues (interviews with candidates ate up a lot of my time, too). Then I had to help out in inviting courting executives of Southeast Asian conglomerates (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore) to speak in our upcoming conference🫠As this is a flagship event that is under my region, I am conscripted to do this.
To make matters worse, I was editing until almost 8 pm since an editor in London didn’t want to deal with a story that one of their reporters wrote… And after I labored over this badly written one, the journo didn’t have the courtesy of sending back the story with proper revisions. These guys really look down on us here in Asia, thinking that we have zero English journalism skills. 🤷🏻♀️
I just… melted. 🫠🫠🫠🫠
To rest my brain, I translated to piano a Breaking Benjamin song and kept playing it until the weariness lifted from me.
Mission accomplished. I finally applied for water connection this morning and the utility company’s engineering team went to my house in the afternoon to arrange the right of way issues. Once that’s out of the way by tomorrow and after I paid for the connection fee and bond, my house will be connected to the mains.
Now, next on the agenda is Converge connection. I already told their corp comm head about my intention to transfer my account from here in QC to my new house. HOWEVER, I still can’t do it because I’m still using my line here. Oh well, let’s see how that could that be arranged…
Photo by CallMeCreation.comPhoto by CallMeCreation.com
After the darkness of my current bathroom, my new bathroom seems very bright. My current water heater is still perfectly fine so I will pull it out of this apartment and transfer it here instead of buying a new one.
Cleaning up the floor tile.
I opted to keep the original tiles, to mimic Vigan tiles of the old houses there. Plus these are very durable so I don’t need to worry about dinging it–or worse, cracking it–like when you have the shiny porcelain ones. The girls’ loft beds will arrive on the 22nd so hopefully by then I will have an idea of how much space will be left for the storage system I will be buying from Ikea for their room.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Only a few days more before the kitchen cabinets are done.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
They will start with the welding works next week so this house will be inaccessible for quite a bit since they will remove the old staircase and manufacture a new industrial- sttength one. After that, I can start moving the books and the kitchen stuff that we don’t normally use.
Tea break. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
After finishing a call and uploading one digest for publication, I walked around for a bit at 5 pm to buy my girls cookies from my favorite pastry shop and hopped to Infinitea. Then I went to the university park for some air and to drink my milk tea in peace.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My sis-in-law later joined me here and we talked until 8 pm, which was a good time to drive back north (1.5 hrs). The change of scenery has done me good, in the sense that I feel I can write a long article tomorrow.
That’s the thing with writing, if your brain is not ready, then no matter how you try, you can’t really force words to drip out of every orifice of your body. It’s like extracting blood out of stone.
Hopefully, I can finish the story tomorrow because our marketing team in Japan is ready to tweet it next week. Talk about pressure…
Meanwhile, today’s soundtrack is brought to you by Breaking Benjamin. I had been playing it while driving (to and from my hometown) so that I can keep myself awake.
Evil Angel
Hold it together Birds of a feather Nothing but lies and crooked wings I have the answer Spreading the cancer You are the faith inside me
No Don’t leave me to die here Help me survive here alone Don’t remember Remember
Put me to sleep evil angel Open your wings evil angel
I’m a believer Nothing could be worse All these imaginary friends Hiding betrayal Driving the nail Hoping to find a savior
No Don’t leave me to die here Help me survive here alone Don’t surrender Surrender
Put me to sleep evil angel Open your wings evil angel Fly over me evil angel Why can’t I breathe evil angel?
Put me to sleep evil angel Open your wings evil angel Fly over me evil angel Why can’t I breathe evil angel?
This song, Evil Angel, sounds like it’s about substance abuse, which Ben Burnley has written extensively about in some Breaking Benjamin’s songs. He battled alcoholism for a while and he was almost a non-functional alcoholic. His health issues today are a result of his battle with the the bottle. Dear Agony album’s cover was Ben’s brain scan after he was diagnosed with “wet brain” or Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome due to alcohol abuse.
More than the heavy guitar riffs, what attracts me to Breaking Benjamin are the melodies and the relatable words, which echo in your mind especially if you have suffered from depression and substance abuse. Lucky are the people who did not have to suffer such things. They shouldn’t judge because they have no idea how we survivors are able to get out of our hellhole. They have no idea how it is to live without proper sleep for months…in my case, two years. It’s kind of sad that the only respite I had then was Covid.
I first listened to Breaking Benjamin when I still didn’t have kids. Then “I Will Not Bow” became my anthem while I was trying to keep myself together while my girls were battling with life and death in the ICU.
After going through the difficult recent two years, I could relate more to BB’s songs. Thanks to therapy, my faith, and friends, I got past it.
A colleague from another region was messaging me while we were attending one of our regional townhall meetings today, ranting to me about his line manager who doesn’t get what is happening. So he asked me what is really going on. Then that messaging spiraled down from there, to the usual rants about how incompetent the manager is…
So when it was time for Q&A, I asked the global head about travel. “During the presentation earlier, you said TRAVEL. Can you expound on this one? You mean there would be no restrictions on travel in terms of cost?”
