morning – The Diary of The Deranged Writer

10-Minute Warning CXC

What can I share in under ten minutes?

Firstly, I have been drinking (and enjoying) more hot tea than ever before. Maybe it’s because I enjoyed The Angel’s Cup (hot honey/citron/ginger tea) for a few weeks while I was sick. From liking both cold and hot/warm beverages to sticking with just cold drinks, now my mind and tongue are open again to drinking hot/warm drinks. Lovely. I just need to remind myself whenever I drink a hot/warm drink: sip it slowly and not chug it quickly like a madman.

What were the other teas I drank recently? Aside from The Angel’s Cup almost every day, I drank sencha green tea at a Japanese restaurant owned by one of our business clients last Thursday. When I learned that the restaurant serves sencha green tea, my preferred type of tea and the preferred drink of Harold Finch (a main character from my favorite show, Person of Interest, and one of my favorite characters of all time), I had to order one. I was the only one who drank hot tea that night, while the rest of my family had cold softdrinks and lemon iced tea. As for today, I also drank green tea while having a puto bumbong near the chapel.

I truly enjoy sipping on it and letting the tea warm my throat, stomach, and heart. I will definitely add it to my daily ritual moving forward. Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon: sweet.

I want to talk more about last Thursday because it was my Mother’s birthday, but my ten minutes are up. See you in the next post… and that will be tomorrow!

Header image: Luke Oslizlo of Unsplash. Edited in Adobe Photoshop 2025.

30-Minute Warning XLI

All right. What can I write here in under 30 minutes?

Today is so hectic (in a good way). The moment I woke up and went downstairs, I was greeted with a few paperwork. It’s not a pile, but damn. What a way to start my Monday. But I didn’t tackle it right away because I wanted to start the week right, and this week is going to be an important one. I proceeded with my early rituals, and then I started working calmly yet methodically. I was able to finish them an hour after lunch. Good job, self!

Wait. Why did I say that this week is important? That’s because I’m going to see my all-time favorite band, Foo Fighters, live for the second time this week. With that, I need to prepare the essentials before the flight, and I did so after finishing today’s workload. I bought the toiletries, so that’s done with. And since I checked the week’s rainy forecast, I need a raincoat and a small, water-repellent bag… but I didn’t buy either. Not yet. I hope I can assemble the essentials before the actual flight. Nope, not the day before the flight. Nope. I’m not going to do that.

Oh, there’s also the trip to Seoul with my family at the end of October, but I’m not worrying about that yet. Frankly, I’m not that excited about the trip. Yet. But what I’m excited about is wearing layered clothing while walking around a cool country. I will even wear my full Deranged Writer uniform and a sleek, cool attire inspired by one of my favorite television characters, Person of Interest’s John Reese. I’m really stoked for that!

What else? It’s not my birthday yet (December 5), but I’m already working on something that will make my birthday dinner truly special. I couldn’t write about that for now, but I hope it becomes true.

Crap. I’m running out of things to say, but my 30 minutes are not up yet. I can do this.

Oh! I’m already starting to psych myself for the Foo Fighters show this week with a playlist based on the recent setlists from Setlist.fm. One of the things I noticed from those setlists is that they started their shows with “Enough Space”, an exciting gem from The Colour and the Shape. I already blogged about that as a Song of the Moment. Another thing I also noticed is that they played so many tracks from the first Foo Fighters album, which I love. I counted six from that album. I also counted four tracks from Wasting Light, three from There Is Nothing Left to Lose, four from One by One, only two from Medicine at Midnight, only one from In Your Honor, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and Concrete and Gold each, and four from The Colour and the Shape…

And there you go. Now my 30 minutes are truly up. See you in the next post!

Header image: Eric Mclean of Pexels. Edited in Adobe Photoshop 2025.

XXXVI: The Nocturnal’s Struggle of Waking Up Early / Notes to Self XVI

If you have been following The Diary lately, you should know that I’ve been making gradual changes in my life. One of those changes is waking up early for work—ideally at 8:00am. I did just that on most workdays after ToyCon 2025, and there were times I even woke up at 6:00am. (That’s a feat for a nocturnal person like me, and even my family is shocked by the fact that I woke up before they did.)

Now it’s beyond the middle of August 2025, and I admit that I haven’t really been waking up as early as 8am lately… and that’s fine.

(Buckle up because this is going to be a long post.)