Life lately in pictures.

Happy X-mas Eve, random strangers and good friends that read my blog!

I'm going to make a Christmas post sooner or later, but first I want to just photoblog about my life lately.

SANSA IS ONE YEAR OLD TODAY!

She was a bit frazzled just now because all of our couches were occupied, but she just found a free pillow to sleep on. But the loud music is visibly startling her. Haha! She ate a lot of goodies today and I let her run around earlier (she usually whimpers during walks cos I'm too slow for her, but since it's birthday I ran a bit just so she can too)

One day we walked to the church so we can walk with mama after her Simbang Gabi. I took the opportunity to practice with my camera again. It's been a WHILE.

girl and dog

night photos are no joke

I had a good concept starring the moon but it hid away immediately after seeing  me try to take a picture of it! Shy moon. (or is it troll moon)

I had to settle with playing with the spherical lamp posts. In the bottom one the yellowbell is blowing light bubbles. Or it is housing tiny fairies that are jumping off for the night's work.

Before going out that dawn (yes I'm still up at dawn these days T.T) I made myself a nice hot chocolate! With whip and cinnamon! It was nice. I wonder if cinnamon is a common thing to put on hot chocolate?

In any case, it should be.

Tonight I made myself a cold one (+Bailey's :3) because it's super warm -.- Warm christmas.

I'm about 99.6 percent sure that this was triggered by that one time I decided to have a peppermint hot chocolate at Starbucks.. 

I never thought of putting peppermint in there before even though I usually did that at home. I liked it of course, but when I ordered that drink I was like I TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE WHIPPED CREAM AT HOME SO I CAN HAVE THESE MORE OFTEN and that boys and girls is why I can't keep my weight down! Not that anybody should really mind.

My family goes out for coffee often during Decembers because my mom likes collecting stickers for those planners they give people at Starbucks here.. She got carried away this year and is now on her third sticker card XD She already got hers early, the brown one. She then completed another and gave me the yellow one. But for the last card, she let my brother have it. He'll only need 7 stickers to complete it now! Personally I prefer to buy the planners from National Bookstore, but this year the yellow one was cute. So I'm using it as a diary. (I already bought a National Bookstore planner. heuheu) Maybe when I have a lot of disposable income and don't gain weight so easily from downing sugary/creamy coffee I might find things like that fun, but right now it all seems horrifying to do myself because I'm a poor fresh grad who just quit and needs a buttload of money (and space to gain weight from eating a lot) for France. So I feel quite lucky that my mom gave me a free one. haha.

Speaking of coffee, we visited a dear friend of my mom (and a father figure to me tbh) and we were given a gift!!! An awesome gift!!! Because we almost bought one earlier this year and now it turns out we didn't have to cos we got one for free XD

We finally have a Nespresso XD

Apparently someone gave him another one so he gave us his old one.. I'm not quite sure why he gave us the capsule rack too as he could still use it, I think he was just feeling super generous as usual! This particular one is actually a "Dolce Gusto" but I don't really see the point in that and I always forget it. The trigger word for me is "Nestle" the manufacturer, so I always end up just calling it Nespresso anyway. Like a normal person.

Let's just hope the first generous gift givers don't find this post and feel bad it was given away XD Recycling gifts makes Christmas hilariously awkward at times. Note how I sized it smaller than how I usually post pictures. Haha. It's nice to not have to spend anything for the machine cos the capsules aren't cheap XD I'll probably find a workaround with that too because it produces too much trash for everyday use!

I'm starting to make my family look like a bunch of caffeine-addicted nutjobs. Good thing it's coffee and not cocaine nobody reads this blog.

