Once I hit 40, the propensity to go out with friends went down to zero. I can’t imagine people my age or those past 38 years old regularly going to bars until 3 am. 😵‍💫 That’s inviting 2 days of hangover.

I’ve done all the partying in college and my 20s until before I got pregnant at 32. Nowadays, give me a book, a bed, and some snacks, I’ll be a happy camper.

Meanwhile, I’m happy to report that my garden is yielding pomelos.

I’ll wait for it to go yellow before I harvest them. Hopefully it won’t be too sour. I should wrap them in plastic bags so that they won’t get damaged by insects or birds.

My rambutan tree is also bearing fruits again. ❤️ Twin I saved an avocado seed so we can plant it near the property line. We used to have an avocado tree here that kept on bearing fruits so much that we just leave a lot of them to rot on the ground.

I checked out early today from work. Just because. My girls and I went to SM Sto. Tomas in Batangas because… I don’t know. Maybe because I was thinking the Cyberzone there would be bigger and I would have more choices? I needed to buy my mom a new laptop because the one she is using is so old that whenever my mom runs into trouble (e.g. wifi device missing a driver), I just want to throw it out the window.

It’s so old that it only has 4GB of RAM and I couldn’t upgrade it because the RAM is soldered on the motherboard. It’s so old that Microsoft refuses to upgrade its OS to Windows 11. The security patches for Windows 10 are no longer working for a boomer like my mom, who doesn’t know how to clean her computer of malware and viruses. And she clicks indiscriminately so I regularly had to reformat her laptops because heaven knows what she could have picked up from the interwebs. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Since I was able to choose the specs freely, I was able to buy a decent laptop for a good price. I went straight to the Acer center and picked out a lower level gaming laptop. It has Ryzen 5 with 8GB of RAM. I didn’t go for the upgradeable one since 16GB is already overkill for my mom. All she does on a laptop are word processing, emails, Netflix, and Facebook so she can attend the online novena and mass. It also has 512 GB SSD so it’s pretty quick.

I got so many freebies for my mom like: PHP 3k of credit for Underarmour shoes that can be redeemed at SM dept store, laptop bag, keyboard, flash drive, bluetooth speaker, lifetime subscription of Microsoft Office, and what else? I got 2k discount as well because I paid in cash.

I was over at mom’s to help her set up her laptop like installing Malwarebytes and CCleaner. I need to be overkill with those stuff because she just clicks on things that she shouldn’t be clicking. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I swear, senior citizens should be using Linux so that they’re less prone to virus and malware attacks. Less problems for me because all I have to do is to just update the security patches and the OS itself. Ubuntu updates the OS every year and that’s about it. The UI of Ubuntu is very much senior citizen-friendly now. But of course, they will often complain, it’s not Windoze… 😩

Anyway, my mom’s new laptop is much, much better than my current one. I feel bad now that I’m stuck with Core i3 with 12 GB of RAM.

Oh well.

I didn’t have a photo of me putting on gold medals on my girls because no one else is there to take it. My mom went with us onstage in lieu of a father and she isn’t handy with a camera as well. Good thing they have a professional photographer and I paid in advance for the copies of our photos that are yet to be printed.

My mom and I were talking about how good it was that Twin A was able to catch up and perform well despite the one month setback due to her hospitalization and overall ill health the following months. She didn’t want to be left behind by her twin so she worked hard.

We just hope they continue with this all throughout junior and senior high school and not get distracted by so many things that occupy teenagers these days.

We went to The Aviary for lunch and the three of them stuffed themselves to the point that we had to take home the desserts. I had to control my portion and didn’t have sweets like turones dripping in caramel and mango sticky rice with cream  but just had buchi (fried glutinous rice dough). I need to walk these calories off. It’s really hard to swear off sugar. 😩

I found this in my archives when I was looking for a photo of me with copper-red hair to show my kids. I was two years 2.5 years old here, I think, and I vaguely remember this picture-taking event inside the university but I cannot recollect what the occasion was. It looks like Loyalty Day since there were peole picnicking in the background. This building, designed by Leandro Locsin, still looks the same to this day.

For half the schoolyear, Twin I pestered me about dyeing her hair if she gets the highest honor by the end of their 7th Grade. I was noncommittal. I didn’t think I would have to make that decision.

Nope, I was wrong. She is very persistent. She wore me down everyday with this: MOMMY, CAN I DYE MY HAIR WHEN I GET TOP HONORS? (repeat 10x)

The twins will each receive gold medals tomorrow for getting averages of above 97% (Twin A = 97+, Twin I~ 99). I didn’t have to push them to do their homeworks and to study hard—they did them on their own volition. They were making their own reviewers. They worked hard on their projects. They did it on their own with hardly any prodding from me because they know how important it is to me that they pass UP.

So now I fulfilled my end of the bargain. I brought them to the salon.

They were pretty happy with the outcome. They are excited to attend the recognition rites tomorrow so they can show off their hair to their friends.

By the time they come back to school in August, their hair would have grown and we can chop off the colored bits.

I wasn’t in the mood to cook after our time in the salon (2.5 hrs) so I just recycled leftovers to make bibimbap. The noodles there are  bulgogi-flavored Korean dry instant noodles. I didn’t have enough veggies and ran out of ban chan so I just fried mushrooms to add to lettuce.

Maybe we can have lunch in one of the destination restaurants several towns from us after the ceremonies.

