Essays from the Weekend

One of the newsletters I subscribe to featured this nifty graphic: Sometimes it’s hard to put yourself out there because of the fear of what people will think. Caring about what other people think isn’t bad per se but it’s bad when it stops you from being you. I think we owe it to ourselves to be ourselves in public. The cultural status quo is not the truth without each individual’s participation. We each equally matter. Yes, there are always haters, but there are also always niches. You will always have a market, no matter how offbeat or strange you may seem to others. We have to honor and put forth that part of us inside that is the most natural and autonomous. I particularly love the Spotlight Effect up there on the graphic. Have a good week ahead!

  On Thursday, I was just looking at this view and wishing I could go for my daily lunch time walk. The heat these days is making it impossible to go out for an afternoon walk anymore. The heat is just so insane and my subconscious just knows it hasn’t felt heat like this ever before. It feels like the heat can actually kill you, these days, if you stay out long enough. It’s no joke. Suddenly, the LGU texted me that I was to scheduled for the vaccine the next day. I got my first dose today! Thank you Government of Muntinlupa! Well I couldn’t resist this photo wall. After more than a year of living in fear of the virus, things are slowly starting to get better now that different LGUs have rolled out their vaccine programs. My most vulnerable family members have gotten vaccinated already and it’s a huge relief, knowing that COVID won’t be able to affect them anymore. It’s been a couple of hours and it still hasn’t sunk in that the vaccine I’ve been waiting for for more than a year is...

My new set-up for personal projects. Credits to M. This is a tech review for people who are considering to buy either a laptop or a tablet. I have gone on a major research expedition for the replacement to my prematurely-dead Macbook. There was a lot of studying going on here because I know that the companies behind consumer tech ads and reviews will want to create needs in us where there originally was none. We’d want to value the products we have and don’t want to be tempted to buy things we don’t need.  So after my first and last iPad was the iPad 2 from several years ago, I bit the bullet and got an iPad Air 4 with a Smart Keyboard folio and Apple Pencil 2. I could use a personal device after my Macbook died last year.  I was considering either a Macbook Air or an iPad and took quite some time in deciding. It all boils down to: laptop or tablet? Tablets are fun but can it do everything a laptop can do? After backing up everything from my hard drives into the cloud and mont...

“We are here to fully introduce ourselves, to impose ourselves and ideas and thoughts and dreams onto the world, leaving it changed forever by who we are and what we bring forth from our depths.” - Glennon Doyle, Untamed Happy Eid al Fitr to our brothers and sisters. Reading Untamed to prepare for my book club this June 5th. I’m primarily in charge of the discussion questions and am the de facto facilitator. I initially thought I couldn’t relate much to... well, mid-life issues from a white woman living a life of privilege in the USA — but yes I can. All women are sisters in a way. I am rooting for every one of us. When one has a breakthrough, I feel as if it is partly my own breakthrough. A cause for celebration. I got to thinking about how women’s lives vary greatly. The traditional life of being a wife and mother. Celebrated for being married, for bringing life into this world. I have been fascinated by mom influencer Joy Mendoza for this life that she leads and which she is sharing...

You know how everyone says "this will be the new normal", "this is the new reality".  Somehow, against all odds, it does feel like that at this point in time.  Acceptance is in the air. After more than a year, it feels like we have simply entered a new world and this is what we do now. Current events don't register a wild shock in me anymore. Everyone has, by now, processed the pandemic in their own way, in varying degrees.  I imagine that we all internalized our own versions of this statement: "just when we thought that humankind had a handle on things and has more or less begun to master its own course, Nature reminds us that everything is still subject to her.  All imbalances will be adjusted. Let's hunker down and hope for a better next year." I can't help but to reflect on what a time it is to live through a major societal upheaval.  The equivalent of God picking you up and shaking you like a pair of jeans about to go in the washing machi...

Well hello! I haven't been promoting this blog at all, but I noticed that the view count is going up. I don't care about the numbers, but I love this space, thank you for going here, and I will be catering to you and will be doing my best to treat you to positive writing from me every weekend. Anyway, my Macbook inexplicably died sometime in the middle of last year. I spent a fortune on buying that thing simply because I loved the size, look, and feel of it.  I believed it was very me. I bought in 2017, back when people were scoffing at it, dismissing it for having a weird keyboard and no USB ports, but costing so much (at least Php68,000) at the time. To use a USB device on it, you had to buy a Php3000-something dongle which has a single USB port. It was very impractical, in hindsight, but I was okay and happy with it.  Served me well for a couple of years. When I moved to my new job, I was issued an HP laptop that was fast, had impressive anti-virus software, and had what s...