Category Archives: personal

25 days without a car

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And I’m going nuts.

I texted the car shop and the chief mechanic said they couldn’t do the paint job yet because it has been raining the past few weeks, which I completely understand.

Lord, please give me at least two dry days so my car paint job will be done. I don’t know how long I can stay like this, not being able to drive to places, even do a big grocery shop.

Meanwhile, my neighbors had Mochi/Whitey cremated today.

Goodbye, Kitty, love. Photo c/o my neighbor.
With paw print and glass for the ashes. Photo c/o my neighbor.

It was just so heartbreaking that he held on so we can be with him at the last moment before he let go his last breath.

I really do love cats. When I was growing up until my first job, I thought I was more of a dog person and my salary just went to pay for my dogs’ vet bills. Now that I’m older, I think my temperament matches more with cats. I’m an ambivert but my introverted side appreciates my cats’ aloofness and pretension that they do not care about me but in truth they’re really nuts about me. 😂

Like this lovely critter here. She again offered me another dead mouse outside my bedroom door.

Sushi, who is fond of giving me love offerings.

She had been making noise outside my bedroom yesterday morning, made sure I wake up so I can let her in my room. But when I opened my door, she refused to enter. I wondered why she went through all the hoops to wake me up then she’s not going inside my room 🤔 Only when I saw the dead mouse and acknowledged it did Sushi finally saunter into my room with a smug face. 🐱

I screeched and asked Ate C to clean up the crime/crime scene.

We don’t harbor pests in this apartment but because our neighbors in the next unit are really messy people, they already have a rat colony there and some of them had crossed over here. Hence, Sushi’s new preoccupation.

Their landlord inspected their apartment recently and saw that leftover Jollibee meals were on the kitchen counter with small rats circling around these. 🤢 That’s how disgusting they are.

I couldn’t put rat killers around my unit because of my curious cats. That’s what my other neighbors suspected that killed Mochi/Whitey. 😢 I’m still figuring how I could get rid of the pests without harming my fluffies.

Meanwhile, I don’t have anything else to keep me occupied today so I spent the evening learning to sing one song. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Ghad, I’m so boring.

Ocean – Lady Antebellum

At least this is better than trying to amuse myself by chatting with strangers, like what some friends suggested since they themselves are currently doing the Bumble thing. Especially this lawyer friend of mine who has been in the dating circuit in Singapore. She went through so many scrapes now because of Bumble and it seems like she hasn’t learned anything.

Anyway, I still can’t do that because I just discovered that I am not completely out of the woods yet i.e. I still want love and attention, which is fatal as this would lead me to the wrong person/people. So better I keep to myself until I become numb and heartless.

Maybe I would be able to do that dating thing when I am already nonchalant about everything, which I doubt I would be. Ergo, no. I would not be able to do it.

I should’ve learned my lesson.

Fly, cross the rainbow, kitty

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Handsome boy.

We tried to save him. After an hour of syringe feeding him, I saw he was already hyperventilating and his eyes were dilated. He just waited for me and my neighbors to come back to him before he said goodbye.

He held on long enough so we can be with him before he departed.

He enjoyed being brushed.
Mochi/Whitey enjoying the lights

He loved to play with my legs and he always made himself cute, begging for attention. At least for the last few months of his life, he was able to live stress-free and enjoy the simple pleasure of no longer fighting for survival. He learned how to play with broken branches and tin cans. He loved sleeping in this shoe rack that we provided for him outside my door.

At least he knew what love was.

24 days without a car

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DO NOT SETTLE.

This is the message I got today from all the people I got to talk to this week.

Do not settle for a half-assed written story. The story I just edited, I admit, I let through because the reporter would not have any output for the week. But then the content editor put a stop to it, because it was half-baked. Full of fiduciary statements with no substance.

I should stop being nice.

Do not settle for less than a full commitment to a job that was assigned a long time ago. I have given my team enough lead time; they should fulfill their end of the bargain. I push for more benefits and their promotion, then they should step up as well.

Do not settle for fleeting attention. If you want a relationship with me, I want your full attention. I don’t come second or third.

Do not make excuses for people. I will not settle for someone who spews inconsistencies and lies. Do not settle for people with questionable character.

Stop being nice. I deserve more than what I was receiving in the past.

Daughter: Dumb guys go for dumb girls and smart guys go for dumb girls. What do smart girls get?

Dad: Cats, mostly

Ah, truer words were never spoken. Because we’re no longer settling, we get cats. Happiness are derived from cats, not relationships.

Meanwhile, I would have to push back my trip to S.Korea from September (two weeks) to October-Nov (one week) as this is the only break my bestfriend and another good friend would have in the middle of the first semester school year 2022-2023. They have already booked their tickets while I haven’t because of my crazy schedule. I’m not sure if this is a good time for me since I need to go back to Singapore by mid-November and as head of the region for my publication, I cannot NOT be there… Ideally this S.Korea trip should be in September but…oh well. It’s more fun to be with my girlfriends if I cannot read street signs. My best friend and I had died of laughter for 8 days when we were in Japan in 2009 so I would really want to take this trip with her.

I don’t know what crazy stunts I would be doing this time but for sure I will not, I repeat, I will not eat a live octopus.

23 days without a car

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I would have wanted to drive somewhere today but I couldn’t. I still don’t have a car.

