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My mother’s mechanical pencil from 1981
A conversation with an old classmate made me realize I’ve been living out my mother’s values without fully understanding where they came from. When I posted online about my six-year-old e-reader in March 2024, my high school classmate messaged me out of nowhere. She remembered the yellow mechanical pencil I’d used throughout high school—something I’d Read more
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Can you imagine a world where life as we know it becomes a bygone story?
In my previous post, I shared with you a chapter from The Ministry for the Future, which describes a world where the War for the Earth is raging. And why was there a war for the earth? Because the extreme weather events (like heatwaves) are amplifying the gap between the rich and the poor, with Read more
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The War for the Earth (Chapter 51, The Ministry for the Future)
Can you imagine a world where the carbon-intensive activities and resources are terrorized to the point of killing thousands of people, business people, innocent people nonetheless? Read this chapter from The Minsitry for the Future, in a world where the War for the Earth is raging. The thirties were zombie years. Civilization had been killed Read more
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The after-party
After all the preparations and the on-the-day celebration comes the after party, which feels like a hangover. With my social battery already drained, all I want to do is let the final guest leave and scurry back to my comfy bed—back to the mundane. My body just wants to sleep through the day, rest, and Read more
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Sitsiritsit
My sister kept talking about sitsiritsit—a traditional cassava crisp—after she saw a vendor at the other side of the road while we were on our way to Malalag, a municipality in Davao del Sur, Philippines. I’ve seen this cassava crisp back in my childhood, usually carried on the shoulders by vendors who walk under the Read more
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Letter no. 52
Dear reader from the future, I just want to tell you about what my typical week is like so that you (or I) can have something to look back on (and probably compare with) a decade from now. When my husband and I run some errands, we bring our cat along. Novo has been a Read more
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Would you trust an AI-written product review?
Before purchasing products, do you read product reviews first? What if the product reviews you have been reading, the ones you’ve been trusting and actually based your purchases on, weren’t written by people who used the products but by AI? And according to a 2025 study, you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Read more
jessa
Everyday Stories, Lived
jessa 