Happy Friday?

It's been a while since I opened my laptop. Sometimes I wonder if I should've just bought a macbook air instead because it's lighter (by 300g 🤣). Also cheaper. It's pretty hard to carry the pro around. Even when I'm just at home lol. Then again I wanted a pro because I would probably need the extra ports and the pro features and also the fan if I ever get too passionate about upgrading my vlog editing skills lol. Who knows, I might start developing ios apps too? It's nice to dream no? Chances are I'll never get to maximize this laptop the way I wanted. What a luxury to be able to future proof myself this way.

A week ago we attended a birthday/dedication party of one our friend's daughter. Jeckie was chosen as ninong, along with the rest of the guys, and one of the wives. And I... feel left out. My husband didn't even tell me he was ninong. I only learned when they were being called for a photo, and I found myself left at the table, with another wife (what a consolation right?). 

That time I was reminded, once again, of my place in his group of friends. That I'm not really a friend. I'm a friend's wife. My husband thinks that because we're married, his friends should be my friends too so that we're one big circle of friends. But honestly, I've never felt like we're one big circle. I'm okay outside, being a friend's wife. That's literally what I am. 

Anyway, I also realized that being ninang was not a courtesy extended to you if your husband is a ninong, but a deliberate decision made by the parents. And knowing them, they must've really considered the roster. Agnostic and child-free don't exactly sound like someone you'd want to foster your daughter whom you just dedicated to God, but they probably knew better, saw deeper. That makes me proud of my husband. And I hope that's not just a courtesy due to their friendship.

At first it hurt not to be chosen, so I promised to know my place. I may have overestimated our friendship. From now on, I'm not going to spend on their gifts, I'll leave that to my husband. I'll stop reminding him to buy them gifts, I don't care anymore, who am I anyway? He's the friend, not me. So petty haha and I'm kidding okay. But as I dwelled on it throughout the party, I realized I was actually jealous that my husband gets to be ninong to kids whose parents he actually cares about.

For the record, I don't know who my inaanaks are. Most of them are pamangkins, from cousins I'm not even that close to. I was just appointed as ninang because it's my turn after my sister got the older ones lol. We may have a culture of choosing godparents based on how much you can extort from them. I don't have any inaanaks outside the family (just one, maybe I should start paying attention to her), which makes me think that I really don't have any friends. More to that, I don't deserve to be ninang.

That sucks right?

My friends come and go. I don't reach out. I lose touch. I let it die. I have multiple circles of friends from the different phases of my life. I have highschool friends, college friends, office friends, then my family (the only constant). When I leave a phase, the circle fades. It's difficult for me to maintain friendships when we don't share the same space anymore. The same classroom, the same office, the same dorm. It's just how I am. I'm really bad at keeping in touch. Should I change? I know it's for the better. Relationships matter the most right? 

I'm okay with who I have right now though. Which isn't a lot. Urgh. I don't know. 

Some Happy Things

Now that I'm in front of my blog I can't seem to remember what to write about. And I do remember wanting to write about a lot of things haha

So let's just do a 10 some happy things!

🍔 Estancia is opening a lot of good restaurants! There's Buffalo's Wings n' Things, Shake Shack, and Yabu coming soon to name a few! Love it! Good variety too. Hopefully they add an Indian restaurant naman haha

💻 Came to the office yesterday despite the rainstorm. I look forward to Monday RTO's because I get to have a bit of a me time and also focus on work better. But most importantly, I need to complete my RTO quota for the month haha. 

As usual I enjoyed walking slowly and leisurely to dinner, where I had hotpot at Sichu Malatang and froyo at llao llao. Same exact things I had the day before. I realized I didn't want noodles in my hotpot. I love beef, vegetables, mushrooms, and the various fish balls. I also love the peanut sauce with black vinegar. Urgh writing about it makes me hungry!

