It’s a new year and I have again changed the position of my bed, hopefully this can help with my very problematic sleep. I also wanted to have my workstation removed from a vulnerable position i.e. back facing the door, because there were many instances when my girls walked in during my calls because I forgot to lock my door. Even though I have my virtual background on, it’s still unnerving to have them walk in on my calls and webinars unannounced.

I could have turned the bed perpendicular to the window…but that was the old position of my bed and it carries undesirable memories, so nope. I would have gotten more space with the old bed position–but nope.

I’m going to miss these big white walls where I can put a lot of artworks and photos. My tiny house has limited wall space for such things so I have to rotate frames depending on my mood.

There are now 50 individuals (mostly from government agencies) who have signed up for the data analytics training I helped organize with the graduate school of my university. That number includes my friends. The dean told me that they are prioritizing my group when it comes to scheduling since it was my idea to have this training for journos/communicators.

The unfortunate thing here is I could not commit yet to specific dates because of my travel itinerary, which still hangs by a thread. What is definite is that I need to to go to Singapore in April; I would have to assign the Bangkok coverage (two conferences) to my senior reporters in May because I would be moving houses (5 days off). I decided that I would only use 5 days off in December 2023 so I can have 5 days off for that training then another 5 days off in October for my birthday leave (that hopefully I can finally use for travel abroad).

Or I can ask for a study leave since this is a legit professional training.

Let’s see.

I didn’t work today. I could have but I decided not to. I declared my own holiday. Well, none from Southeast Asia i.e. Philippines submitted a story anyway. So what did I do the entire day? I really don’t know. It’s surprising how I can pass the day without remembering what I did. I think I watched videos of watercolor painting the entire day???

And I was also planning in my head how I would place the furniture in my tiny house so that required a lot of daydreaming.

Because I could manipulate spaces in my head, my contractor told me that I saved myself about PHP 20k since I was able to draw my plans in 1D but could still picture in my head how my sketch would translate to 3D or in the actual space. We were able to understand each other when I was showing him on-site where and how things will be positioned. If I didn’t have the capacity to imagine the spaces in my head, he would have to have the plans rendered in AutoCAD/Autodesk or Sketchup, which is an extra expense. Maybe it runs in the family 🤔. My uncle is an architect and he designed the blueprint of my parents’ house. It didn’t enter my mind to try my hand at architecture or interior design but I have always been interested in it. I always thought I didn’t have a knack for it.

Now that I have designed my own house, I think I can say I did it!

I would just have to invite my uncle to my housewarming to show it off and see his reaction. 🤣