RazDaz | giving up is not that bad

So.. recently I’m losing interest in many youtuber’s life. I used to enjoy watching them living their life to the fullest, the life that I would never have in order to fill up the gap that was missing in me. It was fun to see how happy they were, but suddenly it just came to me that after all, they’ve been doing the same thing anyway. Most of them like to do eating videos (else travelling), and lacked substance in it, for that they can’t describe well but only to say if the food tasted nice or not. 😂 I don’t find them inspiring anymore because it’s just the same stuff that gets repeated. Now I find watching animes/dramas/variety shows more enriching to me. Hence I’ve started to unfollow (give up) quite a number of youtubers nowadays and I have no regrets to put more time on myself rather than envying the life of others. Who knows? Probably they may have done for the camera and may not be real. I’ve missed out doing things for myself and I’m on the quest to achieve as much as I can for myself now. And of course, that includes getting appropriate rest that I need is not laziness. 😏

There are too many books waiting for me to read them and learn about the world! And guess what, last month I tried joining a FB book discussion group but was rejected just because I didn’t answer one of their questions. I think is unfair because it did not state that new joiners have to answer all questions in the first place. All they wanted to know are what book titles that I have read and would recommend to others. I feel tired to think about it and gave answers to only 2 out of 3 questions and I could submit it anyway. Why do they have to reject me? 🤨 I thought of joining some other book discussion groups but to no avail once again. Either the site’s movement were too slow or the number of people who joined were way too little. And there’s another problem which I discover. I only wanted to be able to discuss a book topic with others who read the same things and have ideas about it. But everyone reads books at a different rate and at a different time. And I don’t want to be restricted to reading a certain book this month if I don’t feel like it or I can’t borrow that book from library because it’s not available? So eventually I gave up searching in joining groups. I guess I’ll have to stick to reading and posting my reviews here then. Living up my life as a lone reader talking to myself like always. hahaha. 😆

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RazDaz | let the bad things be over…

Here we are at the end of May and I don’t think I did much for this month. I’ve been trying to spend more time on reading my law hardcopy textbook and notes to be away from screens. As you can see, I’ve been doing quick reviews instead. At first I wonder if squeezing 3 animes for 1 post would be sufficient, but I guess I’ll just go ahead with posting it else it might take forever if I couldn’t find 2 other nice animes to watch. 😂 And for the ebook reviews…oh my what’s with me reading books that I end up not liking them? I hope it’s just like a season that comes and goes, as I don’t want to waste precious time on reading those that aren’t helpful or interesting. 😥 My ebooks wishlist has now increased to 166 items and I have no idea how am I gonna finish reading them all. 😅 I’m not gonna stress myself out to clear all of them in the list but I also want to make sure that I go through the books properly instead of giving them up so soon even when they’re not well written. Hence the review with the poor ratings that I’ve given. 😅 Well let’s hope the next round it would be better!

Now that I’m spending more time to revise back my law concepts, I find that I began to understand them better than before. It became obvious to me that time is a factor in learning and understanding, but it was always those who had good memory that were able to excel in school life. Back then as a student I have a hard time to quickly grasp the content and answer tutorial/exam questions, while juggling with a few subjects/modules at once with other school activities as well. It’s no wonder why since elementary school I always don’t have the time to finish an assessment book or reading the whole textbook because time was never enough. Now that I can take my time to revisit the concepts and write my own notes on the books, it feels so good. 😊 I know this would make me seem like a slow learner and that could be my problem. But do we have to learn so many things in a short span of time? Especially when what we were taught back then were not all useful at all. I feel that a lot of time was wasted just because we have to follow the system. In fact getting education doesn’t mean you’re an educated person. It just means you have the money to pay for the school fees (especially for university level, although one could get loans). It doesn’t help if the normal person has no common sense and no practical life skills. I’ve seen and heard stories of how younger generations being undergraduates who don’t know how to use outlook email and copier machine, and they don’t even bother to learn. The way they behave may make you really frustrated. When will the society focus on upbringing one’s attitude instead? It’s devastating how nothing much has changed. Yet the school building where I used to attend law classes were already gone, in less than 10 years time. Memories definitely don’t last long in the country I live in. 😂

[Quick Review] ebooks – part 1

Hi there, here comes the list of books that I’ve read at from the beginning of the year till now. I’m trying to post in this new format. 🙂 Hope this seems fine as I don’t have much information to share.

