He came from out of nowhere. He showed Rolling Stones magazine how he should have been in their list of 100 greatest guitar players of all time and he didn’t take the snub kindly. Shredded like there’s no tomorrow. Threw his guitar and left.
That is Prince.
Prince’s performance here is still regarded as one of the best guitar solos and/or tributes to an artist. It’s up there with the Heart’s tribute to Led Zeppelin with their performance of Stairway to Heaven with Jason Bonham.
Sis-in-law was messaging me early in the morning, telling me she hasn’t slept at all. They had to attend to an emergency situation involving a student in our university who lived just a few townhouses from them.
The kid offed himself.
Long story short, there was pressure from this week’s finals, had a problem with not being able to graduate on time, and top of it all, he broke up with his girlfriend the day before.
His housemates couldn’t open his bedroom door. The owner of the unit already had a gut feel; he’s been through this before with a high school mate of his. They called the barangay and the police.
They confirmed the worst.
The parents said academically he had no problem, being a graduate of Philippine Science High School and all. It’s just that the kid had a history of depression. His friends said they didn’t know he was struggling mentally because he was a charismatic guy.
But you know, those who are in danger of going over the edge are the ones you least likely think would do so.
My SIL had to comfort the kids who were huddled infront of the apartment. They cried in her arms; they didn’t know how to deal with this tragedy. All of them had thesis defense scheduled this week. All of them were graduating this sem.
When you give up this fight, it’s not only you who would lose this fight. All of them would.
We said a little prayer for him, his family, and his friends.
I lost many friends to suicide.
I can’t blame them though. Sometimes the pain is just too hard to bear. You can’t claw your way out of the dark pit that has been closing in on you. You scream soundlessly, hoping for some release. You can’t reach out to others because they wouldn’t understand this hollow and dull ache inside. You just want to give up and go.
I wish I could reach out to kids who feel trapped like this. Too young to go on the deep end.
I wish I knew my friends were trapped like this. I could have helped and reached out.
But I didn’t know. We all didn’t know.
How to cook with minimal effort? Air fryer and steamer.
I don’t want to mess around with pots and and pans. Because Twin I managed to blow up our microwave oven while I was away in Singapore, I’m left with just the steamer to heat up rice in the fridge. To save on electricity, I thought I’ll just use the other baskets to steam veggies and make savory steamed eggs.
I had been eating like this for two days now so I decided to make pork sinigang in my Instant Pot today. It was too much for one person, though. I ate it for brunch and dinner and I still have a lot of leftovers.
Home is sanctuary from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. You can’t just continue battling your way out into the world and hope that you’ll last until your next base stop.
My kids are gone, they’re with their dad until the 25th. So this is how it feels like being solo. When I travel, I don’t feel it because it is out of the ordinary way of life for me. It’s a disruption. Now that I’m settling back into a routine, I can feel the impact of being alone.
Is it sad? Yes. It’s more of about missing my children. This is how it feels like when they will have lives of their own. This is how it would look like when the time comes I will just wait for them to call me. Hoping they would remember me because I never stopped thinking about them everyday.
I was just falling asleep holding my phone, listening to webinars or calls— I was just so exhausted at the end of the day.
Then I submitted a badly written story before leaving for the airport because I received a very early morning message from our APAC boss today that pressured me to produce stories from this trip. Like she instantly wants the scoops. How can I produce numerous scoops when I and my potential sources are just feeling each other out, whether or not we could trust one another or not?
It dampened my weekend.
Then I got scolded by my manager for something not my making. She jumped the gun early without properly reading the story. She then backtracked and said, yeah yeah, we will publish this on Monday.
I’m so angry, so exhausted, I just wanted to soothe myself. I went into a store in Jewel and there’s a 50% sale.
I bit the bullet. I tapped my credit card on the terminal. I realized my mistake—I misheard the sales associate about the final price after 50% and 6.5 GST refund. I was off by several thousands of pesos.
I wanted to return the item but here I am…I instantly felt remorse because I could have bought more ETFs and mutual fund units instead of a very expensive bag that I don’t have any use for.
I shouldn’t move when upset. I should stay away from stores when I wanted to feel good after being beaten down by my manager or our APAC boss.
I had been talking non-stop since Tuesday during our conference. By afternoon everyday, my social battery is already at subterranean level. Ten years ago I could have gone on and on until evening for social drinks. I’m nearing my 50s and I’m just like, screw this job, I’m not gonna people anymore, as the Gen Zs say. 🫠
Yesterday, my calendar was so packed that I had to cancel one meeting due to poor planning on my part. A 10-minute overtime is a disaster to my next meeting. I overestimated the efficiency of Singapore’s transport system that I only left 30-min gaps between meetings. I thought getting Grab was a cinch. I should have learned my lesson from last year when I tried to pack my days so much.
Today I only had four meetings but very meaningful. Exhausting though.
I wanna give up and run to my hotel room and rot in my bed. My social battery is running on negative. I am just operating on caffeine and the last meal I had was a very sad bunwich in Holland Village before my breakfast meeting.
Dinner last night with colleagues was good even though most of the dishes are off-limits to me. The nice thing about it was that I didn’t pay for it. 😂
It somehow partially made up for yesterday’s exhaustion.
I’m rambling. My brain is a mess. I still picked up some stories to edit because we’re short on editors. I don’t know how I still managed to do it but I did. 🫠
I forgot to mention on Tuesday that one of my bffs scolded me for not knowing that Twin I was awarded the “highest honors” for the whole 8th grade. Bff was also at the recognition rites because her daughter finished her 7th Grade with honors as well. I said I wasn’t told about it; my daughters just told me they were awarded “with high honors” so I was just expecting second or third place.
What pissed my bff was that the prestige of going up the stage and putting on the medals on my daughters was bestowed upon their dad, who didn’t give a single cent for their tuition and cost of living.
“That honor should be yours! You worked your ass off to raise your daughters alone. Why is he reaping that reward like he had some hand in what they have achieved?!” bff ranted.
I said, well, he had that luck because I happened to be working myself to the bone in a far away land to earn for my kids.
Precisely, bff said. It’s you who is slaving in the background for your kids while he claims all the glory, she told me.
It’s immaterial to me now. As long as my kids know and recognize that it was I who had offered my life for them, then that’s all that matters.