🏠 No luck selling our condo. Hopefully we can exit via Maceda Law or PD 957, so that at least we can get 50% of our downpayment back. Hoping for the best. But quite honestly we've already accepted losing the entire investment. We're more excited with the prospect of not having to pay monthly anymore. So it's either 0 or 50% back, and we're happy either way. The odds are against us. Condo oversupply, low market price, and we're competing with the developer too. Yep, the condo didn't sell out 5 years after pre-selling. Can you believe they're offering 20-30% off on it, with no spot DP? It's not fair. That's even less than the amount we need to pasalo to prospective buyers and we still need to cover taxes and fees. There's no way to get a positive return in this investment and waiting for the market to recover means drowning in debt. We're not sacrificing our standard of living for a condo we don't even see ourselves using. Cutting our losses is the only way. 

This is a happy thing because we're just tired of paying and we're finally over it! Yayy!

📊 I'm learning and loving Power BI! Really love designing the dashboard and learning data modeling ♥️

That's it for now! Happy Wednesday! 

Life lately

↪ Team summer outing was a success, yeyy! Everyone was so cool. We had fun! We played board games that challenged us physically (taco cat goat cheese pizza ), mentally (poetry for neanderthals), and morally (sheriff) HAHAHA. We had so much food. The grates of the grill was pretty cooked so most of my liempo got a burnt crust huhu but it's still delicious. No one died.

Now that I know how to set up an outing like this I'd be more comfortable doing this in the future! It's a learning experience that paid off for me cos now I feel more comfortable with everyone 💖.

↪ Finally I can focus on working on other stuff on my plate. Namely, becoming an expert at Power BI and doing this local automation via Studio X! 

↪ A major case of FOMO led me to follow most of my Facebook friends again, after unfollowing everyone some 5 years ago. It's become a habit of mine to immediately unfollow any new friend because I wanted to protect my feed from their vanity lol. But lately, Facebook has infringed on that liberty by pushing dumb content from equally dumb influencers so I thought I'd fight back by choosing to hear from my friends again, regaining illusory control of what my eyes consume. But really I'm just giving myself more reason to doomscroll. Fine, Facebook you win. 

Now that I'm exposed to a lot of personal posts again, I'm reminded that there are some people that I actually do not prefer to hear about HAHAHA and so I have to unfollow some people again lol #sorrynotsorry.

↪ I have so much to do at work I don't even know where to begin. Hay Lord!

PBI

Haaay. It's been monthsss since I told myself I'll study Power BI but until now I'm not making progress and it's already May and next thing I know it's June already and I promised my manager to deliver this task by then!

I'm doomed!

Small wins

↪ I sent out two emails to the team regarding our upcoming summer outing. A calendar invite and a poll for venue options. I gave out 3 airbnb options which I already reserved, so I'll just keep the winning listing after the poll. Thank God for free cancellation!

↪ I've been feeling very anxious about this task. When my manager casually told me to organize the outing I knew I had to follow through because uhm it's an order hahaha and also I do want a team outing! I've been feeling very distant with everyone and I wanna close that gap by trying to get to know them better. I know they're all cool and I would love to feel closer to the team.

As an introvert though, it's a nightmare planning stuff. Not because it's hard to get everyone's involvement, on the contrary they're all very game about the prospect of a team building, but because I don't know where to start and what to do and ask of everybody. In general, I'm very indecisive and shy, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about participating. I'm actually quite social but I don't want to be the responsible party.

I wonder how Maki does it back in White & Case, she's always on top of things like this! 

Anyway. It's good practice. Now that the poll is out and the venue is almost secured, this is really happening! Now we just need to decide on the food, carpool options, and collect payment. Should be easy right?

At least I get to design a teaser in Canva! Haha

↪ My head has been hurting for a couple of days now. It's probably period migraines and I hate it.

↪ I got my MRI results yesterday. ACL is intact thank God but there's something about my meniscus that I need to ask the doctor about. It says lobulated parameniscal cyst along the anterior horn. GenAI says it's associated with a meniscal tear, which I know I've had since highschool. So now I need to know my next steps cos it's starting to hurt. I have to wait for the images though cos they ran out of film. Funnily they gave me a CD of the images. Like, who still has CD drives in this age? Oh well, guess it's still a medical standard. They gave me access to the raw files on Google Drive, which prompted me to install a DICOM image viewer because they're in a different format. It looks cool haha. Still prefer the printout lol.