The global head said, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. We didn’t have cost restrictions before. We only had travel restrictions because of Covid. We encourage you to travel if there is a business case, like meeting sources, having our brand out there.”
And that colleague from another region said: Ha! So she doesn’t know that we had budget restrictions.
I wonder who was really keeping me from staying longer in Singapore, which is technically where my office is located, therefore I should be completing all the things I should set out to do whenever I’m there? Who is keeping me from going to Singapore this month so I can meet the sources that my colleague is passing on to me, interview candidates, and do more stories from there?
I have to confront my managers about this in the coming weeks. This shit can’t go on.
I will fight until I have nothing left to fight for. If they didn’t listen to me before and will not listen again to me this time, then it’s time to move on. I’ve been fighting to keep this team afloat despite the difficulties.
I will play this song over and over until I get some kind of enlightenment.
Yeah, Breaking Benjamin has been my voice of encouragement for more than 12 years now.
Some words of wisdom from my social media feeds today.
Hurrah for narcissists! May you destroy more lives in your wake.
Of course I’m being sarcastic. That’s the only thing you can do now after surviving narcissists, right? Being tongue-in-cheek about things that had killed you.
And this post deserves a near-perfect rendition of my favorite song of defiance.
Another Breaking Benjamin song, this time in acoustic.
I just got off the kitchen literally a few minutes ago. I had sauteed pork cubes for menudo and chucked it in the slow cooker with the tomato sauce mix, fish sauce, chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, snow peas, carrots, and potatoes. Cooking it for at least 8 hours.
That’s food prepared with love for my small family. In the morning they will wake up to the smell of menudo wafting through the air. They will bite into a melt-in-your-mouth meat poured over piping hot white rice.
That’s love.
Because nothing beats a home cooked meal prepared for hours.
I finally—FINALLY—I chipped through my huge to-do list. I was able to finish my car registration for 2023. And finally, I didn’t have to process it for a week, like last year. It only took me an hour today.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My rants on TV and Twitter last year had made an impact. LTO got its shit together. Doing renewals at the extension office instead of at the Main is wiser since the crowd thins out past 2 pm in the former.
Also helped push out two stories today. I’m so done for the month of January—the longest month of the year. It felt like this month went on and on forever and I had to deal with anxiety over so many things, a big chunk of that is my staffing problems. Although I did get CVs and I will be interviewing two candidates on Friday, I need to get more candidates because don’t just want to hire people because I didn’t have a choice. I need to work my butt off this week and gather more candidates.
Then the other nitty-gritty admin work and other stuff that managers do, like weekly calls with the commercial team, then calls with the bosses from the other side of the globe who suddenly flew to HK and decided, hey, we need to have this call. So I would be up to my neck with calls tomorrow until the evening.
Set up interviews for my stories. Then writing my pending articles before they go stale.
Then I had to ferry my children and their friends to UP Diliman for their picnic tomorrow afternoon.
That’s just all for Wednesday (today).
And Thursday I need to drive to my hometown to apply for a water connection to my house and I have no choice but to work from there and have a pre-interview call with a Singapore company.
OK, breathe.
Breathe.
I don’t have time for myself.
I think I need to work in Makati and meet friends next week. While I love that I no longer have to battle the horrendous traffic everyday, the isolation from the hum of business is driving me mad. I told my fairy gaymother, K, that we need to have dinner with our friends as I would be giving away bookmarks.
He said, why don’t you sell them?
Are you insane?! I’m not good and there are amazing artists on Instagram and Etsy doing just that. I feel like a scammer next to them, I told him.
I need to draw everyday to improve but I barely have time for that.
A friend just sent me this through FB Messenger a few hours ago:
Flowers (Miley Cyrus)
We were good, we were gold Kinda dream that can’t be sold We were right ’til we weren’t Built a home and watched it burn
Mm, I didn’t wanna leave you I didn’t wanna lie Started to cry but then remembered I
I can buy myself flowers Write my name in the sand Talk to myself for hours Say things you don’t understand I can take myself dancing And I can hold my own hand Yeah, I can love me better than you can
Can love me better I can love me better, baby Can love me better I can love me better, baby
Paint my nails, cherry red Match the roses that you left No remorse, no regret I forgive every word you said
Ooh, I did not wanna leave you, baby I didn’t wanna fight Started to cry but then remembered I
I can buy myself flowers Write my name in the sand Talk to myself for hours, yeah Say things you don’t understand I can take myself dancing, yeah I can hold my own hand Yeah, I can love me better than you can
Can love me better I can love me better, baby Can love me better I can love me better, baby Can love me better I can love me better, baby Can love me better Oh, I
I did not wanna leave you I didn’t wanna fight Started to cry but then remembered I
I can buy myself flowers (oh) Write my name in the sand (mmh) Talk to myself for hours (yeah) Say things you don’t understand (never will) I can take myself dancing, yeah I can hold my own hand Yeah, I can love me better than Yeah, I can love me better than you can
Can love me better I can love me better, baby (oh) Can love me better I can love me better (than you can), baby Can love me better I can love me better, baby Can love me better
I told her, it’s a struggle and it requires a steep learning curve. I’ve been working at this for the past two years. Self-love requires a massive dose of self-confidence as well. As I said a few days ago, the little wins I had can quickly be eroded by insecurity and self-doubt. But hopefully I will be as solid as a rock and won’t have to deal with momentary vulnerability like that.
