Getting to Know the Family

Greetings everyone,

How are you all doing guys? I hope you are all going great, because I am. I am literally so happy right now and it is because I did a thing that I was so scared to do, and it pays out great. I have met some of my family from my father’s side, because crazy as it sounds I have never truly met them.

My family’s story goes like this, my grandfather was killed on August of 1978 because of a coup. On his funeral, every member of his family went to pay their respect, but it was all on the expense of my grandmother because she received a fair amount of money from the government because my grandfather was part of the military. Now, my grandmother does not always possess a positive attitude and would lash out at anyone, especially if she does not have any money anymore. So to cut the story short, she lashed out at the family of my grandfather therefore severed the connection that they have with them.

Nearly forty years later, my sister and I have never met any family member on my grandfather’s side. My father and his siblings have no problem with their father’s family, but it was so hard to contact them on the last decades because we lack the technology back then, however, now you can easily type people’s name up online and their Facebook profile would come up. That is the great thing about today’s technology, communication is made easier. 

My sister and I taught our parents how to use Facebook to their benefit, to reconnect with their friends and to see how everybody is. So my father added his cousins on Facebook and occasionally had a chat with them, and he then discovered that he has a cousin living in the city where I am studying college, it is a small world after all. My father contacted his cousin and asked his cousin to contact me, I was really surprised by the phone call. I was stuttering and the thing that I am most scared of happened, my uncle asked me to visit their house, he gave me their address, but I was a coward and reasoned my way out of meeting him and his family. So I went back home to spend Christmas break at home and told my father that I would meet them when I’ll go back to study for the second semester.

I came back to the city where I am currently studying college and as a promised to my father I met my uncle and his family. I was so worried when I met them, because what if they are horrible or worst axe murderers. However, it turned out that they are such a great family, very welcoming and hospitable. We talked about family history and they asked me a lot of question about myself and how was my family doing. My uncle’s wife is amazing as well as his kids, although the ones younger than me were very shy, the oldest has an amazing personality which is so cool. Their oldest child added me on Facebook and left a very sweet message on my wall. I am really happy I got over my anxiety to meet other family members.

All in all, it was such an amazing experience and now I know that I have someone close to me that I can count on. I can’t wait to hang out with them again, hopefully I can do it sooner rather than later. If you have family members you have never met, try your very hardest to meet them and get to know them better, I am sure that you will be absolutely surprised.

Love,

Niña Liza

A Review on La La Land

Greetings everyone,

How are you all doing? I hope you are doing great, because I am. It is award season and just a disclaimer, I did not watch the Golden Globes, but I have read quite a few articles about it. Articles after articles said that there is this one movie that conquered award after award in the Golden Globes. The movie that got all the attention is called La La Land, and it opened here in the Philippines cinemas last January 11. So, I decided to check it out to tell you guys what I think of it.

La La Land is a musical movie starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling and directed by Damien Chazelle. It is a story about an aspiring actress, Mia,who is so tired of getting rejected in every audition and who is so tired of waiting for a callback that never happened, and a dedicated jazz musician, Sebastian, who thinks that it is his job to save jazz. They met in the city of angels, Los Angeles, also known for destroying hopes and breaking hearts, while pursuing their individual dreams.

It is a very unique and interesting story about love, career and priorities, which as we all know complicates the simplicity of life. The actors are so great in playing their role which was validated by their best actor and best actress awards in the Golden Globes. I love the character Mia, because she is so optimistic about everything, even though she faces rejection time and time again. She even helps out the character, Sebastian figure out how to achieve his dreams, because she believes that you will succeed in whatever it is you wish to do when you are passionate with whatever it is that you are doing. The plot twist is very surprising and intriguing, which will really leaves you begging for more. The music in the movie are really sincere and genuine, and truly speaks for the masses of people who is continually living their daily lives.

I highly recommend this movie to all of you out there who did not get the chance to check the movie out, watch it as soon as possible, because it is truly amazing. You will not regret the time that you will spare for this movie. The chemistry between Mia and Sebastian is really way off the radar that you will hate what comes next of it. I adore every last detail of this movie and I was really surprised on how good a singer Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are. So, all in all, check this movie out as soon as you can.

