月

I recently started playing Genshin Impact and I am so enjoying it. Actually, it's been a while since I last played a game. I think the last game I played was Tokyo NECRO: Suicide Mission but ever since my phone's screen broke (because of my stupid temper), I totally forgot about it.

My all-time favorites are Chain Chronicle, Valkyrie Connect, Hero Academia Smash Tap, Haikyuu!! Donpisha Match!!, Food Fantasy, Touken Ranbu and Flower Knight Girl. Yes, they're all gacha games. I guess I just prefer these kind of games more because I won't need to use real money to buy costumes and stuff for my characters plus, my luck is better at the JP versions. I also played Toram before but quit after realizing it's not a gacha game. And although Genshin is like Dragon Nest (another favorite though I stopped playing before I even enjoyed it) in the way they're played on PC, Genshin is a legit gacha game so I immediately liked it.

So far, I only re-rolled once although I might re-roll again if I don't pull a good character on the next gacha event. Ah, re-roll is like a slang used in gacha games. Normally, upon completing the tutorial, they'll give you enough game money to summon your starter team, right? Re-roll is like rolling the dice again because chances are you will pull a bad character according to the community tierlist. So instead of faking happiness, you clear your data or create a new account and start all over again. Repeat until you're satisfied with your team. It might sound like a pain in the butt but it's all worth it once you pulled a good character, duh. No one enjoys playing a game with a weak team. The game I re-rolled the most was Chain Chronicle and ValCone. I think I did 20+ on both before I finalized my team? Well, they're easier to re-roll because you don't need to register first. Others, it's either my account got deleted due to inactiveness, the game discontinued or I forgot my ID. So I guess I really got lucky this time.

I mean, I pulled a Ningguang, a geo type, on my first re-roll (second account) which is pretty rare according to my brother who has been playing the game since it started since most of the drops are either cryo or hydro. But to be honest, I'm finding it hard to make a combo with my team because I got 3 archers and Ningguang is a mage attacker (and can be a defender as well). I'm currently waiting for the next banner. I really hope I get Zhongli (another geo). I've decided to become a geo-focused team and it will only happen if I get to summon him. Please!

Oops. I think I've talked too much.

Big news! I managed to exercise for the third time today. Well, I have been planning to get back to working out after I lost my streak last February but I just can't bring myself to do it. I am so happy for myself because finally, my life is moving forward. I don't even remember how. I just woke up one day and did it.

Exercise is really important to me. The truth is, I am most insecure of my body. I have a lot of things I wish I have and didn't have. One thing is the fact that I am skinny-fat. I've had this body since I was in grade 3 and it's the reason I wasn't able to wear the clothes I want. Even until now, I haven't tried wearing one. And since pandemic started, my body started getting worse – at least in my perspective. I tried to stay in shape but I just can't stick to it. One reason is the fact that I was always distracted. And the other one is that my mental health isn't just doing good that time that I can't bring myself to do anything.

It's easy to tell people to accept their bodies and be confident but for the person being told, it's difficult to apply that. Plus, it doesn't necessarily bring people happiness. It's not a one-size-fits-all mindset. No matter how much people say, they can't convince me to accept that it's okay as I don't feel energized without exercise, I cant do heavy work without getting tired easily and I can't wear my dream clothes. It really depends on people on how they view health and fitness. As long as the reason isn't because of other people, it should be okay if some people like me just won't settle with that mindset.

I'd love to talk more about my views regarding fitness but maybe next time. It's 3 AM and I have to attend work so I should sleep.

Whoa. It's been a week since I last wrote something. Well, something good happened that's why I wanted to write it down. I guess I just wanted to be reminded of what I'm capable of whenever I'm feeling down.

Actually, just a few days ago, I managed to close my first project as a Junior Front-end trainee and just started my second project. It's a new challenge for me because this time, I'll be using new tools. Well, you might think it's not that hard because it's just Pug.js and Typescript but not for someone like me who has no experience at all. If plan ol' CSS already made my brain bleed, what more if I use JS frameworks? I am confident on using Bootstrap and had tried using Material-UI but I am still feeling scared. That doesn't mean I'll quit though. I am scared but I'm also excited to expand my knowledge.