I just have to teach myself how to be numb and just work on being a superwoman.
This French street sweeper said he puts a rose on his cart that carries his cleaning tools. Why? He wants a dot of beauty in the coldness of the urban landscape. He said he chose to be a street sweeper because he wanted to be outside and be part of a community. He wrote a book about being a street sweeper and the rose he puts in his cart.
He is proud of his work.
No job is so low, only low people.
I know someone who looks down on such workers, going to the extent of calling them stupid. That person should have been marked a big X on my book at the get-go.
But you know, people who take pride in their work—whatever work that is—are worth more than company founders or managers who think they are so high and mighty but are crap in dealing with people.
I’m proud of what I do because I like it. It doesn’t matter if my publication is not as well-known as our more public counterparts. I make an impact, even if it’s very niche. I walked past a C-level boss in Singapore last November and he was waving at me when he saw my name tag during a conference. He recognized my name even if we just met for the first time. After all these years, I have been making myself visible to bosses on the other side of the globe. Especially when I crossed platforms so many times because I wanted to try something new and pushed the boundaries of what I can do.
I should shove this inside my head whenever I get those insecurity attacks, which I had last night. Self-doubt erodes the little wins I have gained slowly over the past two years. This is what happens when you just have yourself as your own cheerleader.
As my fairy gaymother always tells me, do not compare yourself to others who don’t matter. Or stop comparing yourself. Period.
Be proud of what you do.
Early morning light streaming through my curtains. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I had a very restless night so I woke up early. Had a splitting headache so I attempted to go back to sleep. To release me from anxiety caused by overthinking, I had to drag myself out of bed and my desk and go back to exercising. I’ve been a lazy ass the past few days. I haven’t even fulfilled my promise of going out to walk. Well, I did go out for a short walk to buy cold medicine for Twin A.
This yoga mat has been stewing under my bed for quite some time. About time that I dusted this offand used it.
Meanwhile, Kimchi is getting fatter like her hooman. I have been weaning her away from cat treats. I had requested my contractor to make her a plantbox outside our living area window so she can have more activities outside the house. I am also looking at cat stairs/climbing shelves that I will drill to the walls.
Kimchi sleeping on my bed while I worked. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This was a downer. I mean, if there was a brand that I would be assured of leather quality, it’s Bottega Veneta and Goyard. But apparently, no. It’s just like Louis Vuitton, which is peddling monogrammed PVC as a luxury item. USD 650 or over PHP 35k for a leather-coated plastic wallet—what a scam! I think I’m better off with locally made real leather bags and wallets. My Our Tribe handbag is already nine years old but it is still like new. I just had the zipper changed by their factory outlet but that’s it. I have another bag from this brand that I don’t use because it’s made of real heavy leather. Built like a tank. I wanted it to get destroyed so I have an excuse to buy a new one but I think it will outlast me.
Cheaper brands are better in this regard since the manufacturing cost is closer to the selling price, albeit it’s still 3x the real cost. So far my Kate Spade bags have yet to see any wear and still looks new despite being older than my kids. My Michael Kors bag is already showing wear since I often use it when I go abroad because it’s so roomy!
I couldn’t stomach buying PHP 100k worth of bag. Yes, I’m looking at you, Gucci.
As a I said, I would rather replenish my ETF and VUL that were drained because I am building my house. A Bottega Veneta leather-coated plastic wallet worth PHP 35k will not build me a house.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
After sleeping away most of my morning, I had to pull myself out of bed and do errands. It was a nice day to be out. Maybe tomorrow if I get off early from work, I should take advantage of the dry but still a bit cooler days.
However, I could already feel the dry and hot days coming sooner than I expected.
I’m still awake because I’m doing this annual maintenance thing:
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’m reseting my Windows OS and reinstalling apps/programs that did not come with this laptop. A bit painful but my PC is already running faster as I was able to get rid of a lot of junk that I may have picked up along the way.
So sleepy…
I think I need to see my OB-Gyne. Something is really wrong with me.
Please no. I’m not yet prepared. I hope that it is not what it is.
I just pray that I catch it early.
Why do I always torture myself by comparing myself to others? I really go out of my way to bring myself down, don’t I? Every person has her own pace and I can’t use others’ success or way of living as a measuring stick for myself. But then I can’t help it. I guess it’s exacerbated by social media, where everybody “humble brags” about everything and I can’t stomach doing the same thing myself.
But why do I need to do that? Who do I need to impress?
Well, nobody really.
I am now scolding myself for thinking that I’m worthless and that how others treated me in the past shouldn’t be the way I should view myself. Those people are no longer important and shouldn’t be the basis for gaining self-worth. I should just matter to my children, who are my world now and I also mean the world to them.
You do you, as the GenZ kids would say.
I should just strive to be the best I can be and don’t mind the others.
But then it’s easy for me to say that. Damn, this overthinking is killing me.
