Turning 23

Today is the day after my birthday. I basically celebrated a three-day birthday here in Canada. I celebrated a day earlier because my birthday comes first in the Philippines then the next day as my current birthday then today as the last day where everyone thinks it’s still my birthday. Joe kept pampering me. She gave me a cake earlier. SO SWEET! Also, it was her turn to treat me a Starbucks coffee and she fed me lunch. Hahaha. We’re sisters pala. Someone told us the other day when we were at the museum for my birthday. A guard, actually a fellow Filipino, asked us if we were siblings. We were shocked to know we have resemblance haha! Oh well. Life’s fun as hell with her. Glad I get to spend my 2 years studying with this crazy.

Anyway, I just turned 23. I feel hmmmm old? Not yet, really. It hasn’t dawned on me yet.😛 I don’t think 23 is that old, except maybe sometimes I feel as though I’m really old already because I’m not even sure what I’m doing with my life. And it seems like other people have it all figured out. But do they, really?

As I get old, I learn to be bolder and go for the things that make me happy. Every day I get to realize the things and people that matter and that way I’m able to work that relationship more for a stronger future with them diba. These recent events make me also realize how lucky I am. Even though studying isn’t something that I’m very thrilled to be back in my life, just thinking about what I have and what others don’t, make me appreciate it now. And now, I’m starting to get the groove of everything. There are lesser ungrateful things coming out of my mouth instead, more appreciation of what I have is what I practice every day.

To being 23, to being able to come this far, to being able to survive shitload of crap since I was born, to being able to stand up and cry and laugh after bad encounters, here I am writing this to myself. Most importantly, to being the person I am now, to being the clueless girl yet continues to find the answer to every little thing that confuses me, to being the weirdest girl I can be, to being the most sweetest daughter to my parents—I try, okay—, Happy Birthday, self! 🙂

looking forward to more birthdays hunney,

Glaire

June Baby

In the midst of busy schedules and hundreds of homework given, I still have the luxury to space out and feel crazy stupid happy for every once in a while now. It’s nice to feel appreciated and loved by the people around us, right? It’s that season in my life again where every love song makes sense and makes me smile like crazy.

I never thought it’d come to me. But really, who ever expects love to come their way? So, this is what people feel like when they are deeply infatuated with someone. I feel like everything is possible and everything is under my spell, ya know what I mean?—you probably won’t know what I’m talking about! But yeah, I’m probably going to talk about things I can only relate from now on. Hihi.

Anyway, midterm one is finally over! I can take a little breather now. And guys, my birthday is coming up next week. I am so excited. I’m probably the only adult who loves celebrating birthdays. I love getting old, but my mom told me I would be saying otherwise when I turned in my late 20’s. Oh well, we’ll see about that! Joe and I plan to get to the city and explore it a little bit with the bad weather. We originally planned to hike, but due to the bad weather forecast on that day, we’ll just see what the Great Vancity has to offer to this birthday girl.

How is everyone doing these days? I hope you’re feeling inspired and happy like me!

xoxo,

Merry Christmas 🎄

Merry Christmas! Honestly, this day couldn’t get any more ordinary than our usual day. But it’s nice to be alive and feel the magic in the air where people who you haven’t talked in a while drops a greeting on your Messenger, ampao from Santa Claus and foods at Noche Buena that are quite enough to last for a month. Not much any positivity to share right now. So you guys have a merry christmas and enjoy the holidays with the fambam.

xoxo,

happy kiddo ^__^

I’m proud and earning. LOL. It’s not much but it’s definitely making me want to wake up early every morning. It’s like, finally! Looking forward to a work that I definitely enjoy. Hehe. I’m a blessed kid. I just am.

I can’t wait to see my brother later. He’s coming home with us to celebrate the holidays. I can feel mother’s excitement this far.

Alrighty. Talk to you guys tomorrow.

❤

‘Tis The Season For Love ❤

5 more days until the hanging of stockings. I wish my Santa won’t be cheap this year. Hahaha I am just dropping by. I decided that I will be leaving a little realization every day until Christmas to talk about my learnings or just what I feel about. Also, taking a little bit break from all the work and stuff.

With the recent events, I’ve never been happy, motivated and excited in a very long time. I just wish that everyone is feeling the same thing that I do especially it’s Christmas season. No matter how cliché that sounds, ’tis the season for love, and we should all try to at least be happy and welcome the New Year with a good vibe. I know I wouldn’t have said it 3 years ago when I was feeling miserable and empty, but now I’m just very grateful it happened. It wasn’t exactly what I had been picturing when I was a kid on how I would be as an adult. It’s true, it has been a little bit bumpy on my journey—hell, most of the times, I was and still am just confused as to whether take a left or right—but no one ever claimed that life is a no-brainer. So there you go. I’m clinging to life as much as possible and making the most out of it. Haha I mean, I don’t know about making the most out of it for now. But I am at peace—at the moment, I guess—and I know a lot of people don’t have that, so I’m thankful.

