jessa blog
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Nobody wins: watching a war from afar
It’s easy to dabble in issues we see online just after seeing a small part of the whole. We were trained to be quick to respond to breaking news without stepping back and thinking deeply about the deeper whys. In 2023, while I was still glowing from being newlywed—married just four months—news broke out about Read more
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No one breaks my morning routine
I’m still amazed by how Novo sticks to his morning routine, even when he has already learned to let go of the rest. Probably, our bed has already consumed me into oblivion a long time ago if not for our four-legged alarm clock with opinions who has appointed himself Chief of Morning Operations. He never Read more
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Stories in the ordinary
As someone who makes time to read books, at least six a year, I am always on the lookout for titles that I find relevant to whatever I am going through or what I want to become and improve at. So when a friend—who knows what kind of reader I am—recommends a title that’s not Read more
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Kindness as a tool
As a child looking up to adults, I recall how kindness was consistently taught within the family, at church, and even in school. Always be kind. It sounds simple, almost banal. But somewhere in my early thirties, I encountered people who shattered this simple worldview. They were charming, generous with compliments, always ready to listen. Read more
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My life in pieces
I started my year standing by the shore, with my weight shifting beneath me as the water dug deep between my soles while my toes curled onto the sand. Like the shifting sand beneath my feet, everything in my life felt unstable, uncertain. It was a slow work of making sense. While in the mess, Read more
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Five years ago, I started this blog
Five years ago, I told the voices in my head, the naysayers, that shipping the work precedes building an audience. I was able to blog daily for two years and have tried to stick to it (but failed) in the years that followed. I could list all my reasons (or excuses) but I would rather Read more
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Letter no. 49
Dear reader from the future, Whenever provinces and cities get flooded in the Philippines, I always think about anthropogenic climate change. But there’s another problem that originates from human activity: greed. As the government poured out billions for adaptation efforts, bad actors found ways to steal what should have protected us from rising waters. But Read more
jessa 