Love,

Niña Liza

An Open Letter For You

Dear you,

Whoever you are and however you got here, just know that you got here. Maybe not safe nor free, but you got here, and this is exactly where you are supposed to be. There may be a thousand reasons why you are trying to run and hide so badly, but know this that you got here, and it is all because of you and no one else. I know how it feels when your monsters are trying to haunt you down and eat you alive, but they don’t have the power over you. You have the power over them. So, allow yourself to enjoy every moment that you get to have here.

You are scared of the “what ifs?” the “maybes” and the “what’s to come next?”, but just keep on living on the here and now. And someday when you are already filled to the brim with joy and happiness, you will no longer be scared of anything that haunts you. Just continue to live here and make it count in the process. 

I know you unloved yourself the very first moment they taught you how, and it has been a battle ever since. Open that love letter you wrote for yourself when you were a lot younger, when you still had that laugh that now you are ashamed of. Then, open every love letter that was sent to you, I hope the lot of it will make you realize that there is a whole lot of people out there who loves you even when you feel so unlovable. 

Take a rest when it is too hard for you, but don’t you dare give up. There is still a whole lot things waiting to happen for you, a whole lot of people you never got to meet, a whole lot of places you never got to see, and whole lot of challenges you need to accomplish. I know how hard it is to get out of bed every morning, but for the love of whoever is up there, please do, because nothing would be the same if you did not exist. Rise like a phoenix even when you are dead inside, and sing like the birds do in the stillness of life.

Make your craziest dream happen, because that is exactly what you are destined to do here. Preach every message that makes your heart beat, because a lot of people won’t get to see you here and a lot of people needs to see that you made it here. I know that you feel pain every single day, however, pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. You do not have to suffer for every pain that you feel inside, because a lot of people are there for you to share the burden with.

Breathe. It may seem hard on days where you feel like the world is on your shoulders, but just breathe. Everything will be okay, everything will fall on their right places, and you need not to worry about them. Trust. Even when it is the hardest thing to do, because I know that it will grant you the things that you deny for yourself. Love. As hard as you can and as long as you can, because that is the most beautiful thing that can happen to you in here. 

Love,

Niña Liza

A Crazy Dream

Greetings everyone,

How is the New Year working out for all of you? I hope it is incredible because by the grace of whatever is up there, 2017 is incredible to me. I am writing this entry to share to you a dream that I had last week. I just remembered it now and got creep out by it.

So this dream took place in the future, maybe around five or ten years from now and by this time everybody that I know has already gone through massive changes in life. However, my best friend and I are still the same person as we are today, and if you have not figured it out, it is very creepy. In this dream of mine I still have the same friends as I do right now and I am so happy to see that, because I love the friends that I do have right now. 

I remembered in my dream that my friends and I are in a café hanging out. All of them, except for my best friend and I, are talking about grown up stuffs: work, family and life in general. My best friend and I are just sitting there having little to no idea what they are babbling about. When they are not talking about work, family, or life in general, they would talk about their trips or travels to other countries and other marvelous places, which I guess is what you do when you become a successful person. I admit that all the talks about grown up stuffs made me feel insecure, and I guess that is what my best friend was feeling, too.

I just realized now that that dream of mine was my biggest or worst fear, and it is being left behind. I hate the idea that everyone is moving on with their lives and I am just here stuck in the sideline doing the same things that I have been doing ever since. Maybe it is my pride talking, because I do want to see my friends being successful at what they do and achieving all their goals in life, but also I want it for myself as well. I want to be successful at everything that I do, I want to be able to show people that I am successful because of the hard work that I put in, and I know it is so selfish of me, but I guess it is not only I who wants that.

