Hello friends~ Taking a quick break from churning out reviews to let everyone know what I've been up to these past few months. Not that there's a lot you can do in this pandemic, but you know. Proof of life, etc., etc. 🌱
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Starting off with a tiny life victory: in May we finally bought a bigger bed! Before this Aian and I used a single bed, even though we're two grown-ass adults. We live in a tiny studio apartment, so we had to make do with sleeping on a small bed. It was fine when it was just us two, but now that we have 8 cats who like to sleep on the bed, we would constantly wake up with mild body pain from the cats sleeping on our backs or on our legs. (Kind of like having a weighted blanket, in a way, lol.) So when our old bed frame broke, I asked if we could get a slightly bigger one this time. Getting a bigger bed would involve moving stuff around the apartment to make space for it, so I had to ask first. Of course moving to a bigger place was the most ideal, but moving takes so much money, time, and effort. Not very practical, especially with the current situation. Moving things around the apartment to fit everything was the next best thing. After some careful measurements (and a lot of throwing stuff out + cleaning up along the way) we decided to get a semi-double frame, plus a new ~6-inch mattress to go with it.
I didn't think the additional 12 inches would make that big of a difference, but it turned out to be more than enough for the two of us and the cats! 🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈
Small rant, feel free to skip this part 🥴 I want to be honest—I was actually a bit hesitant to talk about this. Years ago I got a comment from someone saying they felt sad because I hadn't really changed much from when I first started blogging. That they expected me to be achieving the same "grandiose goals" as a lot of other bloggers during my time, and felt sad when they saw that I wasn't. In their own way, they probably meant well. (Maybe. Who knows, really.) At the time I convinced myself that it wasn't a big deal, but ever since then I found myself thinking carefully about what snippets of my personal life are okay and not okay to post, in fear of being judged. Like right now, I'm talking about something that made me happy, but I was hesitant to talk about it because I was afraid someone might belittle this happiness. Naisip ko na lang, if they saw me being excited over a semi-double bed now, what would they think? Would they be sad knowing that my life is like this? I'm not 100% happy, but I'm content, is that not enough? I think about this a lot. The comment was from 2017 but I still haven't completely moved on from it. Words truly have so much power...
Anyway. I also got a tiny desk for my tiny workspace! I'd been wanting to get a desk for the longest time but kept putting it off because I didn't know how I was going to fit it inside the apartment. Initially I wanted to get a loft-type bed so I could fit a desk under that, but I realized that would mean the bed would be blocking my light source. After nights of browsing on Shopee I finally found this desk that was just the right size for the tiny space beside our closet! It's a small desk but it's perfect for me. No more journaling on the bed! So happy.
The "wall" in front of the desk is actually the back of one of Aian's bookshelves. It's a bit dirty and even had pencil marks on it, so I've been putting up posters and postcards to make it look pretty. My favorite is the mini poster on the right that I got from my GazettE album. It's based on their song, Last Heaven 🎠💜
In June my mom's side of the family went to Pampanga to spend our lolo's 84th birthday. We rented a private villa and stayed overnight. Truthfully...I didn't want to go. I didn't feel good about it. I really didn't want to risk going out, especially because I wasn't vaccinated yet at the time. But, well. You know that unwritten rule amongst Asian families where if you're not part of the gathering, you're not part of the family? Yeah 🥴 I couldn't get out of it even if I tried, so I just took extra precautions while I was there. (I got my first dose of the vaccine shortly after this.)
The villa we rented didn't have a private pool so we had to go to the public one. I say public, but the whole place is members-only, so there wasn't a lot of people. Still, I went early in the morning so I could go in first. Since it's not a private pool, the moment other guests arrived I just came out and went back to the villa. I got to swim for a couple of hours though, which was great. I missed swimming a lot. I love being in the water. It's been a while so I was really happy. I finally got to wear this super cute swimsuit I got in 2017 too!
Two days after that, I got a call from one of my titas saying she saw my name on the list of vaccination schedules for our city. Turns out my schedule was on the very next day, so I had to cancel all my plans for it. I didn't get an email or anything in advance. Bigla-biglang bukas na agad. It was in Bicutan too, so I spent roughly P1,000 on the Grab rides to and from the vaccination site. Sobrang hassle. But I got my shot, so at least that was over and done with. The vaccine I got was Sinovac. I didn't get a fever, but I did experience dryness in my nose and mouth, which made it a little difficult to breathe through my nose. It went away quickly. I even did the groceries the day after, lol.
Walking outside and seeing all my favorite colors 💜
Got my second dose of the vaccine in July. Story time! Two weeks before this our LGU announced that there was a shortage of Sinovac in the city, so any upcoming schedules had to be postponed. And then right on the day before my schedule, I saw comments floating around on social media that a new batch of Sinovac had actually arrived, but they were administering doses without announcing it on their FB page. Wtf right? So, do I believe the local chismosas or not? Apparently the answer is always yes, because when I arrived at at the venue I found out they were administering the vaccine. Without telling the public. WHY!!! I also found out that I'm not the only one who gets her news from local chismosas, because there was a super long line outside. As in mula sa loob ng SM Sucat paikot sa labas. I had to line up for 5 HOURS just so I could get my second dose. After that was done I just wanted to eat and go home so I could sleep. Queueing for the vaccine tired me out more than the vaccine itself.
