— Khandaker Muntasir Hossain (@KhandakerMunta) June 22, 2023
And that’s the reality, folks. Some rich adventurers who dived into their doom get so much attention and support from the world and yet those who get lost in the sea because conditions back home are so bad that they risk dying in open sea don’t get help. Both tragedies happened at the same time.
Anyway, at this point there are no survivors since in theory their oxygen has run out hours ago. Hopefully, they didn’t have to suffer and it was instantaneous. I don’t know if it’s better to have gone when it imploded due to pressure or I die slowly and choke because I no longer have oxygen.
When I go freediving, I could already feel the pressure in my ears and we’re not even talking about several hundred feet…at 15 ft you could already feel it. At 375 atmospheres…
I think because this thing is so macabre that’s why the world is fascinated with this story. It’s like a well-publicized assisted suicide.
I don’t know how I feel about the whole thing. But the whole media circus touches the raw part of me that is scared of dark depths so it kind of creeps me out. My freediving is my way of confronting this fear but then, what is happening/happened to Titan is raising my fears again.
This is also like the feeling I got when I read Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado.
I was unproductive today. I wasn’t able to work because I just slept most of the day. I might have caught a nasty bug from Twin I, who in turn caught it from her younger cousin, L.
I will sleep for a few hours and let’s see what daylight brings later today. I was supposed to process yesterday at noon the conversation I had with L last Monday but I fell asleep as I was attempting to type it into an update of yesterday’s blog entry.
Hopefully, I would feel better later today.
No, I feel worse. It’s making editing today difficult because that job requires a lot of brain power. I’m brainless today. However, I need to go grocery shopping later tonight because my fridge is empty.
I’m too sick to do that either.
Since my fridge is empty and we’re too sick to go out for dinner or even collect FoodPanda or Grab at the gate, I resorted to making weird food out of stuff left in my house.
Heating up whole wheat tortilla that has been sleeping in my chiller. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Grilling hotdogs, the only thing left in my freezer. Photo by CallMeCreation.com This is a cross between a burrito and a hotdog sandwich. Photo by CallMeCreation.com And that’s dinner. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Again, I didn’t have the patience to do sketches before watercoloring. I just stayed loose because I’m lazy and I was just going with the flow, with what I’m feeling. I just followed where the water was going.
I wish I could be like that in real life. However, I can’t because I’m in charge of the lives of two people who are completely dependent on me. I have to be organized and responsible so I won’t fuck up their lives and end up therapy. The only time I can be loose and free is when I watercolor like this. Even when I travel, I say “whatever, I’ll just go with whatever I feel like,” but in truth there are a lot of planning involved there. I’m just not rigid.
So this is my last hurrah before I go back to work tomorrow. Put my nose on the grinding stone again. Then pack our little things in between so I can drive these stuff to my house in bits and pieces…
Speaking of my house, my contractor gave me the bill for the construction work for my laundry area and a separate bill for the waterworks i.e. pressure tanks, etc. I hope these are the last of it because anything more than that means I would have to draw down on my moneymarket UITF. 🤦🏻♀️ Good thing I still have enough free cash/retained earnings to tide me by without touching my investments again.
Building a new work desk. Photo byCallMeCreation.com
I suddenly had a brilliant idea of going to Ikea this afternoon to buy myself a new work desk so I can give my old one to Twin A because hers is tilting dangerously and is falling apart. I would have a bigger problem if it suddenly crashes.
I had been up all night since the new work desk requires me to build it myself. I started at around 7 pm and finished at 1 am.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The dimensions are almost the same as my old desk: 120 x 60 x 70cm. I was initially aiming for the 140 cm long Lagkapten to accommodate my printer but I realized my room in my new house is much smaller even though I made provisions there for a 140 cm desk. If I find myself wanting more surface area, I could always order another Alex drawer. Or I can mount a wall shelf and place the printer there.
I also have better cable management.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My desk now matches the oak finish of my cabinetry in my tiny house. I just need to make the cables tidier by buying that spiral pipe cord protector/organizer so I can place my workstation in a command position facing the door in my new room. There’s nothing more stressful than seeing unruly cables when you enter a room.
Available on Lazada
I chose not to update my girls’ desks because I will have theirs custom-made together with their loft beds. I will just buy them additional Alex drawers (and more DIY for me) so they will have more storage.
