Spent Christmas 2023 and New Year 2024 in NorCal. This was a day in San Francisco.
Last month, this domain expired. It took me until the very end of its grace period to renew it again, because why would I? I had not written in over a year and seems like blogging isn’t a thing anymore. I had a phase where I wanted to open a Substack then realized, why would I? I still have this little space of mine on the internet that no one really knows anymore, so wny should I stop using it right?
2023 was the same. Everything feels just the same these days. Everyone around me is growing, adulting, experiencing life milestones, yet here I am.. still me. From extrovert to introvert.
I don’t know how others perceive me, and frankly, I’m too busy thinking about how I’m being perceived to actually realize how I’m being perceived. Does that make sense? It makes sense to me.
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything long form that’s not for work. Everything is consumed in little tidbits nowadays (you can check my TikTok watch time for that, it was literally my obsession for a good while til now) that it kind of giving me a hard time even trying to write something substantial about my life.
Anyway, I’m not going anywhere with this entry. I just wanted to see if I can still write something long. I have so many unfinished entries in my drafts too. Will I be back to write something more? I hope so.
Happy New Year!! I hope you had a great new year and eve, to anyone who still reads this! I thought it would be nice to have a TSC entry today, considering the first day of the year falls on a Sunday. Let’s get it!
FEELING Pretty good but undoubtedly still anxious. Like every new year as of late I don’t feel any different and less hopeful due to the state of the world for the past few years, but I am always trying my best to not let it get to me and focus on the good even though it gets tough at times. Storms always pass, and that’s what keeps me going.
WATCHING & LISTENING My YouTube recommendations after I was away for a week. Us The Duo just released their hits for 2022 and it’s always a nice compilation of all the hits we enjoyed the past year.
READING I admit I haven’t been reading books the past year, but I really want to change that this coming year. Obviously I can’t even do the 1 book a month anymore, but I’m just going to try and read some. I hope I can at least keep that up!
EATING Nothing right now, but I had Mac & Cheese for dinner earlier.
THINKING About how blessed I was to be able to spend a part of my holidays with a complete family unit. My dad joined us in Singapore last week for a much needed family bonding time.
HOPING For the year to be kind to me, for me to be kinder to myself, and to not let my inner demons get me down so much like it did last year. I also hope to play more tennis and read more books this year. Most of all, I hope everyone has a better year than the last!
It’s not like I’ve forgotten this blog, because I still visit it from time to time — but I’ve definitely forgotten how to write, with all encompassing feelings of adulting stress taking over me. Even my Hobonichi has seen better days. Joke’s on me, because I ordered another one for 2023 in attempt to improve my planning and journaling skills that I’ve so very much neglected.
In an attempt to record my life this year—which I really really need to do—I’ve decided to list down every month of the year so far with little tidbits of what happened.
January
Typhoon Odette/Rai was traumatic to say the least. On December 16, 2021, Cebu was hit with the shittiest typhoon to ever devastate the city since the early 90s and it completely ruined the city’s operations. The aftereffects would go all the way up to February-March. People had no electricity, water, for weeks up until months, even. January was still such an early recovery period and many still experience trauma when it gets brought up. Still, I’m grateful to have been spared by all the monstrosity due to many factors which I used to my advantage. I am grateful to have friends and family who helped me pool over USD 2,000 (₱100,00++!!) for relief goods, donating to relief operations, and even fix a few houses! That’s an experience I will never forget.
February
I was met with the worst tooth nerve pain I have ever experienced in over 3 decades of my life. The pain was so bad that even the regular OTC meds didn’t help. I will never forget bawling and writhing in pain on the way home from the dentist and calling to beg her to up my painkillers. I would not want to wish that pain on to anyone. I ended up having a root canal with Gutta-percha.
March
After exactly 2 years of having no students at the school where I work, classes were finally back face to face. And because the business office was already on optional hybrid setup since May 2020, days at the office would get really lonely, with no screaming kids, no hustle and bustle of classrooms and teachers, and just overall lack of inspiration without the students and teachers that you physically everyday. Needless to say it was a new adjustment phase for me, from only going to the office for 2-3x a week for 2 years with reduced hours, to going back to really early mornings and late afternoons. As much as I loved being back, it made me realize that my lockdown work schedule was—amidst many unfortunate things—a real privilege to experience.
