I was supposed to write about something and then I put it off, and then I totally forgot about what I was supposed to write.

It’s a common occurrence because I put things off, and I am conscious that it is my fault.

It is as if my writing gets in the way of my education, I tend to rationalize that I have to learn about something first before engaging in writing, which is wrong by the way, because writing clears the mind better, or perhaps I should go ahead and change my routine.

I think I’ll do that.

So, I’ve been doing push ups everyday to challenge myself and see how far I can go on doing this very simple exercise.

Another motivation for it is that, since my son was born, I never got the chance to go to a gym. I did some yoga every now and then, but following the departure of our second nanny (yes, more on this later) I get to work on the chores around the house after I finish my work online.

Here are my thoughts about this endeavor.

Before I started doing push-ups I thought of how much I would like to begin with. In my strongest days back then I can finish 50-100 push-ups in one go.

So I decided to challenge myself in doing at least 50 push-ups per day.

It went well for the first week, but then on the second week I fell short and almost didn’t do any push-ups for an entire week. (Which really bummed me out that I had to be mad at myself and talk things through with myself)

I have a wallpaper on my desktop computer that says: “There is no value in anything, until it is finished” – Genghis Khan

So I used this as my inspiration and motivation if I feel like not doing any push-ups.

Another thing I noticed is that, doing these push ups felt painful at first, say around 2-3 days.

But then it gets better and better and now I am doing 150 push-ups or sometimes more per day.

What’s also worth considering here is that my overall physical attributes specially on the upper part of my body seemed to look better. I also feel better and my mental disposition is also great.

I think that it comes with a certain feeling of pride in achieving something.

I already upped the ante, from doing 100 push-ups per day to 150 push-ups.

Actually, I am aiming for 1000 push-ups per day.

If I am ever able to do that, at least I get to say when I get older, that I challenged myself and was able to come out victorious. Plus the added benefit, my body gets from the exercise.

I read somewhere that Masahiko Kimura the foremost Judoka trained like this.

Seriously, I’d be very happy if I ever achieve that 1000 push-ups per day and belong in that club because I can only do so much while I am young.

Speaking of young, I celebrated my 39th birthday last July and I am proud to say that I now belong to that age group that is considered the semi-middle aged group.

I find that the telltale signs where one realizes that he/she is really old, is how his/her body reacts every day when he/she wakes up.

The signs are as follows:

  1. Sore back
  2. Heavy muscles
  3. Sore Joints

I experienced all of these and the worst of it when I hadn’t yet changed my diet to Carnivore Diet. (Again, more on this later)

It matters a lot that you have a really good sturdy bed that would help you sleep properly, along with a well ventilated or if possible a cold room when you sleep so that you can really rest your body properly.

On Birthdays

I happily celebrated my birthday with my wife and son on that day and that’s about it, yet come weekend me and my wife decided to leave our son to our in-laws and then went ahead to eat somewhere in maginhawa.

We decided to eat at a restaurant called Panciteria because other than the food is good the prices are also cheap. And it’s been a long time since we last ate there following our transfer to another apartment 4 years back.

it was supposed to be a great experience until we saw a lady sweeping the front of the store with a walis ting2x and she was sweeping all these dead cockroaches on the floor and placing them on the side. The shop was not yet open so we asked the sweeping lady and she said that the shop is about to open we just have to head in after the guy working on the door opens it.

Earlier I noticed some cockroach on the tree beside the shop, but what startled me was when I was about to finish talking and I was pointing out to my wife the small pile of dead cockroaches on the floor. A huge ass cockroach jumped on my back. The cleaning lady had to remove it, but the cockroach was very fast that it eluded their hands. Good thing my wife who’s very afraid of cockroaches by the way had the courage to swipe me with her hands.

Needless to say after swiping the cockroach off, my wife decided to walk away and left me after saying.

“Ayoko na dito Alis na tayo” (I don’t ‘ like it here anymore let’s go)

It was a comical experience really.

We ended up eating at Oinkster for a 290 peso eat all you can bacon. We noticed that the restaurant beside it was closed, the restos name is samgyupsalamat.

Turns out the customers found a dead mouse in one of their kimchi’s and nobody knows how long that mice had been marinating in there.

Suffice to say the place was immediately closed and people don’t know when it’s going to open again.

