This person, whom I refuse to name on this blog, is the primary mother troll who had released his troll farm on me a few years ago when I criticized a government agency (which allegedly employed him as an attack dog a.k.a. social media handler) regarding an infrastructure project bidding.
For two weeks they tried to destroy me online. Even attacked my company’s social media assets, much to the shock and confusion of our APAC and global headquarters.
I do believe the universe will be out to get you if you haven’t been nice.
My friends and I are ROFLing now.
Speaking of trolls, I once again dodged the prinicpal of these creatures by leaving the conference venue early today. I AGAIN didn’t check the program—it was only during the welcoming remarks did I learn that Marcos is supposed to speak this afternoon. 🤦♀️ So the conference delegates were told to avoid going in and out of the area by 2 pm because the Presidential Security Group needed to check and secure the premises.
I used our PH reporter’s media pass that’s why I had a different name on my tag. Our PH reporter is in another event across the metro.
I left at 11:30 am. Good thing I was able to ambush interview my targets early.
I really can’t stomach the thought of being in the same room as this thief.
I just can’t.
I have covered past presidents and sat through some of their speeches but the last two presidents… 🤬 Nope.
I quickly escaped to SM MOA (since I was just at Marriott) to write my stories, buy Christmas gifts, and then I took Skyway so I can fly back home.
Or so I thought I could get back home quickly.
It still took me two hours to get home. I left at past 3 pm, I arrived at past 5 pm. 🫠 And to think that I already used Skyway to bypass Edsa or C5 to reach QC. 😵💫
I just want to stay put in the next few days… Traffic jams are so bad that they suck the soul out of you.
All coffee/dinner with friends would have to be pushed back after Christmas. It’s just insane to be on the road these days.
Me: requesting for an interview with this firm because of a new development.
External PR: responds and feeds me questions to ask in the interview.
Me: sending my own questions and say if the firm is not ready to answer my Qs, then there will be no interview.
Toink!
This is not a Philippines-based PR. Thank goodness, PR people here in PH are much better.
When I received that email with the questions feed, it took me a few minutes to process what the PR firm wants me to do. Then I was flabbergasted (“how dare these guys!” *deep inhale*). Then anger had set in. Then later I had this urge to laugh hysterically due to the absurdity of it all.
This is exactly the reason why there is zero journalism skills in Singapore. I mean, the PRs are even feeding journalists questions to ask during an interview. 🙄
And also this is a reflection of how clueless Singapore-based PR firms are when it comes to how real journalists work (and not the state-controlled hacks). YOU. DON’T. FUCKING. DICTATE. TO. A. JOURNALIST. WHAT. QUESTIONS. TO. ASK!!!
If you are pushing a certain narrative, you give the journalist who is going to do the interview a press release with your narrative/the client’s narrative. You leave the journalist the choice if she would use it or not. If the journalist is lazy, she would just take it, hook, line, and sinker.
This is why we jokingly say that Singapore journos are copywriters—they just copy the press releases. I receive 50 press releases in 24 hours (from different time zones) and I see how the regional (Southeast Asia) media outfits publish them. Some have journo bylines but the copies that have been published are just rehashed/paraphrased PRs. No new inputs to make them exclusive or fresh.
The PR firm has not come back after I replied to that bizarre email (in the most diplomatic way I could). It still hangs if the firm wants the interview or not.
And that, folks, is how the rest of my week will go.
I just want to have my Christmas vacation!!!
Kimchi, very comfortable after doing her zoomies at 3 am. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I must to go Marriott tomorrow for a conference and grant me, O Lord, patience. LOTS AND LOTS OF PATIENCE because that annual conference is always known to be chaotic.
I guess the Marcos trolls got their 13th month pay so they’re licking the asses of their principals, big time. The socmedia post above is so absurd that it makes me wanna barf. It’s so cheap.
Kadiri.
Imee Marcos expressing her “distrust” and saying that the senators will study “thoroughly” the Maharlika Investment Fund is a joke. They’re doing the “good cop, bad cop” drama. Only the stupid and the equally corrupt would say that the MIF is for the good of the country. OMG! It is the legalized slush fund of the Marcoses, how can you be soooo… And any investment banker that will touch this will be tainted forever…but those fuckers don’t care. UBS and Credit Suisse were the principal players in the siphoning off of billions of USD that the Marcoses’ looted for half a century.
Well, the Swiss don’t care.
Traffic jam along Katipunan Ave on a Sunday early evening. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I had run errands today and finished all of them because I don’t want to go out within the 2-km radius of my home in the next few days since everywhere will be a bedlam starting tomorrow. Christmas rush, despite the economic difficulties, is very much alive.
I’m wondering if I should waste money on booking a hotel next week so I can have drinks in Makati with friends…
I kid you not, it’s easier to drive from my hometown to Makati than QC to Makati. It’s quite horrible these days.
