Of course it is inevitable that I would get really sick since I nursed Twin A back to health. She already went back to school yesterday while I suffered from runny nose and headaches. Whatever bug I caught from my daughter is very contagious.

My ill-health, however, is not an excuse for me to not try to have things fixed around the house yesterday. I had our airconditioners cleaned and my washing machine checked. Called up LG service center for parts (main board got wet somehow) and on top of that I had to cook and tidy up. Oh I had to edit a story and publish my own story.

Today I just struggled. I cooked instant noodles for the girls for breakfast (deplorable, I know) but I don’t have it in me this morning. The rest of the day is a battle between finishing a Thailand story (while fishing for info with my sources for another one) and sleeping. I’m feverish. Good thing I can send the girls to my mom’s place for dinner or else I would just give them money to eat dinner at the nearest eatery.

I no longer have Ate C to rely on when I’m indisposed.

I can’t leave my kids to go home on their own because there is no public transport from their school to our house because their campus is on the far-flung end of the university campus. The latest that their school bus can wait for them is 5 pm and my children have joined clubs that required them to stay until 6 pm. The driver called and said he will wait for them until 6. Whopee!

Supermom to the rescue…

I just want to be left alone and sleep. My coughs and cold have spiralled into full-blown asthma.

Sick.

Ded.

Aghhh!

---

It’s just a matter of time I get hit by Covid again

Sick.

Ded.

Agghhh.

---

Grief is love persevering. Grief is love with nowhere to go.

***

---

Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

~Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

I’m just lucky that I get to earn a living practicing my art. I may not be the best but at least I am alive. Painting with my words against different media helps me breathe.

---

Twin I and I drove to a Wilcon Depot about 15 km east or 20 mins away from our house to buy some components for her homemade microscope. We got a bit of a view this afternoon and my daughter asked me if we could hike these mountains/volcanoes. I told her these do not have clear trails and it’s better to research first before embarking on something that could hurt us. Besides, she should try hiking the moutain in our own backyard with me first before anything else.

Twin A is nursing a very bad cold and coughs so she stayed at home and most likely I will keep her at home tomorrow as well. Many of her classmates have contracted pneumonia and I’m so paranoid that she could’ve gotten it from them. She’s not yet out of the woods, you know. Pneumonia could be dangerous for somebody with TB.

After church, Twin I and I took photos of the nativity scene at the entrance of our university because the admin will be dismantling it tomorrow. Today, Feast of the Three Kings/Epiphany, officially marks the end of the Christmas season in the Philippines.

Ah, another work week ahead.

My patient is gaining more weight. So far so good. I hope her next MRI would reveal that everything is fine so she can end her treatment by February. Well, her last MRI showed that she no longer has inflamation and the ascites have resolved on their own.

Thank you, Lord!

After her treatment, I should focus on my general check up and really make time to visit my gynecologist and dermatologist to have my osteoma removed.

Have to be vigilant because you know, genetics…

Meanwhile, the latest The Economist newsletter in my inbox directed me to their article about the most expensive cities in the world.

Here I was last week, beating myself up to a pulp because of guilt that I’m not in Singapore and I’m required to be there instead of stewing here. But this article assures me that I am where I’m supposed to be—unless they give me a salary that allows me to live in Singapore comfortably and send my kids to school.

But since they didn’t agree with my asking compensation, I shouldn’t feel guilty. I shouldn’t feel less of a person because I can’t fill the gap left by my colleague when she resigned.

So I shouldn’t feel stressed…but of course I am stressed. What to do?! And I’m about to terminate the contract with a Singapore freelancer who hasn’t turned in any article since hiring him six months ago. My manager is always on my back regarding this.

And my manager didn’t approve of my team’s plan to have the annual training next month or in March. It has to coincide with our conferences, she said.

---

When I was in kindergarten, I had a classmate who chased me all over the school premises to steal a kiss on my cheek.

I avoided him all throughout the school year because I was scared of him. Really, really scared.

Then when we were in first grade, we were in different classes but he still figured out a way how to chase me all over school to steal a kiss on my cheek again. He never did because I ran to different parts of our elementary school, even reaching the scary 7th Grade area just to hide from him.

My fear of him was carried throughout our elementary years but lessened in high school. However, I was still awkward around him. I doubt if he remembered his shenanigans when we were 5-6 years old but it left me scarred. We’re pretty civil towards each other but that’s about it.

Several years after, he followed me on Twitter and I followed him. I knew he is a medical doctor and specialized in palliative care. When the critical time came that my ex-mother-in-law was faced with the tough decision to whether she will still undergo chemo and radiotherapy or just go home, I bravely asked this classmate via DM on Twitter for advice and we talked on the phone. In the end, ex-MIL went home and did not go through the therapies because she wouldn’t be able to handle the side effects at her age so her family chose quality of life instead.

Why did I suddenly remember this?

When I had my walk two days ago, I passed by that elementary school and wondered why I always had vivid dreams of running all around along those corridors like I was being chased. I have those dreams maybe at least once a year. I don’t know but maybe I was traumatized without even recognizing it as trauma.

Maybe this is a result of my ability to remember things clearly, which is debilitating in a way because it developed my bias against this person who turns out to be a decent guy.

Anyway, that’s just one thought among the many that ran through my head when I had my 4.5-km walk. I missed it today because I was soooo busy with work.

I should do it tomorrow.

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.

https://youtu.be/YwMIu5cVbp4?si=-WJ58zreRHWjIvvx

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.