Happy Liza is Happy!

Hi!

Since I started working two weeks ago, this is the first time I've been on the internet without having anything work-related opened up on my MacBook or phone, and to be completely honest, I'm not too upset about that.

I'm currently filling in as a producer at a commercial photography studio until 19th August, and though the past two weeks have been incredibly insane work-wise, I am the happiest I've been in a really long time! The workaholic in me is alive and thriving, and the chill pill in me gets on well with pretty good colleagues. I think it's safe to say that I am legitimately upset that I'm leaving the office in two days.

Since I started work, I've had a lot being thrown at my face day after day, and even though I do complain about it from time to time, it really doesn't make me want to go and kill myself. You know when you used to wake up for school, and you just counted down the hours until you could go home? I am really grateful to say that I feel nothing like that! I even wake up in the morning, before 8am mind you, not hating myself! If you know me, you would know that it truly is a miracle and it means so much to me.

Who knows, maybe this is just a quick turn for the happy side of my Cyclothymia. Or maybe it's just because I'm working for this company for only such a short period of time. But I like it and I'm enjoying it, so I might as well just accept it and make the best out of it, no? This too shall pass, and all that.

Sometimes I'll be telling someone a story and halfway through, I'd realize that there's no point to it, and I just wanted to tell someone my story. Well this blog post is it. There is no real point to this, I just wanted to say I was, and hopefully still am, genuinely happy.

I hope you are all genuinely happy.

Good morning.

Five Reasons Why Going To The Pool Is Just Like Real Life

Hi.

About two months ago, I started going to the community pool near my place once or twice a week in an attempt to break out of a funk in my life I'd like to call unemployment. Going regularly, I see a couple of the same few people every week and have figured out the pool culture, and realized that it's pretty similar to how it should be in your day-to-day life.

1. Most people don't understand that you have to get ready before swimming.

Besides the obvious point that you have to be dressed appropriately, you have to warm up/stretch before going in for a swim. Like most exercises, you need some form of pre-game before really getting down to it, or else you'll end up with the horrible foot cramp we're all familiar with.

It's the same with life, you can't just be well-groomed or have a nice job title. You have to be ready and doing good internally too! Are you mentally prepared for that job? Are you emotionally ready to be in that relationship? Or are you constantly eating food that you know is junk? It's all about being well inside and out.

2. No matter how many times you've gone up and down what you've established is your lane, some bastard will ruin your groove.
You know when you've been in the same lane for at least 20 minutes, and some fucker, who has been in the area for long enough to have at least noticed that you've been in the same lane for at least 20 minutes, just decides to float about and just stand there right in your lane for no apparent reason. This legitimately makes me so mad, and as much as I've accepted that this is a thing that happens, it still pisses me off.

No matter how long you've been doing your job or you know, doing things in general, there is always someone there to unnecessarily ruin things for you. It really isn't a big deal, but it really ruins a couple of minutes of your day and you just spend the rest of the day glaring at that person. And it's okay, it happens, but don't let it ruin your whole day. Use that rage as fuel to do better for the rest of the day.

3. No matter how clean your pool is, just accept the fact that someone has and will pee in it.

Unless you have your own pool or you're the first person in after a cleaning, just accept that the body of water you are willingly dunking yourself in for an extended amount of time contains a small percentage of urine. There is no way around it. The earlier you accept this, the earlier you'll forget and get used to it.

Nothing is perfect, and no amount of effort on our part could change that. Sometimes we see flaws in ourselves, and sometimes other people see flaws in us. We just have to accept that shit happens (I hope to God, not anywhere near the pool) and we can only do so much to fix it.

4. If the pool is dirty, don't go into it. Obviously.

Accepting that you are soaking in water mixed with a bit of pee is one thing, willingly going in a pool that is clearly dirty is something else. Call me stupid, but I love wave pools with every fibre of my being, and one incredibly hot summer day, my cousins and I decided to go down to the water park and attempt to cool down. When we got there, we found out that the entire city had the same idea, and the wave pool ended up being more people than water. From afar, it literally looked like the scene from World War Z where there were literal waves of zombies. The water was just disgustingly murky and there were a lot of unmentionables floating about, but my child-self couldn't walk away from the wave pool and I ended up itching so bad for multiple days and got scars and rashes. As much fun as I had at the wave pool that day, it just wasn't worth it.

Don't do something knowing you're have a substantial problem with it. Be it sticking with good-paying job when you know you're slowly developing alcoholism from dealing with soul-sucking co-workers, or going on a "spiritually-fulfilling" backpacking trip when you know you're gonna end up in debt. Putting yourself out of your comfort zone is a great thing, but do it smartly. Obviously.

5. For everyone's sake, shower before going in the pool!

I will admit, I didn't know this until I started going more regularly, but showering before going in the pool is actually really important! A good chunk of the impurities in pool water is actually not from pee, but is actually from the dirt from people's skin that just mixes in with the water right as we all, basically take a communal bath together. Just shower, guys. With soap please, or at the very very least, drench yourself before going in. Please.

