2018.08.21 – 寝坊/oversleeping

Can’t sleep! Woke up to pee at 1am and now I’m having a hard time going back to sleep. My brain was torturing me so I picked up the phone I’ve put away from my bed, and started going through old LJ posts, again.

While I’m at it, here’s a rundown of my day today –

I slept for 16 hours.

Great way to spend a holiday, ey? I woke up around 4.30 pm already and had my only meal of the day (some leftover igadofrom yesterday’s lunch, and scrambled eggs). I’m not supposed to start fasting yet, but after last night’s unlimited samgyeopsal, it just didn’t feel right to eat anymore. HAHA. When will I ever reach my goal weight? This is getting depressing.

How sad does this meal look?

After I ate, I took a bath to get rid of the sleepiness (yeah, don’t ask), and then did some surfing on the computer. Watched some gaming videos, which made me want to buy Octopath Traveler, but I resisted because I just can’t. I have too much games lying around gathering dust! I tire so easily! Maybe I should also just quit gaming because it’s not really working out for me. Jk. I will pick them up one day. But not this week because boss of the boss of the boss is here and it will be hectic.

Which is why I need to go back to sleep. I have a very early morning planned for tomorrow/later. I want to wake up at 5:30, start early with work, and prepare for a dreaded meeting in the afternoon. Maybe I should bring a console with me around for my downtime. I’ll think about it.

I miss my old LJ friends. Where is everyone, now? I hope they’re all doing great. Not having sleepless nights like I am. I’ll try to put my phone away again.

おやすみ!

P.S. BTW, I watched Ep. 5 of Hana Nochi Hare tonight and I found myself screaming like an idiot at some of the scenes. I ship Haruto and Oto, too much! PLEASE LANG BE TOGETHER FOREVER. And I go crazy when Utada’s Hatsukoi starts playing the background, too.

2018.08.20 – Life thoughts

There’s not a lot of people at work because tomorrow’s a holiday, but there’s a lot of work on my plate that I chose to go to the office to get them done. I like working at the office when there’s not too many people – you sit down in front of your computer and the time just passes by without you noticing it. So yes, productive day, but still a lot more things to do for the week. August has been a bit of a struggle because I’m doing two roles at the same time. It’s not easy because I also have a lot of things I need to learn, and a lot of things I need to transition – but work does not pause in the background. That’s how transitions are, but personally, I like change. I like being able to move on to other things and learning and trying new things. So yes, I’m not complaining!

Anyhow, the day went by peacefully at work. Had dinner with Ivan, went home, and then had a second dinner of Unli-samgyeopsal with Ralph and Jingkay. Since it’s Jingkay’s last evening before going back to the US, and tomorrow is a holiday anyway, I said yes, even though my stomach and body didn’t want the extra calories. To my surprise, I still ate more than I should have – the samgyeopsal was really good. 🙁

Over second dinner, we talked about Jingkay’s hostel in Siargao – the struggles and conflicts she went through in chasing after her dream, and the feeling of seeing it becoming a reality in front of your eyes. I want that. I haven’t been chasing after any dream with full passion in the longest time. I miss that feeling of finding meaning in the work you’re doing. Until now, at age 33 (there I said it), I suprisingly still don’t know what my goal is in this life. Maybe I need to do some soul-searching to figure it out. Maybe it will come to me at the most unexpected moment. But I’m getting anxious about my future. What do I really want to achieve? What am I willing to sacrifice for my dreams?

So many questions, still. I hope to sort this out personally in the near future.

2018.08.19 – Teaberi, Rain, Chores

To summarize my Sunday, I woke up at around 11:30am, had lunch, some coffee, cleaned my room, got groceries, did the laundry. I am also in the process of resetting my laptop because something happened to the audio driver and for the life of me, I can’t fix it or get it to work. While waiting for it to finish (it has been resetting for like 2 hours now), I headed out to Teaberi for my favorite Green Tea Cheese Froth. It started to rain along the way so I’m basically stuck here for now.

Empty chairs and empty tables

Kidding, there are actually a lot of people here. But it would be better if there was someone to share drinks and conversations with on a rainy Sunday evening. Because there’s no one, here I am typing away on a journal no one else even reads. That’s OK, though, I guess I have been used to it. It’s super tempting to log-in Twitter or Instagram, but that’s not going to do me any good, for now. Might as well savor the loneliness.

2018.08.18 – Mahjong Saturday

I spent most of Saturday sleeping, nursing a hangover from Friday’s after-party. I woke up at around 3pm already. Prepared for dinner, then played mahjong from 8pm until 6am! #whut

2018.08.17 – MSC Year-end Party

It’s that once-a-year event when we get to dress up and party to celebrate the end of a fiscal year. This year, the venue was at Marquis Events Place, and we were asked to come in formal attire. The yearend party is also where awards are given to deserving teams and individuals for a job well done – yours truly not included. LOL. It’s still a lot of fun cheering for teammates and friends. It’s also an opportunity to hangout with old teammates and take photos.

And now, with the photo bombardment!

Formal-dehyde LOL

TeamPura!

With April

BP&A PE Team

My current team – A&C

MyPGS gangsters 1

MyPGS Gangsters 2

TCO represent!