1. The Secret of Positive Thinking – Many good encouraging words but like many books, it was interesting at first but not when read further. It gets boring especially when it list too many points form like a summary. Okay but not a book you would want to keep because there is nothing in detail.

My rating: 2/5
Would I recommend?: Maybe not.

2. Laziness Does Not Exist – It talks about the social stigma that we all have been brought up with: where the society ‘brainwashed’ and guilt-trip us to tie our self-worth to productivity. Even when you needed rest due to illness, doing nothing is seen as being lazy, and therefore you being a worthless person. This kind of mindset ignores the signals from the body telling us we could be suffering from burnout from overdoing things non-stop without rest. There is a reason why we feel unmotivated at times because our bodies and minds are screaming for some peace and quiet.

The author called it the Laziness Lie:
1. Your worth is based on your productivity
2. You cannot trust your own feelings and limits
3. There is always more than you could be doing

Cyberloafing is a term to describe when people distract themselves from stress and exhaustion by browsing social media or shopping online. Research/study found that slacking can help you be creative and reflective. It us a normal part of life as we need idle time to remain clearheaded and healthy. This is the same effect as to how we need bathroom and tea breaks. The brain will always find a way to take breaks when overworked, even if the only method left is staring off into space.

Expressive writing is all about writing out all your troubles/emotions or anything non-stop for 20mins. And then throw the paper away. I didn’t know I actually did this already in my teenage days to my diary. I used to write them out and then tear and throw them sometime later because I want to let go of my troubles. It did work for releasing my emotions. But it was a waste of the fanciful paper that I wrote them on. 😅

Our attention span is limited. We cannot stay focus on watching a video for more than 6mins, and 20mins on a task at work. It was nothing to do with willpower or laziness, but due to how the human brain fundamentally works.

Don’t be too quick to dismiss someone as being lazy but instead be curious to understand the reasons for why they acted the way they do. Even if it seems self-defeating or pointless, it makes sense for the person’s life. Exercise compassion as well to unlearn the prejudices and biases that were ingrained in us.

One last point I wanted to mentioned is that I was shocked to see the words ze and zir in the book because they don’t look like English to me. It was actually pronouns for non-binary persons! I wasn’t expecting this while reading but I guess it’s a thing now in recent published books. Oh well…

Takeaway from this book: Don’t let your job be the center of your life. Have some hobbies you enjoy doing.

My rating: 3/5
Would I recommend?: You can try but I do find it long winded.

3. Self-Love – It contains over 100 quotes but many repetitive points seen again and again that it gets boring. While it does seem a little motivating, there’s nothing new for me to learn about either.

My rating: 2/5
Would I recommend?: Not recommended.

4. Ask Me About My Uterus – I’m pretty sad to say that I was misled by the title of this book, thinking that it would be educational about the female reproductive organ but nope. It’s more like an autobiography of the author but it’s not in timeline order. I find her writing to be very messy, jumping from one topic to the other in the same chapter with no focus at all. Each chapter doesn’t even have a title too! The real deal starts at chapter 6 where she finally talked more about endometriosis. But still, subsequently I didn’t get to learn more about the condition at all as she continued to talk about her uninteresting life story that bore me to death. It’s bad writing to me if you don’t finish talking about the scene at once but added too many unnecessary thoughts, past incidents and other cases unrelated to what happened for the scene you were at earlier on. I have to skip the chapters because forcing myself to read them when they’re irrelevant is kinda like a suicide. It’s so much like an-internal-dialogue-with-herself book. In the end, it seemed like she still has no idea what’s wrong with her body for the pain that she is going through. Which is leaving me hanging in midair as a reader. 🙄 The only thing good is that she has a great vocabulary of words as compared to other authors. But the flow of writing and the focus is more important to get the reader engaged. It’s the worst autobiography book I’ve read thus far. I mean even if I were to review this based on autobiography genre it’s still not well written to me, as I’ve mentioned it was too messy to read. I’ve no idea why it had good praises but I guess I might have different liking compared to most American readers? It’s puzzling, but I’m just stating my honest opinion here.

My rating: 1/5
Would I recommend?: Not recommended.