That dream was really a wake-up call for me to get my life together. The dream was kind of a glimpse to my future if I keep on doing the same things that I am doing right now, and that is slacking off in school thinking that I can get away with everything because I have a loving family who supports me no matter what will happen. I am really creep out by that dream but in a weird way it gave me the motivation that I need to do my best in everything that I set my mind to, starting off with doing great in school. So based on my experience, motivation really comes from weird but incredible places. And that is the reason why I am writing all this.

Love,

Niña Liza

A Review on Stranger Things

Greetings everyone,

How are you all doing? I hope that you are all doing amazing, because I am apparently. I am writing again because it is time for me to review some random stuffs again and I decided to do a review on the TV series Stranger Things. I know I am a little bit late with the hype, but better late than never, right?

Stranger Things is a Netflix Original American TV Series. The moment it came out people are talking about it on and on and on. Many of my friends recommended it to me but I was so busy at that time that I could not bring myself to watch any TV series, so I ignored it. Crazy of me, I know. So I finally found the time I need to indulge myself into watching a TV series a couple of days after New Year’s day and I finished the first season, and as of the moment I am finding myself time again to start watching the second season.

The story was set on the early 80’s, and it is so cool because it gives you a brief history on the technologies that they used back in the day, which is so far away from the technologies that we have right now. The story is mainly about finding the missing boy, Will Byers. He went missing on his way home after he played a game with his friends, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin. When Will’s mom and brother discovered that he was missing, the whole police department searched for clues to find his whereabouts, which led to the discovery of a laboratory that did various experiments on a 12 year-old girl named, Eleven, that is said to have mind powers. 

What the police did not know is that Eleven escaped the facility and ran into Will’s friends in the woods, who was also doing their own search to find their missing friend. Mike pitied the girl and let her stayed in their basement feeding her left overs, candies, and Eggos, which Eleven grew to like. They all became friends, and Mike figured out that Eleven can help them search for Will. His friends disagreed and tried to tell Will’s mom about Eleven’s existence but they were stopped by Eleven using her mind powers, which then convinced them to agree to let her help them find Will. However, bad guys were after Eleven because they thought that she is a weapon that can be used against the enemy. 

Another interesting thing happened when Barbara, a friend of Mike’s sister Nancy, went missing as well. Nancy felt really guilty and responsible for the disappearance of Barbara that she went to search for her on the woods, she then accidentally saw a creature without a face. However, she thought it was only a pigment of her imagination until she discovered a photograph taken by Will’s brother, Jonathan, which has the same creature on it. She then went to Jonathan for clues and discovered that Jonathan’s mother, Joyce, whom everybody thought has lost her mind, saw the same exact creature crawled out of their wall. Jonathan believed the existence of this creature and together they went after the creature hoping that it is what took Will and Barbara.

Things escalated even further when the bad guys found where Eleven was hiding, they tried to take her away from her new found friends but failed to do so until she discovered Will and Barbara’s location in the Upside Down. Joyce and the sheriff went to get Will from the Upside Down, while Jonathan, Nancy and her boyfriend, tested their theory that the creature is attracted to blood and tried to kill the creature but they failed. The creature went after Eleven and the others after she killed a lot of the bad people and spilled a lot of blood. Eleven was desperate to save her friends from the creature because she felt responsible for the existence of the creature and in order to do so she sacrificed herself to kill the creature. 

The ending of the first season is sad and devastating, but it also shows that even after everything you have been through your friends will always be there for you. So, I highly recommend this TV series to all of you out there who is looking for a cool way chill out or hang out with your friends. It is a great way to stimulate your mind and it is so entertaining. It is intense enough to make you jump out of your chair with all the amazing scenes. If you decide to watch Stranger Things guys, I do hope you will all love it as much as I do.

Love,

Niña Liza

An Open Letter for my 19 year-old Self

Dear 19 year-old Niña Liza,

I am going to welcome you in like a week from now and I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m kind of hoping that you have learnt your lesson already by now. You have made a lot of mistakes in the past and I pray that you will not make any of those mistakes ever again, because God knows the outcome of those mistakes were never pleasant. Enough about the mistakes you have committed in the past, because you deserve credit, too, for discovering yourself even better than you did before. Without those mistakes, you will never be where you are today.

