Routine is boring to me. That’s why it is very hard for me to thrive in an eight-to-five job. I always need to take a break.
Boredom has started to eat me alive lately and I despise it. I miss those times when I would just drop everything, go to the South or North Bus Terminal in Cebu and just decide later where I want to go. It’s almost impossible to do that now because I have two mutants – growing so fast by the second – who keep me inside the house and limited my activities to changing diapers, preparing milk, washing plates and bottles, giving baths, singing songs, reading stories, and taking pictures/recording videos like crazy. As usual and as expected, I still have my love-hate relationship with writing. Nothing’s change when it comes to that.
I was at the peak of my boredom (and nostalgia) yesterday after another disgusting mischief (don’t let me elaborate) led by Toni and duly supported by Nick. Jeff won’t be back from Beijing until Saturday afternoon so it’s just me and the mutants. When this happens, I usually think about August, the start of school. I can’t wait to immerse myself back in the academic world – take exams, write term papers and communicate with teachers. I think that would take most of the boredom away.
Jeff told me that I cannot ALWAYS live my life around the twins, and that I should take periodic breaks from them .
“Go out and have fun!”
“Get a manicure and a pedicure.”
“Go down and hit the bar.”
“Go shop!”
I usually don’t listen to him. But yesterday, I accepted that he was so right. I can’t stand any minute of the screaming and the crying and the smell of baby milk. I didn’t go out but I did what I have always wanted to do since I got here: Watch TV.
Not a big feat, huh? But it is to me. I haven’t done it for quite some time because even my “free time” are spent inside the twins’ room with my phone as my companion. It’s torture, you see. While watching TV, I realized that it’s not the twins who keep me from doing some of the things that I plan/want/need/love to do. I am stopping myself because I allowed “me” to just turn into a couch potato or a bed broccoli. The lack of physical activity is making me lazy. I don’t like lazy. I don’t like the sound of it even if it rhymes with one of the words that best describes me: crazy.
I decided yesterday that I should do more physical activities; not just that kind of activity that involves flexing my finger muscles otherwise known as typing. A letter from this apartment’s resident manager said yoga and aerobics classes are free for all residents. I might sign up for that. To improve my Chinese, I could take out my books – now gathering dust on our top shelf – to improve my Chinese vocabulary. Then establish a one-hour everyday habit to speak with a local. Also, I can start answering those inquiries about giving storytelling and English teaching training. I can be more efficient in my time management and spend less time with my phone and devote more time interacting with real people like my Kuwaiti neighbor, who’s been Jeff’s friend for five years.
The key thing here is to get moving. Move, move, move!
Logging off.
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T30WC or The 30-minute Writing Challenge is a writing exercise born out of this blogger’s need to maintain a habit of writing. Subjects of each writing challenge is just about anything but should ONLY be written within 30 minutes.