[Quick Review] Anime – part 2

1. SPY×FAMILY Season 1

Japanese/Other title: – {April-Dec 2022}
[25 episodes; Comedy, Action, Spy]

Surprise! It’s probably the first time that I’m watching anime of this genre! I wasn’t interested at first but after seeing how popular it is and a friend that go as far as buying their merchandise, it got me curious to check it out. Indeed it was so hilarious that once I watched I just keep continuing it without regret. The only part that I find it draggy is the tennis tournament. The spy named Twilight has a mission to form a family in order to get near to a politician Donovan Desmond to maintain peace between the two countries. He found Anya from an orphanage who has a gift in reading minds and Yor Briar who is an assassin without his knowledge. While they may be a fake family, it is interesting to see how they began to like each other and wanted this family to keep going. Neither Loid (Twilight) nor Yor know about each others’ true identities and they are also unaware that Anya knew everything which got her excited at times! They are a really cute family (I find Loid really handsome! 🤭) of the olden European times where spies are common. The anime stops at Loid meeting Desmond for the first time but it was just the beginning. I’m quite looking forward for the second season to see how the story and missions progressed and how fun it is to see them together again.

Favourite character: Becky Blackbell
Favorite episode: 25 – Shopping with Friends
Dislike character: Fiona Frost

My rating: 10/10 ♥️

Would I recommend?: Yes! Looking forward to 2nd Season!

2. Aharen-san wa Hakarenai

Japanese/Other title: 阿波連さんははかれない {Apr-June 2022}
[12 episodes; Comedy, School life, Romance]

I enjoyed this comedy anime so much that I finished watching this in a few days’ time! Raidou-kun tries to befriend Aharen-san who sat beside him in class in their first year of high school. It’s really funny to see how he tries his best to understand Aharen-san who has problems in socialising (she can’t gauge how close to be with people) and being softspoken. The funniest part is him trying to find ways to best communicate with Aharen until that they rap and make expressions. When the both of them are expressionless people?! What I’m impressed with is seeing Aharen with many hidden talents in sports and games. It even got me interested in the fidget spinner! It was popular some time ago but now it’s getting harder to see it sold in stores, unless if I were to find it online. But it isn’t something that I need, I’m just curious about playing it since I’ve never once touched it before. 💫 One thing I find quite extra is to see their Sensei having nosebleeds from over-the-top imagination about Aharen and Raido’s relationship and called it an enchantment. 😅 While in this anime, it has a happy ending to the end of their first high school year (where they confessed to each other but not admit about being in a relationship yet?), I’m actually okay and even in for the idea of them just being best friends instead. I don’t see the both of them developing romantically for each other so I was thinking it might be the best if the story was written to make them the best of friends as different genders. Ah.., I have no idea why animes always turn out to have a different idea from mine at the ending. But okay, I still enjoyed it.

Favourite character: Aharen Reina with chubby cheeks ☺
Favorite episode: 4
Dislike character: Ooshiro-san

My rating: 8.5/10

Would I recommend?: Yes, but a second season would not be necessary.

3. Servant × Service

Japanese/Other title: サーバント×サービス{Jul-Sep 2013}
[13 episodes; Comedy, Office setting, Slice of life]

I’m pretty glad this time I can get to watch this full anime that I’ve once ‘abandoned‘ because I couldn’t find the episodes to watch back then. I didn’t know this show was pretty long ago and although it was funny, it wasn’t that memorable for me to put their pictures here lol. I guess I really don’t like Japanese working environment that much. 😂 Anyway, it’s all about the typical office environment but what’s special about this is particularly about civil servants’ daily lives. Lucy is the main character here for wanting to find out who’s the civil servant for approving the long name that her parents listed as her name (they can’t decide which single name to pick). Funnily enough, Hasebe who took a liking towards Lucy, found out that it was his dad who approved it without asking Lucy’s parents for confirmation (due to his worries of Hasebe being sick back then). Upon knowing the truth, Lucy didn’t have any angry response though. And what’s nice is that everyone in the office seems to be really nice people (just like My Senpai Is Annoying) which only happens in animes. Although at times I might feel bored at how the story goes (eg. the part on Chihaya and Ichimiya struggling with revealing about their relationship to his sister Touko, and the plushie rabbit as their manager which is the most ridiculous part to me 🙄). Other than that, I quite like the character Lucy for being a plain Jane who love reading books. Somehow she gave me the spark for my interest to reading again. I haven’t been reading consistently but only when I have the mood to. So now I’m getting myself the habit of reading everyday after watching her enthusiasm for books. I thought surely I can do the same! The ending was totally within expectations, where Lucy did not accept Hasebe and life is as per usual for everyone. So it wasn’t quite the ending that you would like, and that’s how this would be without anymore episodes.