Here is a picture of the shepherd's pie that we made as an awkward transition back to the original topic:

My younger brother and I mashed the taters, my mom cooked the main meat stew inside, I set up the thing in the dish (my brother tried to start it but I'm just a lot better hehe) , and as per my mom's orders, i pierced a design on top and applied eggwash before it was put in the oven. She really liked my forky pokey pattern :3 She stared at it a few times just complimenting it. I think I saw it blush. It blushed BRIGHT YELLOW

So yeah. Pictures. I've also been trying a hand at enhancing pictures again. Here are some pictures of our Christmassed-up house:

I helped a lot with my mom's boxing this year. It's not entirely selfless, by wrapping the gifts I'm given a false sense of "this is from us" hahaha.

bear and lights. yes we have a bear living in this house what of it

These stuffed christmas decorations are so presh.

That welcome reindeer is always rocking side to side thanks to the fan. Jaro is obsessed with Welcome to Nightvale. This is a real actual expression he got while listening:

This time with not real/actual Nightvale-purple smoke because why not:

Althoughh it's a lot more descriptive of how into it he is.

Anyway, tomorrow there will be a Christmas post! Or on the 26th. I'm not actually sure where I'll be tomorrow night.

Sometimes it takes a bucket.

These past few days I've been meaning to put up a post about how weekends with my family make me tolerate the daily stress my mental state subjects me to everyday at work. I wanted to call it "Just a spoonful of sugar".. you know like the song.. Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in the most delightful way..

Because trying to spend all day all weekend with my family really did help me a lot with coping. But since then there'd been a huge turn of events that even surprised myself even though I orchestrated all of it.

Just recently I'd already talked to my boss about needing to quit soon. Usually there is a 30 day notice before you are allowed to quit. My boss just asked for a letter of intent, because I was really intending to try and last another thirty days. But yesterday before work, I just felt an incredibly strong urge to just do it right away. I very frankly admitted that I don't think I would show up for those thirty days anyway and wanted to inform them face to face instead of disappearing. The people from where I work were gracious enough to actually let me exit with an immediate resignation, which I did not expect at all. To be honest I was expecting to just be technically terminated due to absence because of not showing up for the last 30 days. I feel really grateful about that weird turn of events. I feel so grateful to that company even though I couldn't handle the job itself. Of course I feel a bit guilty and sorry because there was a long period of basically training and testing and I was chosen to go into production but I ended up quitting anyway. But I couldn't ignore how I felt about all of it anymore. I couldn't bear to be depressed on Christmas. So I just waited until the time was ripe to do it, but somehow had to do it as fast as possible as well. I'm both sorry but really happy. It's a weird cocktail of emotions.

So yeah, a spoonful of sugar may make the medicine go down, but sometimes you just need a bucket of cold water to wake you up and realise that the medicine is all wrong and it's just making you sicker and trying to keep taking it anyway is also making you diabetic.

Bold brave brash move, but maybe I needed to do that at least once in my life. And all things considered, I'm glad I did it. And even maybe a little proud of myself.

the stwuggul

i'm swimming in a shallow river floating midair.

that's how my life feels right now.

there's a fight inside me between growth and a form of authenticity, or is it complacency? i'm sure that this job is not my calling, it takes effort to stay afloat. there's no bottom to tread. but if i stop swimming and keep walking like i'm used to, maybe i won't grow into who i really am either.

im sure there is a way to stay authentic in circumstances that are inauthentic. maybe it's a piece in my life's puzzle. it's just a stage of life. in any case, what lies at the end, if it really is there for me, is worth it. so i'll keep swimming.

...yyyyyyup.

i have many feelings about japan

and they're like extremes of everything. ive never been, but i have lots of impressions about it~

japan seems so childlike playful and imaginative in a lot of ways

but it also can be really bigoted about some stuff and has a lot of double-standards about sex, family values, dating etc D: read Guardian article here if interested

it's a mix of REALLY OLD TRADITIONAL STUFF like everyone typically sees in films and restaurants and the like, and like really crazy sci-fi level futuristic stuff like ROBOSUSHI

it just seems like a wonderful, unpredictable, crazy, adorable parallel universe and they're super nifty about many things and super inventy but really fun about it, but at the same time it's super sad what they've been through lately and how the social pressures that they have put on themselves are getting in the way of human interaction in a huge, massive, population-annihilating scale! (see previous guardian article, and many other articles online if you look).. plus that awkward hand-washy stuff about the wars in the past that my boyfie has educated me about but i won't really get into that for this one . . . but through it all they still try to make things fun somehow

i feel sad about the problems ailing them and how their policies seem to work against them a lot, but i can only hope that they can thrive for some decades more! i hope they open their doors more to the world, maybe it can help them heal their wounds... i think their cultural integrity is strong enough to be sustained even if they do so :) and i wish to visit in a couple years :D i love the food, and i'd like a new adventure!

