I checked just now and saw that my last post here was on August 24th, which was almost a month ago. I think that’s the longest span of time for me to go without posting. I’m sorry. It’s not on purpose.

It’s now two months since my most recent project completed, and that can mean a lot of things but one thing it means is my monthly income now is quite low. As I may have mentioned here before, if my current company doesn’t sell another project for me or I don’t find a new job by the end of the year, I will be returning to Manila in January.

Under some circumstances that would be fine but at the rate they’re going with not managing COVID-19, it’s depressing. (They’ve had Asia’s longest lock down and they’re still at more than 3,000 new cases per day; they’ve only managed to test 3 million people out of a population of 107 million; in Metro Manila people over 60 are only allowed to leave their homes for medical reasons; unemployment and poverty are at record or near-record highs – and in the midst of all this some morons spend P390 million on crushing up a bunch of rocks to make a new “white sand beach” for Manila Bay.)

In the meantime I’m waiting to see what happens when a new owner takes over our apartment on October 1st. It’s entirely possible that he will give us 30 days notice at that point, as I think he bought this as a place for his daughter and not for revenue. That would mean … having to move at the end of October but needing to remain in HK for November and December, not being able to sign a new lease anywhere, moving to the cheapest possible serviced apartment somewhere for two months …. or maybe I’m wrong and he’ll let us stay until the end of our lease.

Continue reading “Yes I’m Still Here” →