I’m super tired today, I don’t know why. Anyway, Twitter is all abuzz about politics today.
My favorite news:
The new generation standing up to the Marcoses. ššššššššI love this so much.
And big media is fighting back.
It says: it has formally been announced that the former senator, son of a dictator and a 2016 vice presidential loser, his intention to run for the highest office in the land.
But then, you have curve balls like this:
I cannot fathom Kris Aquino running for VP. Leni should know this is political suicide. Having another Aquino is polarizing and that’s the last thing you want when you want to unite everybody vs Marcos/Duterte.
But I’m hoping this is the truth.
USB condenser microphone. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I ordered two for my girls because the built-in mics of their Tylex bluetooth headsets are wonky. So are the mics of their cameras. They just don’t pair well with Linux. Anyway, these mics are working very well and their voices are now loud and clear enough for online classes. I bought these from Lazada a few days ago and the description says it’s good for vlogging/podcasting.
I’m thinking of getting one myself but maybe I’ll get the Maono brand or Fifine, which are vlogging/podcast condenser mics since I will go on air next month for my Youtube series with my high school friends. But so far my webcam is serving me well and its mic is loud enough.
I don’t have to elaborate how and why. I mean, my household is very careful given that I have unvaccinated children with me and the three of us are asthmatic people and yet we still caught Covid from somewhere we couldn’t trace. My mom’s household is still quarantined because all of them got it. And my sisters rarely go out. I have a lot of my friends who are Covid-positive now. Many of my kids’ teachers are sick now, probably with Covid, and couldn’t hold online classes.
As I said a few months ago, it’s just a matter of time when we will get it.
Then we will have clowns running for president next year
There were too many news about Pacquiao yesterday that I dreamed about him last night. In my dream I was supposed to buy one of his cars and we were supposed to meet in a hotel lobby to do our transaction. However, his car fell from the hotel’s elevated parking space and it was already beyond repair.
That was weird.
It’s probably an omen.
I went out to withdraw some cash from my bank on Tuesday. Feeling too confident, I walked from my apartment to my bank and back. I didn’t realize that was already too taxing for me that I fell asleep that night with my lamp and PC on. Then yesterday I did nothing but sleep the whole day. Lingering Covid fatigue hits me hard. It’s sneaky like that.
So I had to order groceries again from Puregold to be delivered at home and my cat supplies via Viber to my suki vendor from Tiendesitas today. Tomorrow will be meat shopping from Monterey Community Market via Viber again. My problem are fruits and vegetables because the vendor on Facebook who has a stall in Nepa Qmart has duped me. A lot of items were missing and she sold me two small potatoes when I ordered 1/2 kg of those. Either I will brave it tomorrow and drive to UP or let my househelp buy from the nearby Robinsons (and veggies there are sometimes not that fresh, they cannot be stored that long in the fridge).
Now I’m back to buying random shit again online. Bought a new protective case for my phone because my old one was already falling apart.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
China’s Golden Week starts tomorrow so we will be out of three or four editors. It will be a week-long holiday for them so I guess I have to work twice as much in the coming days.
CCP will again will have a show-to-the-world-we’re-tough ceremonies in Beijing sometime next week.
Meanwhile, I am looking forward to my own birthday holiday towards the end of October. Since I’m still weak, a biking or camping holiday is out of the question. Dining out is also a risky endeavor. I guess I would have to pull the trigger and buy that movie projector and just binge-watch Youtube videos and Netflix on my blank white wall during my vacation.
My girls are begging me to spend the Christmas here in the apartment instead of spending it with their grandma in my hometown. They don’t want to leave the cats.
Let’s see how the world will flow in the coming months.
My boss couldn’t help it. She messaged us on MS Teams, flabbergasted, after reading the news that boxer Manny Pacquiao is running for president next year. And other clowns like Panfilo Lacson and Tito Sotto are also vying for the president and vice president seats. Then here comes wishy-washy opportunist Manila Mayor Isko Moreno and this Willy Ong (where did he come from???) announcing their candidacy yesterday.
Isko’s announcement crumbles the idea of a united opposition. I guess he is another weapon by the Marcoses so the opposition under Leni Robredo’s banner–if she decides to run for presidency–would be broken. He is, after all, a politcal butterfly. Isko knows he doesn’t have the machinery to win but if he is under the good graces of the Marcoses, his future by 2028 would be assured if Bongbong–God forbid!–wins next year.
And Duterte is running for VP, without a president yet, so he will be assured that graft cases and ICC human rights cases would not be heaped upon him if an ally wins the presidency.
How do we solve this problem of ever worsening politics in this country? Everyone should probably read the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, so the intelligentsia would understand that we are not the ones who should be teaching the masses but rather we join them in learning how to get out of this oppression through their own experiences and social construct. I first learned about this during my theater + activism years, when we have “teach-ins” and when I attended classes for community theater. It’s not easy; it would take a revolution to change all this. (And I now sound exactly like my father!)
I don’t know how we would end this rotten system.
Meanwhile, I’ve been getting better but I easily get tired. Today is the first time in two weeks I went out of my room to take a shower and do my bathroom business at day time. I had ordered a new car battery to be delivered and installed at home because my old one died and my car wouldn’t start. I edited a story and wrote my own story, albeit a simple one, without my brain bleeding. I still had this headache after lunch and tried to sleep but I couldn’t so I just stared at the ceiling, at my ipad, at my cat.
I had been imbibing Berocca the past two weeks, the supplement that helped me get over the flu-like symptoms of Covid, especially the sniffles.
Berocca, every Philippine business reporter’s friend. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Every reporter I know has this in her/his bag when we still roamed the metro digging for stories. We still worked even if we were sick. Nowadays it sounds so reckless…Oh wait, I’m working even if I am sick. Oh well.