this has been a random post about a random country that i've never even been to and yet feel a kind of closeness to. no anime or cosplay involved.

*takes a bow*

Braveity

It's fantastic to feel that I'm still learning new things everyday. More than just practical knowledge and new skills, I'm happy that I keep learning about myself. I'm happy that being aware of what I'm doing wrong doesn't stop there: I'm also learning what to do instead.

I feel like I've grown up a lot in terms of being more direct, open, vulnerable, and connected with other humans. Some things are better learned on the spot, through experience instead of theory and imagination. In a huge way, having a real-actual-person job helps me a lot in learning these things. I feel like one of those dogs on Dog Whisperer, being thrown in a sea of balanced dogs in order to learn balance.

Of course the sea of humans I'm thrown into isn't a collection of  balanced ones like Cesar's pack, but because we're humans, them I'm able to carry my own weight in learning instead of completely relying on the energy around me. I'm able to pick, choose, analyse and take what I deem apt to emulate, based on my own judgments.

What I never saw coming was how important it was to feel connected in order to be a balanced human myself. But we are all animals after all, and it makes sense now.

I'm still learning about it, slowly and surely, but I feel like it may be the missing piece. I have a strong feeling about this one. It's all coming together now.

Re: Cracks

i actually feel good today. i'm not anxious about monday. no unnecessary acid in my stomach from supressing anxiety.

i went through a growth spurt, my skin cracked and i bled through the cracks, but i grew bigger and my skin is now keeping up and starting to become more flexible. and i think my growth spurt is stabilising as well.

i think i'll be okay.

(just in case you took it literally, don't take any of that literally. i meant as a person, obviously.)

Moreish Mondays

You know what I hate about Mondays? Mondays. You know what I like about Mondays? They're trying to win me over! Two of my favorite shows (US) premiered on the 29th, and are therefore available to me today, the 30th. So right now I'm downloading Once Upon A Time, Bob's Burgers had just finished, and I've got that to look forward to when I come home tomorrow morning! This'll happen every Monday from here on out.

Life isn't so bad.

Song Meditation: "Empty Your Hands" by The Weepies

I've been listening to The Weepies since 2009, and because of how consistently great their music is, there is not just a handful that stands out. It's more like their whole discography stands out among most music that I've ever saved on my computer.

I decided to look up the lyrics of one particular song today and found the lyrics so compelling that I decided to write about it. Maybe I should do this more when I come across songs with interesting lyrics.

Empty Your Hands

16 balloons against the blue, 
they're red,they're red like a dream come true 
Sure it was enough to give them to you 
to watch you let them go, let them go 

Empty your hands 
of overheard conversations 
Empty your hands 
static from the big bang 
and dinosaur radio stations 
Empty your hands 
genocides in foreign nations 
Empty your hands and look up 

His eyes are wide and beautiful, 
my own feel dull and old 
They can't recall some buoyancy, 
they’ve had too much to hold, let them go 

Floating past a daytime moon 
transparent as a shell 
Rubies in a well, sixteen apples on a tree 
we never would have seen 
if his fingers weren’t so free 

Our baby learned to run today 
in circles on the grass 
His joyful face it radiates 
These moments go so fast, let them go

*

This song, as I take it, is a picture of a moment, or moments with loved ones*, and the central theme is not attaching oneself to any particular thing in one's mind or in the past, but the beauty and the love that radiates within those precious moments. This becomes increasingly hard to do as we grow older, for we tend to get stuck on our stock of acquired default reactions and impressions to things. Deb and Steve look at the eyes of their child and feel old in comparison, because a child experiences everything as fresh, new, untainted.

