Hot tub after 1.5 hrs of massage. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
There were sooooo many kids who watched the Red Velvet benefit concert that it took us almost an hour to get out of the parking area. Too many cars. We arrived at around 11:30 pm. The girls took their time in the bath while I had massage. When it was my turn, the girls just plopped on the bed and I took my sweet time in the bathroom. I was just aching all over because I was carrying a backpack with a laptop and clothes.
We slept in and had our brunch at 10:30 and we had a leisurely meal.
Of course she went for the bacon. Photo by CallMeCreation.comHad to get her greens. Photo by CallMeCreation.comThey want to come with me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Did my last minute packing before I took a nap. My cats want to stuff themselves in my luggage 🤣 . I decided to drive my car and just park it at the airport at Park’NFly instead of spending for Grab+toll+gas for my mom’s car+pay for mom’s driver for three trips. It will turn out much cheaper if I just use my own car and park it there. I can also charge it to my office since this is part of my business trip.
Nap time!
Nowhere to park myself. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I book Philippine Airlines for the bigger seats and legroom but OMG I’ve already forgotten how terrible Terminal 2 is. No food, no money exchange kiosks inside, only a few seats.
This administration should prioritize the redevelopment of NAIA, which the previous Duterte admin conveniently put at the backburner to favor San Miguel’s Bulacan airport.
Now that Marcos vetoed the economic zone status of the Bulacan Airport, this project has been rendered financially unviable. Now the question is how will San Miguel proceed with this?
I had a call with the teams that are heading the conferences next week and I realized that I need to extend my stay in Singapore because there is no way I can finish all the tasks I am set to do. My boss told me yes, please extend because I need to meet Singapore candidate reporters as well. My colleague in Singapore will be taking her CFA Level 2 exam in November and after she passes that, I don’t have anything to offer her besides making her officially my deputy, which does not make any dent compared to other prospects that she will have. Even with a promotion and raise, what other financial institution can offer her would significantly be higher.
Stadium Road, Singapore. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So I must do some succession planning. I need to hire one or two new Singapore reporters and if I need to go back in September, then I should, even though I would like to limit my travel overseas. I need to make room for my S.Korea working-holiday in October-November.
If this colleague-friend would leave soon, then there would be a big gaping wound in my team because she is very good. It’s going to be a huge wound, I tell you.
So there, I would be arriving from Singapore on 2 August and would be fetched by my mom’s driver from the airport at midnight and sleep in my mom’s house for a few hours then go straight to my college’s testimonial and recognition rites. Then my mom’s driver would bring me back to QC.
Today is hectic with calls, editing, and the amount of writing I must do. I’m still creating charts now to include in my crystal ball-gazing article for the region, which our commercial team is asking me to finish NOW because they will include this in the conference next week.
With the amount of ass-kicking I’m doing, I must really ask for another round of raise by the end of this year.
I have four to five pending articles I must write this week. Heaven knows how I would be able to shoehorn it tomorrow when I need to fetch my car, do more food shopping because I would be out of this house for 10 days, and I also need to buy a dress.
My head is swimming. I am wearing four hats all at once and I don’t have mental space for anything else.
That makes my S. Korea holiday a welcome respite from this chaos.
I decided I would be working in Seoul for the first week I would be there and just rent a unit via Airbnb and wait for my friends to arrive the following week. I was already exchanging emails this morning with the PE that I would be visiting there in October. I would just fix my schedule there after this SG trip since I would be meeting some Korean LPs in Singapore. Then I would just let my friends take charge of the itinerary because I’m tired of managing my life. I’ll be happy just being dragged along and be brainless. Anyway, I don’t have any real target that I must achieve/see in Seoul or wherever we would be going. Until Japan opens up to individual tourists without Japan-based family (and not group tours), Korea would be my best alternative holiday destination for this year.
OK, I must go back to my writing chore. The commercial team is waiting for my draft.
TIMECHECK: 12:35 am 21 July —> submitted draft to commercial team and to editing pool
Twin I sent this to me and went up my room to tell me I should have done this. “You should have sold his gaming rig, Mommy.”
Huh?
“Tito J,” she said.
Awww. This girl is very sore about Tito J. Can’t blame her. She’s really hurt.
I should have done to J what Will Smith did to Chris Rock today at the Oscars for disrespecting me.
As for her dad? “Mommy, do you know you can sue a father who doesn’t send financial support to his children?”