Favourite character: Yutaka Hasebe
Favorite episode:
Dislike character: Touko Ichimiya and plushie manager

My rating: 7/10

Would I recommend?: So-so. You can watch if you like such genre.

RazDaz | backing out of FutureLearn

I’m slowly being able to get my energy back and doing the things that I wanted to do all the time. It’s nothing out of the ordinary though. It has always been the same few things that I enjoyed doing like watching animes, arranging clothes, reading ebooks etc. This time round I made myself read my law textbook and revision kit. Back then when I was studying for a course I don’t like to ‘dirty’ my textbooks that much and I was very unsure with what I know so I don’t really write much on the book. I tend to have the idea that I shall leave it to someday in the future to go through those books again and write or highlight whatever I want. But that day seem to be very far away and would never come if I just keep on dragging it. So I’ve decided to read the books again to refresh my knowledge on the local laws which is very useful in life. I only have motivation to do things that are practical and useful, as you know I don’t wish to waste time on something that doesn’t benefit or improve my life. Since I had ‘wasted’ too much time on being sick for so long without being able to do anything while in pain. That was quite a regret for me for time wasted although my body surely deserves rest and it’s probably because it didn’t get sufficient quality rest that led me being how I am today… 😓

One thing I tried to do earlier on was getting back to FutureLearn and take their course. I can’t believe they made changes again. And this time it wasn’t pleasant to me as a learner, because they are now stricter with the access. It used to be eg. a 2 weeks course whereby they will give you additionally 2 weeks to finish the course and it’s totally up to you to distribute your time so long as you finish it within the 4 weeks given. However, now they restricted the access for the next week’s lesson even though I had the time to complete the whole course at one go (which I’ve used to do so). They forced me to start the week 2 lesson on 08 May in which I wasn’t able to follow that all because I only have time for something at once usually. There isn’t any additional time given too after the 2 weeks, so I couldn’t get to complete the course. Holy~ do they have to do that? Just because they got popular and started earning more money by offering paid courses over the years as more people joined and use their website? This was once my favourite place to learn something new but I guess not anymore. It’s disappointing but it was not that bad just because it was free for the past decade. Why why? I think it’s making me stick to reading books as my best option now. 😐

Sum up: April

Alright, it’s good to see that I was able to write a monthly post this time. 😄 I was feeling pretty good for the past week, until yesterday my abdomen aches came back again. 😫 So much has happened for the month while I’m recovering. Since I have regain strength and when my abdomen aches don’t happen anymore (as I thought), I had aches/pains in other parts of my body one after another. It’s just funny to know this is how our body works. 😂

While I tried to walk out to have lunch, I had around 12 days of having flu (from what seemed like due to dust) during mid-April and 1.5 days of having fever. This disrupted my weight gain which is such a pity. And guess what? While I was sick I had to deal with the ant infestation in my room! It crawled on my shelves, table and even on my bed! 😱 On some days I had itchiness and I wonder if it’s cause of the ants crawling but sometimes it’s due to mozzie bites.

I also tried finding nice animes to watch but the stumbling block always lies on the first episode. If it couldn’t get me excited and engaged, I would have to dump it and not consider watching it again. That’s what happened for Sakamoto desu ga? (the anime made Sakamoto to be of Superhuman and could always avoid dangers/pranks from others which is very predictable) and The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten (the interaction between the main characters were SO boring that their conversation really almost puts me to sleep that I think it’s no use watching). Seriously, not all labelled comedy animes are really funny or interesting to watch. I wonder who decides on the labeling it as comedy (the audience or the creators?) as the level of humour can be doubtful. I can’t force myself to watch what I didn’t like based on the first impression anymore. I really wonder how some of the viewers are able to watch till the end for animes that they didn’t like or not recommend even as a reviewer. I know my reviews might be biased because I can only review what I can watch. But still, it’s probably hard to see anyone who’s fully objective in their reviews isn’t it? I feel that through reviews we can see the taste and preference of others. Like how I like to stick to certain genres/types of stories. I’m a really picky person so when I say if something is nice, most likely it is really nice and worth the watch (same goes to food!) hahhaa. So yeah, I can’t wait to finish watching some animes and post my reviews on them soon. 😊

Regret/missed opportunity to college

I’ve also watched amabelle’s videos to sleep till Jan/Feb with her daily vlogs (Why did I miss out mentioning this too?! 😅). Her style of editing is also very cute (along with her pet guinea pig) although later I found that many other youtubers had the same kind of style too. In fact I enjoy watching her videos better than emiffy haha.

