life lately #4

life lately | chainyan.co
Hello everyone, and happy Easter! Apologies for being away for a whole month. Life has been... busy. As some of you may know, I recently started getting into journaling and watercolor painting. I've been enjoying them more than I expected, so I haven't been able to focus on anything else. I haven't even been posting on Instagram. But I've been taking photos the whole time. This led to photos piling up on my phone, and I became a bit confused as to how I was going to post them. (If it's from November, it doesn't exactly count as "life lately", does it?)

And so, I decided to move a few things around. From now on, posts tagged with 'life lately' will be more like occasional life updates. Kind of like Taking Stock and The Sunday Currently. All monthly stories will go under the 'photodiary' tag. You'll also find all the posts previously tagged with 'life lately' there. Hope this makes everything more organized somehow! Now that that's out of the way, let's get on with this update!✨

life lately | chainyan.co
Reading
In the middle of Spark Joy by Marie Kondo. Reading it made me want to do some tidying up of my own, so I stopped halfway. I've been meaning to pick up where I left off, but I keep getting distracted by other things. (Journaling.. Garupa....)

I've also been backreading posts on one of my favorite blogs, YAKUSOKU MTN. I started following this blog sometime last year, and it became a favorite of mine instantly. It's a blog about life in Japan! With beautiful pictures! Of course I'd love it. Sadly though, the blog was set to private for a while shortly after I followed. Now that it's been set back to public, I told myself I'd backread the whole blog, so I've been doing so whenever I get the chance.

Writing
Getting my April schedule ready. Aian and I have to go out four (!!!!) times next month, which is a lot more than usual. I've also been slacking off with blog posts recently, so I want to be able to at least put up my photodiaries from the past months. I have to study for the July JLPT as well. There's so much stuff I want to do, but I keep getting distracted by other things (that I also want to do). The struggle of being a "my pace" kind of person _(´ཀ`」 ∠) _

life lately | chainyan.co
Watching
My free 1-month trial subscription for Netflix ended last month, so I couldn't watch Hyori's Bed & Breakfast for a while. Just as I was about to subscribe for real, I found out that the Netflix version of Hyori's B&B actually has some differences with the one aired on JTBC. I read on someone's blog that they had to insert their own background music for certain parts of the show, because of copyright issues or something. There's this one particular episode where the guests play IU's song, but in the Netflix version, you hear a different song playing in the same scene. I felt a bit iffy about that, so these days I've been downloading the episodes and watching them on my phone instead.

life lately | chainyan.co
I'm currently at episode 11. I really love the dynamics between Hyori, her husband Sang-soon, and IU. There's something very interesting about seeing these high-profile celebrities doing mundane things like everyone else. Lee Hyori shaving her dogs' fur, Lee Sang-soon folding Hyori's underwear, IU clumsily chopping vegetables.. I find it all so very charming. Plus the slow lifestyle has always been appealing to me. I can't wait to watch the rest of the episodes and then start with season 2. With Yoona and Park Bogum this time. It feels a bit sad not being able to see IU in season 2 though!

life lately | chainyan.co
Aian and I have been watching a lot of anime, as usual. We finally finished watching all of Mushishi: Zoku Shou. I love stories that revolve around supernatural themes, especially when there's youkai or spirits involved. A lot of friends recommended I give Mushishi a try, and I was so glad I did. We watched the first season last year, and finally finished watching the second just a couple of weeks ago. SO GOOD.

We also watched A TON of Fate/ series. Zero, Unlimited Blade Works, Apocrypha, Grand Order, Extra: Last Encore. I'm pretty sick of it, to be honest. The thing is, the Fate universe itself is super interesting to me. I like the concept behind the servants, but the storytelling for a lot of their series is just sooo bad. The only one I liked so far was Zero, but that was written by Gen Urobuchi, so! Last Encore is still ~okay~, but I have my doubts because it's written by the original writer soooooo. I don't know yet. The anime is being produced by Shaft though, so that makes it better than the others already. In my book, that is, because I love anything that Shaft touches.

life lately | chainyan.co
For current anime, we're only watching three – DARLING in the FRANXX, Saiki Kusuo no Sai-nan, and 3-gatsu no Lion. I like all three series, but my favorite has to be 3-gatsu. (Again, because Shaft.) I've been a big fan of Umino Chica's storytelling since Honey and Clover, so I knew that I'd like 3-gatsu as well. Her stories are as relatable as ever; every episode hits me right in the heart. I need to remember to pick up copies of the manga if ever they get translated.

