HOW I MAKE TIME DOING WHAT I LOVE

HOW I MAKE TIME DOING WHAT I LOVE

Friday, January 31, 2020

For someone who works 8 hours a day and 6 days a week with a travel time of almost 3 hours back and forth everyday, how can one find the time to do hobbies and other creative outlets?

Slowly, in the past year, I was able to re-insert myself into the world of reading but wasn't able to fully immerse back into the writing and blogging (reviewing books) world. I was also able to take videos and compile them which, to my surprise, I enjoyed so much.

By the last half of 2019, I was able to turn myself around and do a lot of things that made me happy. Video editing (a little vlogging), reading, singing (doing covers), blogging, and kind'a journaling. Seems like a lot for a person who only have a day off per week, right? But looking back, it seems like I made a progress doing what I love in slow bits rather than doing everything at once, which is what I do since I am impatient, which I still am, but I'm slowly working on that one.

Here are the takes from my past and plans for my future and present little 'kinda' passion projects.

1.  READING AND REVIEWING

I love reading for a lot of reasons - past-time, learning cultures, looking back into past, love for words, etc. - and somehow, everytime I finish reading a good or even a not so good book, I have a lot of bottled up emotions that needs to get out  there. That was the reason why I write. I feel like writing things down and creating something and just seeing the outcome is my own form of happy pill.

I have a review blog that has been neglected for a year now but I still continued reviewing the books I read. Some of the reviews were on my phone and unfinished that was why I wasn't able to publish any last year, not even one.

My plan to resolve this, since I've always wanted to look back on what I felt when I read a certain book, is to have a collective review and/or make recommendation lists. I feel like I have to make it collective because sometimes I feel tired by venting out everything and I didn't know how to wrap everything up, that's why I wasn't able to finish any reviews for a while now. They were all bits and pieces of my emotions. Looooooong fragments.

This is what I'll do:

• Read whenever.

• Do collective review and fun lists.

• I'll post the single reviews on my old book blog and post the collectives on this blog, which I've decided to be about everything I love, including my life.

• Try making an outline of what should be included in the review if ever I decide to post a single review.

2. BLOGGING AND JOURNALING

This is separate and different from the book blogging because this would include life bits and mind pieces. I created a new blog late last year, which is this blog, where I can share my travels and decided that it would be my new creative outlet. I've decided to write down everything I love, just as I mentioned, and it involves everything from reading to writing to watching to traveling to eating to just about anything.

I remembered telling myself, "you somehow endure working for 6 days a week, barely having any time to rest and have a repose yet you will restrict yourself on the things that you wanted to experience?",  and that's the reason why every once in a while, I travel, meet up with friends, and eat out. This would be one of the motivation I could use to write on my blog and put something on my journal. Remind myself to never miss a memory!

This is what I'll do:

• Go out and explore. 

• Take out my camera more often and just snap good photos.

• Actually print out photos for the journal. hehe

• Take note of the when and  the where. Collect the tickets, save the stubs, get everything that can be stamped on a paper and just create!

• Follow aesthetic blogs with great contents for motivation and inspiration.

• Take it to pinterest to see beautiful journals.

3. KINDA VLOGGING & VIDEO EDITING

I love traveling, and for some reason, photographs are not enough for me to commemorate my experiences. I want to relive what I did through videos. Ever since I was in college, I've always wanted to capture special moments but I didn't compile them in a full video that's why a lot of those videos are nowhere to be found (I'm not good at organizing files). In the present time, I've devoted myself into compiling clips (some old, some new) into videos that I upload on youtube so I won't ever lose any moving memories ever again. To add into that, I've also made time to write some of those memories in this blog as well. Here's where some photos will go and where some of my experiences will be cemented and written for the interested people to read anytime.

Video editing is not easy and it takes up too much time but I realized that I was enjoying the creative process of video editing. Oh my, I don't have a good eye with creating aesthetic stuff but I am a creative spirit and I'm not giving up on that. 

