Hey, hey, hey, hello!

Here we are again! I am writing this while I am on a break from studying. Yes, you read it right. Classes have now started again and I am now a freshman for the Master of Industrial Relations program. It’s so amazing how fast the time has gone since I have applied for graduate school admissions. But at the same time, it feels weird to be having another year of online classes. I really did hope last year that the pandemic will be (done and) gone, and I will be starting my Masters’ back in my uni campus.

In my dreams.

The pandemic is far from being over, and for all intents and purposes, it has gotten worse, vaccine rollout or no. So I might as well be resigned to the idea that I shall graduate virtually for my Master’s.

Pessimism aside, I do know that there’s always a silver lining in everything. So I will try to be a little more hopeful in this post. After all, this blog post is all about being “excited” about things, so..there you go.

1. My planner from Ruby Granger’s Pumpkin Productivity shop.

To keep with my “back to school vibe”, I bought an academic planner. You’ll ask, why can’t I make do with my current planner? Because, dear friends, my current planner is now jammed with work reminders already. If I add school stuff in it, it will implode. Fine, it’s an exaggeration, but I wanted to establish a clear line separating work from school (and lol, personal life), because I also work from home half the time.

This planner had quite a bumpy journey from the United Kingdom to Manila. I bought it from Ruby Granger‘s Pumpkin Productivity store. Last year, I really wanted to buy her planner  but sadly, it was quickly sold out. So I made do with the digital (PDF) version as well as last year’s Everyday Explorers planner. Shipping was fast from the UK end. However, when it reached the Philippines, it had a bumpy ride.

It took more than a month for this planner to be delivered to my office because of a lockdown.  If I hadn’t poked and prodded the local post office about it when the lockdown eased into a soft lockdown (MECQ), it would take them another month to deliver it. But here it is!

 

I’ll write more about this planner in a separate post!

2. Self care things. 

They said that all work and no play made Jack a dull boy. They forgot that it can also make Jack an exhausted, burnt out, and frazzled boy. So what remedies can Jack avail of?

Self care, of course.

And that’s exactly what I’ll do, too. I know that when people think of self-care, spa trips and pampering sessions come to mind, but we can’t have them during a pandemic. And self care doesn’t have to be expensive. It can be as simple as a digital detox. Or a nap. Or Zoom call with friends (lol so much for digital detox) with nibbles.

Or it can be just you and a book. I gave in and bought two books from my seven-book TBR list (I’ll post why the list is small, one of these days).

Remember the movie I talked about from last week’s snippet? I went and bought the book the movie was based from. I got so curious about it so I added it on my TBR pile, along with Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (which I also bought, haha). I think that I could muster enough patience to read these books slowly, like people used to read serials on newspapers in the olden days.

 

Since I intend to take my (sweet, sweet) time reading these books, I suppose a review will come much, much later.

Until then, stay safe folks.

See you next week.