Formulation

I'm interrupting my binge-watching of Naruto Shippuden Season 4 to write about something that I'm not sure of. Well, I want to write something about you, I guess. But in the past few months, I'm taking granted things and recently, with this disturbing lockdown. I want to be with you, badly.

Now, what can I do? We're living in a separate city and our situation won't allow us to move. All I can do I guess is to chat with you, video call, or something and maybe play online games. Well, I don't know. There are so many dreams that pass through my mind lately. Since I left TaskUs to be a consultant, my dreams for our future have been reconfigured. Money has always been an issue for this. I blame myself highly for not keeping money enough and not saving early. But now, I somehow experience freedom. Well, it's not that much, but I think I can start with what I have. 

Our future is quite blurry as of now. Like where's gonna be our future home, when's the wedding and how do we get some money? One thing is clear for me though, It's you that I wanted to be with. Well. We're pretty far off that dream but I'm hoping and praying that God will guide us in every step, that our whens, wheres, and hows will be fulfilled by his amazing formulation.

So this I ask, to join me in the waiting game as we reach out to those dreams and settle to what He has planned. 

I love you always,

sebajisoka

Naruto

I know, I know. I'm like 13 years late of this, but I just finished my favorite Anime of all time, Naruto. I was young at the time they're showing it in the Philippines, I hardly remember some of the episodes and I missed a lot of it as well. I'm even familiar with the first few episodes of Naruto Shippuden. 

Anyway, I'd like to share some of my takeaways and realization and probably the theme of Naruto. SPOILERS ALERT!

Bad people can be good people too

Plain and simple. Gaara. 

The least

One of the main storylines that most people can relate to is being the least, being the last, being not good at everything. On failing a lot, being a laughingstock and being mocked. Naruto is known for this and how his story unfolds makes his arc really good. 

The monster within

We all have a monster within, it just how you use it and control it. How you can convert it in goodness. 

Believe in yourself

Naruto has the title of the most unpredictable ninja. That's it. 

Meaning of friendship

The most striking lesson for me is the meaning of friendship and how much it cost. From all the mission and rescue mission, it seems like the top priority is saving lives, regardless of how they just know each other or even if they masks themselves. There was this episode where Naruto met a stranger who had amnesia, so he called him Menma, derived from an ingredient for Ramen that can be found on mountain cliffs where Naruto found him. They both have incredible memories as they have been good people that helped Konoha before leaving. Naruto but then was tricked by Menma, lying about not remembering anything. But knowing Naruto and what Menma did, it magnifies what friendship is. The ending of that episode is such a painful scene as Naruto eats his favorite ramen. This is just one of the many episodes that focus on the value of friendship. Not to mention the story of Sasuke. 

I'm pretty bad a bringing these kinds of some sort of review but that it for now. Naruto has become my favorite Anime, all time. 

//Naruto 

//sebajisoka

what have you been up to?

It's been more than a month since the Metro Manila Lockdown and it's not going to end anytime soon. So, I thought of sharing some things that I've been doing during this lockdown, well, aside from complaining on social media.

- I've been editing RAW files of pictures I've taken over the past few years and uploading it on Instagram. 

- I've been practicing playing bass guitar. I'm currently studying Kathang Isip by Ben & Ben and it has this pretty solid bass line to be honest. 

- I'm playing games like Brawlhalla, some Counter-Strike and of course, NBA 2k20.

- I'm catching up with my bible reading plan, I just finished the book of Leviticus earlier. 

- I also started reading a book again, I'm on the 3rd chapter of this really deep book of C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity. 

- Listening to Podcasts, particularly Judah Smith's Churchome, pretty solid.

- All-day on Spotify, listening to my favorite songs, updating some of my playlists and discovering some new songs, I just added 2 Thai songs (from Calories Blah Blah Extra Love and I don't know the title, it's just unreadable for me, it's in Thai.) and some Japanese song, well, it's Naruto theme songs, and speaking of... 

- I've been Netflixing. I'm not really into series, but this lockdown got me started watching Naruto, I'm only on Season 8 Episode 2 and I'm loving it. It makes me want to go out and eat some ramen. I'm also finishing 13 Reasons Why Chapter 3 and I finally started watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S, I don't want to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S to be honest, because I'm afraid that it might be better than How I met Your Mother. 

- I'm practicing my shots using my camera, listening and learning stuff online. 

- And of course, eating a lot of food.

I've been trying to be productive, well, that's just me on a normal rest day. I wanted to do much but most of the time, I ended up chilling out, doing stuff on social media. Well, if you're just chilling out and doing nothing, that's great. There's no judgment, we all need some air and some time to relax and clear our minds. This is just me. So, yeah. You're good. 

To end this. I just wanted to say that this pandemic changed a lot of us. It shakes the economy, it exposed the politicians, it reveals us. 

Some praised our leaders. Some mock them.

Some prayed to God. Some detest God. 

As much as I wanted to be working at home and not going out and continue doing these activities, I hope for this to end. This fear, this hopelessness, this anger. Because it's tiring and not healthy, we're benefiting from some of the things and we also have a disadvantage. 