Arigatou.

Ho Ho Ho,

The Script in Manila

This post should have been made a month ago! I can’t believe how my life got so much hectic and drama these past few weeks that I forgot to share this major event happening. THE SCRIPT is coming in Manila in April 2018. The perfect time before I fly out of the country for good. I can’t think of a better last month ender here in the Philippines.

But the thing is, I can’t attend. Hahaha. As much as I BADLY want to, I can’t afford it really. I have already used my Christmas gift from my mom—and yes, it’s not even Christmas yet lol—and I’m sure my dad won’t be as generous as to give me money for some boy band. I mean, besides that no one really is willing to attend it with me. My friends are either not a die-hard fan or just didn’t care! *faints* Don’t worry, I may have long prepared myself to be calm and not be disappointed regarding this things. After all, there are worse thing than not being able to attend to one of my dream concerts. I have like major three dream concerts that I want to attend to ever since and The Script is one of them. This is so heartbreaking more than anything. It’s not even 2018 and I’m already dreading something for next year!

Oh well, life just gets more exciting and exciting for me. No, really. Despite how disappointed I may seem, it’s just a concert. I actually want to attend their concert in their homeland which is my dream country too. So, if this one isn’t meant for me maybe I should just stick and wait for my original plan to happen.

Catching Up With Old Friends

Yesterday was one of those days when I usually wake up late, work out and binge watch movies. So I decided to hit up my friends invite them for dinner or late night coffee. It was kind of spontaneous and I’m glad we were complete last night. We went to a restaurant where there was a nice view of the surroundings, chatted up a bit self update and a little more girl gossips. Last night was a very familiar and homey feeling with the girls. I hope to do more of these.

10.31.17

Rainy Day On A Tuesday

😭 I love days like this.

Last day of the month of October! Time is running to fast, don’t you think so?!

Today is the start of the three non-working holiday for the celebration of All Souls and All Saints Day. There’s no other perfect way to spend the first day of this holiday with a gloomy weather. I imagine people waking up to the sound of the rain with their messy hairs and a cup of coffee in their hand. It just feels so peaceful today. I can’t describe my love for the rain.

See, I was craving for Takoyaki so I decided to bring my siblings to my favorite Takoyaki place. We drove even though it was raining cats and dogs! My brothers are headed to my dad’s place anyway, so we had to eat first and they had to drop me off again. After my craving was satisfied, I didn’t exactly plan to stay in bed and sleep the day ’cause I wanted this day to be productive sort of, so I decided to play piano and master a piece. The last piece I memorized was the song Only Hope by Mandy Moore. I remember my two brothers got interested in playing piano because of that song. Ever since, they can’t stop playing piano and now they play it better than I do. But after a while, my fingers were feeling pretty sore already so I stopped.

It is already 1pm in the afternoon and I feel like the clock is ticking so fast. Probably because I’ve been busy up until I stopped playing the piano. What to do next now? I was thinking I could redesigned my whole blog. Or I could write on my diary notebook. Or maybe just watch a movie on Netflix but that would be ruining my productive day.

Tomorrow, my family and I will be heading to my grandma’s place to celebrate the holiday. Besides, all our loved ones were buried in that place so it’s just right to be there.

It’s so nice having this kind of weather, you know! It makes me feel kinds of sentiments. Or maybe…now that I think about it, the cuddle weather has come! I wish there was someone to cuddle with. Just kidding, my Pooh bear is enough to keep me company. But yes, my favorite has finally come. The time for wearing cute sweaters, sipping coffee while reading a book, giving gifts and receiving them, gosh just thinking about all those makes me excited. I had a pretty bad Christmas last year when I just came back from the USA because of the typhoon. Hopefully this year, may I have the best one. 🙂 I’ve babbled a lot now. Rain can do that to me.

Love,

As Friends or As Lovers?

In life, it’s seldom we found someone who gets us. Someone who we instantly love the moment we meet them. It’s such a rare occasion that when that certain person comes, we grab them and make sure they feel safe and loved. In most cases, people expect this to advance into some kind of romantic intimacy—which is ridiculous, really. On the other hand, it may lead to a long-life friendship. So let me throw a question, if you meet someone who really gets your vibe and interests in life, what kind of relationship would your inner-self choose to have with that someone—as a friend or a lover? It’s a tricky question, I know. The answer gets complicated the more you think about it. Ha.

