Pounding The Keyboard

       A few days ago, my niece got an email informing her that she had been conditionally selected for a prestigious scholarship abroad, meaning, she’d be taking a postgraduate study away from us for a year, and if no hitches would come out, she’d be leaving a few months from now (her boyfriend, a cum laude graduate of UP, meanwhile got a different but equally prestigious scholarship abroad, which is longer (two years), and would be leaving also a few months from now, just weeks ahead of her.      I immediately volunteered to be her escort while she’s abroad, but alas, the escort must shoulder their own expenses, and I, for the life of me, can’t afford it.      Anyway, I hope her scholarship pushes through, that she'd be safe and happy during her stay abroad and I hope she gets a future so bright I’d need to wear shades every time I’d visit her.      Come to think of it, all my niblings from my siblings are all doing very well in their studies. My oldest nephew, a student

       Sad, worrying news immediately reached me the moment I opened my eyes and yawned this morning, a Monday, the start of a new week.      My cell phone beeped on the table beside me, I grabbed it, and saw that Globe, my only regular text mate, texted me to remind me that my balance is already at a precarious 1 peso, starting a small avalanche of not-so-pleasant news.      Bad news to all, Delta variant of coronavirus, deemed to be deadlier and more transmissible, is raging in some countries and has also been detected here in the Philippines, and there are reports (unverified though) that some vaccines, including Sinovac, which first dose is currently swimming inside my body, won’t work against it. Primary symptoms of this variant are headache, fever and runny nose. Endless variants and mutations, maybe, a lot of people are right in predicting that this virus is really the one that will end the world.      A personal setback, we’ve been trying to sell our house here in Manil

          I finally was able to finish Trese on Netflix yesterday. Season One has six episodes that clock around thirty minutes each. I wasn’t able to buy all the complete comic books, so I don’t know how many issues were out there (I thought I was able to buy at least three issues but when I rummaged through my bookshelf, I only saw two copies, the first issue and the fifth, with the latter graciously signed by the creators.)      I watched the first two episodes in Tagalog, didn’t like it, dialogues are awkward and poorly translated, and it’s like listening to a Tagalog radio drama where the voice talents are severely underpaid and uninspired—so I switched to English for the remaining episodes. Liza Soberano’s voice is too drab and monotonous. I am aware that Alexandra Trese is supposed to be cold and unemotional, but Miss Soberano’s voice acting is just too dull.      Anyway, it was awesome seeing the characters in Trese moving and speaking, and the animations are splendid a

       I got my first dose of my vaccine this afternoon inside a mall, and it was an experience so harrowing I wish I would never go through again. Lol. I wasn’t in a hurry to get vaccinated but somebody needed to accompany my niece (she belongs to the A4 category which includes essential and informal workers) who already wanted to be vaccinated, so off I volunteered to escort her (and get vaccinated already as well). The A5 category (the indigent sector) would soon be included in the vaccination, so I expect the process to be a little more chaotic—a fact that helped me decide to already get the vaccine.      I went to bed at around twelve midnight (after watching two episodes of Trese on Netflix) but only succeeded to get only around one hour of sleep before I got out of bed at around 4:30 AM. We didn’t have any breakfast and the last time we ate was at six PM the previous day, and the venue was already jam-packed with people wanting to be protected from the coronavirus when we