Because It's Been Too Long

Polaroids from this new life, haha!

Wow. I can't believe how long it's been since my last entry. More than a month! The reason being that I haven't had any time to write since I entered UP - where I am simultaneously suffering and having the time of life!

Too much has happened in the past month. Let me just speed through it all....

• I met so many new people whom I learned to love in such a short period of time!
• I attended several seminars - for one, we had to wear corporate attire, which was pretty cool.
• The number of members of our youth group nearly doubled!
• I'm a much better and a much more legit driver now!!
• I've subtly injected a few girly items into my wardrobe. HAHA And I wear girly tops without getting forced now. What a miracle!
• I now understand that there's a lot more to UP JMA that just the parties. I'm happy I decided to apply for it cause I've been meeting great people and learning so much.
• ASAPHIL - UP is another highlight. I'm loving their app process so far!

ASAPHIL - UP Apps Team Building

• Already, I had two weeks with just 2-3 hours of sleep each night. Legit. There were even one or two nights where I worked straight from the afternoon till school time the next day, with a couple of 15 minute naps every few hours. The work load is crazy!
• Consequently, I fell asleep in 3 parties..... because, you know, it's not really my thing? Sleeping, on the other hand, is.

At URBN :(
(At least my friends didn't leave me! HAHAHA)

• It dawned on me that my stress level is directly proportional to my weight loss. In the last four weeks, I lost weight, gained it back then, lost and gained again. It's scary. 
• Also, I lost count of how many times I've gone through the stress cycle wherein you have no idea how you're gonna pull something off at first and then you feel like you're on top of the world once you actually do.

Basically...... I love UP. Haha! Every week is so filled with ups and downs, moments of ultimate chill vibes and moments of over the top STRESS! Remind me never to pray for a challenge again because God totally answered my prayer this time. With every week, comes a new challenge. It's overwhelming and scary and tiring and horrible and... great.

#WhatIsWrongWithMe

Maybe, I missed this feeling? Maybe, I'm only so happy about everything because it's just the start? I'm a hundred percent sure I'm gonna be crying about all these challenges some time in the hopefully - not - so - near future. Just saying. Forgive my half asleep thoughts.

Anyway, I just want to share one of the lessons I learned from all this.

Things pass. That's the lesson. No matter how stressed you are RIGHT NOW, it's going to pass. Your horrible schedule will only last for one semester and so will the reign of your terror prof. Haha! The tension you feel over an exam will vanish after you've taken it and it will be replaced by the best calmness in the world - which will also vanish when the next challenge arrives.

In my case, I lost a lot of weight... freaked out about it.... and then, gained it all back. I worried so much about the first plate we had 1 week to work on... and now we're already doing our 3rd one. There are a lot of things on my mind now: things due this week, my Math 17 exam on Friday, all the tasks for the orgs I'm applying for, what I'm doing next weekend, what my game plan for our current Arch 21 plan is and basically, how I'll freakin survive this sem.... All that's going on in my head and I'm trying to remind myself that IT. WILL. PASS. And I'll pull through. :(

This is one of my favorite quotes and my forever - note to self:
It always seems impossible until it is done.

Here's to the challenging week ahead!

The Undying Wish List: Things I Will Always Want

I've been told that I'm super easy to please and give gifts to. On my 18th birthday, for example, my smile went from ear to ear when a friend of mine handed me two boxes of Nerds. Yup, that's all it took, haha! On that same day, another friend took out a Muji notebook from his backpack and held it out with a giant smug face on... because he knew how happy that little gift would make me - and yes, it did make my day extra great! Easy peasy.

In other words, I'm just like a five year old.
JOKE.

However, other people tell me that I'm really picky. Because, uhm, I'm not that into branded bags or jewelry or stuffed toys or make up or heels or certain types if not all chocolate in general... I guess some people just find it hard to believe that a box of Icebreakers would bring me as much happiness as a Prada bag would another girl. Or that giving me the right set of pens can make me love them forever.

HAHA Okay, I'm exaggerating. I'm not saying that I wouldn't ever in my life want to receive an expensive girly bag. Maybe, I would at age 20 or something. (Hint to certain important people in my life. Hello there.) 

But for now... these will definitely do!

(To be honest, I just had a random urge to make a wishlist. It's not even my birthday or Christmas or anything but, here it is anyway!)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Things I Can Use
Because I need lots of things to do lots of things...

PILOT G Tech Pens (0.3, 0.4 and 0.5)

Unipin disposal black pens (0.1 - 0.8)

Fujifilm Instax Polaroid Film (plain white)

MUJI sketchbooks (preferably the 150x100mm one heehee)

Plain/ solid colored Post Its

Art materials

Canvases

Plain recycled boxes

Books about architecture or art or life

Gift Certificates

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Things I Can Wear
Because a girl could always use another outfit.

KEDS Shoes (plain colors)

Sunglasses/ Shades (Rayban shape ONLY)

Simple dresses that don't make me look like I'm drowning in cloth haha

Bikinis (not the super showy, stringy type)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Things I Can Eat
Because to get to her heart, you must first satisfy her stomach.#AnoDaw

Oreo Cheesecake from Starbucks

Melty Kiss Plain Chocolate (red cover)

White Chocolate Mocha Frap Blended Coffee (Less Chocolate Drizzle) from Starbucks

Formosa Roast Black Milk Tea, 75% sugar, 1/2 Nata de Coco, 1/2 Pearl from Tea Tap

Fruit Roll Ups/ Foot long Roll Ups

Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape (specially the sour ones!)