This weekend I will start throwing away old stuff that we have been harboring under the stairs. Then we will start eliminating things that we wouldn’t be bringing to our tiny house.
I’m sleepy. I will collect my thoughts later…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I’ve been selling my ETF in tranches this week because the outlook is bad in the coming months. While I have already completed the payments for the entire contract with my builder last week, there are extra expenses that I have incurred because of additional posts and making the laundry/utility area downstairs more decent. So I needed to draw down from my stock investments.
This is the reason why I don’t spend on luxury bags, designer clothes, and other unproductive things. Bags are not an investment; an investment is something that will help you increase your earnings—not to boost your ego. Besides, these luxury houses target the insecure middle class customers who want to be perceived as rich. It’s aspirational.
It’s so superficial.
I buy a lot of bags–some expensive, some are just so-so because I often break my bags. I rotate them so as not to tax one particular bag and destroy it before I get my ROI.
I’ve been investing in the stock market since the great market crash of 2008. This enabled me to build my house debt-free. Although it’s small, I have the option to enlarge it later but then I don’t want a big house to clean…At least I can get off the rental market now and build wealth faster. One of the killers of wealth-building is consumer debt and rent. I don’t have both. This recession is a buying opportunity, granted that I don’t lose my job or some other catastrophe happening like illness.
So for those who look down on me for not having designer bags or designer everything–I want to pose this question: Do you already have a retirement fund? Are you fully insured? Do you have emergency funds? No? Then come back to me when you already have one/some.
Another bookmark in the works. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
I just got off from Microsoft Teams after chatting with my colleague in Japan for more than an hour about our colleague (L) who just resigned. You see, I held a farewell call for her during our team’s weekly call. Then after that I sent an email to APAC editorial mailing list about the Kudoboard for her, announcing her resignation.
Anyway, my MS Teams chat went from one topic to another and my colleague (N) was ranting about xxx and yyyy. He threatened to leave and told my manager about in February 2022. His former manager, M, who left us in March last year for some consulting firm, told him to stay in journalism. He said he sensed M misses journalism. M told him that in hindsight, her years with our company wasn’t so bad at all compared to her current company now where she is managing director.
It was a matter of the grass is always greener on the other side, I guess.
I told N that I also feel that discontent sometimes when I feel like the company is being unfair to me. L and I had been chatting as well and she was sending me names of companies that are hiring. I was looking at the job descriptions and nothing excited me. She said, maybe you would like to try something new. I said, I think I’m happy with journalism. And if I want to try something new, it would be data journalism/analytics that’s why I’m going to enroll in a training program for data analytics. Besides, none of the job openings are remote.
OMG, I didn’t realize that remote working is so important to me now, like it’s on top of my criteria. 🙀
During this chat with my Japanese colleague, N, we were talking about our angst about certain things. Then I sent him a photo of me (actually, my laptop) with a swimming pool in the background (the one I took after Christmas). He couldn’t believe I could work by the poolside or by the beach. I said whenever I feel shit about my job, I look at photos like this and tell myself that being able to work anywhere, according to my pace and comfort level, is something I cannot quantify yet. That flexibility as a single parent is very important, I just realized. Being able to turn off my Outlook or ignore it during the weekends is critical that most of us take for granted.
Even though being a journalist means you are always “on”, I can still afford to tune out when I need to.
Being at home to see my children and cook for them is precious. My kids always drag me out of my room to have proper meals with them at the table. It’s important to them.
L told me to just go through interviews, just to see what’s out there and how I compare against industry. Yes, she makes sense. But deep inside I feel it’s too exhausting and would just be wasting my time doing all that when I’m not ready to jump yet. I would know if a job description will click within me.
N said, you are doing good. You are where you’re supposed to be.
I don’t know how to turn off the confusion sown inside my chest. I don’t know how to quiet it down.
I don’t know. This disquiet is fueled by this desire to earn more so maybe if the company grants me the 8-point agenda I sent my bosses, maybe the noise will die down?
Twin A’s bookmark artwork. ❤️ Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This morning my thought was “If only I could just continue creating like draw/paint and make things with my hands, maybe I won’t be having this anxiety every Monday morning…”
Again, I don’t know where or how to reach that happy compromise.