I am sitting here staring at my laptop wondering what to say to you, because I am in no position to give you advice nor am I in the position to dictate you what and what not to do. So, forgive me for making a mess out of this letter. However, just allow me to share to you what I want for you and what I don’t want for you, and just know that it is your every right to agree with me or not.

I know that it took you a long time to figure out how to love yourself. At first you thought that if somebody would love you, you would then slowly learn how to love yourself. However, that only made you miserable because you keep on pushing yourself to people who you think would potentially love you. You made it your task to seek someone who would love you. And you thought that you found that someone, but it turns out that that someone lacks the ability to love himself, too. So in the end it was a disaster for the both of you. 

What I really want for you is to be happy in all circumstances; I want for you to be able to smile even when you feel like the world is on your shoulders. I want for you to eat whatever it is you want without minding the number on the scale. I want for you to travel to the different places that you really want to go to. I want for you to enjoy life to the fullest, make the most out of it while you still can. I want for you to show the world who you truly are, without restrictions and without unreasonable reasons. Finally, I want for you to continue to love yourself without answering the most stupid question: why should I? Because you see, you can only exist in this world once, so you can at least make it count.

Now, it is time for me to tell you what I don’t want for you. I don’t want for you to ever feel small ever again, to feel useless, and to feel unworthy. Because no matter what other people say, you are much greater than those adjectives. I don’t want for you to ever feel lonely and sad, because I know that there’s a hundred things that can make you feel happy. I don’t want for you to put other girls down, to be mean without any logical reason, and to be selfish just because you can. Because those girls are just like you and they need all the support they can get. I don’t want for you to stop writing, because your voice does count and writing stuff down make you articulate your thoughts even better. Lastly, I don’t want for you to apologize to anyone just because of how weird you are, that is what makes you unique and special and you should never apologize about that.

It is time for the conclusion of this letter, and I have told you everything that I wanted for you to hear. The best advice I can give you right now is: follow everything or not, just try to live your life without regrets and you will surely enjoy every moment of everything, because you can charge everything as experience. I will always love you and try to keep safe always.

Love,

18 year-old Niña Liza

Scream

Greetings everyone,

How are you all doing? I hope you are doing great because I really am right now. Now, I am up for another poetry and this entry is another poem that I would like to share to all of you. This poem is about what I feel about fake friends and foe. And I do hope you enjoy reading it. So here it goes:

Scream

I know myself better than anyone

I cut myself thinking that I am no one

I watch the shows of fake friends and foe

I live my life in misery and in woe.

People think that I am fine inside

however that is not theirs to decide

I am lost in the world of fantasy

thinking that I am living in intimacy.

Nursing the great pain and sorrow

Hoping that it will be gone tomorrow

Living life as if it is just a dream

But all I really want to do is scream.

So this poem reflects what I feel about fake friends and foe, I don’t really care much but I am just so tired of them. I encounter a lot of them on a daily basis and I wish they would just stop whatever they are doing and just have a genuine friendship with people and not be such an asshole about it. I don’t have a lot of foe, because I don’t cultivate them. However, I cannot say the same for fake friends, it seems like I magnetically attracts them, which is weird. So yeah, I have no right to give you all advice but just enjoy your life and do not be a fake friend and try not to cultivate any foe.

Love,

Niña Liza

Being Weird Together

Greetings everyone,

How are you all doing? I do hope that you are doing marvelous because fortunately I am. And now I am back in our home town for a good couple of weeks because it is Christmas break for us students, and the reunion with family and friends really reminded me of how much I missed home. Now allow me to share to all of you my adventure with my friends. It is not really a very outrageous or extravagant adventure, we just hanged out on the different places in our city. 

Our adventure happened last Wednesday. Tuesday evening in our Facebook group we made a plan to meet up at two in the afternoon the next day, without any idea where we will go. We preferred it that way because some people will not come with us if they don’t like the place we picked to hang out to. So the plan was to meet up at two in the afternoon at the front of an internet café, but we are never the punctual group. When you say to meet up at two pm unfortunately that is only the time when people will get ready. So the lot of us got to get together around three pm. 