This point was mostly made because I want people to understand that you have to shower before going in a pool, but it's also good to mentally and emotionally cleanse yourself before you go about on your day. Don't hold on to the negative thoughts you had the day before and carry it into a new day. It is not gonna do you any good, and it could possibly be affecting other people as well. Feel clean, from the inside out.

negativity month count: I

Hi.

It has been more than a month since I have officially graduated, and to be completely honest, I haven't been doing anything significant. 

I am turning 21 in a few months, and I just recently started a habit that has infinitely made me feel more of an adult than anything I've ever done in my life. I started making my bed in the morning. Every morning. It gives you a false sense of accomplishment, making you feel like you actually have your life together.

Contrary to popular belief, I am a workaholic at heart. Yes, I run through seasons worth of a TV series within a week, but I do so while working on my computer. Yes, I like to sleep a lot, but when I am awake, I do like to be working on something. So now that I've been unemployed and mostly projectless for a few months, I've started getting anxious. I really need to get out of the house more often.

It's kind of annoying how people tend to want to produce things out of negativity. In the teenage (or  in my case, young adult) sense, and that usually means angsty writing and a whole lot of pretentiousness. So this blog will probably be seeing a whole lot more posts soon. It just hit me that I'm in the negative fit of my cyclothymia and everything just makes me want to run for hours, but my legs and lungs can only take me so far.

I hope you're all having nicer days.

Goodnight.

Philippines: Home & Boracay

Hi.

I flew to the Philippines for a quick holiday in April to visit my relatives and have a quick getaway in Boracay.

MANILA

I only had 8 days in the city and my cousin, who I usually hang out with to go out on trips, was working and wasn't able to take leave, so I mostly had chill out days and shopped. In addition to that, I was actually in town during a major holiday where the malls and amusement parks were closed, so I had limited places to go to, but I still had fun.

For the first two days, I mostly shopped and caught up with my cousins. On one of the days, I met up with Mildred after her work and went on a massive food spree. We had dinner at Banaple in Alabang Town Centre and we got the same thing that we would always order. Breaded Chicken Fillets in the yummiest Milk'shroom gravy for me, and a simple but great beef tapa for her. AFter dinner, we went down to another one of our usual spots, Mochiko! They have the coolest mochi ice cream balls. And after that, we headed down to another cafe called Le Petit Cherie at another part of Alabang. She had this massive caramel bannaa crepe and I had the most amazing Rocky Road Cronut. It was a work of art.

My cousin and I planned to go on another food spree and shop, but all the malls were closed. Thankfully the wakeboarding park we've been meaning to try out was open, so Mildred and I went on a 1-hour roud trip up to Nuvali, Laguna. You could say that we might have been a bit over prepared for our short little road trip. We got our giant Starbucks drinks, bought toiletries and snacks from the gas station, and got this massive tub of my ultimate favourite Potato Corner fries, that we finished before we even reached our destination.

We went to Republ1c Wakeboard and it was great! It was really inexpensive, compared to Singapore and Batam at least, so we booked two hours, put on our lifevests and headed down to the cables. When you first walk in, you'll see this massive lake where all the pros are shredding and doing tricks. And then you walk further in, and you'll see the tiny lake where all the beginners go. Basically they set up this one cable, and riders just attempt to go from one and to the other. I say attempt, because most people weren't able to make it. Since it was a holiday, there were tonnes of people and we had to queue for quite long before we get our turn, but when we finally get to go, it was so fun and was such an adrenaline rush! Mildred just went to try it out with her friends two days before we went, so she was a bit better, but after two hours, I finally managed to go from one end to the other! It was such a huge accomplishment, I just wanted to keep going, but we actually stayed until they had to close for the night.

I went back to the wakepark a couple of days later with my younger cousins, because I desperately wanted to wakeboard again, but Mildred was working. So I had another mini roadtrip, with two 13-year olds this time who could not stop talking about "the cutest loveteam of the century", and the driver and I would just roll our eyes at every squeal they'd let out from going through Daniel Padilla's photos. Thankfully, there were significantly less people at the wakepark and we were able to go on the cables more often. We booked two hours, but ended up staying for almost four! I finally managed to do a proper graceful stance on the wakeboard and go form end to end, but of course, only my shitty fail was caught on camera. Joan actually managed to learn pretty fast and got to the end in almost two hours! Denisse was really nervous throughout the whole thing, but I'm really proud of her for trying something new! I managed to convert these two homebodies to actually go out and do some activity!

BORACAY

We got home pretty late from wakeboarding, and we actually had a really early flight to Boracay in a couple of hours, so my cousins and I decided that we would all just stay up and sleep while traveling instead. I bought sugar-high chocolate snacks and cookies and just made jokes all night, which I sort of regret cause we ended up being unable to sleep until we got to our hotels in Boracay. From the house, it was a 30-minute ride to the airport, a 40-minute plane ride to Caticlan airport, a 3-hour freezing winding bus ride to the pier, a 20-minute boat ride to Boracay, and a 30-minute jeep ride to my hostel. By the time I reached my hostel, it was 8am and I couldn't even check-in. I ended up leaving my bags at the hostel and walking down to my aunt's hotel where all my relatives were staying and we headed out together to have breakfast, before heading back to the hostel to catch some sleep.