My answer? I always go for friendship. But isn’t that always the case or mostly how it is for everyone? I mean, doesn’t a relationship begins at something before being lovers? And there’s nothing quite like how we, Millennials, deal with being in a ‘relationship’. There are even the so-called stages of relationship amongst 20-somethings that start out as being friends > talking stage > friends with benefits > hooking up > dating > exclusivity/to being lover. It’s one hella ride for young people to be in love, nowadays. No wonder Millennials are tagged to be the worst generation and no doubt about how older generations are laughing at us right now.

Having a fair share of my being part of the Millennial generation, I’ve experienced this roller coaster ride of being in a relationship myself. The one thing I can say is it’s just not for me. I might have done it wrong but I’ve had enough for now. I’ll choose friendship over love not because it will be the safe choice but because I’ve been there done thatrelationship thing and now I know better than to risk any good friendship with love. I’m not saying I’m all closed door for finding love but it’s not something that I am expecting to come in my life anytime soon. Setting my mind to that note, it keeps me from jumping to conclusions and expecting to find love in every guy that I meet. At the same time, without the expectations of any kind, it lets me create a deeper connection with someone I truly find interesting. It’s like I don’t have to worry about being the perfect girl because who’s judging, right? 🙂 No one but a good friend of mine.

Lovers just take it to different level, you know? Sure, there’s no doubt about how colorful our lives when they are there. No one can actually make us feel the same way that they do to us. It’s magical and how we wish it would never end. But have you had any relationship with someone that it ended badly, but then you realize you were so good together as friends than lovers, that you wish you could turn back time and just be friends instead? It’s a shame, isn’t it? Makes you regret just enough to wish for things to go back to the way you were as friends. That’s why I’ll always choose friendship over love.

Some people ask me what if you could have found your true happiness with that someone, but you settled as friends so you ended up throwing away the one shot deal? Honestly, I’m not worried. I’ve never been worried about missing my chances at being happy with someone because I know it’s not something that I could never find in myself. I produce my own sunshine and happiness. We all do! It’s on me to share it to other people. I never needed someone to make me feel whole because I am complete whether someone is holding my hand or not.

So what I need is a friend who knows me well, who’ll understand my tantrums and deal with it. Someone I can laugh with and share my stories with. A friend who I can talk whatever with no boundaries whatsoever. A friend who can be my plus one in parties and get drunk with. One who’ll ask me to a slow dance even with a pop music playing. A guy my parents can be comfortable with. Just someone who gets me. I have always believed that two opposite genders can have a platonic relationship. Being anything more than friends is just another label. What matters is the strong foundation and relationship I have with that person. If it turns out that my best friend is the one, wouldn’t that be great?! But if not, a best friend for life is not a loss love at all.

Choose carefully. And learn to love yourself.

xoxo,

Word Prompt #7 Best Achievement

Word Prompt #7:

Best Achievement 🏆

I DON’T HAVE ANY BEST ACHIEVEMENT. LOL okay what can I talk about here…I guess the fact the I had traveled and visited great states in the United States while working on my own was something that I am proud of. For a year, it was like I was having my gap year. I was working, learning and earning! Now, I’m off to another adventure and hopefully the beginning of my career. I’ll be sharing my next agenda in a few months. 🙂

Word Prompt #2: This Month’s Aim

Word Prompt #2:

This Month’s Aim

Basically, one of my aims for this month is to successfully finish this 30-day word prompt. Another, I am finally starting my own vlog channel you guys! I can’t contain my excitement. I ordered the camera last week and it’s coming next week. So that’s another thing to look forward to this month: to get my hands on Canon G7 mark II. I really feel like I will do better in this vlogging thing because ever since I was a kid I have been capturing videos and editing them. I must have gotten this hobby from my dad. Hmm. One thing I got from him that I’m thankful. 👍🏻

And go subscribe to my YouTube channel! THANK YOU!!! MWA

Word Prompt #1: How I Got Into It

Word Prompt #1:

How I Got Into It

It started back in my first or second year of college. I was in this computer class that required us to create a personal blog to be submitted at the end of the semester. It made me curious more than annoyed since I already had my Tumblr blog back then. I settled for WordPress as my platform and been writing ever since. It wasn’t always easy to share my thoughts. I felt shy and exposed whenever I did. But I felt the satisfaction whenever I hit the publish button. Somehow, it releases a fraction of the burden inside me. And since then, I just open and write whenever I’m being drowned by emotions. I never thought I’d made this into a money-earning blog but just a personal one where anyone close or stranger could read it just cause they’d stumble upon it.

