Like The Tomato
just me, my books, and my journals
My November reading has taken a backseat for sure. I got a new job this month. And I am finding a rhythm with things. I mean, I still think that my reading was decent. However, I have not been able to read a novel, which is shameful. And turned to the instant gratification of reading some webtoons.
The only novel I finished this month was Heaven Official’s Blessing Vol 6. I did start reading volume 7 in November but have not been able to continue. My focus kept on wavering. Anyway, I love Vol 6. I mean, I love all the books that I have read so far. I am pretty hyped since the last volume (Vol 8) has been released and I got my copy. And I am excited to get a satisfying ending on one of the best series that I have ever read.
Of course, a lot of manhwa and manga in November. There were a few favorites for sure.
You Get Me Going (manhwa, webtoon). I finished reading the manhwa – this should be the second/last season for this one. And I still think this was a gem. I loved seeing MC and ML navigating their relationship from fuck buddies to actually having a full-on relationship. I was smiling, I was giddy. The communication between the two was top-notch. Green flags all over the place. Yeah, again, love it.
How My Daddies Became Mates (manga, webtoon). This is just adorable. I tend to not enjoy omegaverse too much, the genre itself has a lot of red flags, but this one was really fun. From enemies to lovers to being fated mates and to being dads. It was nice seeing the progression of their relationship. The angst – I mean, they met in high school – so the angst was high! But I love the journey of the main characters realizing what they meant to each other. But then again, I realized that I really enjoy reading some enemies to lovers stories.
Hetakuso Love Step (manga, webtoon). This was just cute. MC and ML in college, ML was a playboy – scared of being hurt. MC was the awkward smart boy that ML found himself falling for. I think what I enjoyed in this one was how organic the relationship was. It was young love. With a lot confusion and a lot of realizations. The first chapter was rough, but not too much to deter me from seeing where these characters would go. And I’m glad I decided to continue on. Again, this was just cute.
Honorable mentions were Walk on Water, Love Plan, and Like a Tidal Wave (manhwa, webtoon). These were enjoyable. At least, I enjoyed the reading experience. They’re not the best but they were worth the time.
You know, I am not the most sociable person. I am not very open, I’m not approachable. I am friendly, but only to a point. I can be engaged in a conversation, but once the exchanges get too long, I get tired and I retreat. I put on my headphones and just close off the world. I guess my friendliness to people tends to be superficial. I’m guarded as a person, and I’m very picky about who I call friends.
The thing that I find really tiring is the fact that I have to pretend to be sociable. Being in a leadership position, I need to be. And it sucks. The moment I leave the lab, the moment I hear the door closed behind me, my mask falls off. That is one of my favorite things that happens every day. When I can just be myself; when I do not have to pretend anymore.
I guess I am missing my alone time. When I was younger, I can be alone and I would be okay. But I feel like wanting to be alone and quiet now that I am an adult, someone will always make it a point to psychoanalyze me. Unfortunately, this was a lesson learned. I just could not fathom why it was such a big deal that I wanted to eat alone in my car. Or be quiet. Apparently, my not wanting to interact meant that there was something wrong. That was the last time I did not wear my extrovert mask in public.
Why am I rambling about this?
Because it is detrimental to my mental health having to pretend every day. There is a reason why I love the weekends. Because I am just at home and I can be a loner as much as I want. I can be quiet. I can get lost in my head. I can just be me. And after years of perfecting this mask, I feel like I am losing myself more and more.
Well, this post turned personal really quickly. I did not mean to. I just did not feel like rehashing my day when all that really happens are forced interactions.
“I just want to be in bed” was my mantra ALL DAY. Not good. I almost feel annoyed with myself since all I can think of after that is “Damn, you’re one lazy ass.”
On top of me wanting to be in bed the whole day, I just did not want to deal with people. Not interact with anybody at all. It was bad. It’s so difficult to pretend to be an sociable when my body is refusing to act like one.
I have a meeting scheduled at 7 AM tomorrow and I’m not going. Honestly, I’m a bit tired and not feeling well. I’ve been having cramps, headache, and low back pain the whole day. And now add nausea to that. Yeah, definitely not ideal. So they can go ahead and forget that meeting.
I had to take a rain check again with hanging out my hun. I went straight to bed when I got home from work and only stood up to feed the dogs, take my meds, and get ready for bed. Because there really nothing more I want to do today but curl in bed.