We went to the mall and ate ice cream at the food court. Then we decided to hang out at the plaza’s food court, where we consumed chips and soda like nobody’s business, and we talked about everything that has happened to our lives and the things that happened to everybody else’s lives. After hours of talking and making fun of each other, we decided to do a karaoke sing-off and so we went to the mall again and we took turns singing for two hours and that got me unfortunately very hoarse. It was already dark outside when were done with karaoke, so we decided to go to the carnival that is being held at the city oval. We did not ride any rides because we are short on budget, but we played games and won prizes. We also tried our skills at the billiard table, which is very unfortunate but it is very fun to see people missed their shot. After all the walking, talking and laughing, we decided to eat dinner and so we went to the plaza’s food court again and ate “kwek-kwek”, it is boiled egg covered in an orange batter that is deep fried. We talked about the stuffs happening in Aleppo, how tragic the things that the people there are experiencing. Afterwards, I told my friend that I want to take photos of the lights in the city hall because their displays are pretty amazing, they agreed and so we went and had so much fun taking turns in taking photos of each other. After a very tiring endeavor, some of us went home and the others went to an internet café to play their favorite online game, DOTA 2.

So my point in writing this entry is that you should never forget the friends that you have when you were younger, because they are the closest connection that you have to your roots, before you knew everything that you need to know about yourself. I am so blessed to have friends who I know got my back no matter what I go through in life, they respect me as I respect them and they don’t judge me when I tell them my exploits because I don’t judge them with theirs. My relationship with my friends is best describe with the phrase, “what you give is what you receive.” What I realized as well is that many people come and go in your life but the people who choose to stay are treasures, which you should value and take care of.

Love, 

Niña Liza

Welcoming 2017

Greetings everyone,

How is 2017 going for all of you? I really hope that it is great, because it is for me. I want to share to all of you how I welcome this year with my family. New Year is the only holiday in our house that matters the most, I don't know why, but maybe because it holds so much promises for everyone in my family. 

You all might notice that I did not post anything about Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, it is because we did not celebrate it. My parents slept on Christmas Eve because my father still has work in the morning, while my sister and I celebrated Christmas Eve holed up in her bedroom listening to KPop boy band, BTS, and eating macaroons and drinking soda. I know you might think it is sad to not celebrate Christmas but it really is not new to us. Our family is not so fond of celebrations, we barely celebrate birthdays or even anniversaries.

New Year's Eve is the most special holiday in our house, we are all looking forward to it and hoping that it will go well. There are a lot of preparations involved. On the last day of the 2016, we prepared the food that we are going to eat at New Year's Eve. My mother cooked linguine with bolognese sauce and made fresh fruit salad, while I made homemade cookies and cream ice cream, my father was given by his boss a chiffon cake, and my grandma made a rotini salad. 

On the last evening of 2016, we had roasted chicken for dinner then we watched television for a little while. By around 7:00 pm, my mother and I decided to sleep and set the alarm for 11:00 pm, but she woke up earlier because my father arrived from work. I woke up around 10:00 pm because my father said that it was movie time. It is our year-ending annual tradition to watch a movie and drink wine, I forgot what we watched last 2015 but last 2016 we watched The Suicide Squad. We don't watch countdown on television, because we like to watch our wall clock when it will struck midnight. We watched the firework shows in the sky and ten minutes later we are on the dining table eating. We finished our movie and watch National Geographic WILD on cable and the rest of my family decided to sleep around 2:00 am, while I stayed awake until 6:00 am just watching YouTube Videos. 

It might not be a grand celebration, but that is the best my family can do when it comes to celebration. We are just happy with the simple things and the intimacy we shared with one another. Plus, we are not a large family; there is only my mother, my father, my sister, our grandma, and me in the family. So we do not need a big celebration and so long as we are together and happy on New Year's Eve it is already a great celebration.

Love,

Niña Liza