It now has four walls. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I left QC at almost 7 am this morning even though I woke up at around 4 am (because I slept before 11 pm last night). The drive was less than 2 hours at rush hour so it was surprisingly quick.
Driving on Skyway 3 North Ave. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I stopped at the flower vendors along the highway in my hometown and bought carnations for my mom and arranged Malaysian mums for my dad’s crypt. I visited his resting place first to bring the flowers before proceeding to my mom’s house. Then I checked the construction progress.
I have a huge front door. Photo by CallMeCreation.comThey’ve removed the old windows in this room that is going to be my room. Photo by CallMeCreation.comThen they patched it up with new concrete wall and new door opening.Photo by CallMeCreation.comFrom below. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This staircase would be changed and moved so this area below would be my outdoor space, combined patio and further right would be the utility and laundry area. Eventually I can have this area covered once I raise enough money. But you know, one thing at a time…
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
In the future I can have this extended by building a deck. Just because.
I can also have this catio built too.
I built an Ikea wardrobe (Pax system) for myself using Ikea’s online planner. This will be installed just outside my bedroom door because, what the heck, I don’t have space in my room.
Or Brimnes wardrobe.
The Pax system I built using the Ikea online planner costs around PHP 32,000. I asked my contractor if his carpenter/cabinet-maker can build me something like this. He said he can have it made for less than 20k, minus the Ikea wire drawers (can be replaced with real wooden drawers, I guess?)
I worked for a bit, chatted with some sources, then left the construction site and then my mom’s house early to go around the campus. I watched the football players for a while. Oh how I wish I could still play. Nope, I’m too broken for that.
Photo by CallMeCreation.comZooming in. I used to be one of them. Photo by CallMeCreation.comTired, sweaty, and my make up is running down because I installed a towel bar in my sisters’ bathroom.
Then I went to have dinner at a friend’s restaurant while I waited for my sister-in-law (SIL) and my brother.
Photo by CallMeCreation.comBeef shawarma and yoghurt shake. Photo by CallMeCreation.comThen we had coffee and lots of talk. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My brother didn’t join us for dinner/coffee because he went ahead to move in some of their stuff into their new townhouse. I forgot to take a photo of it but I took shots of Kuya P’s future room because it has a loft bed that I wanted to show the girls.
My brother’s house is nice and spacious since it has three floors, a huge garage (two SUVs can fit) but they will use the space further in to make it a game room and some kind of lounge area for the boys and their friends.
Kuya P’s loft bed and “office”. Photo by CallMeCreation.comToo claustrophobic for me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
But then if you’re playing games, this could be ideal because you can confine the sounds. This can also help you concentrate on studying and eliminate external distraction. When I showed this to the girls, they said they will just have curtains to make their study area isolated from each other.
I left at past 9 pm and it only took me 1.5 hrs to get home in QC. With the moderate to heavy traffic. Not bad.
It’s past 10:30 and it’s still like this along Quezon Ave. 🥴 Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It’s already past my normal bedtime but I’m still wide awake because of the late coffee drinking (because I needed that for my drive). I’ve been up since 4 am. Gee, I’m running on caffeine and adrenalin.
While I was working today, I sold some stocks at a slightly higher price than yesterday. I will have the proceeds deposited in one of my bank accounts and then when I need to issue another check to my contractor next month, I would be ready. I decided to sell this time because it seems like stocks would be falling next week—the US inflation rate was higher than forecast. Despite this (which meant the US Fed will remain aggressive in its rate hikes of at least 75 basis points every FOMC meeting), the local stock market was up today; it defied logic. Good that I was able to sell. But I guess the local market was trying to go for a winning streak for the weekend before they digest the US inflation news—and they knew that stocks would be falling next week. The US Fed’s goal is to bring down inflation from the current 8.2% (the highest in 40 years) down to 2%. Just count how many rate hikes they would have to make—that would spill over to next year. They are really going to cut economic growth in favor of bond prices. That’s a lot of liquidity being mopped up. The housing market will go belly up if they continue with this.
A shopper walks past turkeys for sale in a grocery store on Nov. 11, 2021, in Los Angeles.Mario Tama / Getty Images file
So this will be another contagion. If people cannot pay their mortgages and buy food, then the this will redound to other consumer items. Global trade would…It’s 2008 all over again.