“Yes I know,” I said. “Do you want me to sue him when he doesn’t have money?”
“Well he says he is stand to inherit xxx million from Lolo,” she said. Gee, that idiot is really not exerting effort to improve his lot and is just waiting for his father to die.
“Tell him to give you money for college tuition,” I said.
Losers.
Meanwhile, in satirical news that I wish they’re true:
This. If only my teachers in elementary and high school could be sent back to be re-educated 😣 The level of cognitive dissonance is unbelievable. And to think these are the same people that tried to shape our world view. 😥
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The new plants that I will strive to keep alive during this season of intense heat.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
There should be a better way of arranging these plants. They don’t make sense anymore. I need risers. Even if my world doesn’t make sense now, at least my container garden should.
I’ve told my new APAC boss that I need to be in Singapore for 8 days in July for our annual conference, which will be held face to face for the first time since the pandemic began. I just submitted to London HQ my request for travel to SG. But I think I need to be in Singapore even before July, probably May. I need to arrange a lot of admin work. *Le sigh*. The hiring process for new reporters is taking a loooooong time.
My friends and I were computing how much I should demand if they force me to transfer to Singapore.
Based on this self-assessment test by the Ministry of Manpower, the minimum salary of someone with my position and profile should get at least SGD 10,000++ or around USD 7,400. That’s the minimum and does not guarantee that I would get an e-Pass. A rival company had advertised for SGD 13,000 (USD 9,000) so they would have to justify why I would only get SGD 10k and not SGD 13k.
Given that the parent company is cheap, they wouldn’t give me the SGD 13k while the SGD 10k is too tight a budget given that HDBs in SG for 2-bed (it has to be 2 bed or otherwise the apartment would be too small) is SGD 2,600 in the outskirts like Jurong West. The school around that area is OWIS, which is around SGD 20k a year but the reviews are terrible given that it’s a budget international/private school. Ok, let’s just ignore the reviews for a second there. My housing would be SGD 2,600 + SGD 400 (utilities) + SGD 400 groceries + SGD 4,000 (school fees and other expenses) = SGD 7,400. It would be SGD 2,600 for everything else–that’s SGD 10k net. So that means I need to add 15% for tax and whatever contribution to pension or whatever the government subtracts.
I don’t think this would be a happy arrangement.
I think I would win the argument and they would let me just stay here.
I will soon be moving up. But I was asked if I can move to Singapore. I said I did the math and there is no way in this world I would be able to afford to send my children to school there on a single income. Housing costs are way above my head too. I told my boss I can travel to Singapore every other week but I can’t leave my kids here and be fulltime in Singapore. I would lose custody of them because the court may decide that they will be better off living with their dad, who remains unemployed and still sponging off his 89-year-old dad.
My colleague in Singapore and I did the math. It’s like the tuition is USD 2k a month per child (minimum) then housing is shared (and I don’t know what quality of life we’ll have sharing a house with another family) at USD 2k = USD 6k already just for tuition and housing. This does not include utilities, transportation, food, healthcare and miscellaneous items (clothing, school materials etc). I won’t be saving anything. We won’t even qualify for public school admittance there. Private schools are about an average of SGD 40,000 (USD 30,000) per child a year.
Singapore makes no bones about the fact that it puts its own people first — as such, school placements are offered initially to citizens, then to PRs, and finally to non-PR foreigners. Furthermore, unlike citizens and PRs, foreigners cannot request a particular school — essentially, you’ll take what you’re given (if you’re lucky enough to be offered a place at all). And if you’re not happy with the offer made? Or you feel that there was a mistake made somewhere along the way? Too bad. There is no review or appeals process available. As we might say to our own children, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset…”
All applications are made through the Ministry of Education (MOE) which is somewhat tight-lipped on what proportion of its annual submissions are successful. According to the most recent figures, between 3000–3500 foreigners applied in 2016 and, while the numbers aren’t official, the available information indicates that about one third of applicants are given places.
Local school fees for foreigners range from $6,000 to nearly $10,000 annually.
“I understand if schools have no vacancies for foreigners. But it would have been better if they stated the criteria more clearly,” she said...
Since 2014, International Education Placement and Services has even stopped trying to help clients enrol in local schools. Instead, it diverts them to international schools. “We are getting more frustrated parents, usually from China and the Philippines, who cannot afford international schools,” said its director Kenneth Choo.
Why even bother move there? What I’m receiving now is minuscule to whatever my boss is probably getting but I still manage to save a lot.