Hubba Bubba Lollipops (the one with gum inside)

Icebreakers

Sour Skittles

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

THIS MAGIC LIST SHALL BE UPDATED AS NEEDED.
Heehee.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hohoho it's actually pretty fun to think about the things you want. You should totally try it. I LOVE going on dream mode... but, you should do it with happy vibes okay? Not the depressing reality - bites, unreachable - dreams, unattainable - goals, too - expensive, this - will - never - happen atmosphere. That'll kill the fun of it.  Because it is fun.

Dreaming is quite fun.

Aaaaaaand that's it.

Bye.

A Series of Fortunate Events... What's The Catch?

(I swear this blog was supposed to be short... I don't know what happened.)

"I got everything I ever wanted. I'm so happy... I'm terrified. No one gets everything they want...

...of course, something bad is going to happen to me."

-Charlotte of Sex and the City

. . . . .

This is a horrible way to think and to live. However, as much as I hate to admit it, what she said totally hit me. A lot of things in the past served as building blocks that have created this stupid perspective, despite the fact that I fight hard to push those memories down to the back of my mind where I'll have a hard time accessing them . Despite the fact that I know I shouldn't be thinking that way and I constantly try to fix how I think. And fix myself.

I constantly try to fix myself.

Life is always great until it isn't.

And my life always goes smoothly until something that never happens... happens.

But it's been a while and I thank God for that. He's been taking great care of me.

I've returned home from several trips without a scratch on my body and after bragging about that simple joy of mine, I was reminded that it was, in fact, normal for nothing bad to happen. And in my head, I think "Oh yeah. Sorry. I was just happy about it. That's all."

It's like I'm hesitant to fully soak into the OKAY-ness of my life right now and I don't know why. 

Everything's going well so far. I'm happy 80% of the time; lost in thoughts, questions and doubts during the other 10% but, that's normal, and the last ten is for those times when I cry for other people and get so caught up in their lives that it hurts me. But in general, I'm always happy. Always grateful. Always relieved when something that could have gone so badly turns out well or when something I thought would take countless hours only takes fifteen minutes or when I'm #160 in the line and they're already calling #154.

Always happy, always grateful but always walking on egg shells, praying to God that I don't step on the trigger of a nuclear bomb. Always tiptoeing my way through life, trying to prove that I'm not an accident waiting to happen and I'm not the key to Pandora's box and that I can do what they think I cannot do. Always finding myself between wide and narrow roads, choosing the wide ones at first because they look so nice and easy and then I end up trying to find my way through all the plants and thorns and shrubs just to get back to the freakin narrow road just because I couldn't get it out of my head.

I'm always happy, always grateful but always worried about losing the things that make me happy and the things I'm grateful for. Worried that things are too good to be true and somewhere along this streak of good fortune or this series of fortunate events is a scary monster waiting to tell me that I can't have everything I want after all. Waiting impatiently to take something away from me and make me pay for the good, happy, healthy life I've been living for a while and make me suffer for the fact that I haven't suffered in so long.

I got a little carried away over there. I don't know which thing I'm referring to anymore...

Forgive my imagination, it has a tendency to exaggerate my normal - human feelings and transform them into scary vivid motion pictures inside my brain which I try my very best to translate into words - a preventive measure to keep my head from exploding.

. . . . .

I'm in transition at the moment - in between processes, in between schools... I'm still quite surprised at how smoothly things have been going although, I have been praying like a trooper for the past months. I've been stumbling over one obstacle after another. Each one's getting bigger and scarier but, each gives more fulfillment than than the one before. Until I see the next obstacle up ahead and it scares me again but, I go anyway.

Things are going so well, it's freaking me out. It's not that I'm not happy about it and it's not that I'm not grateful... in case you didn't get to read the repetitive mentions above, haha!

I'm just mentally preparing myself for this narrow road to get narrower, for more nuclear bomb triggers hidden under egg shells I'm walking over, for the scary monster to get scarier and more impatient and have more vengeful things to say to me and for the key of Pandora's box to duplicate itself a thousand times making it easier for all the bad things to be unlocked and released into... my life.

But again...

THIS IS A HORRIBLE WAY TO THINK.

And then again...

I can't help but ask what the catch is this time!

There's always been a catch. I've always had to pay... something.

. . . . . 

But I know what I have to do anyway. And that makes me a walking contradiction but, I'm not denying it.

I'll take what I can get, hope for the best, be happy and grateful for every single blessing as of now but, be prepared for the worst of circumstances - not in a sadistic way but, in a way that will protect my heart from, getting hurt or being disappointed. (Saying all that makes me a talking cliche too but, I'm not denying that either. Oh well...)

Thank you Lord for answering almost every single prayer I've had for the past few months!!!

So, here's to this next week and how much it can affect the rest of my college life!

And here's to all my other concerns and how much it'll affect my life after that. 

Here's to the good things that have happened in the recent past and the not - so - good things that might happen in the near future....

But right now in this moment, as I think about everything that was and is to come later on, catch or no catch, I'm happy and truly grateful - always, always will be.