The way they go from using "you" in the first verse to the chorus makes me think that they are also wishing this for their child, almost like a parent's prayer, wishing that their child will grow up staying light and free as he is in his present young age.

There may be times in life where thinking and analyzing things have their place, but once every little while, we need to step back and just submit to the present moment in order to enjoy the good things that are abundant in our lives if we only made it a point to take notice. The song beautifully describes the act of letting go of balloons, releasing them to the sky through the eyes of an imaginative child, and this simple act that can even be considered as wasteful if done by accident, becomes almost like magic, and invites metaphors involving apples and rubies.

Let them go, buuuuuuddy..

I don't think they mean to say that we should ignore the bad in the world everyday and stay ignorant of things to be happy, I just think that this song is about zooming in on a moment with a child, having a break from things that weigh us down to enjoy it, for we also will inevitably need to let the good moments go. So instead of holding on to the bad stuff, keeping them with you, letting them get in the way of you enjoying the present like children do, you let go. Like a sponge, you squeeze out all of the muck keeping you heavy. And then you get to soak in every new moment fully, deeply, as if you were new.

*Edit: I forgot to mention that it strikes me that in the story the child mistakenly lets go of the balloons that he was supposed to hold, and instead of seeing this as a bad thing, these awesome adults looked at the beauty of the moment and attributed beautiful accidents to the willingness of a child to let go... and wrote a beautiful song about it.

being where i'm from

     I gave a lot of thought about how I feel about my country today. Before I go into it any further, let these points be laid out for context:

I've always said that I don't see the point in nationalism. I think I still don't. At least the kind that is superficial. I believe in wanting change, real change. Not change in the form of people wearing shirts or expensive jackets that have the Philippine flag embroidered on them, or songs about how being Filipino is awesome. I believe in having a richer music and art culture in the country, without it deliberately being about the country. I believe in being able to feed the Filipino poor, I believe in the common working Filipino getting adequate compensation for day-to-day living. I believe in community development, in progressive morals, separation of church and state, in equality, and things like that. 

That being said, I never felt the need to stay here for the rest of my life, and I never believed in feeling like a person owes his country anything. I was more than ready to, if life lead me to need to, go away and never look back.

...But lately I'm starting to change my mind on the "looking back" part.

I've always been observing and noting what makes other countries able to run themselves better. This used to be a cause of head-shaking desperation, and sometimes even embarrassment, whenever I looked around me, at my own country. But lately the feeling caused by this activity is more hopeful. Instead of looking like glaring evidence of how fucked up this place is, the comparisons I make are starting to look like spaces for improvement. I guess, the clearer the details become, the easier it is to see patterns in the causes, and you're not completely lost as to how to make the results different. The way is still long and hard (*chortle*), and I'm prepared to float around thinking of what to do for a bit of time more.

I always thought I'd like a boring but comfortable, happy life instead of a challenging and tumultuous one, where you grow a lot as a person, but end up leaving all the relishing of your life's work to the people who are to revere you when you're dead. This is still true for the most part. But today I was reminded by a conversation I had with my best friends. An observation had been made about serial killers and how they usually come from well-developed countries where they don't really worry about not being able to eat everyday. The implication was that people have the tendency to create their own danger when they don't need to exercise their survival instincts, or something like that. When people aren't physically ill or in danger, they get mental booboos or disorders or whatever things. Of course this correlation is speculative at best, and in no way am I trying to state it as fact, hence the decidedly silly language I just used to describe it (it's my blogpost version way of pushing a crowd of people with questions away while screaming "I'M NOT A DOCTOR!"). But it made me change my feelings about being where I'm from. Specifically, in contributing to making the country better. 