I don't remember August. My FADE album arrived. Released just before Seungwoo enlisted in July. I wasn't expecting to become a K-Pop military wife so soon, but here we are. To be honest I wasn't that sad about him enlisting, but I do miss seeing his face and hearing his voice during late night IG lives. Two years is a long time 😔
I also FINALLY bought the photocard I wanted! Fox smile Seungwoo 🦊💜 This was in my poca wishlist for SO LONG. It took me almost a year to find someone selling it locally so I'm super happy I got it!
September was the same. I didn't do much other than content creation. I had to take lots of pictures of my face. LOTS. I've been doing a lot of contact lens reviews recently, so I've had to take way more than usual. I really enjoy the doing my makeup and dressing up part of beauty content creation, but having to look at my face for so long while editing on a huge screen....I get a bit tired of seeing it sometimes LOL. But still, I love my face, so.
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Because the anime is coming out soon, I decided to pick up reading Blue Period where I left off. I knew that this series was heavy but reading it again felt like I was hit in the face with just how real everything is. The series focuses on Yatora, a student who becomes interested in art, and how he eventually falls deeply into it. (I'm bad at explaining plots without spoiling anything, sorry.) Yatora is the protagonist but the manga focuses on a lot of other characters as well, all with their own struggles as they try to find their way through art and life.
While the art in Blue Period is beautiful in itself, what I love most about it is that everything just feels very....genuine. The feelings of the characters are so real that you can't help but empathize with them. I'm not an art student but a lot of the things in the manga were so relatable. There were parts that resonated so strongly with that I had to stop reading because I was crying so much. I think I've cried more times reading this than any other manga. It's really good. I always recommend this to anyone who asks for manga recs. The anime is coming out on Netflix this week, so if you're interested, you can check that out first then give the manga a try if you liked it!
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To absolutely no one's surprise, I'm still neck-deep in Genshin hell. The new Inazuma patch arrived late in July, so I spent the last few months consuming everything. Inazuma is based on Japan, so a lot of the lore is based on Japanese folklore. One Inazuman World Quest had a story arc that involved kitsune and tanuki. As a lover of stories that involve youkai and similar supernatural beings, this was my favorite. I even teared up at the end 🥲
We also got a big update recently, with two new areas. I think this was the reason why I don't remember much of August and September, lol. It took me a while to get the hang of the new mechanisms and puzzles, but I managed to clear everything eventually! Surprisingly the one I ended up liking the most was a mechanism you needed to solve as if it were a sudoku puzzle. Guess I can't really hide my past as a science high school student, huh...
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I have this thing where I only ever watch stuff when I'm in the mood to actively watch something, so I very rarely do it. These days I've been watching Street Woman Fighter, but Mnet-produced survival show drama stresses me out so I usually wait for 3 or so episodes so I can watch them in one go (while skipping all the annoying parts). I initially watched it for Chaeyeon, but everyone's so good that it's fun to watch even though I don't know anything about dancing. Aian watched Squid Game recently, so I got to watch that as well. I watched it but my attention span was probably at 50%. After that happened in episode 6 my brain just kind of went /Windows logout noise/.
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The Boyz! I've probably mentioned this before, but after watching Road to Kingdom last year I became interested in TBZ as a group. After RtK I slowly learned everyone's names and faces. Their music is the type I like too, so it was easy to get into. Ultimately though, I got pulled into being a Deobi because of this video. I laughed so much while watching it that I ended up crying 😭 I watched more of their videos after that. They're so funny! They give me the same level of serotonin as Victon does, so I've come to love them a lot. My biases are Chanhee and Younghoon! (Somehow it's always two people for all the groups I stan...) Thrill Ride era was my first TBZ comeback as a Deobi, so I was super excited. It's such a refreshing song, too! I kept replaying it because it gave me energy while working. I like Dancing Til We Drop too. I love songs with a lot of energy. Like summer songs! It makes me feel like I'm receiving a lot of energy as well. That's why my On Repeat is mostly songs like that.
I've also been listening to Colde a lot these days. I listen to a lot of K-RnB, so of course I already knew about Colde, but me being the "my pace, best pace" person that I am, I only really checked out his discography recently. I like his idealism EP. All the songs are great, but Wolf is my favorite. The live clip for the song is really good too.
That's pretty much it, I think? Like I said, there isn't much you can do in the middle of a pandemic, other than keep yourself alive (in every sense of the word). October is my birth month, so I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can, even if my birthday does fall under Mercury retrograde. Always looking for bright spots, wherever and whenever.
Stay safe and healthy, friends 💜
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