↪ Started our sessions with coach Gene yesterday. I was able to go through the exercises even on a fast. My husband however almost fainted. It's been a while since he worked out. Looking forward to really improving our health and general fitness! And primarily fix my knees! 🤞

Holy Thursday

Just taking the the time to look back on the previous week as I've just uploaded a new vlog hehe

Thankful for mommy's successful operation. It took an entire day! She's now in the ICU under careful monitoring. When her state improves she'll be transferred to a pay ward. Praying for a speedy recovery!

It's a difficult phase for the family. I know I'm not too hands on about it because I don't live with them anymore so it's my dad and sister who does all the legwork. Between watching mommy and trying to collect funds and guarantee letters from charity institutions and politicians, I know it's been terribly exhausting for them. If money wasn't an issue, meaning we have at least 2 million lying around, then this wouldn't put so much stress on them. But the reality is, they didn't have much saved. We all don't. They had to sell one of their properties, and even that wasn't enough. So my sister has to run around chasing charities for guarantee letters to ease up the expenses a little bit. And my dad has to take a bank loan because the bills just keep piling. I'm immensely thankful for the both of them and every day I ask God to continue giving them strength. 

When I visited mommy in PHC I was told to drive the car back to the house because they don't have overnight parking in PHC, even the one along Matalino. You have to pay by the hour, and they're probably staying for weeks so that's gonna cost a lot. I was a bit worried about this little side quest because it's been almost a year since I drove the Vios and I'm always afraid of driving a different car. I wouldn't dare. But this time I had to.

As I stepped inside and sat down to adjust myself, it felt strange. There was no wave of nostalgia, no familiar feeling. It's finally sinking in. This car isn't mine. At least not anymore. It's daddy's car now, has been for almost a year, and it shows. I had to adjust everything to suit me. The seat, the mirrors, where I put my things. I can feel its age, with the tight steering and light brake pedal. I can see daddy's mess as he always leaves personal items in the car, much to mommy dismay haha. I was cautious not to gas too hard because I know it's not as heavy as our new car. But this car is new. It's new to me. There's no traces of my ownership left in this humble orange casing. As I stepped out of it and locked the door, I started to miss Vi, realizing that our bond has been long gone. I guess that's just the nature of ownership, if it's yours it will show.

Much like our relationship with the Lord. If you're His, it will show. And everyday it's a struggle.

May we all have a meaningful holy week. ✟

Aja mama!

In a few hours my mom will be on the table to get a complex procedure done. There's nothing we can do at this point besides pray for a successful operation and a speedy recovery. She's getting a triple bypass and two valve replacement (aortic and mitral) surgeries at Philippine Heart Center. Multiple open heart procedures that will take a day. Be strong mommy! We're all rooting for you! I'm very excited for her recovery! But I also pray for strength for daddy and Terai who's doing all the legwork to ensure a smooth experience for mama. From watching at the hospital to processing grant letters here and there. Ate Necie as well who's been essential in keeping the house in order and attending to mama when she's at home. I pray to God that when mama is back to her good health, we can all enjoy a nice and sweet vacation! 

On another note, we're on the book of Exodus on our daily reading and I'm at the point where The Promised Land started. It's funny cos the show helped me imagine what's going on in the Bible so it's easier to recall. The Israelites sure are a stubborn and ungrateful bunch. They would complain over and over to Moses and would say they'd rather be back as slaves in Egypt. Seriously! If I were Moses I would feel very defeated, forcing a nation out of captivity and getting resented for it. I mean, I don't know if I could blame them. The journey to Canaan was long and arduous and they were bored to death. They probably felt more productive in Egypt, even as slaves, than in the wilderness, free but with no direction. Well they wouldn't be without purpose if they just listened to God but they just had to be stubborn, losing sight of the goal. Oh well.