life

13 Months (and a Week)

June 24, 2016.

That was day I happily quit my office job and said sayonara to my coworkers. I recall my projectmates being shocked that I announced my exit only two weeks prior. My previous projectmates knew this would eventually happen as I had told them all about the courses I was taking and expressed excitement in the material I was learning. Only a month before did I earn my Master’s degree in hopes of making a smooth career shift into a different field. Or maybe a career pivot.

At the time, I was so certain of myself and the direction I was heading towards. Before I began working the regular 9 to 5, I wanted to take a hiatus. And I prepared for this for several months before my last day in the office. Having worked three years full-time and schooling part-time, I deserved a nice, long vacation before diving back into the dreaded ocean of corporate life. I didn’t realize the career switch wouldn’t go so smoothly as planned.

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Three Relaxing Months

The long blog post drought is over! I honestly did not have the drive to write well-thought out posts the past couple months and I had abandoned this blog temporarily. The reasons are to be disclosed sometime in the future. But for now, I’m hoping to make the most of the following months before school starts again in September, especially since this will be the first summer since 2012 in which I’m not taking class. Lord knows, I really need this break!

Fellow blogger, PM, recently listed some of the things she hopes to do this summer. I want to do the same! I’ve already started on some “summer” (since it’s not really summer yet) projects and I’m hoping to accomplish some of these goals by the time the leaves start changing colors again.

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Spring/Summer cleaning
It’s already been at least two weeks that I’ve been trying to get rid of things in my possession. My room hasn’t been neat since I started cleaning and organizing my stuff. One thing I’m annoyed with about myself is that I’m a nostalgic person, and everything I decide to keep is because of some sentimental reason. Also, I have wayyyyy too many T-shirts. I must have obtained around 25 to 30-ish shirts during college, mostly freebies. And I went on some craze back then to get all kinds of shirts I liked just because of a cool slogan or because it represented something I liked. WASTE OF MONEY.

I possess a lot of media: books and music (vinyl records/CDs). Books are the bigger issue in terms of having room to store them. I decided to buy a new bookshelf to accommodate for all these books that I haven’t even read yet.

I’m also wondering if I really wanna keep this cheap Nook and a netbook I have. Don’t feel like selling them. Maybe if somebody just wants it…

DJing
So I finally did it and bought myself some turntables. Vinyl turntables. They are heavy as haaaaail (to the Redskins!). Got the mixer, cartridge upgrades, software, and all that jazz. Now I just gotta find the time to start practicing.

Upgrade car audio system
This past weekend a friend helped out on upgrading the head unit and front speakers, along with adding an amplifier, to my Civic. I don’t know as much about audio systems as I feel I should, being an electrical engineer and all that. So I feel inadequate when I don’t know exactly the science behind how these things work. Anyway, we haven’t completely the set up and, right now, I’m riding around with no front speakers working. LOL. It’s so depressing. But it’s pretty cool taking apart parts of your car and seeing how things are connected. I can see myself being one of those dudes that just spends weekends tooling around with stuff. Maybe when I’m like 40.

But yeah, I hope this set up eventually works so I can ride around town, windows down, blasting Bad Blood like a bawse.

Travel
I’m going to do a lot of it. Enough that I might get tired of it and, instead, want to stay right at home.

Outdoors
Got a year-round parking pass at Great Falls. Why not? Definitely want to be more outdoorsy while the weather is nice (or scorchingly hot and humid). I want to be active.

Let’s play basketball, anyone??

And ride bikes because I’m so lame at it!

It’s also outdoor movie season everywhere! DC chillin’ more often for sure.

Read
Always good to read some books for stimulation. Personally, I’m interesting in reading personal finance/investing books and also the Filipino novels I bought back in January. I’ll shoot to read at least 3 books in the next 3 months.

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It’s so easy to get caught up in having fun or in the mundane. Ebbs and flows. I’m hoping I can use this time to relax a bit more and clear the mind. I hope I can spend more time with friends, too. I don’t get to see people as much as I like and I miss having good times!