I didn’t prepare anything special for this month, in fact I kinda forgot about it until I was quickly typing up my little birthday post (which I have to publish later I guess); I realized this month’s also my blog’s birthday! *face palm* But I moved on from the schedules (which I was praising for many years as my ultimate blogging arsenal) so the forgetful person that I am, it totally slipped off of my mind! Yikes 😳 but better late than never!

Last year, I redesigned (that didn’t last even a year—and I had to code it from the ground up!) and I also sum up a whole decade of blogging. But like I said here, the whole situation changed my mindset when it comes to blogging. I wanna it to be as effortlessly as possible. No more, scheds, no more photo sesh (maybe sometimes when I feel like doing it; maybe the post is special?), just complete spontaneous blogging mojo! And I love it!

Being in this kind of blogging that doesn’t mean I am in love with it less. I think—to be totally frank—this way allows me to love it more because it doesn’t feel like a chore anymore—contrary to what I said that blogging before was easy, it still took effort and time, and less be real, laziness hits me in wrong time & place. And then the pandemic happened, and it caught me in limbo and I have reassessed what do I really want to do with the blog. My mind respond with “let’s start clean, but not forgetting the past” that’s why I still didn’t delete all my previous posts!

Ah, ✨ eleven years ✨ are plenty many! And I’m proud of this blog! I think I’m thriving well despite the whole lot of change in the internet landscape. My blog is still here vibin in its little quiet place in this vast online space!

The lovely street of Spain. Photo by Johan Mouchet on Unsplash

Honestly, given our financial circumstances, I don’t think it’s very feasible for us to visit Europe. The process of getting schengen visa is just grueling. Not that I didn’t have any experience working with visa, I did that when we went to Australia and Japan (and maybe soon with South Korea? If God permits and the the pandemic is finally over and when we get to travel again without this extreme restrictions) but going to Europe demand so much work. Also it’s so faraway from the Pacific, so the airplane ticket is steep. So whenever I listed some of the countries that I want to visit, I made sure it’s realistically possible.

So what prompted this post, well, my sister dug about our family tree and while we already knew that our great-grandfather from my father side was Spanish, we also learned that there’s something called citizen by ancestry. And since we are former colony of Spain, we have the chance to not totally withdraw our citizenship and may opt for dual citizenship. It’s a perk surely but I still think it’s a super duper pipe dream.  According to our research it will take so many, many years to get approved and it might not even happen, though it’ll be nice to visit the land that’s part of my ancestry. But like I said earlier, Europe is hard to visit if you aren’t that rich.

Anyway, the real outcome of this is we learned a little bit of our late dad’s past. My dad’s past was very mysterious, we barely know about our relatives. I understand why he didn’t want to share because it was really a painful past and not easy revisiting. Still, it’s quite regretful that we didn’t get the chance to learn more about it personally from our dad.

I am totally freaking out! A lot of fans must have heard this few months ago but I only found out this week! I searched high and low for the official statement and it is TRUE! Season 3 is finally dropping very soon! The author even shared a sneak peek of his workspace with the webtoon panels beautiful shown (though I could hardly see the details but this is enough evidence that’s gonna be out really soon and this just empty words and promises! I’m so happy!

It has been 5 years since I read the breaker and been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, holding on to those promises. Two webtoon series after (trinity wonder and promised orchard???), it’s so happening now! I’m so excited to see Shi-Woon true badass form now that he finally let go of seonsaengnim and he’s learning his real martial art! But I admit, the clan leader Shi-Woon persona makes me so excited! I wanna see him all reveled and admired by many (as he should be!) Maybe it’s time to re-read the manhwa! Should I? Should I? Maybe I should!

Looking at the fall list, and again what lackluster line-up! I only have Blue Period to look forward to (which I’m gonna watch on Netflix since they’ll gonna stream it!). And while Kimetsu no Yaiba technically will air this year but it’s pretty much part of the Winter line-up for 2022! So I only have one? Which is an improvement (if I can consider it one) from last season that I didn’t have anything to watch (except for the spring leftovers).  Oh well, I think I watched almost all of what I wanted to watch in this list, while the rest didn’t air as expected.

