where is this sun you speak of?

Excuse me while I try and show off my cooking skills in the past weeks this month. I've been "experimenting" how to cook and so here is a photo dump of food I prepared myself. These are just a few of those recipes that I tried to follow. The others don't look so good, but hey they are tasty (sometimes) 😂 Shrimp, Zucchini and Bok Choy stir fry Quinoa Chickpeas Tabouleh Anyway, I really love this dress that I bought from a thrift shop nearby. So anyway, lately, I find myself wanting to be fully back in the office however transportation stresses me out because sometimes there are too many people on the train, and working at home is getting boring because I have no one else to interact with and so I thought of spending my Wednesday afternoons at the coffee shop nearby. I am so getting used to working remotely now and I love having to use the free time for longer breakfasts and early dinners at home instead of spending it on commute. I wonder when are we getting back to n...

Always clueless at Magpupungko, Siargao 2019 My weekend was spent mostly consuming movies and TV shows, just like the recent weekends this month. In between glorious naps and TV, was (1) me wondering what's important in my to-do list, (2) should I do it right after this episode, and then there was (3) me reassuring myself that I should not feel the guilt of not doing anything at all - that I deserve a whole day mostly spent in bed, in pajamas, under the blanket. It's fall, the days are supposed to be cozy. Who am I kidding - it's summer all year long in Dubai. 😂 In the midst of all that mind battles against my own self, I realize that most of the things in my "to-do" list are not really important apart from doing chores, the rest of them are just to entertain myself. I appreciate myself for keeping a list of "I will never run out of things to do YAY" just in case, and I guess I have been keeping it since a decade ago. I guess my younger self somehow rea...

Watching this wonderful film - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - An afternoon well spent! Just when you know you have everything in place, life always gets in the way. What a cliche but I love how life just rolls out without notice. I must say, today is a proper Sunday. Why proper? Because Sundays are meant to slow down after a lot of hoo haa in the past week - in my case, weeks.  Sundays are all about winding down and I have never had that in years it seems. You see, I work in the region where Sunday is the beginning of the workweek. So in the last five years, Sundays have been a day of catching up on work, meetings, and basically starting the engine of my work week. I know, I know, I have Saturdays as a replacement but there is just something about Sundays that makes it synonymous to wind down, cozy up, reset. It's just how the way it should be in my brain. So having this Sunday free of the usual stuff that I do in the last half a decade is just wonderful.  Anyway, so back to what...

Mandala for October 17 In the last couple of days, I have been focusing my energy on negativity. I can not even get out of it. I was so drained that I spend my weekends mostly taking afternoon naps - it was heavenly. Sometimes I think that certain things - bad things - happen just so you feel the feeling of being all right . Funny how sometimes I try to ignore certain things but those things always find their way to overpower you. And when it does, it just envelopes you into the darkness very tightly . Why did I even let myself into this finite loop again?  Reminder to myself: you can not change how the people are. It's how they are and no matter how negative they are and the more you try to bring sunshine to them and if they can't see that at all, you are just wasting your time, attention, and energy. So it's better to keep off these kinds of things and let them figure out themselves to be better. It's not your problem. Life is too short focusing on people who bring ou...

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and my quinoa-corn-edamame-feta salad, heh I am currently reading "A tree grows in Brooklyn" and it reminds me so much of my childhood. It does not mirror my life however it often makes me reminiscent of the good old days. While this is not a book review of some sort, which I will probably do after I have finished the book, I want to write about the memories tied with this book ( this physical book ). I remember buying this book at the second-hand bookstore at Victoria Plaza back in 2014. The name of the store is just simply "Bookstore" and the storefront shows this name in green text, all caps, and each letter is boxed in green outline. It was my favorite shop in the city because (1) it's a bookshop, (2) it's cheap, and (3) old books are like a treasure. The third point reminds me of the young guy telling his friend about how much he loves going back to the store because finding a good book in the sea of bookshelves is like finding ...

I turned 30 years old six days ago. Surely, I do know what it means to be at that age but I can say that it is kind of liberating. How? I don't know. Accepting it just makes me feel that way.   Wow, my nephews, nieces, younger cousins, and the kids in my neighborhood are going to look up to me and see me as an adult. It's funny because I should know (and maybe I do) even before I reached this age anyway but I guess being 30 validates that these younger people are actually looking up to me as a full-fledged adult (and not their friend at their age which I want to be forever~ hahaha). How crazy is that?!  Anyway, so 30? Yeah, 30. Wow, 30.  Well, things have been the same. It's not like some magic happened overnight. I am still the playful twenty-something, but I guess we shall see in the long run!

Manoy Toben and I, Desert Safari, Dubai, 2019 Even though I am very far from my family during the pandemic, I am still grateful that I live in a place where I feel safe and comfortable. And I am willing to take this opportunity to learn to live simply just being at home and learning how to deal with simple household chores. I would like to think that taking a responsibility for some chores would help me get ready for the future - who knows. The coffee shop nearby where I go and visit sometimes on Friday or Saturday mornings. Sometimes I think it's good to be out (and cautious) and see the outside world . I like spending early mornings in a cafe, reading a book, having my cup of coffee and a cookie to pair with, while also watching the city slowly gets busier as the day progresses. I have witnessed that the company that I work for is not only customer-centric but also people-centric. I admire our CEO's positivity most especially during the pandemic. I hope things would get bett...