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The Sunday Currently, v13

Published by Justine

In addition to my blog challenge, I shouldn’t be shelving my usual series.

FEELING
Pretty chill. Compared to the past weeks, this is what I absolutely need. I am also getting accustomed to weekends without alcohol and partying a lot more compared to last year and I feel like it’s going in the right direction, without all the FOMO and everything. I woke up really late today though, like way past noon (hence the post below) and I sorta felt guilty about that. But then again this weekend has been all about sleeping in because last week was such a busy week for me.

LISTENING
My August playlist on Spotify! I try and have a playlist each month but I was so caught up with health issues last July so I only got to do another one for August.

EATING
Kiamoy from Aji Ichiban! That stuff can get so addicting to me.

WATCHING

Little Mix’s acoustic performance of Black Magic.

This has never been a secret for a few years now that it’s always been a dream of mine to be a part of a singing group like Little Mix whenever they do acoustic performances. I am always raving about how talented they are and how their voices blend so well (also you, Fifth Harmony!). Oftentimes the way to my heart are extremely toned down arrangements of nice originally overproduced songs.

THINKING
About what color to paint my nails. What to eat for dinner? How’s this week going to turn out?

WISHING/HOPING
For this hard work and effort to pay off soon and produce the results that we want. I can’t really disclose anything yet because I am afraid of jinxing it but it’s a very very very big deal that will ultimately make or break my (family’s) year.

READING
I still haven’t finished Milan Kundera’s book (damn I broke my weekly reading streak) so here are a few curated articles/posts from the web that I’ve been reading.

LOVING
That despite a lot of uncertainties I’m having, I am feeling confident about my decisions. Now all life has to do is to show me that it was all worth it. It’s been hard, but I am focused on trying to always be better.

Day 1 – What you had for breakfast

Published by Justine

Well isn’t it a bit late for this now? I woke up at at almost 1pm (yay for Sundays) and as of this writing my sister is cooking meatloaf and we’re waiting for the sushi platter delivery from Azabu via Foodpanda because it’s 50% off today!

I know I’m not supposed to be doing this, skipping meals and eating at weird hours considering I just got out of the hospital the past week because of gastritis but I didn’t wake up on time. On weekdays I do better!

30-day Blog Challenge 2015

Published by Justine

blogchallenge

After last year’s sense of fulfillment in completing a blog challenge that I didn’t think I would be able to, I realized it would be a good exercise to do it again this year. I had no intention of participating in another blog challenge anymore but I was on Medium the other day and saw Nicole Zhu’s 100 Days of Writing series that it actually prompted me to do a 100 day blog challenge right then and there.

I then calculated the timeline and saw that I wouldn’t be done until November (if I decided to do it daily, what more if I didn’t) and my commitment-phobe tendencies tingled so I looked for something of lesser frequency and stumbled across this one from 2 years ago by Live For Tomorrow. Looks like it’s something that will also benefit my current mental health and that’s always a good goal in itself, right?

  1. What you had for breakfast
  2. A song that makes you happy
  3. Someone you’re grateful for
  4. Your dream job
  5. #TBT A fave memory
  6. A food you could eat forever
  7. A favorite quote
  8. A skill you’d love to learn
  9. Someone you’d like to meet
  10. Something yellow
  11. Use the ellipsis in a photo
  12. #TBT Your favorite song last year
  13. A place you’d love to visit
  14. A lyric that inspires you
  15. A compliment about a friend
  16. 5 things you’d change in the world
  17. Create something and post
  18. What you’d try if you had no fear
  19. #TBT Someone you miss
  20. Inspire the world in one sentence
  21. Best thing to happen this week
  22. Someone who makes you laugh
  23. Something on your bucket list
  24. One of your best friends and why they’re awesome
  25. A song that reminds you of someone
  26. #TBT Your happy place
  27. A cause you support
  28. Something you enjoy
  29. Someone who inspires you
  30. Your dream for ‘tomorrow’

Just like last year, listing out the entry themes is making me nervous because I’m already starting to formulate everything that I want to write and it’s all jumbled up in my head. I’m still going to apply the same rule of not posting less than 3x a week. I guess I have to compromise making headers for each post because I’m going to be on a time crunch. Cheers to completing another challenge this year!

Friday’s 10 Happy Things, v5

Published by Justine

I’m happy that my happy things entries have finally reached the 5th version! Let’s not waste any time..

