bethgstories

Former CNBLUE member once said, "two books a month is a lot" ( video at 10:57 ), and guess who took it by heart. Of course, I didn't force myself to read more than two books this month because 1) 2 books is a lot, and; 2) I am overwhelmed with the pile of unread books on my shelf and because there are just so many of them I do not know what to read first and all the thinking and deciding took so much time that I ended up reading nothing.  Excuses. Okay, let me tell you the truth. I am lazy, okay? Plus I am too busy being happy with my job. So I decided to just make a monthly recap of all the books I've read instead of doing reviews for each. Also, I figured it might force me to read as many as I can so as to make a decent monthly list.  So here are my books for January.  1. Every Moment Was You , Ha Taewan This is one of the last few books I bought last year, and it ended up as the first book I read this year. If you are a Kdrama fan, you know this book very well. Lee...

Look, I am tired. For the past two years, I didn't know what it was to be not tired. Just like everyone else, I was too busy just trying to survive and searching for things that will help me keep my sanity at bay. Those two things needed every ounce of my strength that I didn't have anything left for the things I used to love and spend time on.  This year I figured, I'm tired of being tired. My inner self, the one that has the ball of sunshine, tells me to let her take charge. She says that maybe, we don't need goals. Goals are just an unhappy long-term to-do list that makes you hate yourself when not achieved. Habits, on the other hand, ignite motivation. And perhaps habits are what we need. Some healthy ones. Or maybe that's the goal - establishing healthy habits. Hence, the glow-up project.  Body We've seen it on TikTok and YouTube - hundreds of girls filming their aesthetic and motivating morning routines. We've also seen videos defying the concept of be...

If there is one thing that 2021 taught me, it's courage.  Art Sector, January This year seemed to have a good start, so I told myself that the slump must have been over. I started waking up early, going out for the first time ever since the community quarantine was implemented to do brisk walking, writing a journal, and hydrating with pretty water. Sounds like That Girl on Tiktok, right? I even planned ahead and expected that some of my WIPs will be done before the year ends. Great! This year is gonna be amazing. Better.  Except that it wasn't. The virus evolved and created many variants like it made it a mission to teach us the Greek alphabet.  Padre Pio Shrine Batangas, February Saturday Afternoon with the Minas, February Brisk walking through the fallen flowers, March But who was I to complain? I was at home, safe and sound. I was with my family. I still have a job that paid the bills and a little bit more. People are dying. Some people I know are frantically looking f...

These days I find it a privilege to be able to finish reading a book. Convenience Store Woman is only 94 pages though, perfect for when you've got nothing to do but roll over your bed for the rest of the night. At first, I thought this is going to be another plotless book, the kind I've learned to expect from Japanese stories like The Nakano Thrift Shop . But it gave me an extremely different kind of entertainment. I didn't find it funny or humorous, unlike the rave reviews I've seen. In this book I got mad, I smiled a little, raised my brows, and exhaled quite a few times.  Relatable Keiko Maybe, I could relate to Keiko. Except that I wasn't a troubled kid (okay, maybe just a little bit). And I could not see myself doing the same exact thing for eighteen years. Plus, I'd like to think I've successfully established my self-identity.  Keiko can't define herself in any other way, except that she was born to be a convenience store woman. She felt the need t...

After a few months of staring at my bookshelf wondering if it somehow just became a decoration in my room to make me feel and look smart, I finally finished reading a book! Apop has graciously provided us with books we can turn to when the whole world appears to be turning its back on us and we need to be reassured it's just a temporary thing. I'd normally shy away from non-fiction and self-help books but I realized I got to do what it takes to feel better in the middle of this worldwide mayhem. So I grabbed the whole set and set aside my scheduled Kdrama marathon weekend (Hospital Playlist 2) and read my first book from the bundle - Kim Dan 's  You Can Wind Down From Time to Time .   Can you tell me what am I going to read next based on what's on my bookshelf? The book is a compilation of snippets from our favorite kid stories, and essays on how they relate to the complicated part of our lives called adulting. Yes, I am an adult and I have no idea what I am doing most...

Here's to another Dori Sakurada drama review. We stan cute villain leads! After the cringe-y  Coffee and Vanilla  I wanted more of him to see when I'd finally stop drooling over him  if he's really a good actor because I'm not gonna lie, cringe-y or not, his acting in that drama was great, along with the other actors. Anyway, Perfect Crime made it up for the previous drama's lack of execution and logic and lived up to the expectations that Love Lasts Forever has set. Although it felt sad and I ached for some of the characters, I'm glad that I decided to watch it.  What's the story about Okay, this is such a tangled affair that I may need a diagram to explain it perfectly. While all of the characters are essential to the story, it starts with four people - Kaori Maejima (Reina Triendl), Haruto Shinonome (Dori Sakurada), Takuma Fuyuki (Hidekazu Mashima), and Miwa Fuyuki (Lee Ayumi).  Miwa started going out with Haruto, but in the middle of their relationship,...

Okay, I think I've seen this before, I told myself as I watch the cringe-y monologue of the female lead. Enter the mighty good-looking super young self-made CEO. Yes, I've seen this before, everything is oh-so-familiar. Then the first declaration of love happened before the first episode ends.  It clicked! It's the many Wattpad stories I've edited in the past. I stumbled upon a 60-second clip of this drama on Instagram, and that scene made me think maybe this is another professor-student romance akin to Do Min Joon and Cheon Song Yi's initial relationship, although the title makes me think of Christian and Anastasia. And because I love My Love From The Star to the moon and back, I decided maybe I also need to watch this. But no, Google tells me its premise is nothing near the story of the mysterious 400-year-old alien and his famous celebrity neighbor. Coffee and Vanilla is a cringe-worthy, toe-curling drama that kept me up the whole night. The cringe-worthy female ...