At some point in my life, I’ve had a friend like this who thinks that everyone is into her. One friend was recently been like this and I had to smack her and said, “Girl, you have to stop thinking like that. He is just talking to you, and definitely not aiming to go to bed with you.” I think it stems from her insecurity and the need to be validated by the opposite sex.
While I was growing up, I was the total opposite of this girl. Living with a narcissist (in my case, my father) makes you feel like you are so unworthy of this narc’s love and attention. So there, all my life I thought I was ugly and unintelligent and that the only thing that was of worth was my acting talent. (At that time I haven’t decided yet if I was indeed a writer until I had one of my short stories published in a magazine). Off-stage, I felt I was nothing. I always felt bad when my friends were being courted by boys in our school while I was left on the shelf. I focused on that one aspect and kept obsessing on it.
But I totally neglected the fact that I had been turning boys’ heads from other schools and when I travelled to other places whenever I represented my school in some competition. I even received love letters from the boys whose names I didn’t bother to remember. I DON’T KNOW WHY I dismissed those. Maybe because I kept thinking it was just a one-off thing or it was a fluke. If only I had a healthy dose of self-love and confidence, I wouldn’t have focused on my lack of suitors from our high school and think I was ugly and unworthy of someone better, which would redound to me having a better self-image. This would lead to better choices of boyfriends, and eventually, partner/husband.
You know, hindsight is 2020 and what I would tell my 15-year-old self that, hey, your self-worth is more than what boys think of you.
And I deluded myself into thinking that indeed, I was unworthy and my friends were all pretty and I was the ugly duckling.
It was not true.
If only I had someone assure me of that when I was growing up…But I guess everyone was wrapped up in her own insecurities to deal with my own gigantic self-loathing and self-flagellation. My mom was not assuring because maybe she was afraid that doing so would make our heads bloated like her older sisters who got movie star good looks in their youth. We never got praises from our parents. Maybe they thought that would keep us down-to-earth but it backfired since we sisters had our own demons to carry when it comes to our individual low self-esteem.
So this is probably the reason why I was oblivious to situations when males were genuinely attracted to me. It was only now 20 years later that I learned that I was one of the campus crushes in high school and college. I thought they were just joking when they said some guys were watching some football tournaments because of the goalie (me). I remember this one time I received flowers after a stage play from a friend of my brother. I thought he was being nice and extra attentive to me because he was my bro’s friend. I stayed away because he was 6 years my senior…. That I had a suitor in college whom I rejected several times but even in med school he was still talking about me (a high school classmate who went with him to the same med school told me). My contractor now, who was a year ahead of me in high school, told me I was intimidating back then because I was barako/astig = a badass.
Soooooooooooooooo that accounted for my lack of suitors from the same school. 🤔
There are so many stories I didn’t know and were just being told to me NOW and instances that I know of but ignored, which are proof that I wasn’t what I thought I was. That I was not ugly. That I was not just a shadow across the hall. That I wasn’t just a wallflower. That I was somebody.
Last year, my mom asked me, why him (ex-husband) when there were so many others —i.e. I deserved someone so much better. I said, I didn’t know I deserved someone better. I thought he was the only one who would love me.
WRONG.
Now we go back to the video above. I was the opposite of that girl. And it was equally unhealthy.
I had doubts last night whether or not what I’m doing, the move back to my hometown, is wise.
Then I strolled along the tree-lined sidewalk that is actually walkable, unlike the nonsense sidewalks in my QC village with dog poop, posts, other obstructions, and sloping concrete. My doubts were slowly being erased.
It also accommodates bikes. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I then took off my mask to breathe in fresh air, which is unlike the “fresh air” in UP Diliman that is still polluted by provincial standards. And felt the trees. So many trees around me.
This creek is just beyond the forest at the back of my house. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Almost car-less roads. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Blue, unpolluted skies. Photo by CallMeCreation.com The view I had when I was in high school. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I sat on the steps of the old building of my high school (they moved to a newer complex off-campus) to watch the sunset. I was thinking here, analyzing whether this is just nostalgia or is it really a good move? Then I remembered all my friends who lived in the city for a while like me, who eventually moved back here because Metro Manila is so unliveable now.
Then I remembered my kids are outside, hanging out with my sis-in-law at some coffee shop, waiting for their cousin to finish football training. They can move around on their own without me fearing for their safety.
My doubts were erased.
I will have to embrace this completely. Start loving it. It’s a new start in an old stomping ground. A new chapter in my life.
Polished granite counter and the double sink with a small strainer at the corner for the food scraps. Photo by CallMeCreation.com The custom TV bench with soft-close doors. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Sturdier than any ready-made tv benches from big box stores. Video by CallMeCreation.com
I said I needed a lot of electrical outlets. My contractor delivered. He also gave me 70cm-wide countertops, instead of the standard 60cm. Photo by CallMeCreation.comMy closet now has doors. Well-made doors. It will take four grown men to carry this because this is made of solid wood, not the MDF nonsense being peddled now by big box stores, my contractor said.
