On Fridays we don’t go out to bars anymore. We eat at home with friends. 🍲🍷

At 2:30 pm, I went to my kids’ school to get their report cards. I was mistaken with Twin A’s average. I was off 0.34% as it turned out her ave is 96.66% and not 97%. Twin I was 98.62% and she was still upset that she didn’t make it to 99%. 😒

After a quick grocery run, I drove to the next town to buy monay. I was craving for bread and this town is known for their delicious monay. Went home to tweak some edits and then shut down work at 4 pm.

My girls entertained one of my bff’s young kids in their room (or rather they entertained Kimchi) while we laughed our butts off at the dinner table. Conversation over spgahetti, sparkling grape, some tea and pastries after. One friend who traveled all the way from QC is now staying at the university hotel.

I am now delaying the inevitable—doing the washing up. 😩

When we were all in our early 20s, Friday nights meant we would be hanging at Xaymaca to hear live reggae music. Or we would be here in our hometown, getting stupidly drunk.

Now, our Friday nights are peaceful dinners at home and still trading stupid jokes. However, these days it means such nights are irregular since adulting gets in the way: work, errands, and general exhaustion.

Well, we’re older.

People had been making a lot of memes about the break up of the “Uni-Team” of Marcos x Duterte. Well from Day 1 they haven’t been seeing eye to eye; as the Filipino proverb states, “Ang magnanakaw galit sa kapwa magnanakaw.” (A thief hates his own kind). The two camps both have ambitions of having perpetual rule over the Philippines, so like hyenas they are fighting over the carcasses of the Filipino people (or whatever that’s left of us).

It was the Marcos camp that has been leaking to media about the unexplained expenses of Sara Duterte at DepEd (PHP 125m spent over 11 days) and other shenanigans. Both camps have been trying to topple each other, trying their best to sway public opinion.

Another leak to the media is how Rodrigo Duterte’s former spokesperson and number one ass-licker spent government money on his boytoys. The issue is not because this very much married Harry Roque is outed as gay but it’s how he was abusing his power and state coffers to indulge in his guilty pleasure.

Meanwhile, the Pink camp is just watching everything implode while munching on popcorn—which to me is kind of weak and stupid. This is the time the real opposition is supposed to be gearing up and taking advantage of the situation; it should be positioning itself as the only viable option if the Philippines wants to move forward. But no, there is no clear leadership. No one is feisty enough to take a stand and go against these two opposing forces.

So back to more palatable things…

I cooked Korean fried chicken last night and I must say it was perfection. I managed to fry it to be point of crackling crispy but still juicy inside while saucy on the outside. I didn’t put too much gojuchang or almost none to take into consideration Twin A’s preference for something mild. I relied more on soy sauce and the other ingredients I used to make the bibimbap sauce. I achieved the perfect crispiness by making my own batter mixed with some pre-made one and double-frying it, just like how the Japanese make their karaage and tempura.

This has Twin I’s stamp of approval.

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I feel unproductive this week.

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Once I hit 40, the propensity to go out with friends went down to zero. I can’t imagine people my age or those past 38 years old regularly going to bars until 3 am. 😵‍💫 That’s inviting 2 days of hangover.

I’ve done all the partying in college and my 20s until before I got pregnant at 32. Nowadays, give me a book, a bed, and some snacks, I’ll be a happy camper.

Meanwhile, I’m happy to report that my garden is yielding pomelos.

I’ll wait for it to go yellow before I harvest them. Hopefully it won’t be too sour. I should wrap them in plastic bags so that they won’t get damaged by insects or birds.

My rambutan tree is also bearing fruits again. ❤️ Twin I saved an avocado seed so we can plant it near the property line. We used to have an avocado tree here that kept on bearing fruits so much that we just leave a lot of them to rot on the ground.

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I checked out early today from work. Just because. My girls and I went to SM Sto. Tomas in Batangas because… I don’t know. Maybe because I was thinking the Cyberzone there would be bigger and I would have more choices? I needed to buy my mom a new laptop because the one she is using is so old that whenever my mom runs into trouble (e.g. wifi device missing a driver), I just want to throw it out the window.

It’s so old that it only has 4GB of RAM and I couldn’t upgrade it because the RAM is soldered on the motherboard. It’s so old that Microsoft refuses to upgrade its OS to Windows 11. The security patches for Windows 10 are no longer working for a boomer like my mom, who doesn’t know how to clean her computer of malware and viruses. And she clicks indiscriminately so I regularly had to reformat her laptops because heaven knows what she could have picked up from the interwebs. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Since I was able to choose the specs freely, I was able to buy a decent laptop for a good price. I went straight to the Acer center and picked out a lower level gaming laptop. It has Ryzen 5 with 8GB of RAM. I didn’t go for the upgradeable one since 16GB is already overkill for my mom. All she does on a laptop are word processing, emails, Netflix, and Facebook so she can attend the online novena and mass. It also has 512 GB SSD so it’s pretty quick.

