Planning My Year

Call me a nerd or what you will, but one of the reasons why I'm excited to start the new year is so that I can use my bullet journal and Passion Planner!

What is a bullet journal? The creator, Ryder Carroll can explain it better than I can on his website, bulletjournal.com. In a nutshell, it's a DIY analog system that allows you to plan, make to-do lists, and pretty much anything else you want it to do!

My supplies are simple for planning! I use Muji pens, Daiso highlighters, a basic ruler, and a squared Moleskine Classic Notebook.

This is my general January set up! Huge thank you to Kara from bohoberry.com who inspired me to do some of the layouts for my bullet journal!

Some new things I'm trying out are the habit tracker, which will hopefully get me in the habit of doing things that will make a positive impact in my life, like working out more and taking more fish oil pills (I know that's random, but they have really good benefits!)

I also want to start saving more and use the money for experiences and things that will benefit me the most. 

My favorite part about the bullet journal is that you can customize it to your liking. Planning is so much funner for me now that I can be creative, yet still maintain organization and focus on important assignments, projects, and goals. I've been bullet journaling for 14 months now, and yet I'm still learning and challenging myself with the bullet journal!

Something else I like to use is the Passion Planner, which uses a time blocking system to help you visualize what your weeks and months look like. I mostly use it for my weekly plans because as a UCLA student, the weeks in the quarter system are super important!

Hopefully this blog post stirred up some creative juices in your brain for planning for the new year! I think it's really important to have a good planning system to help maximize your time and focus, so if you haven't started using any type of planner of some sort, you definitely should!

Thanks for reading! Talk to y'all soon!

House vs. Home

I hate this place. The house is too messy. Its corners carry remnants of the past, heavy burdens that I can’t bear to throw out due to old yet diminishing value. The chaos is bundled into a small three bedroom house in the middle of no where. 

I love this place. Home consists of a loving family and a place to sleep, eat, and bathe. I love coming back and listening to my mother wash the dishes and my father watch television. The murmur of sounds and voices are a subtle reminder of the home that is still very much alive.

I hate this place. In the house, all I want to do is lie down on my bed and think about things. Things that are going wrong, like my brother’s hospitalization. Things in my life that I want but are far from reach, like employment after graduation. Things that need sacrifice and work, like happiness in the future. Things in the past that come back to visit. Things in the future that haunt me. Things, overthinking things, all in the space of this house, a subtle reminder that things are far from easy.

I love this place. Smells of lumpia and pancit linger in the air. Home is where the food is. It is comfort after a long day, a long week, a long quarter, a long year. Food and home fill my stomach with warmth and happiness.

I hate this place and I want to leave.

I love this place and I will come back.