I bought Skillshare and Domestika subscriptions so that my girls would have something else to do. My daughter, Twin A, is showing interest in drawing so I will give her access to Skillshare while her twin prefers Domestika. They’re cheap–each doesn’t cost more than PHP 1,500 a year. Plus I can also have access to both when I want to learn new skills as well.

If there are things that my parents didn’t deny us/scrimp on, these are art/music lessons and books. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up because my parents were strictly academic people employed by a state university, with only a few consultancy jobs because my father said their foremost priority should be their research and teaching. Devoting more time to consultancy jobs is a form of cheating/corruption because you’re using the government’s time to enrich yourself. Well, most of the time their consultancy jobs are pro bono because the NGO work they were doing were for the poor.

Anyway, I digress. So my parents made sure we were well-rounded individuals who had access to or some form of training in the arts. My brother and older sister enrolled in drawing classes and piano lessons but they didn’t stick to it. My mom bought electric keyboards because of those piano lessons. When they saw I was displaying much interest in piano, they enrolled me in piano lessons and I stuck with it for a few years. Later, they bought us an upright piano and I was the one who mostly used it. I could spend three hours playing it. We asked for books, they bought us books. When my mom went abroad for work, she would scour the bookstores for copies of books that we didn’t have here in the Philippines.

I am doing the same to my kids. When they asked for ukeleles, I didn’t think twice about buying them those. They’re still playing the instruments, but it’s Twin I who wants to take advanced lessons in it. I will enroll her if she’s still up to it after having that access to Domestika.

They’re still doing their Kumon and next year I will enroll them in review classes to prepare them for entrance exams to Quezon City Science High School and UP high schools in Diliman and Los Baños. I am not going to force them to take the Philippine Science High School (a.k.a Pisay) exam because there is a lot of pressure there but if they want, they can take it. My brother and older sister took the exams and passed (can’t remember though if my older sister went through the second screening though because she wasn’t keen on going there anyway). My brother had a slot in Philippine Science High School but he later decided not to enroll there because he had most of his friends enroll in UP. When it was my turn, I didn’t bother taking the Pisay exam because I didn’t want to go there because I knew early on that I will not pursue a science course in college so it was a waste of time. Plus my math grades weren’t stellar so I had a math tutor to help me pull up my grades to keep me in the honors’ list.

What I wish for my kids is to have the chance to have more exposure to sports and the arts because later on in life they may decide to pursue careers that may not be science-based at all. Like me. But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t learn the hard sciences. In fact in my undergrad years, half of the courses I took were sciences because I was a science communication/journalism major. My grades in my biology courses were mostly 1.0 or 1.25 (1.0 being the highest and 5.0 the failing mark). I quit one course (environmental science) because it was only my mom teaching that subject that semester and I certainly didn’t want her to be my professor! I had to change course (botany) at the last minute. I wanted to enroll in an environmental microbiology course but it may turn out that my mom may be the only one teaching that again. So instead I took some forestry subjects. I initially wanted to pursue environmental journalism but there was no such thing in this country and only developed countries have that (my target was to be a photo journalist for National Geographic). 25 years on, we still don’t have that.

So back to lessons, offline and online. I may be cheap on other things (like cars, housing, and furnishings) but I will not scrimp on education.

DIY

Despite spending the rest of Sunday mostly sleeping, I was able to shoehorn some DIY projects today. I was able to finally change the curtain rod brackets after three years of living here. I used to use the hooks left by the previous tenant. I removed those and patched up the holes those hooks left behind with some white wall putty.

And drilling holes into the walls made of solid concrete left me exhausted.

Finally, I was able to finish installing the brackets and lengthen the area where my curtains can go.

I should finish the second batch of katcha/muslin curtains I’m sewing by hand so I can change these because these are already full of holes. Courtesy of my cats.

Because I was too exhausted to do any real cooking. I settled for mandu and Kikoman with chili oil, instant yakisoba, spicy fishcakes, and seaweed for dinner.