I’ve been up and about for hours but for the life of me I cannot start any draft. Maybe I should go out to my balcony later to be able to draft something. Post-holidays workdays are pffffffttttt…

I realized that since I’ve been blogging regularly, I have posted less on Facebook, which is good. I mean, it was just an avenue for me to voice out what’s in my head and most of the time I just add to the noise of that platform. Blogging allows me to be anonymous while I scream my lungs out. Like today, I complain about work without endangering my employment. I can voice out my opinion without having to deal with negative Nancys out there. That’s why I blog at random times. If I needed to say something, I no longer have to open any social media app to do so. Welllllllll, before social media was a thing, I was already giving a piece of my mind via blogging. I even learned html before WordPress came into being.

So now I’m like sharpening my instrument by blogging so by the time I get my mojo back, I can immediately go back to writing articles in under an hour.

Let’s see if I can motivate myself into writing three articles today.

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I couldn’t write so I just went out and walked.

I have now the license to eat more this evening. 😁

We unexpectedly had to check out early from our hotel because my sister’s son was vomiting since last night. He was also suffering from diarrhea. He has to go see a doctor ASAP so I did my best to drive fast while being careful. It only took me less than 1.5 hrs to drive from Makati to our house.

After dropping off my mom and sister at their doorstep, my girls and I went to the floating restaurant in the next town. Because I don’t want to cook.

After all the rich new year celebratory food in the past few days, my girls were looking for Filipino dishes to satisfy their palette.

My girls said my kare-kare was much better than this because my version has more peanuts/peanut butter in it. And more veggies and meat.

I finally called a home massage service when we reached our house and had a two-hour massage in my own room. It was ok; enough to relieve me of my back ache caused by frozen muscles that had been bothering for quite a while now. I miss Zennya. For some reason I can only book their massage services from 12 pm to 8 pm when we were in Makati so I missed my window yesterday. Ah well, til my next overnight in Makati…

Twin I kept wailing that she doesn’t want to go back to school tomorrow. I can’t react because I don’t want to go back to work tomorrow, too. 😑 In my head I was already plotting when I can book an overnight stay in Anilao…but dang, what I should be planning is my next trip to Singapore 😕

How not to hate working?

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Mommy, I don’t want to go to work tomorrow! I don’t want to wake up at 5 to fix breakfast for my 7th Graders 😭

There was a street party/concert of sorts sponsored by Ayala Corp and the City of Makati. However, we didn’t go out until 10 pm because we’re lazy like that. My brother’s family joined us but they parked their car at Ayala Center and just walked to our hotel.

I wasn’t really that into the concert, I just want to watch people and study society in general. My older sister brought folding stools so we had an easier time compared to the rest of humanity, which the organizers claimed to have swelled to 21,000 people by midnight.

Here are my observations:

1. The crowd is predominantly middle class and there were a lot of foreigners in the crowd. I guess they are a mix of the Makati-dwelling expat community (mostly from Salcedo and Legazpi Villages) coming out of the woodwork and tourists billeted at the five-star to four-star hotels around the area.

2. Seventy percent of the population there was recording everything and has forgotten how to be in the moment. Everything has to be for social media content and it seems like everyone is a digital/content creator. People are walking around with their phone screens facing them (either using hands with outstretched arms, selfie sticks, or gimbal) as they video themselves walking and not minding where they are going. 🤦🏻‍♀️ They’re not watching or actively listening to the concert but rather they are watching everything through the camera lens of their phones as they prioritize recording for uploading on social media.

3. People are lazy. They leave their trash wherever they happen to be even if there are roving cleanup boys of Makati City/Ayala Center dragging trash bags where they can throw their rubbish. 🤷🏻‍♀️

4. Regine Velasquez performed for an hour and she has a wide variety of songs in her repertoire. My sister wondered how much was her talent fee for this.

5. My sis-in-law is very much in tune with pop culture and she knew almost everyone on stage. In contrast I can only name one performer, which is Regine. 🫣

6. Next time I’ll book Discovery Primea because they have nicer views.

7. They need more foodstalls.

8. For those who may be interested to be in the countdown but hate the crowd, the Ayala Triangle park is the best place for them. I would have chosen to station myself there but I don’t want to be a party pooper so I just followed by siblings and nephews. But I stayed away from the crowd and planted myself near the railings. I’m allergic to people.

So how was 2023? It’s a mixed bag. Twin A’s illness sapped the life out of me and it tested me so much. However, there were triumphs as well like when I finally planted my roots in my home that I own. It’s a great feeling. There were so many challenges professionally as I navigated the tricky road as a manager and also as a subordinate. It’s like tightrope walking with no net underneath to save me.