I will probably never do anything that will merit having a street named after me, my plans for myself aren't that big. But I also want to live for more than just myself and my future family. I want to be part of the little steps that are already changing the face of how my country does things, and I mean right now! I know they are already happening, there is more awareness about ethical business, and a creative scene that is blooming and growing, and it's wonderful, and I want to take it all in. At the very least I want to witness it, to talk about it, to share it, even if I can't create things of my own yet (but I promise I'll always be working on that)... I'm the least noble person to be honest, but I realise that it doesn't have to be about choosing to be where the challenge is. It can be about actively trying to help make bad things good, and to make good things better. I want to help lift the mainstream cultural attitude of the common filipino from wounded, defensive and superficial to rich, substantial, ethical and distinctive.

Big words for a little potato, but we do what we can to make life fun.

The Night's Watch

I've adjusted fairly quickly and smoothly to the night shift lifestyle. And I don't feel like a Zombie because it's legit. Meaning it's consistent. Basically, My days are 12 hours earlier/later than anyone elses. my AMs and PMs are flipped. It's been good, but sometimes when I get home in the super-early morning I feel sad that I can't have a cup of coffee. There's nothing better than a cup of coffee at dawn/early morning. But drinking coffee when I get home, body clock-wise, would be like drinking coffee at 6pm. Not the best idea if I want to fall asleep at noon to wake up properly before work.

But it has some awesome trade-offs. Temperature's nice, work goes by super fast, no traffic, and just now I had a 7am hotdog lunch (complete with a pickle)...

And about the coffee thing, there's always black tea. When I put creamer/milk and sugar in it, it's almost as good as drinking coffee. But it doesn't mess my sleep up.

I can't wait to get settled enough to start doing creative stuff again. I have about 8 hours free everyday and I'd like to get back to practicing photography again, even though my camera does have that problem with the shutter. I'm hoping that feeling one with it again, like I did last year, will motivate me to find a repair shop and turn it in. At least this time I'll actually be earning money that I can use towards repairing/buying art-life tools. Like this laptop. This is my mom's. The one she gave me a while ago is already dead. And now this one freezes when left idle. I don't want it to get PC cancer before fixing it, and so as soon as I get my salary I'm turning it in. It feels good knowing I'll soon afford to pay for non-basic needs.

Anyway right now I still feel sleepy and low-energy in the morning, before going to bed. I'm hoping a little regular stretching and moving around and laughing at Kid President videos (and other vids) on the reg will help me get some more energy in the mornings before going to bed. So I can do creative stuff and maybe find what I should do next with my life :)

sweets from my sweet, sugar from my honey

Just wanted to share some pics of goodies from ppls i heart.

one mochi from Carmen which her friend gave her from Japan

Emmy's favorite color of Haribo crocodiles! :3 

I keep them in this Panda Jar hehe

I keep them in my room now cos they get too hard in the fridge.

I decided I'm really going to zoom my mind into going to France next year. I'm setting my intention for real. It may fail, but my conscience will be clear knowing that I tried my best! :) I hope I do it so that I don't waste any money in applying :p haha.

Jarring

 (I almost called this post The Conjarring but I decided that banking on current events does not look good on me.)

Remember the jar I bought at the start of the year to put strips of paper in that recount good things that happens during the year? I abandoned it while Beardy was here, because somehow it's hard to stop to take a moment to write about good things happening while they are happening a lot. 

So I typed all the good stuff I remembered happening as of late and from Beardy's vacation in the summer. On one whole sheet of paper. Using my favorite colors of course.

I couldn't remember when stuff happened, so I gave up on the part where I put the date in the strips. I figured they werent that important, so long as I remember that the stuff happened. (although it would be nice to know but meh) and that I should let go a little bit. I'm trying to do this thing where I don't micromanage every single little thing. I'm going to focus instead on macromanaging ... and normalmanaging. I JUST WANT TO BE A NORMAL PERSON STOP IT BRAIN

There's a couple of cute things in the jar that I like, the heart-shaped candle on a stick from my free birthday sundae from Ryuma, the candlestick from Beardy's free apple pie on his going away/birthday dinner, and the blue spade toothpick (fave color and fave card suit!) from when I met my friends and Pia made us try her aunt's bread pudding. Fitting souveneirs from nice days spent with loved ones! There's also an origami rose I made around my birthday, I wrote about my birthday in it. Then I stuck it into the lid. Fits perfectly and looks really pretty. 