Every Sunday (my rest day), if I wake up with motivation, I usually fire up the laptop along with my coffee and whatever food there may be, and try to edit some clips until I get tired of doing it. I only intend to finish a project when I'm excited to show my friends what I was up to. I don't ususally beat myself to a pulp just to finish a video because doing so would put me in a loooooong demotivated state. I have two separate mantra-like when I feel motivated and demotivated:

Motivated: "Even if no one watches your videos, one day you'll look back and laugh at all the shenanigans of your life episodes captured on 'tape'"

Demotivated: "No one is waiting for your vlog (except for friends), so you can upload anytime so just do it at your own pace. What you enjoy doing don't have to look like it's work."

This is what I'll do:

• Take more videos. Try to talk on videos. hehe.

• Don't push too hard on days when being a couch potato is a better idea.

• Travel more.

4. DOING COVERS & ACTUALLY LET PEOPLE HEAR IT.

I really love singing even when singing sometimes doesn't love me. Ever since I was in highschool, I would do covers using a computer's recorder then I moved on to using a phone recorder then recording inside the bathroom for that reverb effect.

I started posting my covers on soundcloud for a long time until I tried uploading clips on instagram then on youtube. By the time I was able to acquire a condenser microphone, I stopped posting on soundcloud and did not post anything anywhere at all, then started to post on IGTV and then on youtube. I wanted to have a video cover but for a long time, I can only ever have the courage to post audio only videos on youtube and IGTV. Maybe this year I'll get to try that and overcome my fear of judgement. I mean, everybody's gonna do it anyway, since youtube is a big thing now, right?

What I would do to create more covers is to list down songs I can actually sing well, try filming myself while singing, and have the guts to let people see and hear me sing. Don't judge me, don't judge me :(

For the last half of last year up to the past days, I was able to make these:

(｡◕‿◕｡)➜    4 BLOG POSTS!!!!

╰( ･ ᗜ ･ )➝ 11 YOUTUBE VIDEOS!!!

    (*❛‿❛)→     2 AUDIO COVERS ON YT & 3 ON IGTV

<(￣︶￣)↗   JOURNAL IS DECENT. HAHA

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Taking time to do what you love shouldn't be a matter of finding the right time. The right time can be found in between the crevices of a busy day. Read during breaks and before bed, watch movies/series before dinner and while on the way to work, edit videos or do covers during rest days and holidays or journal during mini breaks at work. That's how I usually do it. That's how I manage to do what I am passionate about even when my week is approximately composed of 72 hours at work and at most 56 hours asleep (I don't know where the other hours went, don't question my math!).

Overall, I think the only way to get through a year and look back with big progress is to be happy with slow steps. I didn't even kow that I can look back on so much because I didn't care about the quantity at that time, I just went and write and read and edit and all that stuff. I promised myself not to give myself deadlines as if it is a work that I would be submitting. It's for myself and not for others and when I thought about it that way, I felt no pressure, just contentment that I was able to create then I'm off to my next great venture.

MY YEAR IN BOOK PAGES (2019)

MY YEAR IN BOOK PAGES (2019)

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

(Note: It's been weeks and I know this is soo late but I still have to post this so I can look back on my 2019 faves!)

According to a good and reliable tracker called Goodreads, I was able to collectively read a good Seven thousand a hundred and five pages across twenty three books this year. Can you believe that? It has been many years since I have completed a goodreads reading challenge. I have learned from the past years that 50 books would just be ambitious for me and I would never ever in my lifetime be able to fulfill that 50 books in a span of a year, that's why for the past year, I lowered my challenge number and yay! I made it! I read 23 out of the 20 books that I was expecting myself to read for the year. This calls for a celebratory post here so I am starting the year by looking back on the books that I have read in the year 2019.

Last year, I got a Kindle and I was broke the whole year because your ghorl is so lakwatsera that's why most of the books I've read don't have a physical copy. As much as I wanted to grow my mini library in my room, they just have to stay small for now until I can be a rich bookworm who has a capacity to buy expensive books anytime and anywhere.

In the year 2019, I had a lot of surprise reads — books that I never thought I would read, ever. Last year has been a great year of representation from all sorts of books ranging from YA to historical fiction to adult, and I can say that what surprises me most is that I've read some of those sorts. Plus, I've read non-fiction! :D

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These first books are notable but not notable enough for me to remember how I felt when I was reading them. I don't have any reviews that's why I can't recall my feelings, so I'll just list them down. These were the books that I remembered I  loved at that moment but are buried already somewhere in my mind now. 

