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  • The hike to see the Pinatubo crater lake broke me as a person lol

    On December 5, 2025, my sister, my boyfriend, and I went on a private tour to see the Pinatubo crater lake. “There would be a hike before we make it up to the lake.” Okay, sure, we’ve all hiked before. “It would be a 3.5 to a 7 km hike, depending on the day’s and the path’s condition.” Yeah, sure no problem. “The trail is mild with little elevation and some stairs.” Sounds great.

    Reader, that was one of the most hilarious mistakes I’ve ever made in my life.

    We’ve made some hiking-related missteps before, like when a hike in Sagada ended up involving some scrambling over boulders, or when we visited Masungi Georeserve and were stunned when we saw that we had to climb down ropes a few times. This Pinatubo hike was an extraordinary experience, because while 7 km didn’t sound daunting, the trail was rough, and there were so many river crossings.

    But the crater lake itself was beautiful, and it was a very cool, sunny day. We spent an hour up there admiring the view, winding down from the hike up, and psyching ourselves for the hike down.

    We were the slowest among all the groups that visited that day; we were expecting to catch up to a group or two resting at some point, but it appears that they were all superhumanly fast. We still can’t figure out how everyone else appears to have completed the hike so swiftly; my only guess is that the volcano hated us and did its best to inconvenience us, although if it did hate us, then wouldn’t it have wanted us gone as soon as possible?

    The return trip to where our 4 × 4 vehicle was waiting was pretty hellish; we could see the vehicle from afar but even after a half-hour of walking, it didn’t seem like we were getting any closer. There was also the panic-inducing fact that the rivers were rising and flowing more powerfully than they did in the morning and that the sky went dark a few times that I was honestly worried about getting caught in a possible downpour and dying by flash flood.

    My takeaways from the trip:

    1. Lose weight
    2. Own hiking sandals
    3. Even the toughest experience can be fun when you’re with the right people.

    I’ll be posting a video of the trip. I’ll even make it look like the most amazing time I’ve ever had. But holy shit, that hike was TOUGH and, if I can be honest, seeing the place once is enough.

  • Go subscribe to “Pangarap Kong Maging Hot and Other Stories”

    I’m using a photo Bom posted on her Substack because I don’t want to share her photo here without her permission, plus I’m writing this post without her knowledge.

    Before the 2020s, I was on Tumblr a lot, and that’s where I made friends with Bom. we only met once, at the BGC Art Mart where I was selling stickers and notebooks featuring my illustrations, and we chat from time to time. I’m a big fan of how she lives her life, how she makes time to explore the city, and how she’s very into improving herself. She has a Substack, Pangarap Kong Maging Hot and Other Stories, and I always make sure to read whenever she posts something. Her writing feels raw, honest, and refreshing. One of my dreams is to see this become a book someday—the title is so catchy—and be its editor. I feel like she has a lot to say that people generally don’t say out loud or don’t realize that they’re also thinking and experiencing, plus her writing is deeper than the usual “single lady in the city” fare.

  • The perpetual to-do list

    The year is almost over and some of the creative projects I wanted to get off the ground this year have…not gotten off the ground at all 😀 I’ll get to them, I promise, which is the same thing I said last year, really, but I WILL take them all a step at a time and do something— however small—every day for each of them just so they’re moving forward.

    The last quarter of 2025 was when I was supposed to take them seriously, but I got sick for a few weeks and then got sick again for another week, plus I consciously decided to expend most of my energy on my jobs, so here’s where I currently am in terms of those creative projects. But instead of beating myself up over not having completed any of them, I’m being a little kinder to myself and just giggling and saying, “Oops! Silly lil me.”

    So yeah, it’s looking like those projects will still be ongoing in 2026. Kind of impressive that I had 365 days to do them and I did none of them. Reminds me of that tweet about a vampire who’s been alive for hundreds of years and still hadn’t gotten around to learning a new language, because that is exactly what I would be like as a vampire.

  • Book launch: Stuck At Home

    Yesterday was the Philippine book launch for Yasmin Ortiga‘s book Stuck at Home: Pandemic Immobilities in a Nation of Emigration, published internationally by Stanford University Press and locally by the De La Salle University Publishing House. I’m very honored to have been a part of this project as the copyeditor and book indexer. I also love that the creation of this book was helped along by Facebook; Yasmin and her research collaborated over Facebook, she conducted interviews with her respondents over Facebook Messenger, and she found me through a friend over—you guessed it—Facebook.

