My brain is fried.

I guess I will be like this for the entire week and until next Monday or Tue. I need to write the pending stories I got from Singapore and the long pieces that I planned to publish before I go on my year-end break. I prioritized the time-sensitive ones today (two!) and another one I still have to draft tomorrow. I have so many emails to compose and send, interviews to schedule. 🫠

A little push and it would soon be freedom… To do what I want: Play my newly purchased games, read more books, watch Netflix, and paint.

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I just spent two hours driving home from Nuvali last night because traffic was horrendous. It usually just takes an hour on a normal day. Weekends are just brutal for us who live in the province that hosts weekenders/tourists. We got home at 11 pm. 🥴

My girls, my sister, and I watched Wicked before they take it off the cinemas to make way for the Metro Manila Film Fest. I have to say the movie was worth the drive—just the pièce de résistance Defying Gravity number—was worth the drive. The movie gave better context as to how Elphaba discovered her true self, why she is defying the Wizard of Oz and every authority known in Oz.

My sister said she didn’t expect much from Ariana Grande but after the movie, she has a newfound respect for the singer-actress. She embodied Galinda/Glinda very well while making the role her own. Cynthia Erivo ws able to flesh out the character well by making you feel what she feels. There is also no question about their vocal prowess.

Jeff Goldblum was a revelation. He could sing. Not sing-sing Broadway but he can sing decently. What surprised me was he is a jazz pianist—something I can never ever be.

There were special appearances by the original Broadway musical Glinda and Elpaba, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, respectively. It was just fitting that the producers, which include Stephen Schwartz, had singing roles for them.

All in all, I did enjoy the movie for what it is. I’m looking forward to Act II.

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I missed making lassi so I had put on my walking shoes and went to the weekend community market.

I don’t want to cook so I bought as much food as I can stuff in my backpack. It was a lot.

I bought palabok for myself and my girls. I ate mine at the market though.

I couldn’t resist spicy laing to go with rice and some kind of meat viand at home.

Since my girls loved hummus and pita, I stuffed my bag with these.

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I’m trying out this foldable Bluetooth keyboard that I will be gifting to my friend who had expressed her desire for such because she travels a lot. It’s taking some time getting used to this since the keys have uneven sizes and for touch-typers like me, it requires a steep learning curve.

I got it from Lazada. Now that I’ve tried it and it’s working, I will be wrapping this up soon.

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When the people are fed being screwed over, they revolt. And one man took the cudgels for them. Meet Hitman 2025, the man that caused CEOs to take down their LinkedIn profiles now that the people are fighting back.

Let's talk for a moment about why someone would want to murder the CEO of UnitedHealth pic.twitter.com/4ofQPkbL4d

— Democrats hate the working class (@DoctorFishbones) December 5, 2024

I do not condone murder but I cannot judge the people behind this either because millions of people had been fucked over by insurance companies.

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I am just spent. It has been two straight nights of networking and chasing leads. I’m so depleted. At 1 am I was still working; I finished a draft but later I decided to pull out that story because of a recurring problem with one of the reporters in my team.

Wait, my brain is already shutting down.

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Wednesday, I drove to Makati to check into Red Planet Amorsolo in Makati because I don’t want to be driving back and forth for two straight days.

After checking in, I fetched Kr and drove to Ortigas for the dinner-Xmas party of one conglomerate. Had to chase some leads and got some useful info. But the best part is I got to see friends from the industry and unexpectedly, I saw K, my friend from a rival news agency.

Drove back to Makati with some friends who hitched a ride. I still had to write stories until 1 am for editing in the morning.

I couldn’t sleep because of the amont of caffeine in my system. I only got an eyeshut at 3 am. 🥴 For some reason it was an uncomfortable sleep. Maybe it was the aircon. Maybe it was the bed—I don’t know. I was in between throwing the duvet because I was sweating and curling up under it because I was cold.

I may be experiencing perimenopause symptoms! 😱

Then I got a call from a source at around 7-ish. My brain was still cloudy at that time.

I couldn’t really go back to sleep after that. So I went back to draft more stories and have more calls. I was a few mins late checking out of Red Planet. The nice thing about that location is that there was a nearby authentic Chinese restaurant, which looked like its original clientele is the POGO workers.

Then I drove to Glorietta 5 to buy myself a black dress and work at Uniqlo coffee shop before jumping to Hyatt.

After I depleted my social battery late last night, I tried to keep still at the lobby because age really is catching up on me. I had to sit down before driving all the way back home. I wasn’t able to have coffee so it was a struggle keeping myself alert driving along SLEX.

I was just dead the rest of the day today. My noble plan to draft more stories today has died.

I wonder if this could spiral down into having a dictatorial government, just how Marcos Sr was able to orchestrate his 20-year rule in the Philippines. I have no idea how bad the opposition in S. Korea is behaving, since there seems to some kind of impasse at parliament.

But then…

The sudden declaration of martial law has raised concerns about its potential impact on South Korea’s democracy and civil liberties. Although the president emphasized the need to address threats from North Korea and internal instability, he provided little detail about the actions his government intends to take or how long the measures will last. It is also worth adding that President Yoon Suk Yeol’s wife has been in the news for engaging in corruption.

Republicworld.com

— they sound like the Marcoses. 🙃

S. Korea isn’t stranger to martial law since it has experienced it several times since the 1960s. So let’s see how this would unfold.

Meanwhile, the US has yet to see the fireworks to be set again by Trump 2.0 but the world is watching with bated breath.

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Whelp! The drama ends.

Good for the parliament. Good for the people. Now the president will be impeached—even his own party didn’t support him.

And this will inspire a new K-drama. 🤣

But I hate to be the one at the desk at this moment since this crosses over EMEA-N. America timeslot with Asia, it’s rough being the one to edit news at speed. I was thankful in a way that I wasn’t chosen for that global editor gig because I just realized I don’t need that kind of stress.

I spoke to my friend who recruited me to apply for that job, and told her I might have done badly with the tests that’s why I wasn’t chosen. She said no, it wasn’t the test.

I think I might have quoted a too high salary 🤣.

I’m so busy, jumping from one call to another, jumping from one story lead to another. I was still sending emails at 8 pm…I still don’t feel the holiday spirit.

My brain is fried. Good thing the barbecue ribs I made was 👌if I may say so.

I made a dry rub first and left it to marinate the meat for an hour or so. Then I poured bbq sauce on it (the American kind) and then set it on the trivet inside my Instant Pot, added water at the bottom to create pressure. I set it on High for 25 mins. After releasing the pressure, I removed the ribs from the trivet and transferred it to my air fryer and added more bbq sauce to caramelize the surface of the ribs.

It was divine. It was perfectly caramelized on the outside but juicy on the inside. It was the falling-off-the-bone kind of loveliness so you don’t have to struggle with getting the meat out of a difficult cut.

I forgot to take a photo because we were so hungry. Twin I said she loved it, while Twin A finished her big bowl of rice.

I did all the cooking in between editing and calls.