Life Unstacked: 2025Q1

goal check-ins and continuing the tradition of trying new things

So much has happened in the first quarter of this year that I wanted to make my media wrap-up separate from this one. Here, I’ll be sharing some things I’ve been up to, and in an effort to keep myself accountable to the goals I’ve set for 2025, report on my progress in accomplishing them as well.

story time

• I finally got a fitness watch! — Since I’ve started making a conscious effort to have a more active lifestyle, I’ve been wanting to get a fitness watch so I can track my steps and physical activities. When the topic of wearables came up at work one morning, a coworker of mine showed us her Garmin Vivo Active 3 and how she was planning on getting a new one since the battery life of her device wasn’t very good anymore after about 3 years of use. I jokingly asked, “So how much are you selling it for?” To which she also jokingly responded, “3K.” Then I said, “Well, show me how it works, what the issues are, bring the charger tomorrow, and I’ll buy it.” And that’s exactly what happened. My new watch still works pretty well, and I love it so much. I also got different colored straps so I can match it with the color scheme of my outfits!

  

• I got my first Little Prince Hirono…and gave it away. — Out of all the viral Pop Mart and blind box toys, I honestly think Hironos are the only decent-looking cutest ones. And when I saw that they had Little Prince-themed toys, I joined a group purchase order to get a blind box. While waiting for it to arrive, I became more cognizant of blind box culture and how it feeds into consumerism and is incredibly wasteful. I also started to feel that collecting these toys have no real functional value for me especially since I’ve been wanting to simplify my living space and minimize the stuff that I own. So I decided wouldn’t make a hobby out of it; toy collection is a luxury I can’t currently afford anyway. When my Hirono arrived and I unboxed it, I felt very little excitement and even ended up getting a design I didn’t prefer. When I realized that a friend who loved Hirono had her birthday coming up, I decided to gift it to her.

  

  Little Prince x Hirono: The Businessman

• I blinked and suddenly I had a Valentine. — If you know the song these lyrics are from, congratulations, you’re a romantic like me! This year, I spent my first ever Valentine with an actual Valentine! I will forever cherish all the Valentines past when I spent it with family, friends, or myself, because love doesn’t always have to be romantic to be celebrated, but I cannot lie, spending it with someone I’m in a relationship with after having wanted it for so long is such a welcome change. I love being my boyfriend’s boyfriend so much. Every conversation with him makes me feel so alive and every silence beside him is filled with a warm sense of comfort and contentment. Getting to spend a special day with the person I love and who loves me in return was more wonderful than words can express.

  

  at Art Lounge Manila

• Changing my starter earrings stressed me out! — I got my ears pierced last December, and I was instructed to leave my starter jewelry on for two months before changing it out. As the second month approached, I excitedly bought myself some cheap earrings—including dangling ones because that’s why I’ve always wanted to wear anyways! But when I got home to remove my starters, I had so much trouble getting them off! I had the ones with the spherical locks from the front, and having perpetually sweaty hands, I struggled so much removing them. No matter how many tutorial videos I watched and which way I twisted them, they simply wouldn’t budge. When my piercings started to bleed, I decided to give it a rest. The starters finally came off when I tried to hold both ends with a handkerchief. The whole ordeal took more than two hours. It’s quite funny to think about now, but it was so frustrating in the moment.

• Let me cook! …only for myself though. — Since moving out, I’ve mostly been eating food from the many carinderias in my neighborhood. It’s very convenient and cheap and the food is generally good, but I’ve finally reached the point where I’ve tried pretty much everything, and I was getting a little tired of the options. So I decided to start cooking a few meals for myself during the week! Lately, whenever I crave a meal that I don’t always get from a carinderia or that I’d rather make the way my parents taught me, I’d list the ingredients, get them on my next grocery run, and cook it for myself later in the week. I’m not the best cook and am a little rusty at eyeballing ingredients (I tend to underestimate my salt), but I’m slowly getting the hang of it. I’m planning to utilize my air fryer more in the future outside of just frying chicken breasts and nuggets.

  

  nothing like a nice home-cooked meal and a show! also, we LOVE apple juice in this house

• My boyfriend is now a Trivia Down host! — I’m so proud of him having a sideline outside of his day job—something I really want for myself too—and when I attended his first hosting gig, I thought he did such a great job! If you’re around Sta. Rosa, Laguna, be on the lookout for trivia nights at Engkanto Taps and you just might see him there!