I started reading How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days. We’ll see how far along I can get into this book. So far, so good. I don’t feel the urge to stop reading it, currently in chapter three. I normally off the bat if I won’t ever like the book on the first few chapters of the book. I was only in chapter three of The Love Hypothesis when I put that book down and told myself, “No, I will not force myself to read this book.”
Hopefully tomorrow I feel better. I’ve been feeling antisocial lately and I need to be extroverted for Friday’s happy hour. I was fine when I said yes to that shindig two weeks ago…But with how the past few days have been going for me, I really am feeling drained and do not feel like socializing. We’ll see.
Just slightly. My self loathing go overboard at times to be honest. And those days make me bound to bed, very emotional. Today my self loathing was at functional level. I may have moved slower than usual but I was still able to do things around the apartment. Well some things that needed to be done that did not involve me having to get out of the apartment.
On top of that, I’m very irritable. Why? Because I will be riding the crimson tide in the next couple days if not tomorrow. So my mood is very stretched thin. My allergies being in an all time high today is also a contributing factor.
My hun was very gracious and letting me take a rain check again today. I personally do not want to subject him to my foul mood. Yes, I would like to keep shielding him on days that I might be very difficult to handle. I can get really snappy when I’m like this. So he is better off hanging out with his friends today. I was lurking on his stream today, and he did seem to be having fun playing some DBD with his friends. So that’s a good thing.
I finished Forrest Gump. And that book was really heartwarming. That is the best adjective I can describe that book. He definitely lived his life, full of experiences that most of us would not ever get to experience in one lifetime. And I admired his resilience in everything. Next plan now is to watch the movie soon.
Scouring my bookshelf for my next read now. I’m debating if I want some romance next. I’m not sure. I’m debating if I want to give The Love Hypothesis another chance. I had to stop reading it because I cannot stand the incessant need to emphasize how tall the male love interest is. But I also feel like I want to read some more nonfiction to be honest. I have a few in my bookshelf right now. But I am also wanting some fantasy as well. I hate being a mood reader to be honest. I wish I can just stick to a to be read list like other readers out there. But I cannot.
I am currently watching You’ve Got Mail…again. I did say it’s one of my favorite movies.
It has been raining the whole weekend. And I love it. Like I said on a previous post, this is one of the reasons why I moved here. So every single time it’s raining, I’m happy! But when the lab your working at has leak in the ceiling, all rain weekend has it’s disadvantages. Yes, I walked into a mess.
First thing that came to mind was, “Shit! The fridges!!” But thank God, not the fridges but good ol’ regular ceiling leak! The thing that really frustrates me is the fact the we have been dealing with this bullshit for three years now. And regardless of how many times this has been brought up with management and then to the building manager, it’s still not been resolved.
A couple of weeks ago, they changed the ceiling tiles, that was a Wednesday. Thursday, it rained. Friday, new tiles have water damage. I mean, it’s very logical to say that having new ceiling tiles to replace the old ones due to water damage is useless when the leak itself has not been fixed!
I was pretty busy at work today, which was nice for a change. And not a lot of meetings either! Also the office seems crowded. Site leader was there, and the new lab supervisor started today. So yeah, crowded. Tomorrow though I have an early morning meeting and same on Wednesday. Both days my meeting starts at 7 AM, so I have to be onsite before that. Gross. Again, whoever schedules these meetings suck.
My love is having boy’s night right now. Which is okay. I’ll be reading after I post this. And also, playing You on the background again. Season 2, episode 2 currently playing right now. I still do prefer Season 1 hands down.
Okay, I think that’s it for today. Reading time.
This was not a new discovery. I am very familiar with the platform. I’ve had a Twitch account for a while now but I haven’t really been on it religiously. I just downloaded it to mainly watch live streams or even recorded streams of Sims 4. That includes the game plays or buildings. But I never really gotten into it…until recently. By recently, I mean last Monday last week.
I came across a live stream of someone playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. And if you know me well enough, then it won’t be a surprise why I gravitated towards that stream. I dabbled in this CS frenzy way back when, my teen years really, when I was still in the Philippines. So when I found that stream I was hooked a bit. I mean, nostalgia you know?
So while I was on the bus on Monday, I was on the way home, I got a notification that this guy was streaming CS. So I was enjoying that for a bit until I got home and he switched to playing Apex Legends with a couple of his friends. One of his friends, who also happened to be streaming at that time, was talking to his chat about cheese and how he doesn’t like them or at least not eating cheese on its own. So I just had to find him. WHO DOES NOT LIKE CHEESE???