H O N O R A B L E  M E N T I O N S

WITH THE FIRE ON HIGH

A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE

THRONE OF GLASS

THE NEXT PERSON YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE

THE HATE U GIVE

S E R I E S

VILLAINS SERIES

This series had my focus from start to finish. It showed another side of the fairy tale, and it blew me away. The interweaving stories of these famous villains were so interesting that I even mourn the deaths of some of them. They weren't villains for no reason so it was interesting to know the backstory without the boring bits of just retelling it the way we already know them. I mean, these stories are etched in our hearts and minds and just retelling it again and again without bringing something new is just redundant and not needed anymore, but the Villains series surpassed every prejudice I have of it.

F I C T I O N

VERITY

This is my best read of 2019! This is the book that I would recommend over and over and over again to anyone who asks me for a book to read! Colleen Hoover shifted genre and I devoured it. I know I'm a big fan of CoHo but I never thought I could praise her writing even more! Some authors try a different genre and fail but my CoHo didn't fail in this one.

THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO

Evelyn. Evelyn. You surprise me. I went into this book blind. I know nothing except that Evelyn had 7 husbands, as the title had already suggested it, duh! That was it! I never knew that it would turn out to be an LGBT story, which, honestly is not my cup of tea, but I can say that it was surprisingly good. The old hollywood glamour was the reason I was engrossed and captured. Reading some bits about its inspiration, Evelyn Hugo was loosely based on Elizabeth Taylor, who married 8 times, and Ava Gardner, who revealed the secrets of her life to a journalist (I am going to read this book some other time: Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations).

DAISY JONES & THE SIX

Another great read from Taylor Jenkins Reid. I think she's really good at coating her stories with nostalgia, blanketing her readers with a reminiscent feeling even when they've never been a part of that history at all. Both Seven Husbands and Daisy Jones have perfectly captured this feeling. I wasn't born in the  60s but I felt all the high and low emotions that was the entire book. One of my great reads of 2019!

THE SECRETS WE KEPT

There's always this feeling I get when I read historical fiction, but what made The Secrets We Kept so engrossing is the history it represents. Author, Lara Prescott, based her story on true CIA files regarding the smuggling of Doctor Zhivago back to Russia and she fill in the blanks where she could inject fiction and it blended in really well. It feels like its real. It's not just based on what happened in history but the history she used was recorded and files, and the book told a story that was heart shattering-ly beautiful.

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING

Where the Crawdads Sing is somewhat a coming of age story infused with a sad portrayal of isolation and what it does to a person. It was a looong read but it was worth it. Delia Owens painted the surroundings in my head and it was so vivid even when I don't know what a bog looks like! I felt like I was painting my own version of the marshlands with the help of her words. I kinda searched it afterwards, though, because I really have no idea but they'e a bit the same, it's just that the picture in my head is only a small one compared to how it actually is.

N O N - F I C T I O N

THE HAPPINESS EQUATION

I've never been a sad person. I get sad, of course (who doesn't?), but I always want happiness wherever I go. This book made me realize that the equation to happiness wasn't a stranger to me. I've been doing secret #1 for so long now and secret #2 is what I'm trying to teach myself but haven't perfected yet. Please please know these secrets. They may be simple and may be a truth universally acknowledged but it's not something that can be embraced fully without wanting it to. We hear these secrets most of the time but we are too caught up with the world and chasing happiness with things and success and all that when we should've been listening.

okay, I'll give you the secret:

#1. Be Happy First. I wasn't expecting the meaning of Be Happy First but damn, when he put it that way, it made actual sense!

#2. Do it for you. Who else are we gonna do it for? Easy to say, but if we are frank with each other, we do it for others most of the time, right?

#3. Remember the Lottery. It's much easier to understand if you read the book.

#4. Just Do It. It's hard and it gets harder and harder to think of it, to think of what others might say, so my mantra for the year is just do it.

#5. Be Yourself. It's not easy for everyone. Maybe sometimes I want to be like someone else, but it's tiring trying to create something out of yourself when there's already something there that doesn't need an energy to be created! The natural one, yourself! 