• Keyboard-sitting — Me and a friend are performing at a wedding soon so he said he would lend me his keyboard so I could practice the accompaniment. Little did I know that he was lending me a Nord Stage 4, an incredibly expensive and high-end keyboard used by professional musicians! In my tiny apartment, it takes up a lot of space and I’ve been slightly afraid of using it too often because I don’t want to break anything. As much as I’ve enjoyed using it, I can’t wait for my friend to pick it up again.

get togethers

To be completely vulnerable, I’m the kind of person who feels lonely very often and very easily. It takes only a few minutes of seeing Instagram stories of friends going to parties and road trips for insecurity and the fear of missing out to bubble up the surface of my mind. But lately, I’ve been more proactive in inviting friends to hang out! It seems like such an easy fix, and it often is. Whenever I feel lonely, I think about the different friend groups I have and consider who I haven’t seen in a while. I’ve found that most people would readily welcome such an invitation to take a break from their routines, and that despite what my brain often tells me, people do want to hang out with me. I know it can be a little embarrassing to admit to loneliness as an adult, but I’ve learned that as important as it is to allow myself to feel that loneliness, there are also ways to get out of it.

• Scrabble with the high school rabble — One of my best friends in the world, Sam, is someone I’ve known since high school, and we were part of a friend group of nerdy outcasts. We’re no longer in touch with our other friends except for Kyra, an incredibly talented artist, whom we love to geek out with about musicals. I invited them over for scrabble and chicken tenders, and it was fun to look back on how different—and yet still very much the same—we’ve become from our high school selves.

  

• A discussion on Anxious People with anxious people — I joined a buddy read hosted by the Talk Bookish to Me book club for Fredrik Backman’s Anxious People. I liked the book enough, and while I wasn’t head-over-heels for it, it was so much fun discussing the cast of characters, the wild plot twists, and the funny yet heartfelt moments in the book.

  

• Singing bee with the bride-to-be — One of my best friends, Gale, is getting married soon, and I wanted to hang out with her before that happened, so I invited her and a mutual friend, Micah, to a singing bee-themed trivia night. We ended up being in last place because none of us knew that many OPM songs which took up half of the questions, but it was still a great time.

  

• Books-and-bowling turned books-and-bawling — I met up with some southern Metro Manila friends from the TBTM book club and we had a blast! We were initially planning on bowling after lunch and exploring the three bookstores in SM Southmall, but we ended up sharing life stories, our current anxieties, and the things we were proud of doing lately. It wasn’t unlike a group talk therapy session with all the tearing up involved. I loved chatting with these people and am always rooting for them.

  

• Colorado gays reunite — I’ve kept in touch with Taylor, one of my best friends from my mission to Colorado, for years that I realized how silly it was that we hadn’t done a video call in all that time. We finally did, and it was so nice catching up with him! Like me, he had come out and left the LDS church afterwards, and he was such a great support to me when I went through the same process as well. It’s so nice to have friends who can empathize with exactly what you’re going through! I hope to get to see him in person again someday.

• Boyfriend meets bulalussy — You know that joke about group chat names having the deepest lore? That is certainly the case for the damn gago bulalussy squad, so I’m not even going to attempt to explain that one. I finally got to introduce my boyfriend to this friend group and it was so nice! I love spending time with them so much because I learn so much from them in the realm of politics and well as adulting advice. And on top of all that, we get to exchange crazy stories about the colorful characters in our lives.

  

• Munchies with the churchies — I also got to hang out over dinner with some friends from church. Despite my complicated relationship with Mormonism, I am so glad to have this circle of friends who continue to support me, who understand where I’m coming from, and who love me as I am. I always treasure their company.

• Philippine Book Festival — I went to my first PBF this year and it was so cool to see so many bookworms come together to support local authors and publishers. Being around fellow TBTM book club members and former and current bookish content creators simply ignited my excitement to read more Filipino-authored books. Currently, I’m on a quest to read more local komiks, which is why I bought Sean Kyle Manaloto’s Godhark! On the same day, I also got to meet my boyfriend’s parents briefly for the first time.

  

• Karaoke with the hokeys — I jest, I’m running out of witty captions. I went to an after-work event with a bunch of coworkers where we had dinner and karaoke, and honestly, I’m realizing I’m not really a loud crowd kind of guy, especially in the evenings (which makes me feeling FOMO about friends going to parties so silly, because I wouldn’t even have a good time there anyway). I’d rather spend a chill evening at a coffee shop and chat with people to hang out. Either way, I also realized that as nice as my coworkers are, I’m not really interested in building friendships with most of them.

resolutions check-in

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I got a head start on most of my goals for this year!

physical activities

I’ve continued my practice of going to monthly dance classes at work! I’m so fortunate to have this opportunity without having to pay by the hour. In the past months, we’ve had classes for Usher’s “Bad Girl”, Doja Cat’s “Woman”, and Britney Spears and Madonna’s “Me Against the Music”.

As for new physical activities, I managed to try two out of my goal of three! I went bouldering with some coworkers at the Bouldering Hive, which I plan to do again soon. I could only do the easiest ones (green tags) but managed to do one yellow tag! I might take classes in the future to improve my technique.

