Renewable Bug

I tend to catch a recurring cold every month of June. So when I didn’t get sick last June, I thought my body might have finally purged the stubborn cold bug by consistently drinking ginger and lemon tea, which are natural antibiotics and antioxidants. However, lo and behold, I felt a cold coming whilst in the middle of my shift when I started experiencing post-nasal drip and lightheadedness. At first, I thought it was just allergic rhinitis, since it can be hard to discern sometimes. I told myself, "Congrats, this cold bug is here to stay."

I don’t like going to the doctor when I get sick unless home remedies don’t work. Why? Because going out while you're sick can make you feel worse and spread pathogens. Plus, colds are very treatable at home—all you need is ample rest, water therapy, cold meds, and sleep, and it usually goes away in about three days, at least in my experience. Since I went vegan six years ago, I heal incredibly fast—unlike before, when a cold would last me a week. I guess another factor is that I’m less stressed now since I started working remotely many years ago.

Still, I prefer to stay home because I read somewhere that Covid has a new variant called KP.2 (I don’t care anymore, even if it reaches XYZ), plus there’s the monkeypox virus. So, better to stay away from crowds, which I’m good at anyway. I never got vaccinated for Covid either because the last time I had a flu shot (the free ones administered by the company where I used to work), I had an adverse reaction to it, for some odd reason, considering I don’t even have allergies except for rhinitis.

I think I’m feeling a little better now after taking Bioflu three times, every six hours, on the first day I had a cold, drinking heaps of water, and sleeping a lot earlier than usual. I managed to survive another work week despite sounding too nasal and feeling woozy.

I think I have an annual contract with this cold bug, which I didn’t even sign up for nor affix my signature to, yet it’s stubbornly persistent and renewable.

Surface Level

I've decided to tone down my hair from a bleached blonde to a darker, more subtle shade. Honestly, I think I just got tired of all the attention the blonde hair was attracting—the kind of attention I really don’t want. It’s like every time I go out, people do a double-take, as if they’ve seen me before or know me from somewhere. For someone who prefers to stay under the radar and enjoys blending into the background, it's exhausting.

I can’t help but wonder why others with the same hair color can go unnoticed, but I can’t. Why is it that, even in a crowded room, when I’m deliberately trying to stay out of sight, I still end up being noticed? For example, when I was working onsite, I’d sit in the farthest corner during townhalls—last row, right or left edge—yet somehow, my coworkers would always find me. Even people I barely knew seemed to know me. It’s just strange.

Then there are the times when I get offered a seat in standing-room-only situations, or when cars stop to let me cross the street, even on a busy road. Do people see something I don’t, like a guardian angel hovering over me? I often get treated like I’m fragile or in need of help, but I feel more like an Amazonian warrior who can take care of herself. What’s up with that? Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me.

Maybe it’s because I wear makeup or make an effort to look good and smell nice when I go out. It makes me question if the world really is this superficial—where appearances matter more than anything else, and surface-level impressions override the deeper aspects of who we are. 

So Be It

I try to distance myself from toxic people as much as possible because they negatively affect my mental health. Unfortunately, this includes someone very close to me—my Dad. During most of my childhood, I spent more time with my Mom, who was always present and supportive. My Dad, on the other hand, was a workaholic and often away on business. We rarely talked or spent time together until after he retired, by which time I was already an adult. Even then, our conversations often left me feeling distressed. His energy and presence can be overwhelming and emotionally draining.

To be clear, my Dad is a responsible father, and I respect him for that. But our relationship has always been challenging. He's an extrovert, while I’m an introvert, and this clash of personalities has made it difficult for us to connect. Despite my elder sister’s efforts to explain my nature to him, he has never really understood how I prefer solitude and find peace in being alone. Whether it's because of his traditional values or just a lack of understanding, he can't grasp how I live my life without constantly being around people. This gap in understanding has strained our relationship to the point where I felt the need to distance myself from both of my parents after college, even though I love my Mom dearly. She’s a devoted wife and wouldn’t leave my Dad’s side, so I made the difficult choice to move away.

Over the years, my Dad would visit me, but those visits were often filled with negativity—rants and complaints that seemed endless. My twin sister eventually invited me to live abroad with her, and I eagerly accepted, hoping to escape our Dad’s toxic influence. Life overseas was good, but homesickness set in, and we decided to return home when our Mom begged us to come back. Looking back, I’m grateful we did because two years later, she passed away. It felt like fate had given us the opportunity to spend her final years close to her.

As for my Dad, I haven’t spoken to him much since our return. It's not that I hate him—I don’t. But every time I try to check in and ask how he’s doing, our conversation quickly spirals into negativity, with him lamenting about the difficulties of life or fixating on morbid topics like death. It’s heartbreaking because he’s retired now and should be enjoying life, focusing on the positives rather than the negatives. I’ve reached a point where I just want to be around happy, uplifting people. If that’s too much to ask of him, then so be it. I need to protect my peace.

.XML

It’s surprising how I’ve lost some of my skills over the years. I used to create my own web pages and remember finding FrontPage and Dreamweaver such enjoyable pastimes. Now, I can barely read html codes. I used to tweak templates I downloaded online and make them my own, but now I feel like I’ve lost so much of my creativity, and this makes me extremely sad. I’m just reflecting on how much of myself I will lose over the years because it seems like age is starting to rob me of a lot of things. I hate it.

Blogspot used to have a lot of really nice templates that I could tweak, but now I see many effortless ones that boast nothing but bits and bobs of headers and logos that aren’t creatively thought out. I guess that’s why I enjoy Canva more these days, because the designs are highly customizable, and I love to customize everything. It showcases my unique perspective. I’m just glad I kept this over-a-decade-old .xml Blogspot template in one of my cloud folders—nothing beats the old Blogspot templates; they’re rad. I don’t even know why I stick with Blogspot, even though it seems to be going away soon, carrying with it 15 years of my thoughts, writings, and scribbles. I tried moving to WordPress, but I didn’t like it; it sucks and bored me to death.

Hey August

It's been a rainy and gloomy start to the month. I think if there's one thing I'll never get used to while living in the City of Pines, it's the constant rainy days and the fog every time the temperature drops. If you've lived in the southern part of the Philippines for most of your life, the slow and chill life in a cold, often damp, and highly elevated place will always amaze you. You'll wonder how people endure the slow-paced living when you're used to always rushing to get home, to work, and to finish your tasks in no time. I just can't slow down. I've tried, but it's like going against the swarm of people heading in one direction; you just feel like you're getting squished in and will trip at any moment out of dizziness.

Anyways, another downside is that the cold and the rain make me extremely sad for no reason. This climate just invites melancholy a lot. Oftentimes, it feels like winter without the snow. Not to mention, I've been listening to Cordelia a lot lately, which makes me wallow in undefinable sadness even more. I guess her songs are quite magnetic despite the sweeping sadness. I'm just wondering lately why working out on a treadmill brings out the worst in me. It feels more like working out purges my happy hormones when it should be the other way around. Maybe I'm just not normal. I feel like if there were a zombie apocalypse, the zombies would ignore me as if I didn't exist. Maybe my blood type is AB negative.