So Long, 2017!

Wow.

Didn’t expect December to sneak up on me so fast.

Sorry this blog has been so inactive the past few months. I’ve not updated it for a variety of reasons, but the chief is mainly lack of energy and inspiration, plus battling with the feeling that my screams were going into the void.

As funny as it may seem, a combination of Nanowrimo, low self-esteem at work and trying to journal every day via WriteADay (which has failed whenever I am at home and have access to GDocs and am too lazy to look at phone) has basically encouraged me to write.

In terms of setting down hours to write.

I noticed I now have short spurts where I feel I need to be writing. Not necessarily creating, because that word means a completely different thing to me, but just to be putting down words.

And that digressed pretty wildly.

So I’m writing this just to mention a few things:

Blog updates

  • RSS Feeds:
    I’m killing Feedburner. It’s long overdue; I’ve been putting it off simply because Feedburner itself is still running.

    • Subscribed via RSS readers and/or browsers: If you’ve subscribed anytime before today (4 December, 2017) via your browser’s services I think you should be fine.
    • Email subscribers: You’ll need to re-subscribe, sorry! I’ve got a widget in the sidebar for it.
  • Changed themes: Mainly due to previous theme somehow ending up switching my “Previous Posts” page with the RSS feed page from Feedburner (which is also why it has been removed). This theme is much simpler and cleaner, I hope.

  • More postings? Probably. The biggest obstacle I have to overcome is the inertia to write and publish. It’s been… weird and sad to say the least.

Life updates

This year has been fairly interesting. A few notable milestones:

  • Finances
    I bit the bullet and dug deep into one of my emergencies fund to clear off my credit card debts. My study loan too, should be repaid in full by the end of the month. This means that in January, I should be hopefully only be saddled by long-term debt aka my housing and car loans.

  • Shopping
    I admit I bought a lot of things this year. Unlike previous years though, I don’t think I went that crazy, but among the noticeable purchases were:

    • Bought a new car, because my old one was condemned and my brother wanted his MyVi back.
    • New HP – I got the Galaxy Note FE (aka the Note 7) which was also one of the reasons why I decided to simply clear off all my credit card debts.
    • Bought a new monitor too, to replace the one my brother lent me all those years ago. I consider this payback for having to deal with his crazy ex.
  • Health
    This year has been about recovery. Refilling the creative well. While I’d like to think I’ve been fairly successful, a few things have stood out:

    • End of year slump
      Towards the last quarter of the year, I often get itchy butt syndrome. I notice this is also accompanied by a dip in productivity and errors made.

    • Return of the viral fever
      I had viral fever earlier this year. Took me out for almost a week. To top it off, I also had rashes at the end of the the fever. The itch was really bad and annoying because why in the world did I get rashes after the fact?

    • Hello weight gain
      I have stopped running for the past few years and suddenly I’m larger than I’m used to (gone from a size XS/S to a M/L depending on the cutting). While I like the size of my boobs, the fat around my waist has me worried, so I will probably take up Pokemon Go as an excuse to walk and exercise more outside of mall running (I work in a mall now, window shopping is a legitimate exercise).

What’s next in 2018?

My wishes are simple: more cash (period, I just want more money) and healthier lifestyle.

My goals on the other hand, have nothing to do with my wishes (ha!). All I wanna do is write the two stories I have bouncing around in my head and sell some more to others. Simple, aren’t they?

The voice in my head is laughing at me, in case you were wondering.

Have a good 2018 everyone!