There’s an anecdote by a guy on Twitter about being in a mall in Makati that is now almost empty and workers are waiting for customers to come so they can collect commissions enough for fare to go home later that night 😓
Lockdowns are not the answer especially when it’s the poor who are going to be hurt. We don’t have to go on lockdowns. The government just needs to speed up vaccination roll out and the boosters. Like in our barangay, we are only allotted less than 500 shots that we had to share with other barangays. The patients would have to queue at 5 am just to be able to get that slot. Since I am sick now, I would have to forgo since 1) I can’t physically have the booster shot because I’m sick; 2) I may end up endangering other people by spreading what I have (I’m not sure if this is already Covid or just plain colds). Even antigen tests are hard to obtain. My high school classmates in our chat group are asking where can we buy home test kits because none are readily available here. 🤷🏻♀️
Look at that high positivity rate.
This is horrible. Many people will be without work again and won’t have means to feed their families. What we need are more free or affordable tests and not checkpoints!
Everybody is sick right now due to the drop in temperature plus people were up and about during the holidays like the pandemic is just a distant memory. Good thing I was able to stock up a bit when the girls were battling colds, plus I had some medicines when I prepared for Delta surge last year. However, my stock is dwindling because I am down with colds as well.
But of course DOH had to say something like that to prevent panic buying. The reality on the ground is, everything is sold out now. Even Zennya has sent a message through their app that says Covid tests are fully booked that’s why they’re extending their operating hours until 11 pm to accommodate requests.
I ordered from Bayer’s page on Shopee several tubes of Berocca, which helped me to recover from Covid. In case we get COVID again, I still have Lianhua here but so far we only needed antihistamines and Sinupret forte for our colds and cough. Nasal sprays have done their work on the kids while I am still torturing my nostrils with it.
And oh, teas are wonderful, not just the one with caffeine though (my shrink forbids me as it will clash with my meds).
Ginger and lemon infusion tea. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Because I’m so paranoid, I’m no long going out and I’ve used my Puregold app to order groceries. My problem is fresh veggies. Let’s see if I can drive tomorrow to UP for that.
And this is what I’m talking about the localization of social marketing strategies, just like the communication of disaster mitigation and awareness on the local government level. The government and developmental workers shouldn’t use a bullet approach of one-size fits all. It’s never going to be effective. In the AKAP stages of social marketing (Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice), you need to be able to communicate well on the Awareness level and Knowledge exchange stage for Attitudes to change and push them into favorable Practices (in this case, getting their vax). If people don’t receive the message well on the Awareness stage, how can they even accept the Knowledge? They will just reject it.
Sheesh. These people should employ development communicators if they want something to happen. I remember writing some proposal for tuberculosis innoculation project of WHO though I cannot remember if I did this for graduate school or for an employment exam.
Anyway, the localization approach was the reason why the zero polio campaign was successful–until Duterte came along–because the DOH then was employing something right at that time. I miss Dr. Juan Flavier for his pro-development, proactive, and pro-poor policies at DOH and at the Senate.
I had been feeling dissatisfied with my computer keyboard as the keys keep getting stuck. I knew it was because it was dirty and it has been a few years old (probably six years old or more?). I had been window shopping for keyboards online and the ones I like are a few thousands of pesos…something I could not justify yet given that my current Logitech keyboard is perfectly serviceable.
Then I tried cleaning it myself.
With Youtube, a lot of patience, a stick vacuum cleaner, alcohol sprayer, a lot of cotton buds, and Wipeout (which you can get from any cleaning supplies section of a hardware or supermarket), I started disassembling my keyboard.
Before cleaning. It’s a petridish harboring pathogenic microorganisms and whatnot. Photo by CallMeCreation.comWipeout and tweezers. Photo by CallMeCreation.comI was half afraid that I won’t be able to return the keys. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Before
After
I sprayed everything with alcohol and cleaned it with cotton buds and a small and stiff paint brush. Then I used the vacuum cleaner (with a long nose attachment) to suck out the remaining dirt lurking in the membrane.Then I lubricated the shafts with Wipeout (it has lanolin) so they won’t get stuck when I press the keys.
