I promised myself that I would be working today even though it’s a holiday. I needed to finish writing those two analysis pieces and have them published tomorrow and on Friday.

But I just spent the entire day reading and watching videos. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Maybe it was my brain’s way of saying that it was too exhausted the past two days. It needed a break.

But now it’s 11 pm I haven’t written even the lead paragraph. I needed to meet my monthly quota or I’m screwed. My manager will be talking to me on Friday since my team hasn’t been meeting the quota. It’s really hard—this region is hard and I can’t keep whipping my team to death. My Indonesia reporter said he’s exhausted; he can’t keep bouncing off Jakarta every 60 days.

What makes things worse is that I may be headed to HK next month and that would eat into my days for news gathering.

I don’t how I would sleep well tonight.

I thought I will have it easy this week. Nope, I was so wrong.

Last night I was editing until almost 8 pm while finishing a story of my own. I just took a break and went back to writing until 11 pm.

I finished another story today while editing another. I still have to do two more tomorrow—on a holiday—just to meet the monthly quota.

My brain is fried.

Wash and repeat in February.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

As the years drag on, the more dread I feel.

It’s deceptively calm this entire January and I’m scared what kind of disruption will shatter this. Maybe I’m a bit relaxed because my boss is super busy chasing her own stories so she has less time to criticize me.

In any case, I’m enjoying these relatively calm days. My week will be quieter than normal because Asia will shut down for the Lunar New Year/Spring Festival. I will hold the fort together with my Australian colleague for the rest of the week.

After that nasty bout of flu, I can now walk around and breathe in fresh air. Have sunlight on my face, too.

I did my usual 3 km walk after church service and it was such a relief. I was scared I had turned into a blimp after my week-long confinement inside my tiny home. I can finally stretch my muscles.

Economists have never liked tariffs. I am surrounded by economists, in my personal life (got two of them for siblings) and in my professional life so more or less I know their sentiments. Protectionism always has a way to slap you in the face and most of that will be in the form of unforgiving inflation.

When the US imposed tariffs in the 1930s, it was followed by the Great Depression. It’s not a coincidence. For those who paid attention during their Economics 101 class, they know that tariffs on agri commodities contributed to build up to the Great Depression. And periods of strife and hunger lead to wars/uprising.

So Donald Trump is repeating what Republicans of the past did. He didn’t study history.

Now the question is, should I shift a bigger allocation now to the S&P 500 UITF when I know in two years it will tank? Maybe I should start buying when everything falls from the sky? The problem is, the US economy may not be able to recover from it and cede the throne of being the biggest economy and “leader of the free world” to China. Would it be useless if I continue the current allocation for my PSE feeder fund when I know it will follow Wall Street?

Maybe I should go debt all the way. Yeah, fixed income mutual funds thrive during recessions. I know that interest rates will go sky-high again as tariffs will push inflation to God knows where.

I should rethink my visit to my bank branch in QC next week.

The dry season is already here and my pathetic garden is starting to bear fruit, like the bell peppers I sowed a few months ago. The lone pomelo fruit that was left after Typhoon Kristine ravaged my yard is still there, holding on.

The cooler days and nights allowed me to cut my electric bill in half since we’re just using our electric fans. However, I already felt like the 23 to 24-degree nights are disappearing so I would have to call in the aircon guys again to clean my units before we return to heavy usage of my power hoggers.

I should enjoy the remaining cooler days outside before the hot summer sun kills us again.

The three of us are down with flu. My kids insisted on sleeping with me in my tiny room so we’re bit of a squeeze here. I couldn’t file for sick leave because I must meet my story quota for the month. It’s so difficult trying to concentrate on writing a story while chasing people and editing when you just want to sleep. The sink is a mess because I have no energy to cook or wash the dishes. Food was delivered from my mom’s house or via Grab. Cleaning the litter box was a struggle.

Ah school… The petri dish. You can’t escape illnesses if you have school-age children. My girls learned through chat that a lot of their classmates are also down with flu.

All my plans of attending meetings and covering presscons have gone the drain. 😑

And why the fuck is Zuckerberg pushing JD Vance down my throat?!

This anime has hit me hard the first time I watched this. It was a time in my life I knew everything wasn’t working out and I wanted to escape and be myself again.

I started sobbing at this scene at the crater. It’s like two people running along separate parallel lines but it turns out the lines are perpendicular and at one point they will meet for a brief moment. Then the lines will drift away again, never to meet.

Maybe that person’s line and mine haven’t met yet. Maybe we’re leading lives that are parallel but somewhere near the end, they shall meet. It doesn’t matter if it’s long and late, what matters is the lines will meet.

But for now, we’re just going to trudge this Mobius strip.

This is not a cabinet. This is a junk drawer.

@msnbc

WATCH: MSNBC’s @The Rachel Maddow Show breaks down Donald Trump’s apparent nepotism in the early staffing of his second administration, in comparison to President Biden’s pardoning of his son, Hunter, to spare him politically motivated prosecution by Trump’s acolytes. #hunterbiden #joebiden #legal #rachelmaddow #politics

♬ original sound – MSNBC

Interesting four years ahead of us.

Stupidity over science. 🤦🏻‍♀️