For the last part of this blog series, click here.
I do it annually, especially when my birthday is approaching. Main purpose is to find myself without the world of social media. Well it is not an "absolute" hibernation where one really sees the need to deactivate their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all that. I was just in a stealth mode where I do not post, I do not tweet, I do not share any stuff on socmed. However, my Messenger was open... of course, I need it for work.
I tend to do this hibernation in a month, long enough to discover, long enough to taste the fruits of my discoveries. It was last year 2020 when it was prolonged for I got sick for three long weeks, oh boy! Thankfully it was not COVID. I got back up on socmed by May.
But unlike last year when most plans were really just plans because of the onset of the pandemic, I really made some mental arrangements this time on how to do my "SocMed Hibernation 2021," because there were some things that were really slated to happen within that period HAHA.
CONCENTRATE. I posted a story on Facebook telling all the peeps that I will be out of the socmed starting 19 March. Then the next thing I did was to focus and concentrate. There were a lot of pieces of ideas coming through my Inner Core so I needed to pick them all up and decide which ones are okay and which ones are to be weeded out. Because I only schedule a month to do everything so some have to be postponed.
My criteria were simple: can the stuff I am going to do bring in some new things in my life, and would I be happy with it in the long term?
DISCOVERIES. I am no good cook. I never tried it until I came here in the dorm where I reside for some ten months now. I am determined to learn cooking because I have to and you know the "learning environment is conducive" HAHAHAHA. At home, I never got the chance because I have my mother, my father, my older brother and my first younger sister to do it. Sure I know how to cook eggs, instant noodles and rice but that's freaking it!
So by the time I was courting somebody last year (see my old blog and you can see our blurred and superficially edited photo HAHAHA), the girl told me she has not tried to lord over the kitchen as well. Not to be an advocate of "male superiority at home," but naturally I wondered why that was. Ting! If she can't cook, I should learn how so if ever we were really destined to be together, at least one can cook (but nah she was not into me so....). Nevertheless, this grandson of a war veteran did not give this up and decided to really shoot for the sky.
Before this hibernation began, I was able to do some simple ones like my favorite chaofan (fried rice), sautéed cauliflower, mac and cheese, chicken macaroni sopas (soup), and even chocolate ice cream that was supposed to be a mousse. I am determined to go bigger this time and thought of finally making an ulam (viand). I said hello to YouTube and watched a video on how to make this:
It was a pork tonkatsu and please do not bash me I know it doesn't look pleasant to the eyes, BUT it tasted better than it looked, it was reaaaaaaaally goooood!
I think my sauce was too much on the liquid side that is why the tonkatsu were drenched in the sauce. I am sure I am going to try this again, and to make another viand to expand what I know in cooking. My confidence in cooking has gone up a lot but I am still struggling in remembering the steps, I have my phone with me and the video playing the entire time! More push and more power! We'll come to that point!
Another one that I really tried cooking was the spaghetti. Filipinos cannot resist spaghetti and I will have my brows raised if I hear a Pinoy saying he doesn't like spaghetti. I still have YouTube as my go-to tutor, but I have the procedure in my past memory on how to make this one because my mother's version is a family favorite back home.
Spaghetti was supposed to be my birthday treat to my flatmate but I only got to cook this one past my birthday. We are so advanced now we do not even have to worry about making spaghetti from scratch. Groceries have piles of spaghetti pack and that's what I added to my cart (well, physically). And here's how my spaghetti looked:
I showed my mom and she said it looked good. I thought so too. But it's all about the taste, and my culinary judge is no other than my teacher flatmate. Huh, he said it was good. I am proud of myself HAHAHAHA shrot.
Before I cooked this, we found out that we have extra spaghetti noodles, so my flatmate told me I should buy more sauce. I remembered Mama adding tomato sauce into her spaghetti and that's what I did. I preferred tomato sauce over catsup for it is cheaper and healthier.
Hep hep hooray for that!
MOVING IN. The Holy Week was one busy week for us, because we have to move in to another unit, still in the same building. The previous unit we used to reside should be vacated before April.
I was moving some of my stuffs first because I know there is a lot of cleaning coming up. And I am glad I did the cleaning because whenever I get in this new unit, my body itched and the itch won't let me go until I get a bath in the evening.
I cleaned the entire area with the broom (walis) three times to get rid of the dust accumulated in the past months of being vacant. The itch still would not get away so I decided to scrub the floor and mop it with disinfectant.
And this peeple is how the unit looks like: a three-bedroom unit with a very spacious living area! You see, you can actually run your bike here and do circles! Cleaning this area with broom can be considered a workout, so scrubbing and mopping this 120-square-meter unit (I did not measure anything, just a calculated guess) is definitely a tall order for somebody who is not really used to cleaning big rooms and spaces. Sure I mop floors in the other unit but the previous unit is smaller, this one is about twice as large.
It was Holy Monday when I did this heavy cleaning, so after the morning online class and lunch (yes guys, we had classes before Holy Week holidays), I started working and cleaning, took me three full hours to complete, because the scrubbing took a lot of time, some dirt were very hard to brush away! Drying the floor also did take some time because of the humid weather and not much ventilation coming in. A lot of sweat, a lot of water, and my lower back was aching. I did freshen up but it was after a few hours. AND, I took a hot shower. Thank God the next day it felt like I did not do a taxing task, so peeps hot shower or hot bath really soothes you!
The next is to conquer this unit, so I and my flatmate moved all of our stuffs in and made arrangements for our own rooms. My old room is bright and that is one thing I am missing until now. Sunlight matters to me because it wakes me up in the morning, even before my cellphone alarm to the tune of Robert Weide song fills the room. The old room's windows face east and it's perfect for watching sunrise. This new room, while it also has windows, not much sunlight can be seen.
We finished all the moving in by Holy Wednesday, 31 March. That day we have no school.
In those days of cleaning and moving in, it really helped me clean the mind. It diverted me from all the stresses and anxieties. Try and see for yourself.
Second part coming up...
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