I regret having a missed opportunity to go to college in my 20s. I didn’t get to have a university life like what most youngsters or my peers had. I tried applying for the local universities but failed in my appeal. I guess my performance wasn’t outstanding for their acceptance, in which I wasn’t that surprised yet I was feeling upset about it. I guess all kinds of rejection would hurt. Well to be frank, I could have applied for the computer science course as advised from a friend so that I can get in easily, but I wasn’t interested in it and wasn’t sure if it would work out for me so I didn’t try that option at all. And to be really honest with myself, I knew that I just thought of getting into a university so as to be like everyone else since I’ve not decided what to do with my life at that stage. I wasn’t prepared for anything yet. But there’s also nothing nice about the local university as it was very far from home. I also heard from friends that at university level you have to bid for modules which is quite a trouble because you won’t be able to get what you want and your friends won’t be in the same class as you mostly, which may make you a loner (that happened to one of my friends). However that isn’t the case for private universities lol. 🤷‍♀️

Watching how amabelle live her college life before she started her work life makes me feel so sorry about myself. 😂 Although I do have another option of getting into a private university, the huge problem I had was having no idea on which course to pick (so that I won’t regret and affect my future career). Additionally I already had loan from polytechnic education that I have to pay off, so there’s no way should I incur another debt for 3 or 4 years of university education which will be harder for me to pay back at the start of my working life along with the interest. I don’t want a huge burden at the start of making money at the beginning of adulthood life where I would want to spend and enjoy my life while I can. Although it didn’t end up better anyway but at least I think I’m glad that I didn’t make myself go bonkers due to financial stress. 😆

Sure I’ve missed out having a college life and wondering if I’m an oddball compared to my friends because almost all of them have a degree except me and I feel I couldn’t be part of them in some conversations. But having a degree is not an end to education life although many people have that kind of idea to stop learning after graduated. And yeah, I could also bring myself to study for a degree if I like it so much, in my 50s or 60s since there is no age limit to university study. Yet at this point I don’t have the desire to do so (my plans at that age) and there’s bound to be a generation gap by then. While I hate that many employers here favour degree holders so much, but there’s also no guarantee that you will be employed because of your degree since it’s so common to see degree holders everywhere and you will be compared with other candidates based on where you’ve studied and your grades. There’s just no end to it. Finding a job is so much based on luck, and experience speaks for itself better than grades. But if you didn’t have the relevant experience to a new industry you wish to hop in, then it’s also as good as starting all over again… 😔

Either one way or another, life can be hard at times.

Somehow I just feel I was born too soon because if I were to be born a decade later, I’m sure my childhood and studying life won’t be that hard. Just like how some of my younger friends are living and maybe like amabelle.

Also, if I were to have a kid, I’ll make sure there’s enough money to send him to university like everyone else and not suffered the same fate as mine. You really need a lot of money in your younger days than as an older adult. If you missed out those golden years of life to shine, it won’t be back again. Your chance of knowing and making friends easily at a young age only happens once. As you get older, it’s really hard to make friends especially genuine ones and those who could help with your life. It’s regretful to live a miserable life like mine growing up. I don’t know why but the lack of money did make me feel inferior and lack in confidence to befriend others and express myself. I was such an idiot that I even hated myself. So I swear upon myself that this should not be repeated to the next generation. In fact I don’t get why the older generations chose to have kids even when they couldn’t afford it, and then blame on life. It really made me felt as though it was my fault due to their constant complaints, as I couldn’t get praises no matter how hard I tried. It’s probably my fault to be born instead lol.