I also attended six spin classes at Electric Studio from their first timer promo which gave me five class credits for the price of one. This is such a wild cardio workout that kills my lungs and legs every time, but it feels so good after! I’m definitely going back again, but it will probably have to wait since the classes are quite pricey. In one of the classes I also randomly ran into an old college friend named Kat—small world!

the oscars project

At the time of this writing, I have 59 movies and 14 years of rankings left on my Oscars watchlist! I managed to write about the Best Picture nominees of 1999, 2000, and 2001 so far and am excited to share more with you as I watch and review more films.

As my Oscars Project is just a part of my writing goals this year, I’m also hoping to diversify the topics I write about here and share more think pieces like the ones I like to read on this site. I already have a list of things I want to talk about, but if there’s anything you’re interested in me writing about, do let me know!

book collection reduction

As of this writing, I have managed to unhaul 12 books so far out of my goal of 15! I accomplished this by selling six, gifting two to friends, and giving away four to fellow book club members. To accelerate my unhaul process, I’m planning to host monthly giveaways for my book club! I’m so excited to see how significantly my collection will diminish by the end of the year.

As for my physical TBR, I have managed to bring my list down to 92 from 99. I’m a little bit behind on this goal, so I need to get cracking on either unhauling some unread books or reading more in my spare time. I think I’ll be able to focus on this goal more once I complete my Oscars project.

finances

I have started growing my emergency fund, and I have to say it has taken me a lot of mental strategy, planning, and discipline to kickstart it. I’ve developed a system for my finances, so that whenever my salary comes in, I have barriers from spending money mindlessly. I really hope it works.

I’ve also done an adult thing and taken out an insurance policy. I did this mainly to ensure that when I leave this world (ooh scary), I don’t leave the annoying legacy of a financial burden on my loved ones. It’s the least that I can do for them. On top of that, it’s going to help me avoid mindless spending because I now have to pay a monthly premium. Yay! *pained whimpers*

I’m also experimenting with time deposits in digital banks. We’ll see how that goes. I’m planning to study Pag-Ibig MP2 next as well as memorial services. (I promise I have no plans of self-exiting.) I had joined a work cooperative last year and attended a general assembly for the first time recently. It was a nice, informative session which I needed, because truthfully, I only signed up for it because everyone else was.

I really want to be a financially responsible adult and set my priorities straight so that I won’t be unprepared when unpleasant financial surprises come my way in the future. Better to delay the gratification of spending now than to regret my spending habits later.

new experiences

2025 is just a continuation of my journey of trying new things since 2023 and so far, I’ve tried three new things I wanted to share.

pop-up choir

I saw ads for Pop-Up Choir MNL on Instagram and immediately had to sign-up for the next class. I had seen something similar done in New York by the Gaia Music Collective which I longed to experience. Luckily, such an opportunity arose. I went on my own but hoped to make new friends, and make new friends I did! I was approached by Faith who came alone, and we got to sit together and chat quite a bit. Later on, we made friends with the people at the table behind us who were all so much fun during rehearsals. We sang a medley of Cindy Lauper’s “Time After Time” and Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”. It was a pretty simple arrangement, but I enjoyed it so much.

Part of the heartbreak of leaving church is that I don’t get to experience church choir anymore. I used to lead our local choir, and it was something I always looked forward to because I loved worshipping through song. While this pop-up choir experience wasn’t necessarily worship, I couldn’t help but feel that it was a spiritual experience, one that uplifted me in the way that only music and singing in community with other people can. I hope to attend the next class!

pyromusicals

In the early stages of dating, my boyfriend and I bonded over our love of books, but as we got to know each other more, I learned that while I love stage and movie musicals, he was obsessed with pyromusicals. He had been an avid fan of the craft since childhood and goes every year to the Philippine International Pyromusical Competition (PIPC). Since I love trying new things, I figured I’d go with him this year and we got to watch for three nights. And my god, was it such an experience!

I had already loved fireworks growing up, but I didn’t realize how much of an elevated experience fireworks in a pyromusical would be. To watch them light up the night sky in well thought-out choreography while synchronized to music was absolutely surreal. My boyfriend even caught me on camera when I teared up during one of the shows. I’m hoping to make a tradition of this and watch at least one show a year with my boyfriend.

mug making

At the end of March, I decided to attend a mug-making class with Bumi and Ashe. It was a three-hour training session and is a lot more tiring than it sounds. We learned about the different materials and steps required to make and design a mug out of clay. I wanted my design to be that of a fairy overlooking the edge of a mug, but the fairy turned out looking like a dehydrated fallen star. I’m still waiting to be contacted for when my mug has been fired and is ready to be delivered, but I just know it’s going to look like a wonky piece of work, which is honestly fitting as it reflects who I am as a person.

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Well, that’s a whole lot about me. What about you? What have you been up to lately? Let’s have a chat!