Twitch Channel: milehighclutch7
I went to his stream just to troll a bit. I was really just curious on who is this person who doesn’t like cheese. But I enjoyed how he interacted with his twitch fam and I never left. Watched his stream for 6 whole hours! Sometime in the middle of that, his dog Bubba decided to bark and showed his lovely self to the camera. And he had been the catalyst – I subscribed to the channel impulsively. And since I have no self discipline, I bought some bits – and cheered. No regrets though. I have not missed a stream since. Favorite? For sure. He has a smaller channel which I like since he gets to engage with his followers or whoever is in the chat a bit more. Which is pretty hard to do when you have maybe a thousand people on the chat? It’s a bit more personal which is nice.
Twitch Channel: catziilla
Since finding out Zeph’s channel, I have been raving about Apex Legends to Chris non stop. To the point that I was telling her that I have been really considering playing again and starting with that game. She decided to check the game out. Searched for Apex Legends on Twitch and Cat so happened to be streaming. Chris was watching her live stream when I got home from work Thursday night and damn, that girl is good! We pretty much just watched the rest of her live stream. She is definitely an animated one. But when she is focused, hot damn, she is focused and I couldn’t take my eyes away. And did I mention she is freakin’ good at Apex Legends?
Twitch Channel: negaoryx
I found this streamer through Chris really. Got home one day and she was watching Neg. It was towards the end of her stream so I missed what game she was actually streaming at that time. But from what I saw, it was sort of scary. It was Dead by Daylight. I followed her but not religiously. I did watch her latest recorded stream on Wednesday night and I highly enjoyed it. Yesterday I got a notification that she was streaming and just went ahead and watched it. She was of course playing Dead by Daylight. Her channel is pretty huge, she is a full time streamer so she does have a lot of following. But that didn’t deter her from being engaged with her people for pretty much the whole stream. The draw for me was that she is pretty new in the Dead of Daylight game or a multiplayer game and it is definitely entertaining seeing her progress and find out how to do things. Watching her play this game really made me interested in the game…Addicted even.
Since I watched Neg’s stream, I got really interested in looking into other streamers who have been playing the game for a lot longer…Hence the next two streamers:
Twitch Channel: Sattelizer
I was watching another streamer playing Dead by Daylight before I jumped on this one. And he was having a 24 hr live stream of Dead by Daylight. It was already midnight when I entered his stream. And since I am such a responsible adult, I watched the live stream till morning, when he ended the stream. So I was up the whole night. WATCHING A LIVE STREAM! What kept me up? He was playing with his subs, well actually whoever was in the chat and wanted to play. He is funny and I like his sense of humor. I liked how engaged he was with his people as well. The conversations that went on that stream were definitely adult friendly. Well, they were not scared to discuss a bit more adult topics – smut anyone? This one is also a big channel so it was really nice to experience how he interact with his chat. And since I have no self discipline, I jumped to another stream right after Satt said his byes.
Twitch Channel: Morf_UK
Of course, Morf was also playing Dead by Daylight – because I just couldn’t get enough of that game play for some reason. The main hook for me and what made me stay and watch his live stream was his reactions. They were priceless. I could still hear his scream in my head. The back ground playlist he was playing didn’t hurt either. I was lucky enough to see him play both the killer and a survivor for this particular live stream. And watching someone play the killer was definitely a good change in perspective. Totally changed the experience for me. And he was good at both. Which was definitely a breath of fresh air. Morf’s commentaries didn’t shy away from more adult content, which definitely was nice. That personally made him more relatable to me than some streamers for sure. He ended his stream about 1 pm today I think.
I think what worries me about this is the fact that I haven’t slept at all. Been awake for over 3o hours now. Chris knows this about me, and one that I absolutely don’t like about myself, is that if I find something that even slightly pique my interest, I get borderline obsessed. All my free time will be spent on that interest and I will find time to indulge on that interest. Hence not sleeping AT ALL. And I will have blinders on me, like now, nothing will keep me away from this new interest for a while. That worries me. Because my personality will not let me do otherwise.
I never thought that I would be obsessed with Twitch – well more like certain game plays. And I am still deciding if this newly discovered fascination with live game streams is a good thing. Or am I just using this as an escape because I can’t seem to pick a new novel to read for about a week now? Mood reader curse. Apparently, Twitch is what my mood wants right now. So Twitch is what it will get. I learned not to go against what my mood wants at this point. It’s detrimental to my health. So for a while, I will just watching streams. Join me?