With batchmate Kat (haha)

The highlight of every yearend party is the unlimited alcohol (it’s the biggest drinking event at work) and the band. This year we had MYMP. I felt that it wasn’t the right mood for the event, though. A more upbeat band would have made the party livelier. But that’s just my opinion!

Another thing to look forward to is the after-party. For this year, we joined the Expat Comp team at Agave for unlimited margarita! It was a fun drinking session because I woke up not remembering the last few hours of the evening. That’s a good sign right?

After-party with Expat Comp

Hoping next year I will actually be part of the awards HAHA. Let’s get it FY1819!!!

2018.08.16 – Lechon again

Before we talk about lechon, I have a question. Does the word business come from the state of being busy (e.g., busy-ness)?

It has been a very busy week at work for me, but I don’t really feel tired or stressed. It’s the good kind of hustle that I have been missing coming from a relatively relaxed role. I think quitting social media also helped because I’m more focused on what I’m doing, not getting envious of other people’s lives. Overall productivity is up and that feels good!

To the main topic, we were back again at Rico’s Lechon for dinner. The food tasted a lot better this time! The Lechon served to us was more juicy, more fatty, more spicy, and my mouth is salivating right now while typing this. Last time, Zubuchon BGC was the clear winner for me in the battle of best lechon in BGC, but now, I can’t say that anymore. I need to eat in Zubuchon again, soon!

Close up look at spicy lechon — Close up look

Cebu's famous Ngohiong! — Cebu’s famous Ngohiong!

They finally had ngohiong available for order! Had one slice just to satisfy my craving. The taste definitely took me back to Cebu!

After dinner, we went to SM Aura to get some suits for tomorrow’s formal event at work. It was an expense I did not see coming but I know I need a proper suit for future occasions as well, so I just bought it. No photos for now, I’ll post them from tomorrow’s event in tomorrow’s post! Bye for now!

2018.08.15 – Birthday surprise fail (?)

I woke up with a bit of hangover from the night before. I was initially planning on working from home, but I found out that the team was planning for a late birthday surprise, so I went to the office instead!

It’s funny how I found out about it. Our new hire just had his birthday last Sunday so it was supposed to be his surprise. My friend asked me if I would come in for that, and I did not get an invite for a birthday celebration, so I said I would think about it. Then – a fake meeting invite from my manager arrived inviting me and our new hire to a triad. For your info, this new hire (Bryan) is my replacement so I am currently transitioning my work to him. The fake meeting’s agenda was to discuss the status of the transition.

Since I did not know that there would be a surprise, I received an invite for a triad on the same time, and, I did not get a cake from my team last month (my birthday was more than a month ago) – I put two and two together and figured out that they’d be surprising me, too! Long story short, I went to the office and played along. Haha.

I told my friend (who ruined the surprise for me – name, Joseph) that it would be hard to fake a surprised expression! Still, I was filled with joy when they barged into the room with cakes and a song. I appreciate the warm greetings and the “love” (LOL) my team and friends showed me today! Thank you guys and may we have more fun moments together!

A&C team, missing Joseph haha

With MyPGS Gangsters!

Fake candle blow for Boomerang!

Coffee break tomorrow, please! 🙂

2018.08.14 – College mode

So, I went out with my college friends yesterday. PJ is in town from Cebu (and on his last night), so we went out for our traditional “wanbotts” which is always never just one bottle!

Our first stop was dinner at Big Mama (again)!

Before stuffing ourselves with food and drinks

Big Mama Fried Spicy Chicken, so good!

After Big Mama, we went to The Social. It’s a cool, hipster-vibe drinking place in Poblacion made of trailer vans converted into shops and seats on top.

Tuesday crowd

Pick your poison

Settled for a shot of Bacardi, with Coke Zero

I texted Ryan since he’s also in town, and he was just in Makati, too! So we invited him and Tau Gamma (pun for Tawng Gamay – small person) is complete.

Tau Gamma LOL

I had three bottles of this (the horror!)

The Social, in case you want to check it out, is along Ebro Street in Poblacion Makati. It’s right across Señor Pollo and right beside Kite – so it’s hard to miss when it’s open! Price for hard drinks is a bit high, but a bucket of beer (6 bottles) is just 360 pesos! This is why I was “forced” to drink beer! Haha.

See you there, rawr!

We wanted to look for somewhere cheaper because we wanted to drink more and catch up with each other’s lives. So our next stop was Wide Eye Grill, formerly known as Kuwago’s, right near the house. To our surprise, the drinks weren’t also cheap! I mean, yes, it’s good you can buy a bottle of rum for 600 pesos….but Tanduay 5 years??! That’s only 120 pesos in 7-eleven! Chicharon Bulaklak was at 275 pesos, too…and only 2 pieces in an order.

Mhealler caught up (after so much palugit) and did nothing buy complain at the price of things. When can we ever just enjoy and not think about money? Haha.

Talk about overpricing

The complete cast

After a couple of shots, everyone was hungry, and we didn’t want to order overpriced, low quality food – so I took them to my favorite neighborhood food place, Gab’s Good Grub! They were all amazed at how cheap and yet tasty their food is!