In fact, I am already facing my first obstacle – using inline svg with Pug – that I had to stay up until 3AM last night, trying to figure out a way around. I was able to make the svg appear, even customize the size except for the color fill. I'm thinking it's my asset export that's the problem. I know I still have a long way to go but being able to move to a new project means that my skills are improving. There's no room for self-doubt. I know I am capable of doing it.

I also want to mention how happy I am these days because I was able to start taking care of my skin again. The truth is, I stopped doing any skincare-related stuff when pandemic started. I had no choice. We weren't doing well financially. Thankfully, things have gotten better for now.

Since I am earning my own money now, I can finally fund myself. I have created a budget for everything and I do my best to stick to it. But to be honest, do not have a grand skincare. I actually just do double cleansing method, blackhead treatment, moisturizer and sunscreen so I don't need to worry about overspending. When 4.4 (April 4th) came, I immediately logged in to my account and checked out the items on my cart. I haven't bought a moisturizer and sunscreen though. I had to prioritize buying reusable cotton for sustainability reasons. As of today, all my items have arrived with the AHA/BHA toner being the last one to arrive.

I'm guessing it might take me 3 months minimum get my skin back to its healthy state but it's all worth it so I don't mind. I am just happy to be able to do all of this again and my self-esteem really going up. Indeed, self-care is self-love.

Tomorrow is what they call Maundy Thursday. The country I am from consider it a holiday so even though I don't believe in religion, I get to join them in this 4-day break. Hah!

I don't have an exact plan yet on how will I spend those days being productive. To be honest, I don't even feel like doing anything productive at all because I'm currently invested in watching TV series. But who knows? I might touch my drafts in my review blog. It's been a while since I last wrote something there anyway.

I'm not going to be strict on myself though. I plan to enjoy this break as much as I can. Life as an adult is a never-ending cycle of weekday work and weekend rest so it's just right that to enjoy each time off as much as I can.

Patience is indeed the key, especially if you're just plain and average.

I was actually having trouble with the task I was given at work since Friday. I couldn't get the expected result no matter how much I try. And honestly, inside, I am really crying. I can't believe in just a span of a month, I already had experienced the feeling of wanting to quit. And obviously, I can't because I need to earn money. It was so hard but I had no choice but to push myself to think harder.

I went off on time at work that day but I resumed my work around 11PM. It just made me feel that I'm taking too much time just coding the header page so I sacrificed sleep and worked until 2AM. It was all worth it though! After 3 hours of trial and errors, I managed to make it work. I kept coming back to my initial logic, only to realize that I was just missing just one rule declaration. When I realized how dumb was I, I let out a big sigh of relief because finally, I can finally sleep! Well, I promised myself that I won't sleep until I get this part to work so I guess I got lucky?

Lucky or not, I am proud that I did not quit because I am really guilty of it when things get too hard for me to handle. Well, not totally quit but I take long breaks which is not really efficient., be it in life or at work I am aware of it that's why I am trying my hardest to change this bad mechanism of mine. I need to learn to be comfortable on the things that make me feel uncomfortable, at least at work. And it all starts with patience.

I saw a tweet while I was scrolling on twitter and it triggered my deep-buried feelings. It was about someone saying how liking anime isn't weird but doing Naruto runs on the hallway is. And honestly, it's this mentality that really ruined me.

I grew up watching anime and became active in the anime community when I was in highschool. I used to share screenshots of my favorite scenes. Sometimes, I even make edits and gifs. I met friends online and became close with them as if we've met each other before. I was really enjoying my time back then. Suddenly, college happened and that's when I stopped enjoying it. Or should I say, forced myself to dislike it. I'm not saying it's because of the people I met at college since my parents are against it way way back. Also, back in highschool, I already had people mocking me for liking anime so I must say, everyone played a part on how I ended up disliking it.