Before And After Me

I used to love going out like A LOT. And by that I meant drinking til I’m passed out drunk, going home past 12am, doing hella crazy stuff or YOLO for short. People who know me back in college can easily pinpoint me as one of those gals who is down for anything crazy and illegal. I don’t do drugs or anything major like that but more subtle things like drunk driving or anything alcohol-involved. I wasn’t always like that though…

Back before I became so open-minded and liberal-kinda, I was this geek girl who was a KPOP, JPOP, Kdrama, Jdrama, anything international-language-that-you-can’t-even-pronounce drama fan. I was this student who participated in Sudoko challenges in school. I even joined the Rubik’s cube challenge back in college with no friends to support me because my interests were too odd for them. I lost in round one though, but it didn’t matter because I felt fulfilled trying my best. I WAS THAT SIMPLE GIRL. Literally. I remember in my first year of college, I only had four or five t-shirts and two pairs of pants to wear at school. Everything I had was oversized shirts except for this one blue- striped blouse that I bought before school started. I was wearing it every week it became impossible for every single one of my block mates to have missed. How’d I know? A few years later, one of them confessed she could still draw that blouse by heart. See? I was this home-to-school school-to-home girl. But then life got in the way and decided to revamped my life. I started hanging out after class more. I learned how to wear skinny jeans. I got conscious and decided that three cups of rice per meal was more than a mortal sin. Although, I allowed it on my menstrual periods because damn girl give me some slack! Thinking about it now, I did became another person. I didn’t realize it back then because I was too preoccupied with the changes happening to me. My mom got pretty upset of what was happening and then the confused little girl inside me threw a tantrum and did bad things. You know, usual stories about good girl gone bad.

When it became too much, I begged my mom to get me out of the country. I was then in the U.S. for a year. Got what I finally wanted and learned to love myself again. I found myself beginning to return to who I was before. Even though, I couldn’t be the perfect replica of my older version I can say I have improved a lot for the better. Despite all of the hardship, I am very thankful for the lessons and experiences. I wouldn’t be me now if it weren’t for those.

But then, I came home late last year and got pretty depressed for a couple of months. Maybe because reality hit me again. My indecisive self could not keep up with things. Nowadays, I don’t hang out with my friends because I feel like I’m lagging behind them. I feel we have this friendship gap probably because I was absent for a year or I’m not in the same stage as them anymore. Also, the usual family dramas keeps on hunting me everyday. It’s sad and it did get into me. I almost fell into my bad habits. Almost. Instead, I chose the path that I didn’t choose before. I dealt it with positivity. I very much thank God because every single time that I almost did something bad, something will happen that won’t made me do it. It wasn’t just once but many times. It’s as if a sign from the universe not to give in to temptations. And I’m very thankful for that. Thankful for the never ending support and guidance from my family and God.

Now, I feel better than I have felt in years. Not just temporary happiness that you feel when you bought a new toy and the next day you’re like meh but that peace you know is lingering inside you no matter what stroke of bad luck you may encounter. I know this may not last. Nothing is. But for now, I am choosing to embrace this and be better as long as I can. Who knows? I may be eating my words in a few months but for now I am just really happy I got to have the chance to feel light and at peace again.

Xoxo,

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

I saw this book recommendation in GoodReads the other day when I was searching for something worth reading and it didn’t disappoint me at all. In fact, I haven’t done a book-worth-to-post since after my reaction to Love, Rosie.

So this book is a compilation of poems about four things: the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing. If it kind of sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking of the works of Lang Leav. I’m a fan of both but I would say I could relate more to the work of Rupi Kaur from page one to the last one. And I like how some of the poems have their corresponding illustration which make it much deeper than it already is.

Why don’t I share with you some of my favorite poems included in Milk and Honey…

These are screenshots from my iBook. Here goes…

Right here is my favorite… 🙂

GoodReads

There is no doubt about the amount of love I have when it comes to reading books. Mostly, I read romance, sci-fi, young-adult, chick-lit and mystery. What I usually do is I read a new genre after another—it serves as a refresher to my mind. Too much romance makes my brain dizzy, same thing with sci-fi it becomes boring if I read another one—unless it’s in series. It’s like I have this on and off relationship with books which brings me to my confession about how I stopped reading for a year now and totally forgot about GoodReads Reading Challenge.

GoodReads is like a database for all the books out in the market. It’s like Yelp for books with reviews, quotes and whatnot. So whenever I’m running out of books to read, I go to their website and look up to some interesting read. My favorite part is the GoodReads Reading Challenge.

So this is done yearly, the mechanics is for you to set a goal number that you think you’ll be able to read for the entire year. And whenever you finish a book, you’ll include it in your ‘read’ section. So far my best record was last 2013. I read 41 books out of my goal of 40.

My worst record was last year. I can’t believe I just got 4 out of 20! I guess I really did forget everything else when I was in Chicago last year, eh?

But this year, I don’t have any excuses not to read so I set my goal to 10 books for 2017 challenge. I don’t want to feel overwhelmed so I’ll just have to adjust it later after I come close to my number. Good news though, as of now I have read 6 books! Not long before I adjust it to 30. Hopefully, I’ll top my best record and make it 50 this year. 🙂

Wish me luck!

xoxo,