Life of a Kat

Almost halfway through in the first month of the year.  Our little Hiraya is hitting her 3rd month of making our lives a rollercoaster ride with giggles and just love at every end of the ride.  One day she was a very tiny living thing that can fit into a shoebox, now she is still a tiny human being that had occupied so much of my heart and my daily life.  This new life is overwhelming and really in need of constant attention and care 24/7.  I dreamt of this, but didn't get to see the reality of it until it came.  In all of it, it is an honor to be given a child, to be given a responsibility for another human from birth until who knows when.  Right now, this bundle of joy loves to be cuddled every time, has a radar when mama leaves her side while she is sleeping.  She is also a great crier with sound overpowering the sound of the shower.  She has that smile that melts my heart everytime.  She has that tiny body that I love to embrace.  I ...

Today, we sent off my younger sister on her way to go back home to the Philippines. She spent a few days traveling with friends in Tokyo and Osaka and decided to cap off her first Japan trip to visit me and meet her little niece, Aya. Well, I still was never able to make her change her diapers. She just bought her diapers. LOL.  Even until today, I am still on that level of thinking of engineering smallness and that everything is something that I thought I wouldn't be able to make or reach or achieve.  Having my sister come here seemed to have been an impossible thing to happen. For so long, I dreamed of having my family come over here, not just stay for a short time, but I dream to take them for a tour, make them live here, enjoy life like a local. For now, it is just my sister who can afford it.  I keep telling myself, I just need to keep my parents healthy and happy until we can make all these plans possible.  I still dream to be more involved in academic work. I ...

I had been looking forward to writing. In my head, I have been writing, only that they haven't been typed or written, literally. Our baby, Hiraya, is now a month-old and I couldn't be more grateful that we were able to thread what seemed to be felt like forever and as another moment of firsts, and this time, with a tiny life involved, every moment felt fragile and fearful that I might risk the little life entrusted to me.  The past few weeks taught me and continually teaching me about dependence and seeking help. To be in entirely on the receiving end of it is somewhat new to me.  Having no steady income of my own for the past few months, not being able to drive myself to places, controlling myself not to spend so much, it was hard to think of. As days go by, I learn to trust more and more. A great shoutout to my husband for being so patient and reliable as ever. There were days that weren't perfect, but we held onto each other. Not being able to hug him long enough during ...

Bedtime as it is. So here I amThe contractions as becoming more obvious but still not the frequent but knowing that it can happen anytime, I am on the verge of impatience, wanting to rush the moments of labor but I knew in me that that's not how this things work.  I should be letting nature and my body take its own course and time. I should be taking care of my body, knowing that no matter how healthy I could be, if things go wrong, anything could happen to me and the baby.  I have been having this crazy thoughts in my head all the time, the fears, the wrongs and all the negatives that can happen, and/or nothing entirely of them could happen to me.  As I embrace boredom and the mundane, I am praying for a safe delivery and a healthy, cute little baby girl to call my own daughter. Imagining how my mom had felt the first time she held me, as I am the first daughter in the family after having 2 older brothers. As of this moment, I am standing up and feeling the contractions ...

 Sleep has been somewhat irregular. As I approach the final days of pregnancy and anticipating labor and delivery, sleeping itself proved to be a challenge, with a very big belly, heavy body and crazy feelings with anticipation and a bit of worry about the future.  Also, I had been so caught up with all the Flood Control controversy and senate hearing in the Philippines, that even now, I get distracted writing this as I browse through all the reddit feeds. If its not on fb, then its gonna be reddit. Can't imagine the worse it could get if I also have X and Threads to look into.  A month of being unemployed and this has been life. Glad to have been able to control weight gain until within the borders of expectations, but life had simply been full of the mundane tasks, very few can be considered accomplishments, still disappointment about my scrolling habits, and still struggling to improve on it, working on little ways to fight it every now and then. Nevertheless, I am not...

Apparently, there are 4 pillars of Corruption: The Corrupter, the Corrupt, Impunity and Tolerance.  I would like to see it as something like this:  Corrupters: the enablers, mastermind, untouched, cannot be mentioned, and ones who made rules Corrupts: the mobilizers, the people in between, the faces that we see, used to be good but then they turned bad. If they become really good at what they do, they either sit next to or replace the upper Corrupters. Or if betrayed,  eventually turn out to be the sacrificial lambs promised to comfort while serving sentence, just to keep confidence with the leadership.  Impunity: the hoax that is the investigative bodies  built and hearings conducted but never really get to expose the real corrupters  Tolerance: the voters kept in poverty, lack of education and survival level of living- continually depending on menial social services provided, the workers who pay taxes but never get to enjoy the privileges of good housing,...