April
My close friend Juna’s wedding was beautiful. It would be the first wedding this year, and my first of second as a bridesmaid. All odds were in our favor during that day despite weather news, and I had never been more drunk in my life.
May
happy birthday to me~ (yes I still play tennis every weekend)
This is where it gets kind of deep. Despite it being my birthday month, my dad visiting from Indo, and just a lot of reasons to be grateful, I was met with one of the worst bouts of mental health lows in recent times. It ate me up and rendered me helpless. It wasn’t even that bad during the worst parts of the pandemic, so I’m not really sure how it came about this time or where it came from. In retrospect, 2022 feels like a really off year of trying to keep up with my mental health highs and lows and I feel like I’m hanging on to nothingness sometimes. After a mental health intervention from my dad one night, one from my girlfriends another afternoon, many nights of crying and self-imposed tantrums, I somehow managed to pull myself back up (like I always do) and celebrated a big birthday party with a group of family and friends — which took 2 days to plan. I think that will be the last time I hold a big party, after that night, I may have to do with silent night birthdays moving forward. The beauty (or perils?) of entering your mid-30s. The month ended with a nice trip to the mountains with a group of friends for a birthday (not mine this time 😊) weekend getaway and I was able to get refreshed and relaxed.
June
Took a few days off and flew to Boracay, my first flight since late 2019 and the longest I’ve not flown ever. It was a good break after a busy April and May and finally gave me a chance to take it easy thanks to school being on a break and having less intense work days. It was also a busy month preparing for a close girlfriend’s bachelorette party—yes, another wedding where I am a bridesmaid—more on that in the next part.
The fact that the year is almost ending is pretty surreal. After 2 years of what seemed like both the longest and shortest years of my life, 2022 feels like growing pains but I can’t point out if I’m growing out of something or growing from something. Life is still hard to figure out, and that’s the most consistent takeaway from this whole thing.
I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since I did a TSC. Felt like yesterday I was binge-watching Emily in Paris on a Sunday afternoon.
FEELING In between feeling cold because of my full blast AC and completely hot and humid because of night rain. For some reason this is completely annoying the heck out of me right now.
WATCHING Nothing currently, but I was trying to look for reviews of this laptop stand that I want to get on Shopee, so I went through a couple of videos of similar products. I wanted to make sure that the angles were the kind that I wanted. Ideally I’d like a flexible one because the stand/riser I have is pretty much static so I can’t move my laptop according to the view or angle that I want.
I was also watching highlights from the US Open Women’s finals today, and I’m so proud of the new generation of ace tennis players! Absolutely rooting for Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez’s tennis careers.
READING & LISTENING
As of this morning, I finally picked up my Kindle for what seems like the first time this year and started reading the new installment of Bromance Book Club—this series is really good, okay??—and hopefully this will ignite my reading streak.
A bit late to this song but it’s such a bop. I blame TikTok for getting me into these K-pop songs that aren’t usually in my radar or songs of groups or singers that I follow.
EATING Nothing. I had pizza for late lunch, not sure if I’m gonna eat again. It’s 10pm which is such a dangerous time to eat.
THINKING About how my AC is so freaking cold right now but the moment I turn it off I’m gonna be sweating from this humidity. I swear haha.
HOPING For a good week! And to play tennis again next weekend. This morning’s session wasn’t enough.
I’ve been working too much on professional projects these days that I’ve kind of forgotten how to write for myself. As I was browsing my feeds (hello Feedly, still alive) today, I came across the Travel Diaries section of R29 and decided that it’d be nice to answer some of the questions myself.
Lost in translation
Plane, train, or automobile? Living in the Philippines with such a diverse number of islands, there’s not much option to travel by car unless it was a local Cebu road trip. I guess it depends on the place. As much as I hate flying and being in planes, it’s the only way I can get to my favorite countries. I do love a good train travel, I feel like it’s what keeps me the most relaxed.