    The book is a snapshot in time, talking about the challenges faced by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) during the pandemic. The lockdowns forced aspiring OFWs to abandon their plans to work abroad, stopped current OFWs on vacation here from leaving the Philippines because they were not allowed to return to their jobs and lives abroad, and led OFWs back home after being let go from their jobs during the pandemic and subsequently forced to figure out how they fit in the Philippine job market. One could say it’s a pretty dry topic, but Yasmin tells the stories of the OFWs she interviewed with heart and sympathy while providing in-depth research and commentary on the situation. It’s just a really good read and I hope more people get their hands on the book.

    Congratulations and thank you, Yasmin!

  • Hello again, Orisinal Games

    Pocketful of Stars, my beloved.

    One of the things I tried learning when I was still thinking about being a web developer was Shockwave Flash, which eventually became Adobe Flash Player. I took a short course at a place called ICS Here, if I remember correctly, and I learned to make a few animations but never really did anything with the skill.

    So I always used to admire anyone who was able to make complicated animations and actual games. Flash games were a huge thing in the early days of the Internet, and it was kind of a sad day when Adobe ended support for Flash Player. NationSquid on Youtube talks more about the death of Flash games. While Flash did present a few security issues, all I can really think about it is that it allowed so much creativity and it being discontinued has meant the loss of quite a significant chunk of Internet history.

    One site that contained a lot of Flash games was Orisinal Games by Ferry Halim.* There are a lot of cute, cozy games on there with the most adorable art. I decided to check it out tonight and found that THE GAMES ARE BACK thanks to a Flash emulator called Ruffle. I will forever thank these games for giving me a taste for cute and cuddly art, and for helping me kill time in a calm, soothing way any time I was bored at work.

    *I can’t be the only one who remembers Orisinal. Do leave a comment if you played the games too.

  • Just shut up and look pretty…?

    Every now and then, you see someone posting a graphic or some quote declaring that she’s not a princess, but a queen, suggesting that princesses are sweet and well behaved and need taking care of, but queens are strong and empowered and rule their own lands.

    That’s why it’s pretty funnythat Miss Philippines Earth 2025 Joy Barcoma is catching some heat for her answer during the Miss Earth 2025 Q&A. I didn’t even think she said anything controversial when she called for prayers for the people affected by the typhoon in the Visayas and that the government should be creating policies for the good of the people. That all seems pretty commonsense to me. And yet there are people saying she took too much time and that it wasn’t the right time and platform for her to be talking about those things.

    What do you mean that’s not the right platform?! She was competing to become Miss Earth, and she was asked a question that she was able to relate to what’s currently happening in the country she is representing. Do people think Miss Earth should be just about tree planting and promoting recycling?

    Anyway, it’s great that Barcoma’s not taking all this sitting down; she comments directly to critics and says that she doesn’t regret speaking up about those issues even if it cost her the crown.

    “Gusto niyo mag-smile smile ako sa stage kahit alam kong ang daming namamatay, ang daming nawawala, ang daming nawalan ng kabuhayan, ang daming hindi makauwi sa bahay nila . . . Gusto niyo manahimik ako? … If that’s the thing that costed (sic) me the crown, it’s worth it. Aanhin ko ang crown if it’s for the glitz and glam, pero kung kailangan magsalita para sa bayan, hindi ko ginagamit.”

    It’s fantastic and refreshing to hear a beauty queen talking like this, because people expect them to make nice and keep peace with the fans and the organization they want to represent because apparently, what actually really matters is securing that crown, forget about having principles, strong opinions, and a brain.

    That’s the unfortunate fate of beauty queens here, I think. Not only do they have to squeeze, fill, trim themselves to look the part, but people also want them to have a brain and have something substantial to say about social issues.* Yet when they actually do speak up and take a stand, they get criticized for it.

    I’ve always thought it takes a brave woman to get into pageantry here in the Philippines, yet many still do in hopes of a better life, greater influence, and opportunities. To get there, however, it seems like they have to conform, kiss so many asses, and bite their tongues a lot. Speaking up and being frank about issues is the least they could do, and yet some people couldn’t even let them have that.

    *Just look at how much people CRUCIFY beauty queens when they can’t formulate a proper response during Q&As or when they don’t have progressive views on issues.