After two months of dilly-dallying, I finally booked our trip to Bohol next month. I could have done Palawan but I was so disappointed with the coral bleaching in Batangas that I wanted to see Balicasag before the coral reefs there become bleached too. I saw a post in the freedivers group I’m a part of about Tubataha reef suffering from coral bleaching as well. That’s the Mecca for all divers out there in this part of the world and now it’s dying.

I need to go to Apo reef and Moalboal before everything disappears…

The rising sea water temperatures are killing the corals that are very sensitive to environmental changes. The rising temperatures are also causing stronger typhoons. When I was growing up, Category 5 typhoons are unheard of. It seems normal now to have one or two in a year…

Will probably do Palawan in December. 🤔

Hello allergies! My forest is in bloom and I’m so dead. Good thing my doctor gave me prescription for a nasal spray for rhinitis. Look at those flowers just flying all over us. 🤧

I didn’t do much today; was too lazy to exercise because I woke up past 6 am and my body clock is still out of whack. I discovered I need to take melatonin to have a restful sleep. If I really want to have at least 6 hrs straight of sleep, I must take an antihistamine, like 25mg of diphenhydramine to knock me out. I also had to block out my window so I won’t have sunlight passing through so I could fix my circadian rhythm.

Ok, so if I wake up at 6 am again, I would have to put on my running shoes and walk all over the campus.

I have cut out sugar from my diet so I just have to push myself further and do this. I CAN DO THIS!

Before everything else, my friend was happy to report that Ninja (now known as Brownie) feels at home now with her. She stopped hissing and has now claimed the bed as hers.

I hope she would be very happy in her new home, considering that she had a great kittenhood here.

I was a school bus driver yesterday, Independence Day holiday.

My kids and their friends wanted to watch Inside Out at the theaters and the SM that was easiest to get to is two towns away from here. I prepared well so I brought my art kit and checked if the SM branch had a spa.

I just ended up spending 3k on a day spa package to while away the time and it turns out my kids and their friends didn’t even get to watch the movie. 😵‍💫 They said they couldn’t buy tickets, every showing was full.

It’s really a bad idea to go to a mall on a public holiday. But what can I do? They’re teenagers!

I told my friends that this will be my life in the next five years, ferrying my teenagers and friends to hangout places because they still can’t drive. My house is already a half-way home for the friends, just like how my parents’ house had been when we were growing up.

I took it easy today, just wrote one story and that’s it. I don’t have to be a hero and be gung-ho about everything. There comes a point in a journalist’s life that she will question her passion and purpose. As shown by this website, which collects the reflections of journalists who left the industry, no journalist is happy. No it’s not an exageration.

Moiz Syed (The Intercept, ProPublica): When you work in journalism… you make a bargain with yourself. You take a pay cut in return for feeling good about the work you’re doing. … I think many of us ask ourselves whether this burden has become too heavy.” (Part of the OpenNews Exit Interview series)

Anonymous (Justine Reix for Vice speaks to four former journalists in France): “One day, I realised I wasn’t happy, and I didn’t know any journalists who were happy.”

Vanessa Ogle (local reporter in New York): “I couldn’t make my student loan payments. I held up the soles of my beat-up shoes by putting hair ties around them, though the unsecured edges still flapped when I walked. At one point, I was eligible for Medicaid.”

We’re a bunch of masochists. We all know at one point we need to get out of this industry because it drains the life out of us.

Nicole MacAdam (The Ottawa Citizen): “I had the overwhelming sense that if I stayed on that path, I’d never be able to prioritize the parts of my life that made it worth living.”

This is a mammogram machine a.k.a. squisher. I never thought that a mammogram could be this painful—dang it’s painful. Have I already mentioned it’s painful? Oh yes, I did. 😵‍💫

This machine squishes you so hard that you can only hold your breath while the technician takes a picture of your squished boobs. You can’t complain because you would only prolong your agony because the technician needs to take a photo of each breast twice (2D). Ruin the moment you have to go through it again.

I went to have my mammogram yesterday after lunch but I should have done this on my 40th birthday but we were at the height of Covid that time. Two years later, I still couldn’t do it because of Covid restrictions in 2021 and I was all over the place in 2022—travelling, building my house, etc. Last year was rough because I was in the process of moving house while at the same time I had to travel a lot. Twin A also got sick. I couldn’t time my menstrual cycle while I was so busy. Mammograms have to be done one or two weeks after the first mens. Before and after menstrual period the breasts are very tender, which would amplify the pain when they’re squished.

Good thing that this is only done once a year after turning 40. 🥲

The technician did her routine interview and asked why did my attending doctor ask for this procedure. I said I don’t want surprises so better get screened every year.

I then remembered my college friend, C, who didn’t know he had leukemia and died five days after diagnosis.

Yes, I don’t like surprises. It’s also not fair to my children if I didn’t take care of myself.

I still have to wait for the radiologist to come back from her break for the breast ultrasound. 😩

I drove to BGC today to help our Manila reporter since there were a lot of people whom we needed to interview and they’re all going in different directions.

It was nice being back again in circulation.

After work, I went to Mitsukoshi to check out the newly opened Nitori store.

The kitchen stuff were pretty good. I was tempted to buy a kettle but we have an electric kettle… 🤔

I skipped the stationery section because I knew I would buy more fountain pen stuff 😜

Ah should sleep now.