Meanwhile, I have learned how to love myself better than last year. I’m trying to embrace my spinsterhood. Healing comes with acceptance.

I did travel quite a bit this year but they’re all work-related. I need to balance everything. I need to go diving again as my long fins may deteriorate.

I should write down the things I should do for this year…📝

The drive from home to Makati was less than 1.5 hrs (including refuelling and tire air). Surprisingly smooth. I was with my mom as the girls were fetched by their dad last night so they can spend the new year’s eve celebration with their paternal side.

After checking in at our hotel, mom and I crossed Ayala Triangle park to reach Greenbelt. Preparations for the countdown along Ayala Ave are underway.

Let’s see how the GomBurZa movie fares. I hope it’s not just all hype.

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Ok, the Gomburza movie was good, relative to the usual Filipino fare but I enjoyed Heneral Luna more. I think the reason why the movie is “talky” is because the production company is JesCom (Jesuit Communications) = Jesuits = priests. It’s academic since it was heavy with expositions. Half of the movie was shot within or about the Church. It’s like a history lesson on video. I was searching for the missing element—the entertainment value, the oomph factor.

Luna had that in droves. It was funny and yet it angers the Filipino-ness in us. Its script was brilliant as Luna kept dishing out lines such as “Para kayong mga birheng naniniwala sa pag-ibig ng isang puta! (You are like virgins believing in prostitues’ love!)” when Luna was confronted by the duplicity of those around him, the betrayals, and the lies of fellow Filipinos. “Ganito ba talaga ang tadhana natin? Kalaban ng kalaban. Kalaban ng kakampi. Nakakapagod.” (Is this really our destiny? My enemy is my enemy, my ally is my enemy. It’s exhausting!”

Hay Luna, more than a century later, it’s the same-same. You will weep when you see how we are faring now…

Anyway…

What made Gomburza notable was the acting chops of Cedrick Juan (Padre Jose Burgos) and Enchong Dee (Padre Jacinto Zamora) and to some extent, Dante Rivero (Padre Mariano Zamora). I love how Cedrick was able to carry the movie even though the three priests were in the title (GOMez, BURgos, ZAmora). I seldom have crushes on local actors but he’s now topping that list, if I have any.

Here are the things I learned from the movie:

1) The Jesuit producers had acquitted Burgos of his hand in sparking a revolution. It was as if his death was circumstancial, not because of his ideas he was espousing. History, as I have learned now that I’m out of school, has really pointed to Burgos as the inspiration for the simmering revolt among the Los Filipinos, as he gave a nation its name. He was the one who inspired José Rizal’s El Filibusterismo.

Or maybe it’s just me.

But deep inside I know that Burgos knew why he was sent to the garrote and he was not the defeated priest shown in the movie who was pleading his innocence. He had penned so many essays that had been pushing for reformation and the idea of a nation comprised of Los Filipinos—as a writer you know when you are already pushing the envelope and you know it will trigger the higher ups and yet you still did it. Writing such things require deep thought and weighing of consequences. He knew what he was doing. I refuse to believe that Burgos pleaded his innocence. As a writer, I know every time I write, I have one foot on my grave (or libel case).

2) The concept of Los Filipinos as an identity. Prior to Burgos’ essays, we indios identified ourselves based on our ethnicity like I am a Tagalog, or he is a Waray, a Kapampapangan, an Ilocano. There was no such thing as Filipino as a collective. Burgos identified the Los Filipinos as a group of people not recognized by the Spaniards from Spain or even Mexico (called insulares) as equals. It is the Creole Spaniards and Spanish mestizos born in these islands. Perhaps the indios (natives) as well, much later on. The term Los Filipinos has emboldened the other non-Spaniards (as recognized by Madrid) to organize themselves into a fraternity in the hopes they can push for reforms.

Which of course, later morphed into Katipunan, which was led by an indio named Andres Bonifacio.

3) Burgos was the intellectual of the three martyrd priests. He had a doctorate and was also a lawyer.

4) Zamora lost his mind while incarcerated. He just had the bad luck of being in the same place when Burgos visited an ageing priest and therefore, was unjustly associated with Burgos. He was also very young.

5) Gomes was much older than Burgos. He was a passive priest who shared Fr. Pelaez’s beliefs of equality but he warned Burgos of the dangers of espousing the same among the latter’s students at Unibersidad de Santo Tomas (UST).

