Nixed Media Notes

I write random haikus, poetry, short stories, songs, articles, editorial content and performance pieces on my journal. I am currently compiling all of them for online view here. So yeah, stay tuned!

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Self-Project for Work-Life Balance

I hope everybody is doing well after a great week! I had a very busy week - so busy that I forgot to shower for two days! I was thinking of ways to sort my tasks and hoping to achieve that “work-life balance” goal. 

I read the book: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Curry to learn the routine, habits and lifestyle of famous artists, writers and scientists who were so much dedicated with their work all their lives. All the people featured in this book worked very hard and very long hours. Most of them develop some “unique” work rituals to maintain focus and time-energy balance to get their works done (and most probably, to also keep themselves sane)

Few questions popped into my mind while I was reading the book. Do they have work-life balance? Is their routine inspiring enough or even healthy to practice for a normal human being like me to stay motivated in achieving my goals? Wait, goals? What are my goals?!

A few more reading and some TED talks browsing led me to this article here from The School of Life. It explains why work-life balance is just an illusion for those who believe that what they do is always worth fighting for.

From this, we now realise that there isn’t any magic formula to work-life balance. There is no such thing as an instant template for it because even great minds don’t think alike.

So now, what do I then need to resolve?

Identifying the Problem: Having read all these made me realise that enjoying my work and the things I do too much can cause some problems. There were several times when I missed out tracking the time or even the weekend just because I enjoyed working on a project or a performance piece so much. Sometimes, even my grooming hours for discounted massage and facial sessions gets canceled or rescheduled for another week because of other priorities.

This is one habit I want to fix because it does not anymore allow me to have enough time to rest, socialise or exercise much. To prolong this habit might cause me health issues and stress.

Hypothesis: What I probably need is to develop a daily wellness routine tracker to help me keep up.

I saw this problem as an opportunity for me to be creative in developing a community page or blog that will help motivate me and the rest of my friends to balance and track wellness activities in every aspect. Currently, I use it for myself for now ( — like my personal journal) until I complete the contents.

To be able to help me fill up the content of the page with ease, I have to develop a Design Guideline for this page. But before that, I have to answer these two main questions first:

What will you call this daily wellness routine tracker page?

What will be the objective of the page? 

The name of the page will be Bare Yummy Feeds. It means Simply Delicious or Desirable. A Panda Bear will represent the page — like a mascot and the panda will be named : Pun-Duh Bear. Apparently, I would like to use creative play on words when we share funny or foolish posts — hence the name. Cute, Fun, Asian and motivational content are relatable and engaging feeds.

The tagline or catch phrase for the page will be: “Feed your mind, body and soul with quality finds for the average-bear budget.” It straight away explains the objective of the page.

The next thing I did was list down all the life areas that influence our overall health and wellness. I believe that every aspect of our life affects our well-being and these can help guide us on the total balance we need to attend and nurture.

I have a post here on my medium blog which explains all the details for the categories I chose for the main page. It’s too long to read for tumblr readers. 

I wanted to head straight away for the design branding document I created for it.

I envision to market and promote the page to be a mobile app someday. There is a future possibility for this to be used by people who simply want to fill the categories with their daily wellness activities. Each category can be like a Pokemon to catch up on for the game Pokemon Go. The more they fill up the categories, the better they level up their wellness game and feel motivated. I look forward to keep track on my wellness activities with this self-project I am building, while fixing my daily work habits.

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Work-Life Balance Haiku

Artwork made for this Haiku I've written:

We are all jugglers Mastering work-life balance -  But, Is there such thing?

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We’re Halfway through the Year!

Cheers! We’ve reached half of 2019!

I still remember the fresh 2019 motivational journal I bought when this year opened. It is indeed filled with events and things I needed to do or even house chores I needed to accomplish.

The first half of my 2019 was quite a challenge, it didn’t even give me the time and consistency to fill up my journal with inspirational thoughts or goals. My goal (to have a set of abs) since 5 years ago are still my goals today. WORK and the ADULT LIFE gives me more stress now that I also have to juggle errands for my new puppy and a new community to familiarize myself with.

Whatever the reason is, consistency is the real key to maintain a journal or to document moments in our lives. 

PROBLEM: I hope I could find an easier way to do this week by week and still have time to fix things around the house.

MY SOLUTION: A Graphic Template!

To give me a motivational boost to keep me going with my creative ventures through the year, I made this infographic template to visually track my 2019 and value the small victories I have achieved for the first half of the year. Maybe it will be good to add a circle for each week. 

This is actually supposed to be longer since I have attended several workshops and summer outings during the summer. But I limit the highlights to only 4 moments per month and simply added photos of the events not listed. Also, one big event that happened during April (Easter Sunday) was when Yumi was rushed to the emergency pet hospital for 2 days because of accidentally eating rat poison. 😔​​ 

What do you guys think? Should I add in the sad moments too? 

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When Life Gives You Lemons Priced at 15 PHP each!

Consider yourself lucky whenever you get some fresh quality finds at a very affordable rate. Finding low-priced goodness like these are same as like enjoying a refreshing lemon juice without much of that squeezing!🍋

With the soaring high food prices fueling more of our 6.4% inflation rate this year,  it’s a real struggle for one to cope daily on a limited budget.  Life is becoming more difficult now, to the point of even middle-class families are feeling the weight of high inflation. As we feel the pinch, we look for better budget strategies and find the best value for our money. 

The famous proverbial phrase “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” is the mantra for Filipino’s resilience. We are always known for keeping a positive mindset amid currency volatility, inflation swings, corrupt officials and even in natural disasters. We simply cope, laugh at our problems and wait for our issues to pass. The phrase is used to encourage optimism and a “can-do” attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Although it is a positive trait, it is also good for “Juan” to spot and question back the realities of our daily struggles. We can not always simply smile, settle and turn a blind eye to the reality of the problem.

The problem: Lemons are priced at an average of 50 PHP per piece in local supermarkets and 20 PHP per piece (if you can find one) from some public vendors. The quality is the same and I am not sure why the lemons are more expensive in big supermarkets. 

Rising prices in the Philippines are hitting us the hardest and we see no evidence that the situation will improve this year.  Not sure how we can turn this "sour reality" into something positive or desirable anytime soon. It’s just very hard to be positive when you know about the realities. 

My solution:  It’s not so easy to plant your own food but if you can, then that’s the best. It also helps a lot to promote local farmers who sell their own harvests. Good thing, I was able to find a farmer vendor who sold his lemons in a push cart priced at 15 PHP each! 

Plant your own food and support your local farmers & vendors!

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A Haiku for Women

by Nikki Sangil

Life thrives inside us Out from the belly we grow We are part of all

I wrote this Haiku after I got inspired from this Tamago Movement Maze Graphic work I did here. We all came from our mother’s egg. When we value women, we value life.