Nothing changes in your life unless you make it happen

I'm going to say it again, "Nothing is going to change unless you make it happen".

I sat down on my desk and wrote my morning pages at work when this epiphany came out of nowhere.

Where have I heard of this? Oh yeah, from Nicolas Cole.

I am currently living the life I have dreamed after passing the Nurse Licensure Exam

I do not want to be a nurse. Nurses work irregular shifts. I want a plain 8-5 job. It's routinary. I can control my own time. There's consistency... blah blah blah.

Four years later, it can be downright depressing.

Yes, I am living a routine. A monotonous one.

Weekdays: Wake up. Eat. Bathe. Go to office. Work. Lunch. Go home. Surf net. Sleep. Repeat. 

Weekends: Wake up. Surf net. Eat. Surf net. Bathe. Surf net. dinner. Sleep. Repeat

I allowed myself to be stuck in a place... that I knew was wonderful at first.

How do I get out?

1. I go to the gym after work. I enrolled for a gym membership with my officemates. Sometimes I go alone. Sometimes I go with them. I show up every other day. Lifting gives me a sense of confidence and a sense that I can achieve stuff.

2. Identify the routine. To have a clearer picture.

3. Substitute a different activity in the routine. What got you here won't get you there.

I know this isn't the answer to everything. I've discovered that life is full of surprises... like, I'd sustain a habit for 6 or 7 momths, then drop it afterwards.

A key here is to brush the dust of your shoulders everytime you fall down, stand up, and walk.

Nothing changes in your life unless you make it happen,

A game called Sailor Moon Drops

I only had 2 games installed in my smartphone:

1. 2048
2. Neko Atsume

I was the ebook type of girl. Regulated my phone. At my age, I thought games were time wasters... well, until my sister had her vacation here (she's now based abroad) and showed me this game.

I now have an addiction that I've happily indulged myself in.

I was benchpressing  20 Ibs dumbbells when the guy waiting to use it popped me this question:

"Can you lift that? Did Eric (the gym instructor) tell you to life 20 Ibs?"

I'm not suprised.

I like to lift challenging weights. 20 Ibs was an arbitrary number. 15 feels light. I couldn't find the 25 Ibs. So I stuck with 20.

20 is arbitrary. I prefer lifting something challenging. 3x5 for 20 Ibs, rather than 3x12 for 10 Ibs. I don't have the patience to do 12 reps.

And it's ironic because I went to the gym to cultivate patience and discipline.

I'm not surprised about the question. Most of the women at the gym are either running on the treadmill, zumba, on the pilates, or lifting 3 Ibs for 3x15 sets

Me?

I'd rather lift.

The joys of having gym buddies

I always went to gym alone.

Until last month.

It used to be 4 of us. Then one backed out because his girlfriend didn't want him to go the gym. Another one injured his wrist and refused to do leg exercises.

It was just me and Bogz.

Bogz is a skinny dude. We were supposed to hit the gym a year or 2 years ago. Luckily, our plans pushed through!

Bogz is skinny yet persistent. He wants to grow big. He's not always there due to work constraints, but he makes it a point to show up when he can (which is every other day). Likewise,  I'm motivated to show up too.

It sure feels great to have a gym buddy to share an experience, to laugh with, and to help!

Lessons from my short-lived episode recap blog

From March to April 2016, I established my first episode recap blog of a local series titled "Ang Probinsyano".

Yet the project was short-lived. I lost interest in the show after they killed one character I was invested in.

As I look back, I tried to glean the lessons the brief project had in my life.

1. The Law of Equivalent Exchange. This is what Edward a & Alphonse Elric forgot when they tried to revive their deceased mom in Full Metal Alchemist. This is the foundation of alchemy. This is an important food for thought in life. Anything worthwhile doing has a cost. In my case, the cost of creating and updating my recap blog was my time, sweat, concentration, effort,  hours of sleep and skipping other projects.


2. It’s fun when you people support your project. I found myself a Facebook group who were fans of the Coco Martin and Bela Padilla tandem. Some were pretty supportive of my project to document the episodes (because they could not tolerate what was happening to Carmen’s character at that time). Yep, it feels wonderful to have feedback. There was this guy who always commented on my post on that facebook page. I greatly appreciated his inputs. I also received a bunch of comments on the blog. It’s nice to hear feedback. It’s validation that there are people out there who like what I’m doing.