6) Hermano Pule was quartered and his head was stuck on a pike and his parts were scattered in different provinces/towns as a warning to other indios not to go against the Church or Spain. Like how William Wallace was executed and desecrated by the English.

7) I’d rather die by firing squad (á la José Rizal) than by garrote. It’s less gruesome compared to being beheaded and quartered. Perhaps less gruesome compared to being hanged.

Why do I have these macabre thoughts on New Year’s Eve? 🤔

I had Smashing Pumpkins’ album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in my head as the weather got me down again. I got my Kuretake from my art bin to stamp out whatever I’m feeling today.

I had to let it all out. I need gloomy colors.

I need to finish the the placement of the elements but I have to stop as the paper bleeds too much.

I must walk away from this. It’s not working. The paper just bleeds and bleeds. I will layer this later.

Twin A asked, Mommy, why a sunset again? I said, you know how much I love sunsets. I’ll never get tired of painting it, taking pictures of it, of watching it.

Many people are addicted to taking photos and/or recording videos of themselves, while I am addicted to taking photos of the sky, the sun, the horizon, the sea, and mountains. Is it because I don’t like myself? I don’t know. Maybe because I find the world around me more beautiful.

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Maybe I’ll just do some sketching outside 😐

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Oh well, I wasn’t able to do anything outside the house because of Mommy duties…so I just did a loose watercolor exercise to practice my water control.

Well, I got drastic results. 🥴

Tomorrow when I arrive at the hotel, I’ll start my urban sketching exercise. That is if we’re not going to watch Gomburza—a Filipino movie that is creating so much buzz, especially among the A-B markets. It’s a historical movie and yet it left many people in tears at the end, as I have read in several reviews of the movie. One Facebook review said you could feel why the execution of the native priests have become one of the major sparks that inspired the formation of the Katipunan, an underground movement that led the rebellion against Spain—the first anti-colonialist revolution in Asia. As I was once been told, you cannot win against the revolt of the masses, the ordinary gulok/golok-wielding people who had everything to lose.

The last showing of this movie is tomorrow. I hope they extend it.

I couldn’t go out earlier today since there were only two of us editors on duty today for the whole Asia Pacific. I had to edit one story from one of my reporters and once I finished it, I was free to go shopping at the local hardware store for materials for Twin I’s homemade microscope for her science project.

Only then was I able to get out of my house this week. Been cooped up inside for too long. The stormy weather dampened my appetite to go on long drives this holiday season because all of the things I wanted to do were outdoor activities like hiking and jumping into one remote lake (Lake Yambo) several towns away from here. I even planned to go glamping in Tanay, Rizal with the girls but…oh well. Maybe I’ll do that for Chinese New Year when there will be less stormy weather.

It’s only today that it stopped raining. 🥴

Now that our HQ has ordered everybody to be back in the office, I would need to go to Singapore once a month, I guess. That’s annoying. I would have to squeeze it between Twin A’s regular MRI scans and check ups, Chinese New Year, Taylor Swift concert (she has pushed up the prices of hotel rooms and plane tickets so I have to avoid those dates) and Ramadan.

And now that I have finally moved house and Twin A will soon be ending her TB treatment, I would finally be free to travel abroad for leisure, my first since 2018. My travels in 2019 were all for work and it didn’t leave me any room for leisure travel outside the Philippines. I gave my Philippine Airlines miles to the ex (for Taiwan and Hong Kong) so he can travel because he needed to be out of the country every 60 days for visa renewal. I also used my Cebu Pacific miles so we can travel together to Bohol for my birthday.

Anyway, 2020 of course was a disaster, 2021 was iffy and 2022 was easier but I didn’t dare travel outside of work because my experience with Covid was still fresh and my bout with the disease was a nasty one and I didn’t want a repeat of that.

Now, where will I go? I can go to Sapporo in June or Ho Chi Minh/Hanoi in May. I can ask fairy gaymother K or my sister to go on a train expedition with me along the Greater Mekong region, but that requires two weeks of personal time off from work and I don’t think I have enough holidays to cover that—unless I plan to give up a week of holiday in December. Europe, specifically Spain, is too expensive for me this year as I’m still rebuilding my investments after spending on the construction of my tiny home without bank loans… I think I can do that if my training in London for the ambassadors program pushes through. I can extend my stay in London for a week then to Scotland. However, this would be derailed if they have the training again in HK. 😶

Meanwhile, I was featured in a newspaper article this week.

The writer is a good friend and she said she quoted me verbatim because the experiences I shared were very different from that of my other colleagues here. 🤣 🤣🤣