Summer 2016 Week 7 and 8 (July 18-24, July 25-31, 2016)

7/26/2016

On Domesticity

I've always had a negative bias towards "domesticity." To me, domesticity was for people who settled too early. I've always had a preference for activities that had "adventure" and "romance." That meant something like hiking, backpacking, communing with nature, developing a career, going to the US for the first time to audition for grad school, etc. When I was in the Philippines, I never had to cook, clean the bathroom, do groceries or laundry on my own. Part of my initial homesickness and anxieties upon coming back to New York after a 3-week visit in Manila was facing the fact that I had to do all of those on my own from hereon.

It is a slow process, this building of a single life in New York City. I am doing it brick by brick. Thank God classes begin in September. I have an entire month left to get into the swing of things before school work gets added into the picture. So aside from work-study (I've had 4 different jobs in school this summer: ushering, library assistant, painting walls, office assistant), I've been cooking, cleaning, buying general cleaning materials, laundry and grocery shopping. I've also been coordinating with the apartment owner for maintenance issues (i.e. the electric stove only got installed last Monday, July 25).

It has its own joys, I must say. I am very particular with having a beautiful home/space of my own. So I find myself easily rattled when I find dirt on the newly-painted walls or notice that the toilet is getting dirty. It's a good thing I have relatives in New Jersey who are experts on home-related, cooking and bargain-stuff. It's a new journey for me: buying my own frying pans, spatula, toilet brush cleaners, clorox (those blue and white pods you drop at the back of your toilet so when you flush it automatically releases this blue color that bleaches and disinfects your toilet are AMAZING).

Here's what I've been eating

I've been preparing my own meals. With the exception of the Peanut Butter Milkshake (which I treated myself last Thursday), the rest are meals I've prepared. The first two ones on the top left are meals prepared by me and my cousin who helped me shop for grocery essentials and taught me cooking basics. The rice and the chicken stir-fry version 2 are on my own.