Hello. Kumusta?
An entire month of 2022 is all but gone. Nothing makes me feel how short the days are than the passing of the first month of the year. I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do about how long we waited for it only to see it disappear in a whim.
How was your 2022 so far?
Me, my January has been both difficult and fun. This email you are reading is the product of my first month of the year. Moving forward, I intend to send you an email every second day of the month just to keep in touch and share what has been happening within and around me. I am calling this new emails “Uman”—which means “change” in Pangasinan.
I have now retired Lilim and the weekly newsletter schedule. Speaking of which, you can still read the first season here, and I will soon upload the second season. For now, I want to try out this monthly email schedule and see if I could sustain it more.
So welcome to Uman. This is its first issue. Nothing much here. Just a reportage of what I have done (or have not done)—a sort of accountability platform that hopes to nurture this culture of sharing, openness, and vulnerability, which I have always enjoyed from writing this sort of emails.
Studies
In January 2022, I finished reading the book A Philosophy of Walking by Frédéric Gros. I am still in the process of reviewing my highlights and writing permanent notes. I’ll share my notes to you when they are ready. I also deeply reflected on the article The Moderate-Minded Writer by Matthew Nisbet. You can check my literature notes here. Finally, I am currently dipping myself into the life and work of Thich Nhat Hanh. I started by reading his biography in the Plum Village website here.
Projects
Annual review
Since it is the beginning of the year, I conducted my annual review, improving my process along the way. You can read my 2021 annual review article here.
Learn web design
One of my intentions this year was to enhance how I share my work by designing and developing a fully customized website. For this to happen, I need to study web design and development. To start learning about design, I took Flux’s Free Web Design Course.
Learn web development
To learn web development, I bought the bestselling Udemy course by Dr. Angela Yu: The Complete 2022 Web Development Bootcamp. I have only started the course but I can already say that Dr. Yu’s teaching style is very down-to-earth.
Kaliskis na Ulap
To practice my web development skills, I decided to learn how to build a static site using Hugo. The result was Kaliskis na Ulap, a website that will house my translations on Thoreau’s writings. You can collaborate by writing your own translations on the passages and sending them to me via the website. You can join the project here.
Others
After the new year, I wasn’t feeling particularly good. I had a tough time just starting my projects that I can’t believe I managed to finish a few of them. I am so grateful for the support of friends and loved ones, who helped me get past those tough days.
Aside from playing card and board games, I enjoyed watching Pan de Salawal and The Forty-Year-Old Version. I also enjoyed listening to Tame Impala’s synth pop album Currents, and Emily Dickinson’s poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” was my best discovery this month.
Walks taken: Usual walks in UP, a walk to Tadlac Lake with Lea, a stroll around Lipa with my friend Rem, another along Pili Drive with Ju, and an evening walk at Jamboree road along an illuminated road and under a large red moon.