I'D RATHER BE READING

Her essays spoke to me and I think it's how all bookworms felt while reading the book. It felt like I could've written it because everything is so on point, so it just means that the writer is a reader at heart and understands what it means to be a reader.

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Finally!!! I thought I would never finish this post! That's all about My Year in Books! ❤️

A YEAR MEASURED IN LOVE IS A YEAR WORTH LOOKING BACK ON

A YEAR MEASURED IN LOVE IS A YEAR WORTH LOOKING BACK ON

Friday, January 3, 2020

I saw this post on facebook saying how do you measure a year. In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In inches? In laughters? Or in strife? I guess it's a collective experiences of everything within the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year that had ended. 

It's the third day of the year 2020.

I'm at home, on leave, no work (YET), and on the best time to look back on every ups and downs that had transpired on the last year. I can't say that 2019 is my best year but it was the year of collecting myself from the super down 2017 and 2018, so it was a happy year. A year of new experiences and a year of happiness, so I look forward to 2020 with a smiling heart and ready to take on new planned and unplanned adventures and experiences.

A LOOK BACK ON THE YEAR THAT WAS

YEAR MEASURED WITH FRIENDS

Small or big gatherings are immeasurable with the seven constants of my present and future. It doesn't matter where or how we spend our time together, for it will always be a day well spent if I spend it with them (ICHIWITI: wow kung mababasa nyo to, wag kayo umiyak hahahaha).

2019 is the year where we were all called for in the work force, thus making it impossible for all of us to be in the same place at the same time at once. Thankfully the start of our 2019 made it possible for us to do just that (well, except for Pau who is in Korea), and since it's Amir's birthday month, it should be a well known fact that we should visit him in his turf, and so for the first episode of the year, we went to Pampanga and visited the Air Force, Nayong Pilipino, and Picnic Grove.

Come March onwards, except for August, we had the movie theaters to go to and MOA (and other malls) to roam around in. Here's an outline of the simple mall things that I did in the past year:

MARCH 23: GIRLS' DAY OUT with Dane and Kaykay a day before my birthday. We watched Five Feet Apart.

MARCH 29: AFTER-WORK MOVIE DATE with Dane and Jobie. We watched Eerie. SOOOO EERIEE!!

APRIL 9: SAMBOKOJIN and MALL HOPPING (MOA - SM Southmall - Evia)

MAY 1: AVENGERS cinema hunting last labor day holidayyy! Dane, Kay, Jobie, Amir, and I ended up finding available seats at Resorts World. It was my first time in a Casino. Bad Influ talaga mga friends ko. char.

JUNE 12: ALADDIN with Dane, Kay, Jobie, Amir and Ken. Samgyup samgyup at Sumo Niku and Bingsu at..... I forgot where, but somewhere in MOA.

JULY 7: ANOTHER GIRLS DATE in MOA again. 

NOVEMBER 30: LAST MOVIE OF THE YEAR. Watched FROZEN 2 at SM San Lazaro.

The following are not movie dates...

OCTOBER 13: We had a house blessing but we are incomplete... because, duh? hahahhaa. 

AUGUST 17-19: Lastly.... The highlight of the year with ICHIWITI was the first time in 2019 that WE.ARE.COMPLETE! All eight of us, can you believe that?? Oh well, since it's Pau's vacation, we had to plan something, so we went to Tanay Rizal and had the best adventure we never thought we would ever do! We were in a freaking cave and trekked and crossed rivers and those kind of stuff. I was telling my parents what we did that day and told me that if they knew that that was what we did, they would have never allowed me. HAHAHA

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Other things that happened this year with other friends:

FEBRUARY 2-3: La Union with the dormie friends. La-la-love surfing! When can I come back to LU?

MARCH 5: Joyce's Wedding.

YEAR MEASURED WITH FAMILY

By mid-year, I started planning trips with my family. My father only wants to go outing in Batangas so most of this trips are only around the area, but mind you, the first trip we had is not in Batangas but at the edge of the North! (These are also notable things that happened this year)

APRIL 18-20: We went to Palaui in Sta. Ana, Cagayan! Hello road trip, and hello sunburn!

AUGUST 9-10: We went to Club Balai Isabel on a stormy day, but despite that, we had a beautiful loft and we enjoyed swimming on the big swimming pools.