My brain is not functioning today—you know it’s like a deflated balloon right now after the Adrenalin rush of yesterday. Imagine, I did not allow myself to cry yesterday and absorb the fact that I lost 300k because I needed presence of mind. I needed to engage with the scammer/s while I am working with the authorities. Whatever info I extracted from the criminals, I passed on to authorities.

crop male hacker watching desktop computer in darkness
Photo by Anete Lusina on Pexels.com

After my Nancy Drew-esque adventure, I disengaged, as advised by the lawyer of the anti-fraud team because my identity will be stolen if I lingered long enough. The case is now with the investigators. I already gave him the ID of the point person from the syndicate that they can engage with so they can do a sting operation.

After I recovered my funds, I slept for 9 hours. All the stresses of the previous day were released today and my brain is barely functioning now.

My friend from the media relations of AEV said she was in awe of my presence of mind and guts. I said, maybe because I am a reporter so I’m used to masking stress and can still function under duress (I received a lot of threats from the scammer’s side when I refused to do what they wanted to me to do).

This is an organized crime syndicate. I did a lot of research and discovered the same modus operandi had been going on since 2019 or probably earlier. I passed on my research to the anti-fraud teams and the NBI; I think they need Interpol for this one. As my friend-colleague told me, they have scam farms (akin to boiler rooms) in Southeast Asia, scamming people from China to Venezeula. I’m not entirely sure if these boiler rooms do the same phising as what was done to me (and at some point my mom, but then my mom has an excuse that she is not internet savvy while I don’t; i blame my lack of sleep).

Image from Mothership.sg

It’s like being on the investigative journalism circuit again, doing covert info gathering. After being fueled by Adrednalin for 24 hours (forgetting to eat and sleep), my body gave up and gave in to exhaustion.

I’ve been pretending to edit a story from Vietnam the whole day today but I haven’t progressed to the fourth paragraph.

The best I could do today was to clean my keyboard, which was full of cat hair.

Cleaning my mechanical keyboard that has brown switches. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Cat hair and dust bunnies from my keyboard. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I can’t complain. After the extreme stress I went through yesterday, maybe I deserve this break. Besides, Southeast Asia is dead today because of Eid al-adha.

And oh, I thank God that I also have the foresight to keep majority of my funds in trust accounts that cannot be withdrawn that easily as these require a visit to the bank branch. I also have split my ready-to-use funds into different bank accounts. Aside from *** (where I have like 6 accounts), I have *** and ***. I now have *** and ***, which I’m testing as a financial reporter for future reference. In case of fuck ups like this, I still have funds I could use.

Diversify, diversify.

Tomorrow will be much better. All is well.

21st day without a car

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Yesterday was a bit shocking that even my former boss messaged me to ask, “What’s happening with the world?!”

Looks like a case of mental health illness issue rearing its ugly head. Again. News from Japan say that the assassin is an unemployed former military (Japan’s equivalent of navy) and he killed Shinzo Abe on the basis that he believed Abe is involved with an organization (which news reports say religious) that this assassin hates.

He told investigators that his mother had become bankrupt after spending her money to support a religious group, according to Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, which cited police sources. He said his family fell apart because of his mother’s obsession with the group, and he targeted Abe “out of resentment,” Mainichi reported.

Mental health issues are taboo topics in Japan, a country that values conformity so much. Psychiatric therapy is almost unheard of there. That’s why you have a lot of hikikomori there and suicide rates are some of the highest in the world.

It’s just sad.

I brought the girls today to their friend’s house so I owned the rest of the day. And of course I spent it sleeping and cuddling with the cats. Slept probably for three hours.

Kimchi is so cute!

My cats, my children, my relatively comfortable and quiet life make my heart full. I am complete.

I am complete.

As I wrote in my Instagram post today, I fear nothing these days.

Revelation of John 4:5 “From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God”

One of those seven is Michael the Archangel, the guardian of Israel, who is also my guardian angel.

Together with God’s promise in Psalm 91 and this archangel, I am forever protected. ❤️ I have no fear. 🔥

I am loved and protected. I fear no evil. Many times my ass has been saved from sure disaster.

I used to fear expressing my spiritual beliefs because J scorns it. He doesn’t believe in God, I think. Now, I don’t care anymore. I’m very free to do, express, and believe in whatever I want.

My faith was just tested now but the archangel is looking after me.

20th day without a car

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This story from The New York Times struck a chord somewhere, not because I have a similar story, but because the pain indirectly expressed here is universal. Pain just comes in different degrees and forms.

“What is true? The note I wrote on a slip of paper and put in the drawer of my bedside table after we broke it off that final time: ‘Long after you are gone, my stones will hold your warmth.'”

Awww, journalists are really masochists. Why is she doing this to herself?

Nope, don’t try to answer. I already answered my own question.

Some literal positive news today

And I really love how people are responding to this. 😂

St Peter Memorial 😂

These past few weeks were very challenging for Philippine media, with the revocation of Rappler’s registration statement at the SEC, the red tagging of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and Bulatlat.com (where my first investigative piece about juvenile justice was published). This Marcos administration 2.0 is hell-bent on shutting free media down.

Anything that publishes the truth is being persecuted by this government.

My fellow journalists are now having drinks in Cubao X and as much as I want to join them, I can’t because 1) I don’t have a car; 2) I feel like staying in bed more; and 3) my doctor hasn’t given me the clearance to have alcohol. The last time I was with them, I had to exercise great self-control because beer was free-flowing and Johnnie Walker was table-hopping.

I just sent them a bottle of wine via Grab as a goodwill gesture and in solidarity. We all had tough weeks. Will probably join them next time.