I am jumping into the water, feet first. I don’t know now, I’ll just make it work.
Proposed by Sandro Marcos and his uncle, Martin Romualdez.
Approved by Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Who is the blueprint of Najib, the central figure in Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal? Najib’s wife was compared to Imelda Marcos, to give you a clue.
1MDB. OmG!
They would siphon off the retirement funds of my mom, my brother, and millions of workers who were forced to contribute to GSIS and SSS.
How dare a foreigner on my LinkedIn post say, “give it a chance.” I wanted to smack him and say, were you here when Marcos Sr destroyed the economy? Were you here when his family made the old Philippine Central Bank their personal bank account? That old central bank that the new BSP had painstakingly tried to erase to bring back credibility to the Philippine financial system? No. Then don’t say such stupid things.
It has driven me up the wall this morning. And it riles me more that opposition to this institutionalized corruption is not enough. 🤬
This economist at Natixis gets it, while my LinkedIn commenter doesn’t. 😤
I don’t know why I even bother writing this down. No one gets me anyway. No one also cares what I write about, think about, what I do…
Ah yeah. This is part of my therapy… Having conversations with myself to parse whatever is in my head to lessen anxiety.
While I was having my 2-hr massage, my brain went into a deep dive again why I was moving back to my hometown. I suddenly had doubts about its wisdom. I would be moving farther and farther from civilization. I would miss my Zennya massages. I would miss the convenience of having Grab Food and Grab car. I would miss the PHP 40 Lazada delivery fee.
My hormones are out of whack now so this may account for having cold feet very late into this stage. I’m writing another check tomorrow for my contractor. I mean hey, I would have a fully functional home by Feb, so why am I havig these thoughts?
I finally installed our parol outside. The fairy lights had been there since last year and I won’t take it down even when we move out. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I was just too busy to do the usual Christmas decorating to cheer ourselves up—well, it’s mostly to cheer me up. The kids don’t care. This is the third Christmas that we haven’t set up a tree because…cats. 🐈
I’m still looking for the Christmas lights that I usually string around the balustrades. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This is the last Christmas that we will be spending here in this apartment. My neighbor, the quietest neighbor I have who lives next to my unit, will be leaving sooner than us. She will be pulling out their stuff on Saturday. Her daughter will be going abroad to work while she will be moving into her sister’s house in Kamias. They stayed here for 19 years. She said she would have stayed longer (because she liked the location) if it were not for my crusty landlady’s mismanagement of the units. Her apartment (D) is full of termites. She often complained to our landlady about the disrepair of her unit but the latter doesn’t listen. Meanwhile, I don’t take shit for an answer that’s why I get things done. I use my own resources to fix things and bill her later. Oftentimes, I just don’t bother billing her because she will just complain that I’m a very expensive renter. Yada, yada, yada. 🤬 That’s why until now the roof at my cooking area still leaks.
Some people shouldn’t be landlords.
Still waiting for Lazada to deliver my 3x3m waterfall fairylights. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My mom said the next family that will get this unit will be lucky because I improved the bathroom (and it is pretty, my mom said) and will be leaving a lot of better fixtures like the higher end faucets, a big bathroom exhaust fan, and the custom wooden counter in the cooking/laundry area. And I kept refreshing the white paint and the closet paint. The only damage I have to fix is the bedroom door knob that I destroyed when the cats were locked inside my room.
This has been home for four years now—five when we leave next year. It sheltered us during the most tumultuous time in our lives. It has broken me as well. I will be leaving the bad jujus behind when I shove the last piece of my stuff into the moving truck in May. I will have a sort of fresh start as I won’t have the bad memories that I still carry in this apartment.
Speaking of Christmas and bad memories, I usually look forward to this season because it meant two-week breaks and I can read a lot of books during my off-time. But since 2020, December also reminded me of the toughest moment in my life. And I was still dealing with shit until February this year. Good thing I was still under therapy at that time so I was able to bounce back faster than I did in August. December 2020 was just trash and all the expletives that you can throw at it.
Thank God for art. I may not be good at it but it has kept me sane.
Inking. I’ll ink first before coloring, which is the opposite of what I normally do. I think I’ll use a jaune tone on the church walls. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
So December is something I look forward to because of the long break and it’s also something that I dread because some bad taste in my mouth remains. I still get triggered. But it will be all right. I have many things to occupy me so I won’t be living in my head again.
Aside from improving my sketching skills, I am also busy with my house.
Photo sent by my contractor.
My contractor said this small cabinet is not the kitchen cabinet but this is something that will go under my TV. 🤔
Hopefully, I will be busy with my new house for an entire year so I won’t have room in my life to brood.
However, the problem with writers is that we think too much. We have this propensity to perform mental acrobatics because that’s what we do for a living. I know several writers who live in their caves/writing dens (like me) and rarely come out.