  1. Busy busy week! The upside to a busy week is that time flies by really fast.. I had to run so many errands this week in between my 3 jobs (phew)!
  2. Signed resignation letter. This was one of the hardest things I had to do this year. So much decision-making took place since the beginning of the year and I finally decide to hand it in. This is really for me more than anyone else.. and I hope this decision takes me to great places.
  3. Yoga. Woohoo!! How happy am I? The last time I did yoga was about a month and a half ago (one of my longest hiatus ever since I started). Yesterday’s class was a lot slower than the usual flow so it was a bit taxing on my hamstrings.. BUT ALL GOOD. Ahhhh.
  4. The Six Pack dot co. My best friends and I decided to start a blog about our friendship and post about our lives. I can’t wait to see where it goes! We’ve already started scheduling posts between the 6 of us. Do check it out.
  5. A conversation with a good friend I haven’t talked to in a while. Distance does things to a friendship.. if you let it. I had a good friend moved to the States last year and this year we both went into transitions in life that made our communication falter (she doesn’t have social media, unlike me) a little but talking to her again felt so great that I cried a lot of happy, grateful tears.
  6. A step to good health. First full week since the beginning of July that I haven’t gone to the hospital, seen the doctor, or sent to the ER for anything. Let’s celebrate.
  7. Planning for upcoming travels. Sometimes I get so caught up with the negativities of life that I forget to realize there’s so much ahead of me. I have a few travel plans lined up towards the end of the year and a lot of planning is being made. Crossing fingers they all turn out well!
  8. Midnight cab rides home. I was just thinking about this last night. It’s going to be my last month in my favorite shift (I live for the mid shift) and I realized I need to savor the midnight cab rides home where there is no traffic and the city is quiet and there’s a familiar sense of solitude. I may be overplaying the whole scenario, but that’s just me.
  9. Fujinoya. Because of Foodpanda I’ve been ordering in a lot and Fujinoya has been my go to restaurant mostly because they have everything. I love their sandwiches and selection of simple and delicious cakes.
  10. Positive uncertainty. When I decided to leave my current job to start a new one completely different from anything I’ve ever done before (remote with a little bit of travel), the whole uncertainty initially bothered me like crazy. Then I realized this is a decision I made for myself.. and will hopefully lead me to better and bigger things.
Ditz Revolution

What Have I Outgrown?

Published by Justine

outgrown

What prompted me to write this was the usual recurring thought that came up: If I have ever changed in the past few (or 10) years or so. I’m constantly living and trying to get through each day that sometimes I forget I’m actually growing, changing, improving (or not), and most of all, learning.

In a little notepad the other night, I listed out the stuff I’ve outgrown hoping that I would be able to elaborate them in the form of a blog entry. It’s weird because as I am typing this, my heart is actually beating faster than usual. Anything that has to do with change is always an unsettling yet exciting feeling at the same time.

Binge-watching TV shows
I haven’t done this in such a long time that I even forgot the last time I did it. In fact, I’ve hardly watched any good tv shows the past year or two. I remember I could go 2-3 days marathoning shows and finishing a season in less than 48 hours. Now, I can’t even watch an hour-long TV show anymore. I’m not entirely sure what brought upon the thought-process of outgrowing this but it seems like I haven’t been watching American TV shows. This year I started taking on more than 2 jobs so I have less time to watch anything. I admit I do miss it, but can’t be bothered to catch up with everything anymore.

The need to know EVERYTHING
I remember 3 years ago when I could read through more than 1000 feeds on my Google Reader every day. I subscribed to EVERYTHING and tried to read them all. From music, to technology, entertainment, politics, sports, art, design, local news, Korean entertainment I had to KNOW IT ALL. I wanted to be up to date with everything and that even included watching TV shows. Now I just focus on what benefits me the most because aside from a maturing brain that can’t handle too much information, I realized I could do something more productive than trying to be updated with every little thing the world has to offer.

Pirating music
When I feel strongly about an artist or an album I always buy their music physically or digitally. For all other songs, there’s always “free” downloads. The minute Spotify pre-launched in the Philippines early last year, I immediately bought a subscription and my music downloading stopped. I even deleted my whole iTunes music library early this year and celebrated losing about ten thousand songs from my hard drive. My laptop breathed a little better too.

Pulling all-nighters
Who am I to say this, really? Here I am at 2:53AM, writing this blog post when I’ve been working from 9am to 12am the previous day. I have to be awake in about 6 hours for work #1 then get ready for work #2 after. But really, I value sleep much more now, and not just sleeping in during mornings.. but actually sleeping RIGHT. I used to pull all-nighters a lot because I didn’t want to miss anything (cue The need to know EVERYTHING as stated above) but now I keep it to a minimum, or none at all. It feels good to wake up knowing you had enough sleep.

There are quite a few more that I wanted to add but couldn’t find the right words to elaborate, like eating junk food, or drinking til’ you drop (which I think I probably will still do provided my health stats are great). Even though all these didn’t necessarily happen this year, but in retrospect, the realization itself has been good for self-improvement.