By the way, if you'd like to see what anime I've been watching in 2018, you can check out my AniList here.

life lately | chainyan.co
Listening to
The usual stuff. I tend to listen to the same songs, since I'm very picky when it comes to choosing songs that I can listen to while doing certain things. I only ever add stuff to my playlists when artists or groups I follow release new songs, but then I take them out when they don't go well with the rest of the songs on the list. These days though, I've been replaying Seventeen's Clap a lot. I don't follow Seventeen but I've had one of their songs—Very Nice—on my playlist for about a year or so now, so I thought I'd give their other songs a try. I really liked Clap, so I added it to my K-Pop loop playlist.

As for music that isn't K-Pop, I've been listening to songs from BanG Dream! a lot this past couple of weeks. Our enabler friend Satsunyan introduced Aian and I to BanG Dream—Bandori for short—last month, and we got completely hooked. She knows we used to be into Love Live!, and so she's pulled us into yet another 2D girl hell _(:3 」∠)_ Which brings us to....

life lately | chainyan.co
Playing
Yep. I've only been playing BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! these past few weeks. I've even been neglecting my Sims because of this game! Bandori is a rhythm game, a lot like Love Live! SIF, but the songs are a lot better. I say this as someone who's never been a super fan of J-Pop idol songs in the first place. The only reason I got into µ's was because there was something about their songs that struck me. The first time I played SIF, Snow Halation was played in my head for days. I couldn't get that anymore with the new songs from Sunshine, so I eventually fell out of love with Love Live. And I thought that was the end of that, but then Satsunyan just had to show me Bandori........Well, I've been enjoying it LOL. One reason being the songs are right up my alley. Because Bandori is all about girl bands, there are five bands, all with different styles of music. They have cover songs of anime songs too, which is great. Another reason is because EVERYONE IS JUST SO CUTE? I don't only have one best girl in this series, I have FOUR. Crazy.

The worldwide version of the game is coming out on the 4th, so if you're interested, you can check out the trailer here and the official EN channel here. Come and join us in Bandori hell~~~~

Needing / Wanting / Coveting
Needing to get my tooth checked, because it's been hurting quite a lot the past few days. Wanting to eat bingsu (even though I can't eat cold food right now). Coveting all the pretty things from niconeco zakkaya.

Loving
My not-so-new iPad Air. I got it from my younger brother, in exchange for my netbook. I haven't been using the netbook anyway, so it was all good. I'm not very particular about gadgets, but I really missed Analog Tokyo for editing photos. I couldn't find an Android app that had the same feel as Analog Tokyo, so I'm glad I could download it again on the iPad. I've also been using it well for playing games and watching stuff on Youtube. Super convenient.

Disliking
The fact that it's that time of the year where my rhinitis is in full force again....

Bookmarking
A bunch of journaling/food painting accounts on Instagram! Some new favorites are @penri23, @dalgura, @sherry8296, and @vanessa_watercolor. They're all so inspiring!

life lately | chainyan.co
Looking forward to
Watching Drum Tao on the 21st! Aian and I watched them perform in 2012, and that performance left such an impression with us that we've always said that if ever they come back to Manila, we'd watch them again. 6 years later, they're finally coming back! Only problem is, we weren't prepared. Because budget is a bit tight, I told Aian that I'd be okay even with watching them from the very back. And so we settled for the cheapest seats. Which is more than enough, as long as we can watch them again! This year we're watching it with Allysa. I'm super excited!

What have you been up to lately? :)

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