bethgstories

Oh yes, it's the Natalie Imbruglia song that's on my head right now. You know that moment - when you're in a certain situation and a song lyric just fits perfectly? You're breaking up with your really nice boyfriend and so you just can't have the heart to tell him it's over, you sing, "breaking up is hard to do." Or maybe you're trying to explain the customer over the phone why her bill is so high and you're just going back and forth with your explanations, and suddenly at the back of your head you sing, "round and round and round it goes..." Yes, this is me right now. Nothing's fine, I'm torn... I am torn between a lot of things right now. I am torn between reading Rant and Tomorrow In Battle Think On Me. Should I continue writing in my old blog and make my future posts count or start anew? I am caught between leaving and forgetting everything behind to enjoy a clean slate and actually live continuously and accept that triump...

When I said I'd go #NoGoals2020 , I only meant I was gonna take a break from all the goals I set for myself, something that I do every year. Goals that I may or may not be able to achieve depending on my laziness the circumstances. Little did I know that I would literally be taking a break – from planning an overseas trip with my high school friends, exploring more museums, spending idle time in newly-discovered coffee shops, walking through aisles and aisles of items on sale at Forever 21, and browsing unfamiliar titles at book fairs. The pandemic has brought me a reasonable amount (I think) of fear, anxiety, and even cognitive dissonance (aren't we all?). Okay, I always have fear and anxiety even over the littlest of things but this accidental confinement just made it much worse. I fear the virus itself, on how that micro-tiny thing claimed thousands of lives in a span of a few months. It’s not that I’m afraid to die, contrary to what some church people conclude about thi...

Okay, I did a complete 180 degrees. Over the years I've been boasting about my 20-year-old playlist that's consisted mainly of boyband music and grunge-y rock ballads. Those illegally downloaded mp3s helped me big time, in making it through the long, sleepless, and stressful nights in the call center, along with coffee from vending machines, instant cup noodles, and stale sandwiches. Fast forward to 2020. Now we're in the middle of a pandemic and still expected to function like we usually do on a normal day. Man, it's proving to be so difficult and it's chasing my sanity away. So to make it easier for myself to keep it together, of course, I turned not just to Kdrama but to that one thing that helped me through it all - music. And, ho ho ho, did I take a huge leap on this? 2020 is my year of K-pop Thanks to Heartstrings , I discovered what I have been missing all this time. CNBLUE has been there for a decade, Jung Yong Hwa...

I see it's been more than a month since the last time a wrote an entry, but it didn't feel like it. Just when I promised myself I'd update this space more, but then again I am at times a disappointment to myself. But maybe I just have nothing to say. Or maybe what I wanted to say didn't matter, or maybe it's an unpopular opinion. And I am here now because, in the end, I really don't care about oversharing what's going on with my life.  Bullet journaling is still on, but I can't wait to start on a new notebook and be more creative. I stopped my The Sunday Currently saga, just because I am too lazy couldn't keep up. I have a lot of things to do on Sundays including laying in bed until late in the morning, listening to the Kpop CDs I hauled thru this cute player I bought from Shopee, straightening up my room a bit because in the afternoon my friends are gonna come over and we'll do bible sharing over cups of coffee - and I am holding on to this ver...

I didn't plan on reading this book - but after reading Before The Coffee Gets Cold , I figured I need more dose of Japanese literature. I loved Strange Weather In Tokyo just as much, despite the time I took to finish reading it (I really miss the times when I can finish reading a book in one night). It was full of so many things I could relate to, things that I never thought could be beautiful if put together. Surprises, what? One thing I noticed in the two Japanese books I've read is that there were no surprises. No, of course, they weren't mystery books, but if you're expecting an unusual twist to the story, you'd be disappointed. This book is straightforward - you know what's going to happen, and it will happen. The art, however, lies on how the story unfolds, on haikus and little poems you'd stumble upon along the way. And the way it was written is just too beautiful it's almost lyrical. I know this is just a translation, so I could only imagine how ...