In other life news, I've just finished my first week of training! Doing well so far, and my co-trainees are pretty awesome! They're super funny and we all get along well. I really hope I get this job! I adjusted to the 10pm shift pretty quickly and well, (not to mention they pay more for nights) the workplace is super near and I don't need to be smoked bea-cued by pollution, and it's just a good first job I think. I think after graduating is the best time to work for a BPO. It will give me time to think of what I really wanna do and it won't be wasted time because I'll be interacting with people every day and I'll get to start saving money! Which is the best part for me, I won't lie.

How We Do

More on My Weird Family from last night!

Last night we celebrated my aunt's "17th anniversary of (her) 40th birthday" as we call it, and it was so much fun! There was a videoke set-up at the front of the house, which proved to be a somewhat bad idea because we had a little bit too much fun with it :p (Good thing nobody called the cops on us)

cuteness tootness

It all started really tame. There were tables set up all pretty, some pretty food, and more importantly, we were all sober.

magically, all of the celebrant's siblings came in red! UNPLANNED!

mom leading the prayers as per yoush

my uncle is even reiki-ing the food with magic prayer hands. the works

minicupcakes and yema~

my lovely nieces and trish showing her cute lego creation

I only remember my cousin Biboy taking out the alcohol, then my brother letting me try the scotch, then I made myself a Jack&Coke, then I decided to wind down with some cake and peach tea.. Then somehow I guess the Jack started to kick in as I stared at my third saucer of cake

"Pink... tea.. so.. pretty.."

Then boom. Our collective minds just imploded.

...I don't even remember what they were singing here. But I took videos of my family going wild during Bohemian Rhapsody and Bagsakan.

...Speaking of "bagsakan",

Even when I was tipsy this confused me!

Anyway, I kept thinking about how Beardy would react if he witnessed all of the crazy stuff going down. He'd probably be overwhelmed. It's thinking about stuff like that that makes me realise how strange my family must seem to outsiders XD Beardy said the idea of drinking with your parents in parties is very peculiar to him, and somehow even if I could make that observation myself, I didn't really see it that way before he told me! My family is kinda weird! But that's how we do :)

Things That Made Me Happy Today

OITNB 

this show is so AWESOME

iced morning coffee (not instant :333) 

my cutest lil’ pup 

a great first meal of the day! Lettuce and cucumber with a dash of sesame kewpie dressing, chili porkchops and just a wee bit of rice.. (No photo :3) 

successfully controlling my portions. i still ate like a fully grown adult, a full big girl plate, it’s just that i usually over-eat when the food is that good..Ate more than one slice of cake at the party tonight, though.

the fact that I’m going to wake up on monday to a job (even if it's just training period for now) and it’s making me feel purposeful ..and that it’s early enough in the game to not feel bad about it i guess..but i’m kinda hoping i never feel bad about it! just tired. which is fine.

the privilege of not having to travel big distances to go to work 

the privilege of living at home and having basic necessities and much more 

some cute notebooks!!! 

getting a massage last night and feeling like i kind of deserved it? I mean I fell asleep. That tells you something about how tired you are, right? Plus, I played a Jonsi album during and it turned out to be an AWESOME idea.

Re-visiting pictures taken during Beardy's stay, including this one from my mom's phone.. Who's by the way super cute with how she's now down with the techie stuff cos of her Samsung S4 (SHE HAS INSTAGRAM!! I don't have instagram!)

My Weird Family.

it's my aunt's bday celebration today and some hilarious shit went down with the videoke machine as usual.

this was when it was still kid friendly, before it got crazy. i might post videos, though.