Maybe because of the missed college life, I still have dreams recently of going back to school and taking exams without preparation. Of course it’s definitely not what will happen in real life (I always make sure to get prepared to revise for tests and exams). But in those dreams I don’t have the time at all. And I have so much fear and worries of passing the exams. I think I still have fear with regards to school and exams that I most probably don’t want to face it anymore. It’s as stressful as rushing to complete work in job. Since everything is the past I don’t wish to go back or even think about going back to salvage it. It would just be a fantasy to fool myself. I really hope in my subconscious mind it has let go of the regret. I wish to have happy dreams, not anything of the past that I could not do back then at all. 😐 Please let it be gone. I’m no longer that ‘useless’ kid. lol.

Boring videos – Stationery haul

Sorry that I’ve missed out on mentioning (in my previous post) that stationery hauls are also what I watched to fall asleep. How funny it is that 10 years ago I enjoyed watching makeup hauls but now I’m into stationery hauls for something I lacked in my life. I grew up with using very few pens, often free or cheap and ugly ones because we couldn’t afford it. I can only buy 20 cent pens and write with so much discomfort until my hand would always hurt. I hardly use highlighters as well because I was concerned about “dirtying” the book with uneven bright colours. Anyway I could only get used yellow or orange highlighters so I don’t really like using them too because of the lack of colour choices appearing on the book. Now I feel sorry for myself for having such a dull studying life. 😅 I remembered that once I wanted to be nice to myself and bought a $2 blue pen but a classmate (a bully) made me lend him that pen in which he never return it to me at all. It was a double heartache because I’ve spent so much on it when I haven’t use it enough (not even half of the ink!) and I couldn’t get it back. Hence I resigned to my fate for that I wasn’t meant to use better stationery in case such things happened again so I’ll rather use cheap pens that will not make me feel upset for losing them. 😥

Stationery haul videos like this made me full of envy eyes to see that young people could get their hands on such pretty and cute stationery at that age. When I was a kid, I didn’t know what is a mechanical pencil until a classmate introduced it to me. And I had messy handwriting until he showed me how to write neatly with a mechanical pencil rather than using the traditional kind of pencil that needs to be sharpened after some writing. While this is where I got started liking using better quality stationery, the lack of money for buying them always reminds me of how I should stop my urges to get them. 😞 Those were the days haha.

So in order to make up for the loss of having nice pretty colourful stationery to use, I began buying a ton of them despite that I’m not a student now. 😂 What an irony this is. But hey, I could use them for my books and notes at home during my free time. I do use them so they aren’t a waste! Here I’m showing the range of highlighters that I’ve bought. I’m into ZEBRA brand now! Their pastel colours are so attractive! 😍 I first bought the 3 dark colours (right at the bottom) when I was studying as a student in 2019. But I didn’t dare to buy more for some reason. 😅 Yet now I’m into buying a set of highlighters (or maybe pens) because seeing a range of sweet colours make me happy. 😊 I think I have every reason to be nicer to myself so long as I live.

Before this, I watched a bit of journaling videos but I find them to be a waste of time because all they do is to draw pictures and use stickers all over. They took too much time to decorate and “plan” their day (or month or year) instead of going ahead to carry out the activities and filmed themselves doing the activities. I mean it’s doubtful to me as viewer whether they really did as what they have planned, because all they show is what they have journaled, not what they have done. Maybe they can be considered as boring videos as well, but I wasn’t interested in watching them anymore lol.

Anyway there are many youtubers out there that filmed the same way and style so in fact there is hardly any differentiation among them. Almost (if not all) of them look the same (just opening the packaging and taking them out, no talking but subtitles at the bottom) so they are really boring videos altogether. I was wondering why didn’t I get myself into nice pretty stationery at early adult age when I can afford it better than being a student. 🤔 Instead, my favourite activity after work was to shop for Japanese snacks at shops situated near my workplace. I guess maybe I was enticed by the snacks packaging. After all, I didn’t know how to take better care of myself back then. 😂

Boring videos that put me to sleep

I’m still having difficulties in getting a good night’s sleep and unable to adjust my body clock back to sleep at 11pm. ☹ I guess when it’s been 8 years of poor sleeping habits that accompanied with stress, it isn’t something that can be undone that quickly. I’m trying my best, and so now I’m sharing the videos that helped put me to sleep while I’m lying on bed due to the boring activities (not lullaby or music) done by the uploader. LOL.

