Where do I even start?

I wrote a review of 2023 Q4 at the start of the year that I didn’t get to post so let me just paste it right here:

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Hello 2024

It’s kind of weird to say that given that it’s already January 9. But I’ve been trying to tell myself that its alright since January 1 is just an arbitrary date anyway and one thing I want to learn is to be comfortable with starting even its not the “perfect” time.

After all, who cares if I’m writing my 2023 essay at 12:05am on a Tuesday, 9 days after the new year? Yes, no one.

Edit: and who cares if I’m posting this on July 28,2024!? hahahaha

2023 Q4 Review

I’ve been in a limbo since the start of Q4. My Q3 was full of events and stuff and its like my energy crashed after the “highs” I felt after attending all of those events and courses I enrolled to.

And even though I attempted to attend more workshops about making the most out of Q4 and finishing 2023 strong yada yada, I know I was at my limit and so I didn’t do anything at all.

I just drifted and took a lot of projects because I made a pretty big expense and I needed the money (lol).

Took projects below my usual rate– even took SEO and Shopify (!) projects even if those are not really my specialty.

Learned a lot in taking those projects though — been discovering what I like and do not like to do.

Falling Short

I always feel like I’m not doing enough.

But whenever I look back, I always realize that that’s not really the case.

For Q4 of 2023 I:

• participated in Accessibility Internet Rally (built an accessible website for NVRC with my team) — update: we won third place!
• Attended EAGX PH — the first Effective Altruism conference here in the Philippines.
• Did a simple telescope viewing in EAGx celebration of the International Observe the Moon Night (I was reminded why I became so into astronomy– seeing people’s faces light up when they see the Moon through a telescope for the very first time is a different kind of high.)
• Attended TribeX (like TEDx but for freelancing)
• Attended the goal setting of Pumpkin Juice Creatives (the social-impact agency I belong to)
• Had a 1 on 1 session about identity with a life coach
• Consulted with two mental health professionals (edit: I don’t even remember how many people I have consulted after this)
• Read Strengths Finder and $100M Leads
• Went to Batangas with friends
• Went to Palawan with my family
• Built and launched a self-portrait studio with my sister and cousin

That’s a lot, right? And if not for these quarterly reflections I wouldn’t appreciate these things I’ve been doing. I would just keep chasing the next big thing without acknowledging how far I’ve come.

(edit: There’s still a lot of writings that follow after this but let me just cut it here for less info overload)

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And here’s a quick overview of the happenings this year

January

• new year, new place
• decided to live at the studio because of intense traffic (Hello MRT 7)

February 

• interview with Web Accessibility PH (got to share my experience with participating in Accessibility Internet Rally 2023)
• Mystery Manila with Pau and Dale (two amazing ppl I met online yrss ago)
• Reunion with AstroSoc people (after a looong time)
• Team building with R2S
• Birthday celebration with college friends (board games + bowling)
• Celebrated my birthday in NAIA because I was late for my flight lol
• First time in Malaysia!
• Met Nikki, Sir Marc, JC, Faye — a lot to write about here but I’ll leave this as a bullet point for now

March

• NWA
• Enrolled: Digital Products with Bryce (I haven’t consumed this because I’ve been busy with QL stuff)
• 👩‍❤️‍👨 (iykyk 🤣)
• Gave out MMI tickets to people 😀
• Attended Day 3 of MMI to witness something (iykyk)
• Enrolled in [redacted]’s Passive Income Course 🤣

April

• Bought a smartwatch
• QL people meetup (Karaoke + Board games)
• Learned the abacus lmaoo
• Got my first credit card approved 😀

May

• First time in a bar lol (XYLO with PJC and R2S people)
• Attended Guerilla Business Intensive in Malaysia
• Explored Kuala Selangor
  • Saw a lot of eagles
  • Saw a lot of fireflies
  • Saw a lot of bioluminescent algae
  • More Malaysia first time experiences
    • First time getting my nails done (sponsored by Nikki hahah)
      • First time karting
      • First time indoor skydiving
      • Travelled to Genting Highlands
      • First time in a gondola
• Unlocked my Top34 Clifton Strengths
• Watched Haikyu with friends
• Mindmapped different life paths
• Attended a birthday outreach
• Got back into memory techniques
• Enrolled in a tiktok course 

June

• Birthday celebration of cousin (swam and talked about life)
• Memorized the first 50 digits of pi through my mind palace 🤣
• Availed ASEAN Pass (unli flights to ASEAN countries for 1 year!)
• Revisited my enneagram (4w3)
• Bought another smartwatch because I lost the first one in Malaysia
• Got lost and found a MUJI store in SM North (bought a lot of stationaries)— my productivity went up up up because I was able to braindump at last. Realized that there’s a lot of clutter in my mind and I got them expressed and sorted out because I journaled. Been writing everyday since then.
• Decided to gamify my life (this is also an effect of buying notebooks and pens)
• Got accepted to Impact Junkie’s Program called Live your Purpose Through Entrepreneurship through YSEALI (IT IS RESONATING A LOT)
• Got into Coach Marc Allen’s Ready2Scale Program

I’ll put more pics here when I’m not lazy busy, but I’m thinking that maybe this condensed form is better hmmm.

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And finally… July.

After all of the events for the first half of the year, my energy crashed once again (and so I was procrastinating by learning a bunch of stuff like the abacus and mind palaces lol maybe that’s my way of escaping life.)

But in June I decided to gamify my life and I would say it was effective for me. This gamification deserves a separate post so I won’t elaborate much. But I’ve been tracking my habits because of it ( in all honesty, I haven’t been really consistent with them). But tracking is a start and I consider that a win lol.

Speaking of tracking, let me share my sleep distribution chart for July haha:

Yes, I’ve gone full nocturnal. On average I sleep at 05:19am, and wake up at 11:11am :))) There’s even a day when I slept at 10:40am.

Right now its 7:27am and I haven’t slept yet… and I kind of like it. I’m much much much more productive after midnight (can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to wake up in the morning to become “productive”, but I ended up not being able to do anything because my brain can’t function well). Plus, no one’s interrupting me while working because they are asleep haha.

But speaking of sleep

I’m feeling sleepy so I’ll just continue this in a separate post. I’ll publish this now because if I don’t, who knows how long will it take this writing to see the light of the day lol.