My colleague said, why do you even need to be here anyway? I said, boss said they need to someone to watch over the bureau. Then my colleague said, “Watch over what? Coverage? Employees? I’m the only one here!”
Exactly, I said. I don’t even have to be there everyday.
She said, “XXX the editor of XXX is actually in KL the whole year…He’s under SG contract and got PR (permanent resident) last year).”
I said, I will cite that example to management. There is little reason for me to be there. I can pack all the meetings and housekeeping duties and coverage during the weeks I’m in Singapore and the rest of the work I can do remotely here in Manila. Besides, my coverage is no longer just Singapore–it’s all over Southeast Asia and I’ve been doing it remotely since the beginning of time. It requires more travel outside Singapore. The reason why we are required to station ourselves in Singapore is because the regional offices of banks and law firms are there. The private equity offices are there. But the people from these firms don’t even stay in Singapore all the time. They travel a lot.
If push comes to shove, they should get another manager who is single, willing to relocate to Singapore, and suffer the high cost of living without the expat package. Plus willing to bear the regular stress of having your employment pass rejected by the Ministry of Manpower. My colleague’s E-Pass renewal application this year got rejected and we had to appeal. Good thing she’s already a CFA, which is a plus point for her, and finally she was able to renew her E-Pass. But it was a stressful time for everybody.
And I can run the bureau from my office here. As I always have.
Maaari nang magregister sa QC Vax Easy Plus (https://t.co/tqqTpffy5B) ang MINORS (12-17yrs old) na residente o nag-aaral sa ating lungsod para sa nalalapit na pagbabakuna ng mga menor de edad. pic.twitter.com/ltR11I3Uj5
Finally, they will start vaccinating children 12 to 17 year old with comorbidity. My kids aren’t qualified yet since they’re still 10 years old but hopefully they will have the vax before the new school year starts in July 2022. I feel bad for them that they haven’t seen their friends in almost two years. Going to school online for this long really takes a toll.
Meanwhile, individuals who are immunocompromised can receive their booster dose in the coming weeks.
The DOH is expected to provide a specific list of people who will be eligible to receive a third dose as immunocompromised individuals in the coming weeks.
For now the HTAC has recommended individuals with the following conditions be considered.
I have gained back the weight I lost during my Covid episode. I think I need to start biking short distances to regain my strength back. Or start walking first around UP campus. I don’t want to end up like a blimp before Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas, my househelp will be going home to her province, so there will be no one left to look after the cats. What I will be doing is I will drive the girls to my mom’s place again, come back here in QC and the cats and I will be staring at one another for a couple of weeks then I will bring the girls back before New Year.
That sounds lovely. <3
The surging commodity prices have hit oil-importing countries like the Philippines, pushing up prices of goods and services. Jeepney drivers, already crippled by the limited number of passengers they can carry per trip, are crying for help.
The skyrocketing prices of industrial metals have made thieves and scavengers a lot of money.
A Toyota Prius hybrid reported stolen last month in Nagakute, Aichi Prefecture, was later recovered with its catalytic converter cut out.
“I’d never heard of such a case in this prefecture until now,” a source close to the police said.
American and British police would be unlikely to say the same. Emissions-reducing catalytic converters have become a target of choice for thieves worldwide, notably in the U.S. and the U.K., as the precious industrial metals they contain have surged in price.
The pandemic’s lingering effects would be felt for quite a while even though mobility has been eased up a bit.
My colleague in Singapore attended a conference in Marina Bay Sands and sent a photo of her dining alone in one huge table. She said it felt so weird. It sounds so odd now that face to face conferences are being held now even if the number of cases remain worrisome.
We had an editorial meeting this morning with the global managing editor and we were told the parent company may implement a flexi working arrangement from now on, especially for journalists. We don’t have to report to the office that regularly since it would depend on where we would be more productive. This may be used to justify my remote working arrangement in the future if the time comes they would force me to plant myself in Singapore. The cost of education there will kill a single parent like me that’s why it’s best I stay here. As a foreigner, my kids will not be assured of slots in Singapore public schools so they will always be on the waiting list every year. That has been the dilemma of Filipinos living there who don’t have the “expat package” that skilled foreign workers used to enjoy when they are assigned to Singapore. I have one friend who sent his entire family back home to the Philippines so they could enroll the children here after living in Singapore for so long. I don’t want that for my kids.
So let’s see by next year what the people upstairs would say.