Before
After
Here comes the hard part: taking off everything and cleaning each key with alcohol and in-between the keys and the membranes. I think it took me an hour or so. And one by one I lubricated the keys before returning them to their proper positions.
And for the love of God, if you’re anything like me who gets lost in mall parking spaces and wandering around trying to remember where I parked my car, PLEASE TAKE A PHOTO OF YOUR KEYBOARD before disassembling it. You may forget where the quotation marks and the colons are placed.
No, I didn’t forget to take a photo of my keyboard since one guy whose tutorial I watched reminded me of it. I could only imagine my frustration trying to piece back together my keyboard without a photo to guide me. This guy, didn’t take a photo so he swapped keys and had to take off the keys and put them back in again. So it’s kinda assuring to know that I’m not the only one who’s dumb like that.
Here is the video to show you how to lubricate the keys of a membrane keyboard. I don’t know if it’s the same for a mechanical keyboard but he warned that the clackety-clack of the mechanical keyboard may get muted if you lubricate the keys too much. It did turn by formerly clackety-clack keyboard silent now.
A clean, new-ish keyboard to inspire my workday…
I saved myself about PHP 2,000. If I didn’t solve the key-sticking problem by cleaning my old Logitech keyboard, then I would have been clicking my way into buying that Logitech K580 that I could also use with my iPad 9
Oh well, it was an unnecessary expense anyway.
There were a lot of cat hair underneath the keys. My cats love sitting or lying on anything that I am working on or working with, which includes keyboards, the printer, or my iPad.
This monster loves sitting on my iPad. See the cover? It’s full of scratches. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I love my little monsters anyway.
Sushi is savoring my petting. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Last year was just brutal and I couldn’t define what it was but it was an uphill battle. Thank God for supportive friends, some of whom had to literally drag me out of the house to join the living.
So as part of this year’s theme, I’m celebrating the things that made me who I am.
My gallery wall. Photo by CallMeCreation.com My photos and my watercolors. Photo by CallMeCreation.com When I was in high school I experimented with a Chinese paint brush. My control was dismal but at least I tried. Photo and art by CallMeCreation.com
I ran out of picture frames so I guess I would have to order online from Ikea.ph instead of going there again. I have a lot of photos I can print and hang. Or I can paint again with watercolors. But I’m super rusty. It has been 25 years since I have picked up a watercolor brush. I’m not good but at least I’m enjoying it. I’m not even aiming to have an exhibit like my sister but this is just something for my own home. Some of the better watercolors I did in high school were given away to classmates.
I’ll take photography seriously again, just like when I was in college. I didn’t invest in DSLRs because I know how time-consuming photography is as a hobby to justify the expensive equipment. And time is something I didn’t have for decades. For now I’ll use what I have–my cellphone and my Fujifilm XQ1–until I can say that I can now commit time before I step up and buy myself a mirrorless Fujifilm, which I find to be the best when it comes to low-light photography. I’ve worked with Canons, I had a Nikon, and two Olympus cameras but I find Fuji to be the best when it comes to color rendering and low light scenes. I have yet to try a Lumix. I’ve read about Hasselblads when I was still fooling around with films because those are the go-to cameras for medium formats–for book covers and posters. But those things are out of reach of the general public, especially now in digital. I’ve only seen a Hasselblad in a studio for portrait photography.
I lost all my Lomography cameras 😔 I had a Holga and I still had a black abd white film stuck in there when I left it in the old house. All that is left of my Lomo stuff is the 135 film converter. 😕
Rose tea to stave off colds. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’ve been imbibing copious amounts of tea as I’ve been feeling under the weather. I might have contracted the girls’ colds so I took 500 mg of vitamin C, Neozep every 8 hrs, and a lot of bed rest. I slept early last night and slept some more after lunch. So far it has worked but I’m refraining from going out because this may turn out to be the dreaded omicron variant. It can’t hurt to be paranoid; look at what happened last year when I thought what the girls had was just an ordinary flu turned out to be Covid that knocked me down.
There is this Gwyneth Chua from US who broke her quarantine stay to party in Poblacion, Makati. She was positive for Covid and has infected 15 people whom she had dinner with or partied with. Stupid, stupid privileged asshole. And Twitter has the receipts. As it turns out, she studies at De La Salle University and Lasallians are now disowning her.