3. You will constantly question if it is worth it. Honestly, when you obsess about the pageviews, you will start to question if it’s worth it. This is the same trap I fell into, when I was in the webcomic scene. I stopped drawing because I found pageviews to be more important. During moments like these, it’s important to remind yourself what’s important and follow it. Page views, or a body of work? I also questioned whether someone would take time and read what I wrote. There's Iwantv.com, or some site where they can stream the shows for free. Then I recall the many recaps of Korean Drama, and latin telenovelas. Yes. There’s a market for this. And I would be the first one to cater to it.

4. It’s alright to have a crappy first draft. It was hard. Seriously. It was shit. But It had to be shit. Or else, I would have nothing to edit. I was furiously encoding while watching. I had never utilize as hard as ever, my hand-eye coordination. I was typing a mix of English, tagalog and bisaya… just to get the point across. And I did. I typed. I allowed my writing to look bad. Because I knew I would edit it later. Just like other projects, if I allowed myself to be stuck--- this needs to be perfect, then I would have never gotten the episode recap done.

5. Improvement follows after a repetition of actions. My writing improved after a week of recap. I could type quickly. I could edit quickly. My vocabulary got better. My command of verbs got better. I even had to creatively think of alternatives to "he said/she said".

6. Commitment is a choice. The first day I started, I promised myself I would post the recap blog within 2 hours after writing the draft/ watching the show. Like what? Could I really do this? I was a problematic minute-taker during the first two years of my job as an administrative assistant. Could I really do something this… outrageous? What about my grammar? Seriously, I was afraid of looking bad. But then again, I could always go back and edit it (which I never did, btw). But I told myself, I can commit at least 2 hours a night. (1 hour to watch/draft, 1-1.5hrs to improve the draft, then hit publish, come what may). The result? Yes,  before the clock hit 11pm, 98% would the entry be posted.

7. It's okay to say goodbye when you feel it's enough. I had it. The death of Bela Padilla's character also killed my interest in the show. I knew Coco Martin was going to be pushed into Maja Salvador's arms. It wasn't worth it anymore. I was skipping 8 hours of sleep a datly, hoping Bela and Coco's tandem would push through. It didn't and I quit. Time is a precious commodity. If it no longer interests you, switch to something different.

Why I quit my AP episode recap blog

I never meant that Episode recap blog to exist.

It was an accident.

You see, I was a big fan of the Coco Martin and Bela Padilla tandem. It hurt me that the writers thought of the Anne Curtis plot device to drive Padilla's character to Arjo Atayde's hands.

Unfortunately, I found the inspiration to desensitize the hurt feelings by documenting it.

It had a two-fold purpose:

1. I would improve my documentation skills (which is highly valuable in my field of work)

2. I would be the first Ang Probinsyano episode recap blogger.

I rummaged through the world wide web for AP episode recaps. Nada. Zero.

I do not have the patience to spend 30 minutes watching a show, when I could read the plot in 5 minutes.

So I did just that. I did it for myself, and for other Filipinos who shared my sentiments.

And boy, it was fun!

English isn't my native language, and I struggled in the documentation process.

I disciplined myself to edit my draft once the episode was over. I added memes. The editing process would take me almost an hour. Once I was happy, I would post it on the Cocobel Fansite at facebook, ot through my twitter account.

Majority of the traffic for that recap blog came from facebook, and I'm grateful. I also received a couple of positive feedbacks.

...until when Bela Padilla's character was killed on the April 6, 2016 episode.

I was documenting the episode on paper when she was gunned down.

Shit.

I stopped watching after that. I didn't bother to update the recap blog, nor did I leave a comment why I suddenly stopped documenting. Ack.

Though I did mean to write about it. Took me 2 months to write though!

I quit documenting because the couple I shipped.... well, they could never be. The woman was dead. The writers are now pushing the man to go after his bestfriend, who's being courted by another guy.

Yeah. It's a shallow and pathetic. If I really loved the show, then I would have kept on documenting. Ah, no.

It's not worth it anymore.

I'M back!

After going incognito for several days/weeks, I'm back!

May 2016 has been wondeful!

I spent a week offline. I went abroad to experiece a different culture. I also spend days pondering about my dreams in life, especially my career.

Have I forgot to mention that my sister has just returned for a vacation here in the Philippines after 4 years?

I have so much to blog, but too little patience to post online.

Whatever happened to my previous commitment of posting daily, 10 ideas a day, or my 10 comics a day?

Honestly, I forgot all about them the moment I went to Korea.

It's kinda sad I lost mý groove, but I've experinced and learned that this kind or relapse is part of life.

What's important is to brush the dirt off, stand up, and do your thing.

Cheers!