The weekend is finally, FINALLY, upon us and I've retired the work laptop to its rightful weekend throne. These past few days have been immensely stressful and I'm looking forward to scratching off a few personal to-do's I've had stashed away, and resting. It was so busy, I skipped a day of Animal Crossing, so now my nook terminal check-in miles have gone back down to 50 – it's a petty issue, but it really made me sad since I've had that streak going since I started playing over a month ago.

With regards to today's post, yes, I am on Mastodon! For a few days now, I've been playing with the idea of making an account (prompting me to write about it), and after a few days of thinking I thought I'd just go for it – there was no use in internally debating about this for so long. I intend to start baby-step small, so if any of you are interested to see random ugly-delicious food photos on your timeline, I'm @elisha@kith.kitchen.

I actually don't know what to expect from it! It might not be apparent with the way I write, but it takes time for me to feel comfortable in any setting. Maybe I'm just really self-conscious and shy? Heck, I've replied to messages stiffly, and, really, I apologize for being awkward.

Other things —

• If this week has taught me anything, it's that USB's are still pretty useful in this time and age. I have an 8GB in my pencil case that I have not touched for a year, but since I started doing the video project for work, I've used it countless times to shuttle files to and from three different laptops. Lesson learned, do not take the little, old stuff for granted. And also, keep old tech – they come in handy.

• I was inspired by someone on the 100 days feed to buy a Go set and it's finally arrived! I totally forgot who it was that first posted about it here (I'm sorry! Please let me know who you are!), but thank you for the idea. I will give this one a Go (punny haha) since my partner has currently beat me at every chess game we've played – maybe this time I can win.

Long weekend, so I'll be able to write something more substantial! But for now, some much-needed rest.

16/100

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I'm currently doing a challenge called “100 Days to Offload” – you can join in the fun too by visiting https://100daystooffload.com

If you'd like, drop me a message here – I would be absolutely thrilled to hear from you!

#100DaysToOffload #Journal #PrattlePost

I've been totally overwhelmed and frustrated with work this past couple of days for a project that my team unanimously signed me up to do, and so I've been spending most of my time internally screaming at Adobe Premiere Pro on my laptop. Before this, I've never really touched the software itself but I have a Thursday (tomorrow) morning draft deadline to meet and my inexperienced self is still crawling.

So before I disappear into oblivion and emerge from this, scarred but triumphant on Friday afternoon, I thought I'd write to let some steam off and to enforce the habit of writing. After all, I committed to this as well! Just a few random thoughts and updates on my end -

• Yet again, I have failed my self-imposed low-buy rule by buying a few things that weren't even on my wishlist. This month's 'damage' was a bunch of loose-leaf tea samples and a bundle box from a no-plastic packaging beauty brand. Of course, I'll probably excitedly talk about them when they all arrive, but I still have some deep regrets. Online shopping is a monster.

  • On that note, I feel absolutely sad that YTers have to apologize if they deviate a tiny bit – like Christina of styleapotheca in her latest video. I follow her for low-buy advice, but unlike little me who can just laugh off buying loose-leaf tea and can try again next month, she's probably got immense pressure breathing down her back every time she even thinks of buying anything. Glad that she's gotten it out of her chest tho and moving forward to better, personal content!

• Day 6 of consistently taking vitamins and supplements, which I've never done before. I'm scared that taking five all at the same time will be bad for my kidneys, but I'm thinking of hanging on for a little while longer to see some effects. And then maybe go see my PCP after this pandemic is over to talk about it.

This blog has now gone pro! My mind has been racing about all the pictures I can now upload on S.a and here, but for starters, please have this feeling-artsy breakfast picture I took last year during my trip in La Union, Philippines:

Catch you all again on Friday!

15/100

PS: Thank you for all those who sent me a message (or mention) in response to the previous post! I really do appreciate it :)

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I'm currently doing a challenge called “100 Days to Offload” – you can join in the fun too by visiting https://100daystooffload.com

If you'd like, drop me a message here – I would be absolutely thrilled to hear from you!

#100DaysToOffload #Journal #PrattlePost

As of today, it has been around more than a year since I swore off all social media, except the bird app (which I made a new account with last July). I'm saying this because, for the past few days, my mind has been dangerously walking the thin line between whether or not I should be making a few new ones, even including the ones that the fediverse has to offer.

But let's backtrack – why in the world did I end up quitting in the first place? I would be lying if I had any philosophical answer to this, so in all honesty, I'm just going to say it: heartbreak. The initial impetus to my whole self-ban was heartbreak, which I'm not too embarrassed to say because it did me a whole world of good in the end. My longest relationship ended not just because of circumstances, but also because we had so many immature, petty fights about being “online” on Facebook Messenger but not being able to reply to me in a timely manner to be pacified quickly enough. The same thing happened in the next rebound relationship I had, but this time it was on Instagram. Believe me, I've learned my lesson and I'm now more calm about it, but there was always this line I would cross and then I'd snap.

After more than a year in therapy, I haven't figured out a lot, but there was one common thing between the two circumstances – it was that green, “online” dot and read status on messages that got the best of me. In my immature mind, I probably thought that if they were online, I could monopolize their time. Being left on read equated to being ignored. During the break-up and recovery period, I had no other choice but to delete my whole account to feel better and at peace.

For the first few weeks of deleting those apps, it was agony. Anyone who has gone through a social media detox will tell you that the withdrawal symptoms can be real – your hand will automatically shoot up to your phone to find an app that isn't there, or you'll fidget and look at your screen, again and again, expecting a notification that will never arrive. You'll find ways to justify trying to get back, but your friends will tell you to stay put.

It was during those weeks that I realized that even if I wasn't active in the social media sphere, things will most probably go on. Besides the friends I told this predicament about, no one reached out to ask where I was, or how I was doing (miserable). When I eventually logged in again, my notifications were mostly things that I had presumably “missed” (which in fact, I couldn't care for at all). The truth came out – if you cared too much about your image, social media became a numbers game. The 500+ people you call “friends” were only present when you posted a random, positive milestone. I hated how relatives who I hardly talked to during reunions would comment on our family photos. I was able to identify the feelings of rage and jealousy within me. Insane, I thought, and it really was. In the years that I had built up my social media account, I had painted an image of me that, after my detox, I could not relate to any longer. Who was that? That was definitely not me.

So I purged them.

I made a new FB account, added my closest friends and my immediate family members, and promptly deactivated it while just keeping the messaging aspect of it, just to stay in touch. I saved all my IG pictures before permanently removing myself off the platform. My Twitter account met the same fate, and it took a lot of months before I was ready to make a new one and start from scratch.

A year in and I feel more at peace now. Being in the “silent” corner of the internet has calmed down my anxieties by strides, and the focus of everything I've done so far has been inward. Who I am here is just really who I am now, and all the ugly-delicious photos and nerdy selfies I have on Twitter are real markers of what I consider as happiness at this current time. There is no desire to “compete” – who am I competing with anyway? The only competition here is with my past self!

Do I recommend people to go on this whole social media detox? Absolutely! It's like trying to find who you really are when no one is looking, and for someone who tied their existence to an ideal image, it was painstakingly hard. Reminding myself of this, but when the journey is over, come back to social media for the right reasons. Things are going to be different, I promise.

14/100

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I'm currently doing a challenge called “100 Days to Offload” – you can join in the fun too by visiting https://100daystooffload.com

If you'd like, drop me a message here – I would be absolutely thrilled to hear from you!

#100DaysToOffload #Journal