After that we went to a massage parlor, its old name was Nuat thai, now they are using a new one.

We had a one and a half hour foot and back massage, had some donuts and I also had a haircut and then we went to pick up our son and went home.

It was a great way to spend my birthday and my wife and I immensely enjoyed it.

An Update On My Diet

I decided to change my diet to low carb diet, and I am seriously considering doing Paleo.

Don’t worry, I am not going to completely remove carnivore diet from my way of eating (WOE).

I am still eating at least 80-90% of meat and fat.

I am back to eating vegetables and fruits plus a bit of rice (2-3 tablespoons)

I also get to eat some of the sweet things I wasn’t able to eat like chocolates, ice-cream and cupcake.

Overall, I feel well, and I consider this as a simple layover from the strictness of Carnivore Diet.

The good thing is my weight is still the same, I think I plateaued because I have no time to go to the gym.

I will update you soon on the developments.

(UPDATE)

After doing low-carb for awhile my weight went up to 198 lbs but after doing carnivore diet for a day it went down to 194 lbs.

Seriously, something might be wrong with my metabolism or something’s wrong with my weighing scale. 0_o

On Yaya’s

I am supposed to write about the nannies of my son, and I imagine that this would be helpful for new parents to read just in case they look for yaya’s for their kids.

The first yaya we had was referred to us by the secretary of our good friend.

She was 39 years old and previously worked in Qatar and has three (or was it four) children so we trusted that she knows a thing or two about babies.

The day she came to the house we prepared some lunch while interviewing her, she was a bit terse and short of words which I attributed to her being shy and being from the province. I would ask her a question and she would answer in short reponses or sometimes none at all.

“Ok this is weird, I said in my mind”

Nonetheless she worked with us, while she works fast and diligent when doing the house chores while taking care of the baby.

We took her in because we really need help and my wife is going back to work while I am also going to be back in the grind of work after the grueling experience of transferring to another apartment and taking care of the wife and the baby.

Anyway her issues started with her day offs where she wouldn’t follow the appropriate hours when to leave the house and when to come back.

She will promise to return on an agreed day then call that same day that she can’t.

She will come up with mundane reasons, when we ask her and sometimes she won’t even answer our calls.

The same pattern applies where she wouldn’t respond or give short terse answers. It gives you the feeling that you should be the one who’s sorry that you’re asking her about the wrong thing she did.

No sorry’s, no nothing.

It happened at least 2-3  times until I confronted her and told her to pack up.

By the way she also has this fault where she throws away leftover food, I confronted her about it and she just cleaned the trash can.

Really, really bad experience if you tell me.

And then came the second one who just stayed with us for two weeks.

We got her from an agency.

Now this one’s a REAL weirdo.

She has seven children from different men, and she doesn’t care where she takes off her clothes or whether the door or window is open in her room.

And when I confronted her about it she said that she’s already old and no one will like her anyway. She was only 44.

I still told her to keep her nudity at bay.

Also these two helpers always loves to do “advanced salary borrowing”.

To note the first helper at least worked for her salary, while this other one didn’t even bother paying.

She sleeps a lot, very slow with work, at the same time (unfortunately) is poor of hearing so she practically shouts all the time.

She left us for a day off, promised to return then called on the day she should return asking us to send her money because of issues at home but that she can only come back after a week even if we do so.

Needless to say we didn’t comply, only for her to call us a month after asking us to take her back.

Of course we didn’t took her back.

But what’s weird is that she tells one story to my wife and another to me.

She is some real crazy shit.

Good thing we avoided her altogether, and she didn’t contact us ever again.

But she did take a huge chunk of money that she borrowed, but not so much that is equal to my paycheck.

What Did We Learn

Getting nannies from agencies takes a lot of risks, while getting nannies from people you trust and who knows the nanny personally is always the way to go.

However we did learn a few things from this experience, and that it is sometimes ok to be strict so as to not have the nanny be too familiar with their employer.

I don’t know why some people can’t draw the line between being too close and being professional while using closeness as an excuse not to be professional.

Also trust is very important, good thing nothing was taken from our house except perhaps the “borrowed money” they owed us.

Finding a yaya and losing her while almost dying

Okay okay that title might be a bit too dramatic, but seriously, this October has a lot of bad things that happened albeit there are also good things though.

