Yesterday was just really bad. I was beaten by my bosses for something I didn’t even write and for something beyond our control. The main point is because we don’t have any freaking reporter in Singapore! If this—berating me for something that isn’t my fault—didn’t happen, it wouldn’t have occurred to them that we need a reporter in Singapore. They thought we can get by without one. They thought Southeast Asia is uniform. They thought SEAsia is just like Australia with different states or China with different provinces.

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SCREAM OUT LOUD IT IS NOT?!

The analysis piece that we did for three months… My boss wasn’t happy with it. She didn’t get it. She didn’t appreciate it.

I just couldn’t bear it anymore and called up M and cried.

Why do I even bother? Why?

My friend, L, and I had talked from 5 pm until 9 pm at Starbucks 6750. It made up for all those months we haven’t seen each other. One of the topics was our struggles with our bosses. We both have asshats for managers.

Driving back, while I was about 2 km away from home, my sister called and told me to go straight to the ER because she rushed our nephew who overdosed on sleeping pills. She needed to go home to get stuff because they will be admitted and the medical staff strictly told us not to leave the child alone, out of sight, for one second.

They tried inducing vomiting and pooping to get it out of his system. Activated charcoal was given to absorb all the toxins, supposedly, in his stomach. I saw the ER bill to check what else they did. Nothing in his toxicology report showed something was unusual but his blood clotting time is alarmingly long. That may not be related to this attempt at suicide—if it is an attempt at suicide.

His mom is abroad for work and is rushing back home. She really needs to acknowledge that this not just a simple General Anxiety Disorder.

It’s 11:30 pm and I just finished an analysis piece that I had been working on since November last year. Anxiety has been building up since Friday because I couldn’t finish it last week. I said I’ll do overtime and write the damned thing on Saturday.

But of course I didn’t. My mind was just blank. My brain was so tired as we tried to break that story last Friday, as I mentioned in that previous post. It drained me.

I told myself today that it’s now or never—I must finish the draft tonight or else other media may catch up. They have already seen the pattern in my questions or the questions asked by Kr during presscons or ambush interviews.

This morning I attempted to start the second paragraph but Kimchi invaded my desk. 😑 Of course I could have swept her off my table but I took it as a sign not to start on my piece since my brain was not hyped enough for this task.

At church I asked God for inspiration because my mind was completely blank. I never realized how brain-dead I was but it was like squeezing blood out of a stone—I really couldn’t write.

My prayer has been answered, finally. When I sat on my desk at 7:30 pm, words started flowing and organizing the flow of my 1,000+ word article wasn’t such a pain as I thought it would be.

After 4 hours, I was done, complete with fact-checks and rejigging of paragraphs and insertion of a table.

😭 I’m so done!

All I have to do is to send it to editors before I leave for Makati tomorrow.

… I don’t want work travels anymore. I dreaded booking my flight and hotel to HK, where I will be attending a week-long training. Last night, I picked the same hotel I stayed in last year because that’s the nearest one within the budget range our office allows us. I mean, I just chose the path of least resistance because I no longer want to complicate my life.

Maybe it’s because I know my boss will be there. Work travel is not fun anymore.

I’m finally done with the car registration. I was supposed to do that last Tue but all smoke emission testing centers are either closing for the day (they have car limits) or had connectivity issues. Of course, without the test, I couldn’t register my car. 😑 Wasted fuel driving back and forth.

While I was on the road, I was managing a coverage of a press briefing with two reporters under my management and this was critical to the series that we had been writing about. When I got back to my desk, I got my fingers cracking and dove in.

I still have it—I’m still sharp. Still ahead of the pack.

You see, this is why I’m still in this job despite my boss being… I’m still good at what I do. My adrenalin is still pumping when I know I’m doing something well.

So finally, Sara Duterte is impeached by the Lower House today and all we need is for the Senate to do its job.

Joseph Estrada was impeached in 2000 and I was there in Liwasang Bonifacio and EDSA when we clamored for his resignation as Philippine president. He was just halfway through his term.

Now the current vice president is fighting for her political survival. While I think that it’s great she willbe kicked out of public office while Marcos is president, I don’t think I will be joining any mob 25 years after we kicked out Estrada. What is the difference between then and now? At that time we still had decent lawmakers and I still believed that there is still justice to be had in this country.

Now it’s just evil vs evil. All of them are corrupt and it’s just a matter of going to camp with the most money and power.

The current crop of preferred senators makes me wanna barf. The only decent name there is Kiko Pangilinan but the rest is a case of dumb and dumber.

In the meantime, I will go grab some popcorn and see this circus.

I changed my cats’ litter after ordering 20L of the organic version. I felt guilty that I keep polluting the environment by using a mined mineral — meaning non-biodegrable — to dispose something that is very biodegrable. It’s like using disposable diapers, making a very degrable thing to be non-biodegrable to be tossed into a landfill.

But this kitty wants none of it. She keeps on pissing on my wall, my shower curtain… Good thing I already bought a bio-enzyme spray that neutralizes the funky smell of cat piss. She also pooped outside of the box. 🤦🏻‍♀️ SHE IS PROTESTING!

So I did the most logical thing to do: I bought again the betonite litter and layered it on top of the organic litter. I guess my good intentions for mother earth cannot be imposed on this cat. 🙄 As my vet classmate said, treat your cats like children on the autism spectrum. Kids on the spectrum don’t take kindly to changes and they’re very particular with textures.

So goodbye organic litter. I’ll be polluting the world again just to keep my cats happy. 😑