No more photos here, though, because I ran out of battery. We ended at around 2AM. I felt like a college student all over again – just hanging out with my drinking buddies until early morning! I wish we could do this more often!

Peace out!

Quitting Social Media – 5 Days After

It’s only been 5 days after I “quit” social media and it hasn’t been easy! I keep looking at my phone in disappointment that there’s nothing to check. Good thing I still have YouTube left, so I’ve been watching motivational videos lately to help me get back on track with my goals. True enough, I have accomplished a few things in the last 5 days that I otherwise would have procrastinated on.

Went back to blogging regularly

I mean “blogging” the way it used to be for me, over at LiveJournal! To be honest, I’m still torn about dividing my attention between two blogs – and will probably just end up merging it into one. I just feel a lot more comfortable at LiveJournal because the things I post feel private, even they aren’t really (the posts are also public). I guess it’s the nostalgia factor, like how talkative one gets when talking to an old friend. Since I don’t have Twitter or Instagram to update friends on what I’m doing, I’m posting my daily journal over there and in case you want to check it out – here’s the link: http://jekert.livejournal.com. I do have a Journal section over here as well so I might just cross-post it, or just decide on one – I need to make up my mind soon!

Cleaned up my kitchen

Inspired by this Japanese guy on YouTube (Ryoya Takashima of Peaceful Cuisine), I wanted to reconfigure my kitchen without spending any money. I wanted it to feel more spacious, more refreshing – so I moved around some furniture and was pleased with the result!

It’s a shame I didn’t take a photo of the “before” set-up. I just worked on the urge to rearrange the kitchen before it disappeared! I will eventually have to spend some money to get rags, maybe add some lighting under the pantry cabinet, and as the brother suggested, some (fake) plants on top? We’ll see!

Finished a Japanese Drama

Finally had time to finish a series in one sitting. It’s called Switched and it’s on Netflix in case you are interested. Although to be fair, this only had 6 episodes so it’s shorter than most Japanese series. I thoroughly enjoyed this because I missed watching high school-themed Japanese series and this had enough suspense to not make it boring. Also, seeing the new generation of Japanese actors/actresses made me feel a bit old, but proud! Their Senpais would have been relieved to hand down the responsibility of quality Jdrama to them. (What am I saying)

My favorite line/lesson from the series is when Ayumi says “You only need one person who sees you, to take you out from the darkness into the light”. I like how that is phrased, and it is true. The series touches a lot of controversial realities such as bullying, depression and suicide. And that all of these can be overcome with the help of just one person who sees you and appreciates you for who or what you are!

Just the beginning

I will take these small accomplishments and pat myself on the back for it. Note that I was also recovering from gout in this duration! I could have spend the entire time on social media, but I didn’t and I am proud of myself! I have also been bugging my friends on Viber/messenger more because it can really get boring! There’s always a need to connect and I’m thankful social media and blogging makes that possible for everyone. The thing I really just wanted to eliminate with this exercise is the excessive use of social media that hampers productivity, causes depression and anxiety and also the stress from toxic people/posts.

So far, so good! Please keep in touch with me by supporting my blogs and commenting! Haha! It has been raining like crazy here in Manila this weekend. I hope all of you are dry and safe wherever you are. 🙂

2018.08.12 – Part 2 – Welcome back Jingkay!

After I got home from playing Pokemon Go, I had a couple of hours to kill before Jingkay arrives from the US. We planned to have a mini reunion dinner before she leaves for Siargao the day after. Because I don’t have social media (FB, IG and Twitter) to kill time with, I decided to be more productive by reconfiguring my kitchen. I was inspired by a video on YouTube and decided to fix my cluttered kitchen and make it more minimalistic.

I did not get to take a photo of how it looks like before but here’s the final set-up of my kitchen (for now).

Less clutter in sight! Moved the refrigerator to the side so I can have more space for my dining table.

After an hour of fixing my kitchen, Jingkay finally arrived and we headed out to Big Mama for dinner. Big Mama is the best place to get Korean fried chicken in Manila, IMO.

Best fried chicken!!!

Our only group photo for the night – sorry Ton (he arrived late haha)

Samgyeopsal and side dishes

After dinner, and a lot of catching up, we decided to go for a few drinks at a nearby bar. We ended up at Alamat because Tambai was closed.

Digging the interiors as well as this neon sign

Not as crowded on a Sunday night

We spent maybe two hours here, one bottle turned into several drinks! I don’t really get to drink outside with friends anymore because of my diet, but I made an exception tonight and I had fun. Just talking with friends over alcohol is just the re-“charging” I needed for the week ahead. (Pun intended on the “charging”, an internal joke from tonight). Also, don’t worry because I had a Keto-friendly drink, rum & Coke Zero.

We had to leave at around 1:30AM because they were closing for a pest control, which is just right considering it’s a Monday tomorrow – we had work and Jingkay had a 10AM flight to catch.

All in all, it was a fun evening! I can’t say I’m really ready for another work week, but I’ll sure be looking forward to the next opportunity for drinks and fun conversations with friends!

O-ya-su-mi!