I used to enjoy watching haul videos but now I came to know that there are shopping videos! Shopping is definitely a fun activity to do but I would say it’s enjoyable to do in person instead of watching others do it. 😂 I can’t actually focus because it’s not me doing the shopping so I get bored quite easily. Funnily enough, it made me sleepy so I guess it’s good in another way. What’s more, I don’t get to buy the clothes and stuff for myself. 😆

I’m sorry to say I’ve stopped watching emiffy videos since January because her life is so repetitive and boring 😂 Although my life is also equally boring but as an audience I wished to see something different rather than something I can expect how it would turn out to be. Also, the way she cooks and eats scared me a lot. 😰 I know for a healthy person it might seem fine, but it’s really not good to consume so much sugary food/baked goods on a regular basis (which is the cause of my fatty liver). I can’t bring myself to watch it anymore for that I would naturally scream in my head “Why are you eating this?! You’re damaging your health in the long term!” so it’s better for me to stop that noise in getting angry over what others are doing in their lives with their diet. I’m sorry to be way too conscious now. But going through a major illness does change a person. Oh well…

Sum up: The first quarter

of 2023 I have been focusing on my health a lot more, learning to be happy (found a comedy variety show to watch and laugh at), spend some time reading and update myself with some news to keep informed about this world.

I’m happy with the improvements that I’ve made, even though I didn’t get to blog as regularly as before. Because my priority is to regain my health and recover asap, so I wanted to allow myself to relax and focus on massaging & exercising as much as I could. The weather during the first 2 months were bad and affected me a lot as it would make me have some pains and aches on and off. It was only when March arrived everything became much better. I feel more hopeful and happier than before, especially knowing that the cyst has shrunk and my weight increased! I even tried ordering nutrition meals delivery that last for a week. It was good because the food is cooked healthier but bad because not all tasted good and the choices are limited. But at least I get to eat other foods that helped with my appetite. ☺

I also became well enough to make my own breakfast toast every morning and determined to take a piece of dark chocolate for its health benefits. It has became a must for me now to eat hot toasted bread because it’s such a comfort. I’m getting scared of consuming cold bread as it reminds me of the poor times I went through in the past where I had no time for proper meals and we didn’t have the oven to heat bread up at home. So whenever I see bread in room temperature (which is considered kinda cold to me) I can’t bring myself to eat it anymore. I don’t mind making a bit of effort to use my sandwich maker machine for 5 or 10 mins, so long as I get to have hot bread, it really makes my day great now. 🤗

One of the best thing that happened for me is that I don’t need to rely on the wheelchair anymore and I can walk on my own without help! It wasn’t a dream anymore. 🥺 I didn’t mentioned it in my January post but yeah the endo I had made me having difficulty to walk at usual normal speed because I had so much pain and aches in the pelvic area last year when it worsened, a distance that used to take me 10 mins would ended up taking me thrice the amount of time to walk slowly because of it. It really took me a lot of effort to walk properly, so we decided not to let myself wasted too much energy and suffering from the pain of walking hence I had to use the wheelchair for more than 6 months until I became pain-free. I remembered having dreams of me walking around viewing places and sceneries… which was something I enjoyed doing as a healthy person. I can’t believe I have taken for granted for such a simple thing. Walking is actually such a blissful activity that I can do everyday. And so I swear upon myself that I should make sure I get enough walks and not fall back into that kind of life I had during the pandemic years of being trapped at home. I should really treasure my body and treat it well. And by reading as many health books as possible instead of relying on being told by others/media which might not be true. One very important lesson I’ve learned through this sickness is to never neglect self-responsibility on my health. Although it’s a painful lesson, I’m still glad that I was given the chance to get well without resorting surgery. Well, this proves that in actual fact we don’t have to rely extreme methods or painkillers. Understanding the cause of illness is very crucial. If doctors couldn’t tell you why/misdiagnose/couldn’t give you a best solution to treat your illness, you just have to find it yourself (I find ourselves to be lucky where we can find sources online to research as much as we can until we find the answers ourselves). It’s such a shame we aren’t taught about general/common illness but forced to learn useless subjects that don’t help in daily life. The doctors (no matter tcm, GP, or gynae) couldn’t help me and gave me poor suggestions, so I ended up saving myself instead. That’s okay, now I know better how I should be the one having the knowledge and understanding and thus making the right choices because I know my body more than anyone else. In fact everyone should do the same. After all it’s a fact that despite medical advances, there are more diseases than before and still there isn’t a cure for all illness. 🤷‍♀️