AUGUST 7, we bought a new house because the environment in our old one is getting more and more toxic by the day. We were officially at home on OCTOBER 6, and had our house blessing on the 13th.

DECEMBER 1: We went to watch a polo game in Batangas. It was my first time watching polo that I was researching on that day as to how the game works. All I know is that there are horses and they need to "hockey" while on a horse. Guys, it looks like a hockey game with horses! Oh, and there's the prince of Brunei too.

DECEMBER 24: Christmas Eve with the extended fambam.

DECEMBER 26-27: Went to Anilao Awari  Bay. Pricey but instagrammable. Food's not worth the money. We enjoyed the scenery nonetheless.

DECEMBER 31: New Year's Eve, again, with the extended fambam!

YEAR MEASURED WITH MY LOVE

This was the year that we spent both birthdays apart. Spent the 9th year anniversary apart. Spent valentines miles and miles apart, and other things apart. Despite all that, we each spent fun times together that would amount to a year even if it's just for a few days.

MAY 26-JUNE 1: Week well spent in Tokyo, Japan. Tiring but fun. It was my first out of the country with Revan. We have chaperones, though. I was with my cousin and sister. IT.WAS.MY.YEAR'S.HIGHLIGHT!

OCTOBER 27: Since, Revan's just here for a week and we weren't able to plan anything and the Van Gogh Alive was already sold out, we just went ahead to Dessert and Lakbay Museo. It was a great place to wander around in a day. Lakbay Museo was my favorite. Dessert Museum is just okay for me.

OCTOBER 29 and 30: Ate at Ningnangan with Revan's family then the next day, with my family.

OCTOBER 31: Visited Baby Aqui and Joyce.

Those were everything that I did in the last year, maybe I forgot the minor details but these were surely the best ones that I will be forgetting for the next days that's why I noted them down. I hope 2020 will be filled with more of these notable feats worth writing about.

FRIENDS FAMILY LOVE

DAY04: Odaiba

DAY04: Odaiba

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Continuing on to the last leg of our Tokyo 2019 trip, we went to Odaiba. On what was supposed to be the highlight and most looked forward to, which is the Teamlab Borderless, became a walkathon and unexpected shopping galore. What a sad moment for all of us including our pockets. I am really sorry for all the hurt this may have caused my companions. 😭

On our last day, we were kind of lax and we just took our time taking a bath and all that stuff, since our itinerary for the day is just around Odaiba - the Gundam statue, Teamlab Borderless, and more outlet stores to name few.

Before heading to Odaiba, we wanted to splurge on the last day and eat on a legit Yakiniku restaurant. It's called Yakiniku Fukuju and it's a really nice and romantic atmosphere to it.

We roamed around Venus Fort first and we were so sidetracked by shopping (almost everything was half priced!!) that we didn't notice that the time had already gone by so quickly. We  booked tickets to TeamLab Borderless in advance on their website and failed to research thoroughly on its closing time. I tried searching it and it said 9PM. To our surprise, we were there 7 or 7:30 on the dot and hello, surprise surprise! The last batch were already heading out. Ridiculous. For a moment there I thought they were never going to speak to me again. What a sad sad day.

To relieve the tension, we searched for other things  we could do around the area and the internet lead us to the Takoyaki Museum. It's a small "takoyaki food park" inside a mall and it has lots of takoyaki trinkets and other stuff. I never really liked Takoyaki before because all the least priced ones here in PH are veggie tako and *vomits* its existence was the whole reason why I never ate tako before this. To my surprise, though, I was introduced to a whole other world of 'not-a-veggie-takoyaki' and it changed me. It changed the way I see this food. Before, every tako I come across would automatically be eww even if the tentacles are already coming out of it. After eating a legit Japanese Takoyaki, I never viewed them as same species ever again.

Lastly, another last minute thing that happened (why did we do everything at the last minute??) is the unicorn gundam. We were around the area at around 8:45 or so and we were taking pictures then suddenly it moved. I tried taking a video of it and everything was happening real fast and to my surprise, I wasn't able to capture the transformation because my phone was on front cam the whole time. That transformation was the last one for the night and the lights were turned off after that.

We did everything last minute so we were able to do or rather not do the things we were supposed to do on time. Wow girl, next time, plan carefully.