Let's continue to pray and wash our hands.

//WhatHaveYouBeenUpTo

//sebajisoka

The COVID-19 Effect

photo courtesy of ABC7 Chicago

In just a span of more than 1 week, the less than 10 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 exploded into more than 500 as of this writing. 

It's worrisome. Everyone's moving and trying to cope up with what's happening to the country and to the world. 

We're currently on lockdown and I can't help but ponder about life. Like, we have a crisis happening all over the world. Work has been canceled, flights have been canceled as well. Church services were handled online, as well as schools. Luzon is in the state of calamity and the government continues to improve their actions towards this calamity.

This is definitely alarming and we don't know what the future holds. Early this month, we probably have a plan throughout the month or even throughout the year, I bet many of them were canceled and delayed, moved into a later time. 

The world began to pause a moment to stay home and stay still as much as we can. Even the earth has felt relief from the pollution-less world but we still have people on the streets with no food on their table. 

We may have spent more time with our family and explore our creativity out of our boredom but other people are suffering, we get infected with the deceased, some of them were hospital workers, doctors, and nurses. There was news that some of them already died. 

Aside from donating and volunteering. All we can do is pray for our country. Please don't abandon this nation, please continue to help and pray. This nation has a potential and we're only hoping for the best.

I know that we've been praying for a while now but please don't stop. This nation needs warriors that would pray and act and sacrifice. 

We're not sure about what will happen to the world tomorrow but Lord, please heal our land. 


//theCOVID-19Effect 
//sebajisoka

Salamat po, Sis. Dory

Credits to JIL Worldwide Facebook Page

I was watching a live stream of a funeral service for almost a week. I wanted to listen to the eulogy. Especially the husband's word. 

Bro. Eddie lost his wife, Sis. Dory. 

I don't have plenty of stories about Sis. Dory. I just know that she's the wife of Bro. Eddie and the mother of 4 amazing children, Jonjon, Joel, Joni, and Jovi. But she's more than that, she's a supportive wife and a caring mother, not just a mother to the 4 children but as a spiritual mother for JIL. 

She's been an inspiration. I remember during her late years, in one of the Youth Summits, we were celebrating and dancing and shouting. We were going crazy for praise. She stood up and stop us as we're not in a safe place at the time and she reminded us that worship is not about what we do on the outside. It's an inward manifestation of knowing God. 

Salamat po, Sis. Dory. You have done many great things in your temporary stay here on earth! 

On the other hand, it's sad to see Bro. Eddie lost his wife. I remembered when he told us the story of her operation. You can watch it here: 

https://www.facebook.com/The700ClubAsia/videos/10155407403327032/

I'm praying for Bro. Eddie and his family. God bless po! 

//SalamatSisDory
//sebajisoka

There's no start shift?

Today is the first day of my rest day since I resigned from TaskUs and started as a consultant at a new company. This is the first time that I'll work as a freelancer and I'm enjoying it.

We had training for 1 week in a shared office somewhere in Makati. For the first time in a long time, I can call myself a Makati Boy. I experienced the hassle of working in this part of the metro. 

It was fun. That's for sure and so far, I've met so many good and approachable people. I never met any person with a harsh attitude. 

Everything is different. The facility is good but not as great as with TaskUs. Over the span of 5 days, I feel like I'm already with them for a long time. For sure there was an adjustment but everything's good. 

I remember on the first day, I thought I'm lost. I'm alone in the hallway and there are no other people searching for the orientation. Well, I met 2 people in the lobby. Lyka and Happy, I asked them if we're supposed to be classmates? 

Well, yeah. And it's only the 3 of us. Which is pretty weird. Then, Raj approached us, she's one of the engagement something for the company and she toured us on the production floor, said our Hi's to the team, I met familiar faces, the one who referred me here and one of my former teammate.

Those 2 people with me on the training were kind people. We already had our getting to know each other and as mentioned, with the amazing people at the training department. 

I enjoyed the week and I learned so many things. I never really missed my former company, except for this one time when I logged in to the company's email. If your company has an email address made for employees, most of the time, your login would be firstname.lastname@company.com, right? That's the case here and in TaskUs. So, when I'm typing in my email address. I mistakenly wrote in, @taskus.com. 😢

It was a tiring week but it's fun and there's no start shift.



//TheresNoStartShift
//sebajisoka

Meow

I'll miss your faces whenever you hear the intro of "Di ko kayang tanggapin" and you all know that it is I who requested for it.

I'll miss the meowing cats midway through the song "Too Much Heaven" and anything Moira. Sometimes, it's so random without any music as long someone decided to meow somewhere, sometime. The floor will go crazy and nothing can stop us.

I'll miss those explosive laughs with no momentum.
I'll miss our office group chats and those funny tickets.
I'll miss sneaking to the lobby to steal some creamer, like 5 spoons of it. 
I'll miss the leaders, those issues and the never-ending rants.
I'll miss your stories while trying to figure out how life works. 
I'll miss the joy in your faces whenever there's system downtime. 

It's been a week since my last day and I'm still thinking about you guys. 


//Meow  //sebajisoka