Now, we’re back to a higher restriction due to tripling of cases in the last three days. Another lockdown to stem another Covid wave is not far behind. 😩
Our neighbor’s fireworks on the street. Photo by CallMeCreation.comMy girls’ sparklers’ dying out. Photo by CallMeCreation.comFireworks in our village. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Here’s to a healthier 2022. More camping trips. Hopefully we would have roadtrips and diving trips.
Less stress from work. Better working conditions for us.
No more Covid please!
Please no Bong Bong Marcos presidency!!!
More personal growth for me and the kids. More love for family and friends.
I hope I hurt less. I hope I no longer hurt. Period. I hope I become more numb so I can finally move on.
But I should be kinder to myself because it’s not easy to emerge from that kind of heartbreak when you have given your love unconditionally like that. This is not a race. I should give myself time to heal better. As my shrink said, I should heal in a proper way so I won’t have another relapse and get into a cruel cycle.
2020 is horrible in every possible way. 2021 is like walking through fire barefoot. I hope for 2022 I come out stronger than steel forged by fire of the past 2 years.
Brunch of recycled whatever. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I cooked. Twin I asked for onigiri, so I made them rice balls from rice I cooked yesterday and was just sitting in the refrigerator. Reheated tonkatsu in the mini oven and steamed okra and mandu, and chopped cucumbers and lettuce for salad as sides. Yogurt for dessert and Smart C for a boost of artificial Vit C. Lemon and ginger infusion tea for scratchy throats. The girls had the sniffles after their trip. Trust their dad to allow them to get colds…
Controlled carbohydrates.Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I made ham sandwich and yogurt and cold tea for brunch. Controlling my carbohydrates. Sheesh.
We went to Ikea this afternoon to get some inspiration for our flat. The girls enjoyed it because they saw for themselves that a green accent wall in the living room is cozy.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And to have our grey sofa reupholstered with floral fabric is ok. It wouldn’t look too granny. Twin A is urging me to buy that daybed for the tiny living room that we’re going to have for friends who would want to crash into our flat. Plus they themselves fall asleep on the couch.
Twin I testing if the daybed is comfortable for her naps. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The kitchen below is about the same size as the kitchen in our future flat. I will show this to my contractor. If he can make me similar cabinets and counters, great. If not, he should give me the dimensions so I can order from Ikea and his workers can install them for me. Although I prefer that he make me my kitchen because I want real wood and not just particle boards. I like Ikea’s soft-close doors and drawers though.
Investigating the feel of the breakfast counter that we will have in our flat. Photo by CallMeCreation.comI’m doubting the longevity of the doors but they look neat. Photo by CallMeCreation.comThis is the workstation setup that I’ve been looking at their online catalogue. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I told my contractor to allot a length of 140cm for my workstation so I can spreeeeaaadddddd. My table should be able to accommodate my dual monitors, laptop/desktop and printer. My work table will also function as my sewing table and vanity area.
Dark-walled bathroom. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’m still debating whether to have a dark-colored bathroom and have shiny fixtures and fittings or have all-white microcement bathroom but with black fittings and fixtures.
I showed this bathroom to my contractor because I said I don’t want tiles in my bathroom because I hate grout. They become grotty over time, as shown by what I had to deal with this apartment where we live now and I had to spend thousands of pesos for a bathroom that isn’t even mine.Loft bed that the girls wanted. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This is the main reason why we trekked to Ikea: they want to see for themselves how a loft bed can be set up for them. They got so excited that they started planning what tables and dressers they can put under their beds.
Girly loft beds. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I can have their loft beds custom made with real wood to make their room warmer and same goes for the study tables and dressers. At least I can show this to the carpenter. I saw on FB Marketplace some custom furniture makers offering loft beds but I’m thinking I’d rather have them made on site so that would be less transportation cost.
I bought picture frames. I’m still not done with my walls. Photo by CallMeCreation.comMy girls insisted we buy new drinking glasses because they’re not inspired drinking from our fugly mugs. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And teapot. Because we need a bigger teapot. We all drink tea now.
Here’s to the coming new year! Photo by CallMeCreation.comThis is our new year’s eve dinner. I’m too lazy to cook tonight. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