I started to think I am not normal. I felt uncomfortable with myself so I tried my best to hide my past. Why? Because I was so afraid they'll laugh at me for being so weird and immature. I don't want that. I see how they mock my other classmates and I am scared it might happen to me as well. The truth is, I am weak and I won't be able to take it if they do those things to me. I was able to stop myself from caring about anime because of that. Sometimes, just to convince myself that I'm not into it anymore, I even laugh with them at my classmates who talk about anime.

Little did I know, there was a price to pay. I stopped expressing myself. Deep inside, I felt fake. I mean, I had to become someone else just so I could relate to my circle that I even had to change everything about me – from my likes and hobbies. I have nothing against my friends but this is what I really felt with them. Yes, all this time this is what I've been feeling and I've never told anyone about this because I feel like they're secretly laughing at me behind my back so I kept it all in and I managed to stay away from it until 3rd year college I think.

I broke my streak when my brothers forced me to watch with them and that's when I realized there's nothing wrong with being myself when I'm at home so I went to watch with them. After that, I started consuming anime again, but discreetly. I only watch at home, or when I'm with someone who knows my childhood but never in public. And if I must (due to boredom), I only watch and read the popular ones just to be safe. Yes, because sadly, if you're not watching the anime cool kids watch, you're considered weird.

Now that I'm older, I'm starting to open up my heart again because duh, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. If people can't accept me, then it's their problem. Also, a part of me wants to reconnect with my childhood. I just want to feel complete again. It will take me some time but I know it is all worth it.

I'm suffering from chronic boredom. I am not sure when did everything start but the fact that I can stand not doing things I used to love doing is a proof of it. Look, I used to draw a lot when I was in high school. Now, I get bored right away after five minutes. Even watching films bore me now. I have this thing before where I will watch one film every other day because I want to widen my movie vocabulary but just a minute after, I already find myself pausing the video, looking for something else to do. Even reading became a hard task for me. I can finish a book in a day or two back then but now, one book takes me a month or more! I feel so bad about myself. I want to do a lot of things but I can't even stick to one because I easily get sick of it.

It's really hard living like this. As much as I want to achieve a lot, this constant feeling of boredom is limiting me. I really want to break out of this shell but how? I've read in an article that I need to learn how to live in the present so I tried meditating. But honestly, I don't think it worked for me. My mind is always flowing with thoughts. Don't take this as a one size, fits all thing though because I only meditated for a week. But see? That's the limit on how long I can do something. After that, I'm back to the state where my mind is looking for something else to do again. It's a never ending cycle and I wish I know how to stop it.

I do know there's no way to eradicate it completely. But according to an article I just read recently, there are ways I can do to manage it. The article suggested to drop the hobbies that you don't find joy in doing anymore and just focus on what makes you feel interested and I must say, I'm pretty convinced. I started questioning myself about the what ifs. What if it's really because I'm being too ambitious for having multiple hobbies? If I let go of everything else, will I finally manage to do what I chose to keep? I honestly don't know yet so I'm going to do it – let go of the hobbies that I can't find joy in doing anymore.

Actually, I've already decided what I want to keep doing – study Japanese, write in this blog and my other blog and read books with a mindset that I won't focus on how long it will take me to finish it. I can't guarantee that I won't get bored anymore after cutting it down to three but I feel like this will help me manage my boredom better. I really hope it does.

I'm feeling really good these days at work.

I've been exposed to front-end development since university days but I never realized how big the gap is in my skills until my superior gave me my first task. It was only during my orientation when I learned that the company doesn't use such library so when after receiving my first training activity, I literally stared at my monitor for quite some time. I guess it's because I relied too much on using Bootstrap, the most-used CSS Framework. How am I going to make a navbar from scratch? Obviously, I asked DuckDuckGo (I don't use Google) for help. I came across W3School's navbar tutorial and followed. But the expected design isn't your simple navbar so I had to add my own code. float: right here, float: left there, I already tried everything but still, I can't make it work. Whatever. I pushed it to the repository and waited for my superior's feedback and when it came, I was surprised because my superior said to do everything again because I'm not allowed to use floats. Knowing that it took me two days to come up with a workaround on that complicated navbar then learning that everything I did was wrong made me feel so embarrassed and stupid. How am I supposed to do this then? How come I can't understand how to do this? I'm such a quack. Then came my worry that they might fire me after knowing I have such poor skills. I was in a state of panic, then she told me to learn about flexbox through this and that's when my life changed. I clicked the link and got a grasp of it after completing all levels. In a blink of an eye, I managed to create the complicated navbar that made me restless for two days. A few revisions here and there, then I got to merge it with the master branch. After that, my superior praised me and told me I did a good job and from that moment on, my self-confidence just went skyrocketing.

