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The doorbell rang while we were about to sleep. At first, I thought it was my mother-in-law dropping by after work, but in the door’s peephole, I saw our neighbor with her left hand bleeding.

According to our neighbor, her index finger was caught in a door, which pulled her fingernail off. With blood dripping on our doorstep, we immediately took her in, and my wife (a doctor) dressed her wound. After giving first aid, my wife took her to the nearest hospital, where she was given proper treatment.

The old lady has been living alone since her husband died almost two years ago. The lockdowns prevented her from being with her husband on his final days.

Tubos in Filipino means “to claim”, but somehow it felt like “to pay a ransom”.

After a traffic violation last week, I had 72 hours to claim my driver’s license from the main Land Transportation Office at East Avenue, Quezon City.

Last Tuesday, I took my ticket and rode a Grab instead of bringing my car. This was a good decision because available parking is difficult to find in a government office. The ticket acts as a temporary driver’s license up to a certain time period.

I arrived at LTO East Avenue at 1:00pm and at the gate, the security guard asked about the purpose of my visit. I told him it was for “tubos”. He then told the Grab driver to drop me off the back of the complex (LETAS Building where they process all the traffic violations).

Inside the building there were two queues: (1) for waiting for the violations to be “encoded” and (2) for waiting for the invoice to be paid out (which includes a summary of the traffic violation and a breakdown of fees). Waiting for (1) took about an hour, but (2) and eventually payment was done within 15 minutes. Bring cash. The waiting area is airconditioned so people in line were napping or using their smartphones.

Outside the LETAS building (right in front) is a chapel and next to it is the cashier’s office where there is a short line for payment. I find the chapel to be an odd addition to a government office, separation of church and state and all (this is the Philippines so that is merely a suggestion).

In the LTO complex there were a lot of signs warning people not to deal with fixers (these are people who claim to expedite your paperwork). I did not have to deal with fixers while I was there.

Left the complex at 2:30pm and walked out to take another Grab home.

I woke up at 2:00am yesterday to line up for my first COVID-19 vaccine shot. The whole process took 7 hours spent mostly waiting in line on a dark street corner with close to a thousand other people.

I arrived at the vaccination site at 2:30am and found the line has already turned a corner from the entrance. This meant at least 100 people have lined up earlier (I found out I was the 221st person in line). I’ve put myself at the last line and a few minutes after, two more people went behind me. Then another two people. Within two hours, the line doubled in size.

People have new ways of killing time while in line. Most of us brought our phones to read social media (which is normal behavior these days). Some were playing games and others were catching up on their streaming shows. Those who lined up with companions spent the time the old-fashioned way by talking endlessly. This pandemic can keep Filipinos separate but it cannot keep them from talking to each other about anything under the sun. Some were complaining about the line while others were making fun of our situation.

We, as a people, have also made the new health protocols as a practice of theater. Social distancing was only observed after the local government officials stepped in and checked before someone else took pictures of the said line. Everyone kept their masks on while in line (which was good enough for me), but the face shield (a thin plastic sheet covering your face and was required outside of residence) proved to be too inconvenient and most people wore them over their heads. I personally found the use of face shield to be symbol of this precaution theater (low cost and questionable value-add).

The vaccination site started to open their doors at 6:30 that morning, most of us who were in line for several hours have the same sleepy look on our faces. Some have started to check their documents. We only needed an ID and a QR code. True enough for people subjected to more than usual red tape all our lives, some brought more proof than required. The vaccination staff (doctors and nurses) arrived shortly and began to settle in.

Crowd control in the vaccination site was well-organized and there were enough personnel to direct the people where to line up next and keep our distance from one another. Not much talking, just point and check. Finally they let us go upstairs where the chairs are setup and where the staff were waiting for us. The line was processed in batches of 12 people, avoiding crowding at the vaccination stations. There were three stations: one for identity verification (using the QR code earlier), another for the vaccine administration (which was done by two staff members), and an observation area just in case there were side-effects right after the dose. A staff member reminded us of our next dose one month after.

I eventually finished at 9:30, seven hours after I stood in line. To celebrate, I immediately lined up to buy food at the nearest Jollibee.

“Never attempt to write about what you don’t care about.” – Gerald Weinberg

The things I care about:

My overall health and sanity. I will not be able to provide for my family without taking care of the basics: eat well, sleep well, and put the body to its paces.

My family. It’s an entirely different life once we decided to build a family. A hidden capacity has been unlocked and also with less tolerance for BS and a greater sense of urgency. I now have to consider the family’s interests in my decisions.

My colleagues and the work that I produce with them. When working with a team, I had to consider our complementary skills and where we can best contribute to our goals. As an individual contributor, I do not like doing half-measures. Granted corners will inevitably be cut, I aim to do the best possible work with the constraints given.

My friends who I have managed to keep for so long. Some of the friends we’ve made remember a different version of myself, as if their working copy needs rebasing.

In some ways I would like to be able to influence the things I care about. While I’m still able, I would like them to stay important.

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Four years ago, me and my wife went on a vacation to the US. It was my first time to drive a car on US soil. From San Francisco, we drove north to Napa Valley and from there all the way south to San Diego. We’ve met new people and visited old friends along the way. I wanted to see the Bixby Bridge so we took the Pacific Coast Highway, but had to turn back due to bad weather and landslide.

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I’ve switched to instant coffee a few years ago when I became a parent. I just wanted my caffeine hit done and with minimal fuss. This led to preparing several cups of coffee during the day (I only needed a steady supply of coffee and hot water).

Lately I missed the smell of freshly brewed coffee beans (probably due to not hanging out at coffee houses in recent years). I bought a bag of Arabica beans and took out my brewing equipment from the cabinet (my brewing gear consists of a French press and an electric grinder, nothing fancy).

Having to prepare coffee using a press these days seems laborious to me, but at least it allows me to throttle my caffeine intake by adding friction to the process. One batch equals one-and-a-half mug of this freshly brewed stimulant, which is enough to jumpstart the day.

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. – Lewis Carroll

My father gave that quote to me as he asked what my plans were after high school. He was willing to pay for college, but I had to decide what to study and see it through until graduation. I chose to study computer science despite discouragement of people around me at the time.

I mentioned luck (fortunate accidents) played a part in getting into a computer science program because I barely prepared for the exam. Staying in the program is a different problem. Not knowing what a computer science program entailed, I struggled for the first half of my stay at university. Things started to turn to a point where I had to convince university officials that I could finish the course.

I finished while working part-time at the university and eventually stayed a few years more to consult for them on software projects. This was the time when the World Wide Web has started to transform to Web 2.0.