A bit of background, I initially booked my trip to Boracay for me to travel solo, but when my relatives heard about it, they thought it was really sad that I'm going by myself and they insisted that they go with me, even though after I insisted that I'll go by myself. When we got to Boracay, they also insisted that I join them at their hotel instead of staying at a separate hostel, but there was no way I would do that. There were seven of them in a tiny excuse of a family suite sharing one bathroom, and I had a bigger than average twin bed all to myself in my hostel with a decent showers. So I only met up with my cousins for certain activities and meals.

The first thing we did when we got to Boracay was go on a Island Hopping trip. We hired a boat that took us out snorkelling. Unfortunately the water was really choppy that day, so we had to swim with lifevests on and always had to be holding on to a rope attached to the boat or else we would drift away. We also headed down to another island to play around and swim. My aunt started getting really sea sick and my cousins didn't like swimming that much, so we ended up not going to the other islands. We ended up staying along the main beach swimming around and playing tag until low tide, after which we started building sandcastles and rolling around in sand.

The day after, I had breakfast and walked to meet my cousins at their hotel and we headed down to the beach for a quick swim before I headed down to book my Ariel's Point trip for the day. Ariel's Point is a famous cliff-diving spot that's a 40-minute boat ride away from the main island. It was 2000PHP (around SGD60) for a day trip, inclusive of the boat ride, unlimited drinks (yes, alcoholic ones too) from the moment you step on the boat until you get back to the main island, an amazing buffet lunch, kayaking and snorkeling around the area, and of course the cliff-jumping itself. Even though I only had a few jumps, I would say that it was completely and totally worth it!

I went by myself and ended up meeting a couple of people when I got there, and we snorkled around before attempting to do the jumps. I'm not afraid of heights, like I could go to high points and look straight down without feeling scared, but I am completely terrified of that feeling you get when you fall. The feeling that your internal organs are somehow being left behind as the rest of your body falls, I HATE IT. I love being on rollercoasters in general, but I always hate the first most impactful drop. So jumping of the cliff was a pretty big deal for me, and I'm really proud of myself! Though I'm not gonna lie, the unlimited amount of alcohol probably helped a fair amount. They have three different cliff jump points, 5 meters, 10 meters, and the dreaded 15 meters. I only managed to jump off of the 5 meters a couple of times, and once on the 10 meters right before we had to leave the island. I kept involuntarily closing my eyes whenever I jumped off, so I never knew when I was about to land, so I always landed in the water wrongly, and man! My ass was hurting throughout the whole day. I could barely sit down properly. It was crazy fun and adrenaline-rushing though, and I do not regret it!

After my Ariel's Point trip, I met up with my relatives to have dinner and then headed back to my hostel to wash up and get ready to go out again. I met a couple of people from my hostel, but ended up heading out to the bars alone. I'd have to say, it was a bit awkward going out to the bars by myself, but I ended up having a really great time at Epic Club! I was walking along the beach when I heard the sweet sound of drunk white girls singing along to some Ke$ha song, and naturally I had to see what was happening and be part of it, and I ended up spending the whole night (and morning) in Epic. I met these really pretty Korean girls and some people off of the Boracay Pub Crawl. I remember meeting this crazy girl from Australia who ended up being my BFF for the night, and this guy who looked like an older version of Jason Spevack and we gossiped about who was gonna go home with who. It was hilarious! It was definitely one of the best clubbing nights I've ever had. We ended up staying until they closed and kicked us out, and I stumbled back into my hostel at 5am and completely passed out.

We had to fly back to Manila the next day, and the travel was just completely terrible. I just felt completely miserable and it was just a whole lot of annoying waiting, and it took up the whole day. I ended up just taking it easy the next day, and went to the mall to shop, get my nails done, and have a lovely dinner with my aunt. I had to fly back to Singapore with my grandmother the day after, and it was another miserable day at the airport. NAIA's airports is just seriously the worst. It was even worse considering I was flying back to Singapore. Oh well.

So that was my incredibly lengthy post of my trip to the Philippines! I wasn't able to take more photos because I didn't really want to be bothered with carrying my DSLR around and I didn't want it to get wet. I think I've cleared up all my back-logged scrapbook posts now, so hopefully, you'll get to see new things on here more often.

I hope you all have had your lovely travel getaways!

Goodnight.

Christmas GIF Bomb 2013

Hi.

I'm currently working on churning out all my back-logged content, so you might see a couple of incredibly outdated posts, but better late than never, right?

My friends and I had our Christmas Party in January, and we took a couple hundred photos in our always ridiculous fashion.

I hope your Christmas parties were as fun as ours. Even though we all know that it's pretty impossible.

Goodnight.