Life Update… after almost a year.

I’m not exactly sure how to do this anymore or what to write anymore. My last blog post was last June, and even then, it was about an experience four years ago. To say that my blog is outdated is an understatement. There’s so many new stories just from last year alone to share and they will most probably come in separate blog posts after this one. Fingers crossed. And 2020… Well, that’s a different book altogether. For all of us, me thinks.

I’ve been stuck at home for almost three weeks now, like most of us are. It’s the littlest things I miss: doing groceries, having a milktea run, plain old window shopping, even taking a quick nap on my Grab ride to work… I’m never taking anything for granted again. In the meantime, I have a lot of time to spare and I plan on using that to update my blog before it starts to really collect dust. Here’s a few, quick updates from the last couple of months:

APRIL 2019

I finally resigned from my first job. I was working on my first company for a little over four years at this point. It’s bittersweet and scary to say goodbye to a place that I was so comfortable in and to people that I’ve genuinely liked working with and hanging out with. Not only did I took on a new job, but it’s also on a technology that I am not familiar with at all. It’s been almost a year now, but I can say that it’s a good move personally and professionally.

SEPTEMBER 2019

It’s my 24th birthday! We celebrated the day of with a small gathering at home then went to Nuvali the following day for Korean BBQ and bingsu. Thank God for the gift of family and food.

OCT + NOV 2019

Mom was in Singapore for most of September-November so it was really a forced siblings bonding moment. We love to eat so we mostly went out to just… eat-out. (Man, I wish eating out.) October is also both of my brothers’ birthday months so we celebrated those together. Pero tsempre dahil ako lang may trabaho, gastos ko lahat ‘to. Ang saya.

It’s important to note here that I also found my favorite Japanese restaurants in the Metro during these months: Dohtonbori and Mendokoro Ramen. Let me plug my IG food dump account here as well: @richeleats.

DECEMBER 2019

My aunt got married this month so every relative from Singapore went home and we were complete on my father’s side of the family. It’s always a great time when everyone’s here and I did wanna go attend a wedding as a bridesmaid.

We went on our fourth country together as a family! Amidst all the uncertainties with the protests in Hong Kong, we pushed through with our year-end trip. It ended up much better than expected and we had loads of fun. My family had low expectations for the place, but I had always loved it and we are all glad we pushed through. We also did a quick day tour in Macau. 🙂

JANUARY 2020

I started 2020 with a quick, impromptu local getaway with my college friends. Minsan, yung biglaan pa talaga yung natutuloy, noh? It was a super quick hotel booking then everything else was decided on the spot. Irish will be moving to New Zealand for work so we really pushed to have this quick hang-out sesh before she leaves. Danica also went with us – the last I saw her we were still working on our thesis!

FEBRUARY 2020

My parents and I and a few other family member went to a 9-days Kansai trip. It’s my parents’ first time in Japan and to really experience Winter. It’s also our longest trip out of the country, other than Singapore. Next time, we’ll hopefully be back with my brothers!

MARCH 2020

Well, March… Time to address the elephant in the room? We’re all aware now of COVID-19 and the widespread lock downs happening all over the world. I’m very privileged to be allowed to work from home even before March 16. I’m very privileged to have a home, food to last for weeks, ability to help out, and to have my family all near me. But, not a lot of people are in the same boat as me. I’d just like to take this portion of the blog to share some of the small ways that we could help out:

• Stay at home, if there’s no need for you to go out.
• Voice out your concerns. It’s not complaining. The government will be forced to listen if everyone’s loud enough. 🙂
• Donate your Globe points or Grab points to our frontliners. Last I saw, Globe already collected around 20M pesos. Yay people!
• Donate to #COVID19Bayanihan that helps people that were living paycheck to paycheck and now had no job because of the lock down.
• Twenty Twenty para COVID-FREE ngayong 2020 aka. Saan Aabot ang bente mo? Donations would be use to provide PPEs to our frontliners.

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That’s it for now. Stay healthy, safe, and vigilant. I’ll see you on my next post!

Ciao.