I got so many freebies for my mom like: PHP 3k of credit for Underarmour shoes that can be redeemed at SM dept store, laptop bag, keyboard, flash drive, bluetooth speaker, lifetime subscription of Microsoft Office, and what else? I got 2k discount as well because I paid in cash.

I was over at mom’s to help her set up her laptop like installing Malwarebytes and CCleaner. I need to be overkill with those stuff because she just clicks on things that she shouldn’t be clicking. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I swear, senior citizens should be using Linux so that they’re less prone to virus and malware attacks. Less problems for me because all I have to do is to just update the security patches and the OS itself. Ubuntu updates the OS every year and that’s about it. The UI of Ubuntu is very much senior citizen-friendly now. But of course, they will often complain, it’s not Windoze… 😩

Anyway, my mom’s new laptop is much, much better than my current one. I feel bad now that I’m stuck with Core i3 with 12 GB of RAM.

Oh well.

I didn’t have a photo of me putting on gold medals on my girls because no one else is there to take it. My mom went with us onstage in lieu of a father and she isn’t handy with a camera as well. Good thing they have a professional photographer and I paid in advance for the copies of our photos that are yet to be printed.

My mom and I were talking about how good it was that Twin A was able to catch up and perform well despite the one month setback due to her hospitalization and overall ill health the following months. She didn’t want to be left behind by her twin so she worked hard.

We just hope they continue with this all throughout junior and senior high school and not get distracted by so many things that occupy teenagers these days.

We went to The Aviary for lunch and the three of them stuffed themselves to the point that we had to take home the desserts. I had to control my portion and didn’t have sweets like turones dripping in caramel and mango sticky rice with cream  but just had buchi (fried glutinous rice dough). I need to walk these calories off. It’s really hard to swear off sugar. 😩

I found this in my archives when I was looking for a photo of me with copper-red hair to show my kids. I was two years 2.5 years old here, I think, and I vaguely remember this picture-taking event inside the university but I cannot recollect what the occasion was. It looks like Loyalty Day since there were peole picnicking in the background. This building, designed by Leandro Locsin, still looks the same to this day.

For half the schoolyear, Twin I pestered me about dyeing her hair if she gets the highest honor by the end of their 7th Grade. I was noncommittal. I didn’t think I would have to make that decision.

Nope, I was wrong. She is very persistent. She wore me down everyday with this: MOMMY, CAN I DYE MY HAIR WHEN I GET TOP HONORS? (repeat 10x)

The twins will each receive gold medals tomorrow for getting averages of above 97% (Twin A = 97+, Twin I~ 99). I didn’t have to push them to do their homeworks and to study hard—they did them on their own volition. They were making their own reviewers. They worked hard on their projects. They did it on their own with hardly any prodding from me because they know how important it is to me that they pass UP.

So now I fulfilled my end of the bargain. I brought them to the salon.

They were pretty happy with the outcome. They are excited to attend the recognition rites tomorrow so they can show off their hair to their friends.

By the time they come back to school in August, their hair would have grown and we can chop off the colored bits.

I wasn’t in the mood to cook after our time in the salon (2.5 hrs) so I just recycled leftovers to make bibimbap. The noodles there are  bulgogi-flavored Korean dry instant noodles. I didn’t have enough veggies and ran out of ban chan so I just fried mushrooms to add to lettuce.

Maybe we can have lunch in one of the destination restaurants several towns from us after the ceremonies.

After two months of dilly-dallying, I finally booked our trip to Bohol next month. I could have done Palawan but I was so disappointed with the coral bleaching in Batangas that I wanted to see Balicasag before the coral reefs there become bleached too. I saw a post in the freedivers group I’m a part of about Tubataha reef suffering from coral bleaching as well. That’s the Mecca for all divers out there in this part of the world and now it’s dying.

I need to go to Apo reef and Moalboal before everything disappears…

The rising sea water temperatures are killing the corals that are very sensitive to environmental changes. The rising temperatures are also causing stronger typhoons. When I was growing up, Category 5 typhoons are unheard of. It seems normal now to have one or two in a year…

Will probably do Palawan in December. 🤔

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Hello allergies! My forest is in bloom and I’m so dead. Good thing my doctor gave me prescription for a nasal spray for rhinitis. Look at those flowers just flying all over us. 🤧

I didn’t do much today; was too lazy to exercise because I woke up past 6 am and my body clock is still out of whack. I discovered I need to take melatonin to have a restful sleep. If I really want to have at least 6 hrs straight of sleep, I must take an antihistamine, like 25mg of diphenhydramine to knock me out. I also had to block out my window so I won’t have sunlight passing through so I could fix my circadian rhythm.

Ok, so if I wake up at 6 am again, I would have to put on my running shoes and walk all over the campus.

I have cut out sugar from my diet so I just have to push myself further and do this. I CAN DO THIS!

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