I also watched Squid Game last weekend and it was pretty violent but good! ⚠️ spoilers ahead! ⚠️ And also pretty novel when it comes to brutal survival stories, I mean who would have imagined that playing children’s games will cause them dying at gun point! Brutal! I said this on twitter but favorite character was Sang-Woo. I know, the dude had swindled money literally costing him his life but for me, he was the most human. In situation where you are in survival mode sometimes you will think of self-preservation first and that was what he did! I was also so pissed on how he fooled Ali to his death but it was either Ali died or he did, and he chose the most realistic decision.

I was expecting a more psychological last match but they just fought and Sang-Woo ultimately gave up! Ah! I’m also wasn’t super into the ending but I was surprised that people expected Gi-Hun to just accept everything when what he survived was very traumatic and that money amounts to 455 lives? He won’t spend that money guilt-free, unless he lost his humanity which he didn’t that’s why the bet between him and Il-Nam made sense. It’s understandably real reaction. Anyway, it was only 9 eps so it was easy to marathon.

I never thought the travel would be far-fetch dream again…for simple people like my family. We planned our once a year travel many months in advance, tried to save all the money we can save so we can explore foreign places! But I never would have imagined that travel is far out of our reach again. Gone are days we are stalk local airlines for ticket sales! Or reading lots of travel on budget blogs so we can save with our travel!

This is such an iconic photo that I have taken from our latest travel back in January 2020, before the pandemic shutdown tourism to its knee. I miss circling the calendar dates, packing, exploring! I miss walking down the streets of some unfamiliar place. 😔

I didn’t prepare anything special for this month, in fact I kinda forgot about it until I was quickly typing up my little birthday post (which I have to publish later I guess); I realized this month’s also my blog’s birthday! *face palm* But I moved on from the schedules (which I was praising for many years as my ultimate blogging arsenal) so the forgetful person that I am, it totally slipped off of my mind! Yikes 😳 but better late than never!

Last year, I redesigned (that didn’t last even a year—and I had to code it from the ground up!) and I also sum up a whole decade of blogging. But like I said here, the whole situation changed my mindset when it comes to blogging. I wanna it to be as effortlessly as possible. No more, scheds, no more photo sesh (maybe sometimes when I feel like doing it; maybe the post is special?), just complete spontaneous blogging mojo! And I love it!

Being in this kind of blogging that doesn’t mean I am in love with it less. I think—to be totally frank—this way allows me to love it more because it doesn’t feel like a chore anymore—contrary to what I said that blogging before was easy, it still took effort and time, and less be real, laziness hits me in wrong time & place. And then the pandemic happened, and it caught me in limbo and I have reassessed what do I really want to do with the blog. My mind respond with “let’s start clean, but not forgetting the past” that’s why I still didn’t delete all my previous posts!

Ah, ✨ eleven years ✨ are plenty many! And I’m proud of this blog! I think I’m thriving well despite the whole lot of change in the internet landscape. My blog is still here vibin in its little quiet place in this vast online space!

There’s something to rejoice whenever Taylor hints on something! I really thought that the next album she will re-release was either Speak Now (chronologically speaking, it did come out after Fearless) or 1989, because all the buzz and hype that surrounded it prior to the announcement! But Taylor didn’t come around playing, she all got us excited when she officially announced that it’s gonna be Red! And you know what, I love RED! It was the album that I kept on repeating as my lonesome company because of all those things that happened to me (a lot of painful ones though T.T), so for sure I’ll (re)listen when it finally drops this November!

I mean, can we all agree that we’re all so looking forward to finally listen to All Too Well and it’s glorious 10-minute version?! Yes?! I once told my sister this that while I’m happy that Taylor has now a relationship for keeps, when she writes heartbreak songs, you can totally feel the sadness and all the emotions! As much as I love Death by a Thousand Cuts, it isn’t as heart-wrenching and soulful as ATW! But oh we are blessed truly! Taylor Swift, queen of productivity! 👑