After that event, I came to a realization that there's nothing wrong with not knowing. I wholeheartedly accepted that there is a big gap in my skills and instead of feeling insecure for what I don't know like I used to before, I should just use all my energy to absorb everything I can, especially now that I'm still at my training period. Now, learning something new became a part of my routine that it doesn't feel like I'm actually being paid for work as the feeling of satisfaction from seeing my skills get better right in front of my eyes overpowers the tedious feeling from hours of sitting. I really am proud of myself for not giving up and choosing to approach this with a positive mindset. And I can't wait to see how much I have a grown when I look back next year.

These days, I can't bring myself to do anything, I don't even bother checking my to-do list at all. When 2021 started, I promised myself that I will do better compared to last year but until now, I haven't progressed a bit. I want to but I just can't find the will to do it. I do it for a week then pretend that I don't see my notifications afterwards.

I guess it's because I feel very restricted at home. There's just no privacy in this place. I want to do things but I can't because my parents always have something to say which will lead us to a stupid argument. In the end, I'll just end up not doing anything at all because I am not in the mood anymore. That one day becomes two then three until I get into the realization that I've been skipping doing it for 3 weeks already. Then I'll feel bad about not being able to keep up my promise to myself and then it will affect my mental health again. I seriously hate it in here. I wish I can do something about it. Too bad, I just started with my job so I still have a long way to go before I can actually move out.

After reading a lot about ways on how I can deal with my triggers, the only choice I have in this situation is to ignore everyone and mind my own thing. So from this moment on, I will ignore whatever my parents will say about the things I do. If I want to study music, I will. If I want to practice my Japanese speaking, I will. I will stop myself from caring about their words. Badmouth me, laugh at me, I won't care anymore. I will only focus on making progress until I achieve my goals. Which brings me to next question, when and how? About that, I still have to brainstorm with myself so I don't know yet the answer for that. What I do know is I will make progress this year. And that I will be writing about it in the future.

My favorite cat, Kuma, is the sweetest cat I've ever met. Every morning, he wakes me up with his loud meow and even climbs up my bed just to wake me up. And if he fails to wake me up, he lays down beside me and goes to sleep as well.

Kuma is also the most gentle cat I've ever met. He doesn't care what you do to him. You can even rub his belly without fear. You can even use his belly as your pillow. I do that all the time but he still doesn't care.

But Kuma is also the most stubborn cat I've ever met. Maybe it's because I spoiled him too much? You see, when my mom cleans up the fish she bought from the market, Kuma jumps on the sink and watches my mom clean everything. He doesn't care if he gets soaked with water. I think he's not scared of water at all. Sometimes, when he feels like it, he even sleeps there on the sink. When I try to scold him, he just ignores me. Maybe he knows I can't get mad at him.

And how can I forget about it? Kuma is actually the most boring cat I've ever met. His favorite hobby is sleeping. He especially loves to sleep on my lap. But he can sleep wherever, whenever. When he's in the mood for petting, he always go to me and make me pet him. He doesn't care whether I'm busy or not. If he wants me to pet him, then I must pet him. Or else, he will sleep on my laptop.

I miss Kuma and everything about him. It's been a year already but I still tear up whenever I think of him. I admit there's still a void in my heart but I have learned to accept the truth that he has left me already. I will never be able to turn back time so instead of getting sad, I will just think of all the happy memories I had with him.