Those VCs and startups will have a lot of trouble raising funds. As they said, “winter is coming!” The abundant dry powder of yore—thanks to the super low interest rates as a result of Fed cuts in 2008 to save the US economy—is gone. Investors have become more tight-fisted quarter on quarter and they now refuse to fund untested startups even if they look brilliant on paper. The tech industry is first to freeze in this funding winter. The rest will follow. VCs and startups are scrambling to get funding before the year ends, before we officially enter global recession next year, before the world burns.
That’s why it’s critical to unload some of my stocks and VUL funds by November (until December, if I believe in Santa Claus rally–and I haven’t decided yet) so I can pay for the remaining balance with my contractor. After finishing my house and the expenses of moving, I will start building up my finances again by buying bargains. Since I cannot buy individual stocks anymore (and I don’t want to be penalized for insider trading even though I will not do that), I will just have to limit myself with funds like ETF, UITFs, and funding this particular VUL I will draw down from again (which I plan to (almost) empty by year-end).
Let me just recover a bit from this house then I will scrimp and save for a new car. I think by 2024 I would be ready, if the world hasn’t completely burnt up by then.
We’re just 1 centavo away from PHP 59:USD 1. Before this month ends, the forex will be PHP 60, which beat my brother’s estimate. The cost of powdered milk has jumped PHP 200+ for the pack that I usually buy. We import our milk from New Zealand or Australia because we don’t have enough cattle or rolling lands here for commercial-scale milk and beef production. This is bad for those with infants and toddlers who still need milk.
I was supposed to draw down one of my investments last month but I hesitated because I still didn’t have a full estimate for my house’s construction. Today I lost 50k (paper losses) for that specific investment just because I didn’t have the foresight to withdraw it then. I was being greedy as well, thinking that the markets may bounce back pre-3Q22 corporate financial earnings reports.
HOW F*CKING WRONG I WAS.
Now ECB President Christine Lagarde (*I met her when she was still the IMF Chief and visited the Philippines* 😉) just said that recession is imminent this winter in the eurozone. UK tax cuts would only aggravate the situation and we would be bouncing to a global recession by next year. Actually, we should be in recession now since consumers had been closing their wallets for while now due to the incessant quickening of inflation.
The typhoon also flattened the food basket of Luzon. It’s rice harvesting season now but the typhoon destroyed all rice farms in its path. Prices of local and imported (as declared by the rice cartel of Thailand and Vietnam) will further climb.
AND YET…
Marcos just tweeted and posted on FB how “successful” his NY visit was. Their inept social media machinery showed spliced videos and photos of his speech before the UNGA to show there was an audience. But the truth photos shot by professional photographers showed that delegates walked out on Marcos.
His US trip didn’t gain any investment pledge. But he watched an Eric Clapton concert and went shopping while the rest of the country is being battered by Typhoon Karding. Rescuers in Bulacan died doing their duty.
He made this government trip a family affair because this is the first time his family can step on US soil because they were banned for decades because of their numerous crimes and convictions. But because of US law that states that this ban does not extend to head of states. 😤
Everyone else in the world are asking us why did the Marcoses come back? The Germans said they could not even imagine having Hitler back so how come Filipinos allow it?
BECAUSE WE ARE STUPID, DRUNK THE FACEBOOK KOOL-AID.
Ghad, I could punch every person who voted for this brainless BabyM. He’s as incoherent as Duterte, but in English. If there was an Asian version of a dumb blonde, he could be the perfect representative.
I keep on telling myself not to open my Twitter and yet I couldn’t help it because I needed to check the tweets from the financial markets in the US, UK, and eurozone. Today was no better.
This after scrolling through Twitter this morning.
The Marcos trolls and the Sara Duterte trolls (they’re different breeds) are doubly offensive today, trying to cover the incompetence of both officials in light of this latest calamity.
It’s so tiring. I mean, this is the reason we can’t have nice things here in the Philippines. The great unwashed and the equally morally corrupt upper class keep voting for these monsters because they have no regard for others.
I’m tired.
Ang hirap mo mahalin, Pilipinas! Kelan kaya kita maiiwan para maka-usad na ako sa buhay ko? Sana lumaki na lang ako na walang pakialam para hindi ganito kabigat ang dibdib ko araw-araw na nilulustay ka ng mga kawatan.
