Oh My Janey

Life Lately: On Strength and Aging (Gracefully, I Hope)

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On my way back to Singapore early this year, I had the pleasure of meeting a Filipino mom on her way to Indonesia for work.

She’s one of the many Filipinos leaving home to work abroad just so she can give her family a better life. My father was one, and I guess I am, too. In a way.

She asked how I found myself working in Singapore. I shared the long story, as the immigration queue at NAIA was even longer. After telling her how I did it, she nodded her head as acknowledgement and said, “Tough girl.”

The comment surprised me, as no one had called me tough before. Clumsy, all the time. Tough? First time in my life.

The comment got me thinking whether I can say the same about me. And after everything I had been through, I realized that I am, actually, a tough girl.

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Wat Pho Massage School: Honest-to-Goodness Thai Massage Review

I recently went to Bangkok and planned to have a massage everyday while I was there. It was a plan unfulfilled as I didn’t get to go for one on my first day.

However, I made sure to go to Wat Pho Massage School for a massage, because apparently this is where all the Thai massage magic started. It was like Hogwarts but for massages. Of course I had to try it!

I could barely find any decent or recent review of the massage school and the official website looks sketchy at best. In fact, I wanted to ask if they need a new website and I’m willing to do SEO for free in exchange for a lifetime supply of massages.

Happy to report that when I got there, it’s actually a pretty great place to go for a massage after spending hours walking around Wat Pho under the scorching Bangkok sun. It’s nothing fancy like other Bangkok spas, but it’s definitely pricier than the massages you’d find in the street. The price is somewhere in between, but I’d like to think that I was not just paying for a one-hour Thai massage. I was also paying for the heritage, the history, the tradition. It was damn well worth it.

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The Best Year

Just like that, I turned a year older!

Will this be the best year ever? I am claiming it will be but, not yet, because a week after I turned 32, I, unfortunately, caught Covid for the first time. So yes, dear reader, I am sick in bed as I type this birthday blog post. But don’t worry. I feel a lot better now and can confidently say that I’ll feel even better tomorrow.

Nevertheless, I had an amazing birthday week, though the following week I’m spending in the confines of my bedroom, sleeping, eating, reading, more sleeping, and seeing no one but Eren and the rest of the Attack on Titan gang (I am now on season 3).

Anyway!

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Penang Misadventures

After years and years of wanting, I finally went on an overseas solo trip!

It’s a plan I almost didn’t want to tell anyone, worried that they’d stop me or worse, worried that I’d chicken out and not go through with it. But for safety, I did tell a select few that I was going on a solo trip before my birthday, something I had to do for myself.

I didn’t tell my family till I was on the boarding gate because I knew they wouldn’t approve. If I were them I wouldn’t approve either. I mean, I’m an absentminded klutz, how could I survive alone?

But I survived!

Dear reader, I am suprised, too.

Of course, the trip didn’t go as smoothly as planned, though I do admit that I did very little planning. But there are two things that I know to be true:

  1. For four days, I explored Penang, Malaysia by myself and enjoyed it.
  2. I managed to go back to Singapore alive and whole.

And despite every mishap that happened during the trip, I am glad I did it and I’m excited to do it again.

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Two Years in the Little Red Dot

Two years this month, I packed my bags, left home, and tried my luck in Singapore.

I’ll just stay there for two years, I said.

I’ll just go home if I get homesick, I said.

There’s no guarantee I’ll be able to find a job anyway, I said.

But this week already marked my second year in the Little Red Dot, and I’m already in my second job and in my second home. So much has happened in the past two years, but also so little!

Two years fly by so quickly when you’re in the middle of a pandemic, isn’t it?

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