For one, for the very first time I went outside of the country, and it was an all-expense paid trip for four days, but before that I contracted a boil on my left shoulder as such I was required to take antibiotics for a week, use a special soap and place antibiotic ointment on my navel, ears, butthole and underarms.

The reason I had a boil (also for the very first time, was because I went back to teaching Bjj in a gym that was really dirty) so while I was in Taiwan/Taipei I was taking strong antibiotics, until I got home, was cleared by the doctor and then I got really-really sick.

I got really weak and I slept all day and then I had cough for another week and then after that the aunt of my wife died so I was left alone to take care of our baby, after she got back home I contracted Diverticulitis.

And fucking hell it was painful! Really fucking painful! I was already feeling bloated by Sunday the time we celebrated the death anniversary of my mom in our house and then when we went home to our apartment I was feeling a bit of discomfort in my lower left stomach.

I brushed it off as gas and then proceeded to sleep (or whatever you call that nowadays when you have a baby to take care of). The next day it was still painful, it progressed the next day as such that by Wednesday I excused myself from work and went to St. Lukes hospital.

Upon arrival I can’t almost walk properly, I went to my HMO provider and they gave me a gastroenterologist to check on me.

He asked me on a scale of 1-10 with ten being the most painful, how I am feeling.

Being that this was my first time, the closest number I can muster is 9. To which he countered, “What 9? If you are 9 you wouldn’t be able to sit right now”

To which I answered albeit a bit upset, “yes doc, I am just fighting the pain” which is very true by the way.

He asked me to lie down and pressed the different parts of my stomach and upon him pressing my lower left stomach I was already grimacing in pain.

He said that I might have to do some tests particularly a urine test, a blood wbc and creatine test and depending on the results he will request for a CT scan as he fears that it might be Diverticulitis. He then asked me to choose between being confined or be an outpatient afterwards prescribing some pain medication. I chose the latter as I need to help my wife to take care of our son.

I went and took the tests and got the results two hours after but because the doctor was already out I need to return the next day. I went home walking slowly and almost limping.

I drank the meds he gave me at 8 pm but by 10 it was already very painful so I drank again and went to sleep. I woke up at 12 am with a dreadful pain that it took me 10 minutes to sit myself on the mattress. I didn’t wake up my wife because she really needed some sleep. But the pain was such that I was shivering and my greatest fear was that I might blackout from the pain. So I drank another tablet of pain meds and dressed myself, woke up my wife and told her I am bringing myself to the ER as I can’t bear the pain any longer.

She agreed, and told me she would look out for our baby.

So I proceeded to hail a Grab car and brought myself to the hospital, was admitted in the ER was given an IV shot of Tramadol and was brought to the CT Scan room, by 7 am I was already confined in room 1433.

I couldn’t sleep properly because of the pain and the discomfort of lying down plus the needle on my left hand. That night my wife took care of me.

What I hated the most back then was whenever I have to go to the toilet, and because I can’t pee properly.

Let me explain.

First I was required to measure the amount of water I pee so I practically pee on a water bottle with measurements.

The hard part about this is that I can’t will myself to pee because of my inflamed intestine also you know that feeling when you are at your most pee-able state? I feel that but nothing comes out and it will pass and when you don’t feel anything that is when water comes out. So it’s like your pee has a mind of its own and I am stuck waiting there for pee to come out for 5-10 minutes. Add to that the pain of getting up and coming back down the bed.

The next day, my best friend Gerard and his mom visited me and he took care of me that night, the next day I was out by 8 pm but was required to drink two kinds of antibiotic. One for every 8 hours and another every 12 hours.

The next day after coming home, after learning that our nanny can never come back, my son got sick all to the dismay of my wife.

I will need to have a colonoscopy though after two weeks and I can only get back to doing some workouts after a week.

I also shifted to eating a low carb diet and one meal a day (OMAD) starting Nov. 1

But I don’t want these things to be the highlight of my October, I would rather focus on the magical four days I stayed in Taiwan/Taipei.

Truth be told, sometimes in life shit happens, but its how we react to them that matters.

We are still looking for a nanny, and I expect that problems will come and go, nonetheless I am grateful to God for taking care of me. That the Diverticulitis didn’t happen in Taiwan, and it also didn’t perforate.

That my wife has HMO and my medical bill got covered.

So that’s it for my updates until next time!