One of my best recent discoveries on Youtube is Rajiv Surendra, a very curious and very creative person who is like a Renaissance man. His enthusiasm for art was like that of mine before I lost myself in ugly relationships. Rajiv, however, is more talented than I am and I just attended classes and apprenticeship because I could, not because I was talented.
I remember attending writing workshops in Philippine High School for the Arts, script writing for play workshops, theater directing workshops, theater workshops, song writing workshops–all classes and workshops I could attend because I was curious and wanted to learn. Because I wanted a creative outlet. Just because.
Watching Rajiv reminded me of those times that I got excited by art, by beautiful craftsmanship, by learning new skills. I want that again–that zest for life. I remember I used to make my own writing pads, my own notebooks (I learned book binding in school), and I used to have sketchpads and watercolor notebooks with me. I lost all that.
I suddenly realized that I’ve been dead for 20 years.
Now that I live solo (I mean without a partner), I can rediscover that part of me again. To be curious again and have that eagerness to learn. To be creative again.
My girls are fine and now I got that nasty flu. Worse than what they had. I started having series of fevers last night and continued until today. I couldn’t file for sick leave because we’re out of one or two editors today and there were so many stories. I managed to file one story based from the round table discussion I attended yesterday.
It’s suicide, I know.
In between work I slept. Taking flu tablets and slept some more. I’m isolating because I don’t want to take chances.
The telemedicine stuff that they advertise? They’re a fluke. KonsultaMD is like a call center for doctors and you wait for a looooong time before you can get connected. With so many people sick these days, it’s a miracle that you can get through.
If I don’t get better tomorrow, I’ll drive myself to a drive-and-swab center. One app I was about to try for Covid test swab requires at least two pax. Annoying. RT-PCR tests are not cheap.
Oh wait, I can’t. I have an interview tomorrow. š¤¦š»āāļø No rest for the weary.
Meanwhile, I’ve ordered my meds through Mercury online and there’s one branch less than 300m from me. But guess what? It’s already almost 9 pm and they haven’t processed my orders yet that I will have my househelp claim for me in that branch. Why don’t big companies invest in IT? It’s like an afterthought for them. I ran out of cash because I sent my househelp to buy vegetables and eggs with the last cash in my wallet. So the only way I can buy medicines is through online means. And it’s a mess. š¤¦š»āāļø
Like everything in this country is a mess.
This is Duterte’s latest public address in a nutshell.
Meanwhile, shameless Bong-bong Marcos…
I ought to be packing my bags and move to New Zealand.
Our new COVID-19 daily case has hit an all-time high of almost 22,500 today and yet the government will be loosening the lockdown. Even in my hometown all hospitals are already at capacity and can no longer accept patients.
We are really headed for disaster. The overpriced purchase of face shields could have been diverted to buying more remdesivir and tocilizumab for hospitals in dire need of it. The government goons decided that we are better off with granular lockdowns without proper contact tracing (Duque even admitted to Senate that the govt contact tracing app is useless) and mass testing. COVID swab tests are so expensive, even for the middle class.
Malaysia and the Philippines are in a contest now for who got it worse.
As for my girls, their fevers had gone down today and they were able to attend their online class. I had them take paracetamol when they had headaches tonight but their temperatures didn’t go beyond sinat so I wasn’t that worried. I need more data to gather before I schedule a tele-consult with a pediatrician tomorrow. I was kind of panicking at 2 am this morning when I woke up to check one of my girls and thought about having us all tested for COVID.
To cheer us up today, our books I bought from Big Bad Wolf in June finally arrived.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
They’re enjoying Horrible Histories. I am reading that now, too. Fascinating horrible stuff.
I’m slowly recovering and was able to co-write a time-sensitive story today about Philippine Airlines’ bankruptcy. Last week was a struggle for me because I couldn’t write. Or even transcribe an interview. Meds made me lethargic and I kept on sleeping during odd hours. At least I started the week right today, despite the lack of proper sleep because I was watching over my sick girls.
Over the weekend, a high school friend invited me to join them on their Youtube talk show, which started off like a podcast about nothing in particular that ended up as an interview platform about anything under the sun. They added me because all of them are guys–most of whom were my friends from way back high school or post-college when we played in a band. They needed a female co-host to sort of balance the show. And I think they chose me because of my interviewing skills. They were drinking buddies at some point 10-20 years ago.
So my plan to do a podcast with friends has sort of come into fruition. However, instead of a just a podcast, this is a live Youtube video show that requires me to face the camera and be presentable. Anyway, a podcast or a video talk show is one of my personal goals, including keeping this blog alive (albeit private), so I have other things aside from work that I could pay attention to.
Because J has fallen in stature in my eyes, thinking about him hurts less now. Or maybe this is because I have been sleeping better that’s why I can talk like this now. Maybe if I start to become sleep-deprived again I would be back to being emotional again.
He used to be the only star in my night. Now that star has died.
Maybe I needed that jolt that I’ve experienced these past weeks to be able to realize that, hey, he isn’t really that special. And he is not a nice guy after all. I died several times over this person but he really can’t destroy me. I know who I am and what I am capable of. I may not be a CEO of a company or a high-flying executive that he could admire but I know Iām very good in what I do. I have everything that I needed. I have a home and I have love in the form of two not-so-little girls.
While he doesn’t have those.
Death of a star. He has now become a stardust.
To add to our worries, here comes another variant. We are going through the entire Greek letters while the Duterte administration is raping us wide eyes open.
To calm my frayed nerves, I ordered new cloths to make into masks for my friends’ children in appropriate kid sizes.
From Shopee. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The weekend is coming soon. Let’s see how many I can make.
