Excitement for things that have yet to come

I'm preparing for my mother's birthday this month. I know she specifically wants to have a birthday cake this year, so I'm putting aside part of my budget for that. I vowed that starting this year, I will always buy my mother a birthday cake. I wasn't able to do it last year because COVID was right at its peak during this same month back then and non-essential stores - like dessert shops - were closed temporarily. Bakeries only had bread. And even if we go further back, it was either my mom was abroad or I was busy with school. We were never fond of traditional birthday cakes truth to be told. We both hate sweets and we both prefer to eat out instead. Her recent preference to cakes was probably due to Instagram and Facebook. Also bragging opportunities. As a millennial who experienced the thrill of social media likes earlier than she did, I knew that I have to give her that chance. 

Apart from that, I'm planning for us to go to our favorite local restaurant as well. COVID is already manageable in our city and establishments have been open for months with incredibly strict social distance protocols: Everything has social distancing, even while eating. People who lack either a mask or a face shield are not permitted to enter. There are sanitation procedures when you go in. There are sanitation procedures when you go out. So all is well and I'm probably more excited for her birthday to come than she is.

DRAMA SERIES

Today I finally caught up with the recent episodes of Penthouse Season 2. Surprisingly, considering this drama's wacky reputation, the plot managed to go crazier than how it was a week ago. 

• Cheon Seojin ate a fncking sim card. That's nirvana-level makjang shit right there. You won't see this serious-looking emotionally-draining silliness anywhere.

• Cheon Seojin was strangely sympathetic and pitiful in this episode. The entire show revolves around the theme of the lengths a parent will go for their child.

• Cheon Seojin x Ha Eunbyeol mother-daughter bonding time, covering up their murders edition.

• Bae Rona died BUT I suspect she's alive and still comatose somewhere. 

• Ha Yooncheol transformed into a spineless snake for the sake of his child BUT I have a gut-feeling it was him who moved comatose Rona. Others say it's Logan Lee, but my bet's on Dr. Ha.

• Shim Suryeon appeared BUT I think she's actually Shim Su-ryeon's twin and the twin's mother (having twins tends to be genetic afaik). Hence why Joo Dantae was obsessed with our original Suryeon in the first place! It's because she looks like his children's mom.

• Logan Lee contemplating life because he is stuck with the stupid Oh Yoonhee instead of his soulmate big brain Suryeon.

I can't wait for this week to end so I can have new episodes to consume.

My dream desks

There's this group of influencers that caught my attention in weibo recently. I know they call themselves bloggers. They probably are. But for the sake of avoiding platform-specific jargons and in order to attain a comprehensible post, I'll just call them influencers. 

The ones I'm about to focus on today are similar to the ones posting in the stationary corner of Instagram. It's all so cute, with photos of their desks, their daily journal entries, and lots of kawaii elements in between. They also don't just limit themselves on journals or productivity posts, some tend to focus on snacks (probably sponsorships) or their homemade meals. This made me somehow think if they can be categorized as food bloggers instead, under an umbrella classification of....desk influencers? Hahaha I'm not sure anymore. 

As long as something is happening on their cute desks, they take pics, then they share it. Whatever thir chosen themes are, it's all weirdly addicting. Can't stop scrolling through their profiles. 

Two of my favorites:

Name: 米粒粒mini
Weibo Account: https://m.weibo.cn/u/5960532966
Mostly about: Food pics and food vlogs

Name: Helen_千屿
Weibo Account: https://m.weibo.cn/u/3668048607
Mostly about: Snacks and journal entries

See how cute they are? I personally believe there's a whole team behind each account, but that's just my guess. If these are being managed by one person only and these are legitimately windows to their real daily lives, then all the more impressive. We may never get that kind of confirmation though, but I'm already satisfied at browsing their content anyway.

First Ever Blog Post: Hello World!

Today is February 16 and this is my first ever post. I figured that since we just recently celebrated the Chinese New Year and I had too much in my head on most days, might as well work on my new year's resolution and start recording my thoughts in a brand new blog. The last time I had an active blogging hobby was way back in high school, up until my sophomore year in the university. I still had a PC back then and a lot of extra time to maintain a coherent blog for a few years. I don't have both of those luxuries now, but I still hope I can post for a long long while in this. After all I'm supposed to be an adult haha.

So what will my blog be about? My personal life? My fangirling commentary? Anything goes really. This is just a space where I can open about my inner brain rantings.

FOOD

I came across a food blogger in weibo this morning. Very popular that almost each of his recipe posts seemed to have been part of hot searches in the past. That's a feat considering how easy their recipes tend to look. One of which caught my attention: Strawberry Fresh Milk Drink. 

Whenever I hear Strawberry or Banana right next to the word Milk, I instantly get reminded of Korean flavored milks. And now I'm craving for one. So I proceeded to read the posts under the Strawberry Fresh Milk Drink tag and from what I could see it's just the same process: Strawberry homemade jam + Chopped strawberries + Milk + Refrigerate to cool. I doubt anyone with a day job and an unmotivated mindset (like yours truly) had the perseverance to make their very own homemade jam. I literally don't have time for that.  I had an enlightenment: Why not just use a store-brought jam? It has things in it that's not just strawberries, but laziness has a price and I am very much willing to pay. Hmmm, I'll try this out over the weekend.

XIAO ZHAN

Ah the sunshine of my life right now. I'm currently watching his new drama, Douluo Continent. So far so good. A week ago, I decided to continue reading the novel it was adapted from. Started with Chapter 40 last Thursday and I'm now in Chapter 127. I'm quite slow and the alarming thing was the drama adaptation is actually spoiling the novels! It's making me sideye those antis who kept on claiming that the drama did not follow the novel at all. If that's the case, why am I being spoiled then? 

From what I observed, the drama opted to fold the layers of plot to be crammed into one season. I think it's genius because if they're gonna ideally and faithfully follow the novel, we'll be having Game of Thrones kind of length and for Chinese dramas that had to go through heaven and hell to get approved and broadcasted, this is not the ideal route to go for, no matter how much hatred purists will throw at the drama production.

So back to the drama, it will end this week for those who purchased VIP benefits in the streaming platform, which I already did when it was first released. But I decided to halt my viewing for the moment and try to read a much as I can before this weekend comes. Will I succeed? I don't know. We'll see.

DOULUO QUOTES

As mentioned earlier, I'm doing my best to read Douluo Dalu before binge watching the drama adaptation. As I went through the chapters, I managed to gather some quotes worth remembering:

🖤 “Growing too smoothly will often lead to brittleness.“ - Qin Ming

🖤 “Loving someone doesn’t necessarily mean insisting on having them“ - Grandmaster

🖤 “In your character there is a lot of your mother’s softness.“ - Tang Hao on Tang San

🖤 “I’d rather be a blacksmith’s son, to me, what’s the point of status?“ - Tang San

🖤 “Young eagles must spread their wings on their own and fly, only then will they soar to great heights.“ - Tang Hao justifying his abandonment

🖤 “This match is only a fragment of your lives, you still have a long road to walk, as long as you gain something, victory or defeat is of little consequence.“  - Grandmaster

🖤 “Bibi Dong, hear me clearly. If anything happens to Tang San, then I will spare no cost to destroy Spirit hall. In my life I have had no children, but he is like my son.” - Grandmaster

As you may have noticed, so far I like Grandmaster more than I like Tang Hao. I know the latter is supposed to be their world's number one Superman or something, but he left Tang San so abruptly that I'm vibrating with excitement to see the exact reasons why. Because until then, Tang San only had one legit father figure and that is Grandmaster.