mikhaela

[mikhaela]

2024 was a good year.

at the end of 2024, my conclusion was this: i am very lucky and have always been.

q1, i led a cultural mapping project in my home province of laguna. in a place that urbanized, attitudes were different from my experience in quiet rural areas. people were less willing to share, everyone was more suspicious, and there was very little respite - no meadow or sea where i could just stand still and think. it was exhausting.

luckily, we've since gotten the certificate of compliance for this. all good. 2025 is election year, so i'll take a break from all that. just for now.

outside of actual projects, had the chance to hone my skills at trainings and workshops i was surprised to get accepted to. in april, i was in melaka in the company of important people in built heritage (directors of national heritage boards! superstar conservation architects!). normally i'd be a bit shy but i could hold my own in this field. and it of course helped that everyone was sweet and willing to share and accommodated my never-ending questions.

i was also chosen to attend a prestigious fully-funded youth workshop in yogyakarta. really more a networking event among people with leadership potential in southeast asia. great fun to see what everyone was up to. went to borobodur (!), but the tight schedule meant i couldn't see prambanan nor the ramayana ballet. at least malioboro was cool.

in september, i was in the hague for a heritage in crisis leadership course. blessed to have been chosen and flown out to europe for this. wish i'd been in a better disposition - it coincided with the 1st anniversary of my father's death and i was pensive all throughout. mostly hung out with the conservators. was quite taken with karma from bhutan, who's funny, smart, and confident in ways i'd like to be.

throughout the year, there were many moments of beauty that gave me pause. that stunning sunset from my hotel room balcony at port dickson with pop music in the background as the congratulatory email about the hague popped up. tearing up at a flood control wall patched up across different centuries in japan inside a tadao ando building. staring in awe at the anatomy of dr. nicolaes tulp by rembrandt and the girl with the pearl earring at the mauritshuis.

and i'm most thankful for reconnecting with friends i hadn't seen in years. in march ashwin and i grabbed lunch during his brief layover on the way back to new york. in july kyle stayed with me for a week - we didn't do much but talk about geopolitics until 7am. a week after that i visited him to do more of that, except this time along the east coast of taiwan. in september i grabbed dinner with kenta in leiden where he's doing his masters in linguistics. also snuck out of an event to catch up with jarie at the embassy in the hague until he dropped me off at the restaurant where i was meeting the other fellows.

towards the end of the year i started going to mass for the social function of it, the comfort its rituals offer. i love jesus and the stories and the songs. hosea is my favorite and exchanging peace be with you's to strangers can move me to tears. both things could make me cry when i'm in a very specific mood.

i didn't get to visit my father's grave the entire year but i did think about him every single day no matter where i was. my father. dead. over a year now.

coping with grief is a kind of skill too. so much to learn and absorb and do and practice. what i'm trying now is to approach it with the same curiosity i treat everything else: prodding, cogitating, exploring until i get sick of it.

[mikhaela]

2023 recap

studies: didn't make much progress with my thesis. in april i was accepted to a post-disaster heritage restoration workshop in bosnia-herzegovina but turned it down despite a scholarship offer. applied to a youth heritage conference in saudi arabia - didn't get it. applying to things and dealing with rejection has been good for me, i think.

home: in june, my best friend jerome moved in with me. i now have all the furniture that i think i need and i am happy with the way my place looks. i inherited a few things from my dad, some from prisa who when i was sad took me to their abandoned ancestral house in san juan and told me to pick out anything i want. i got a framed van gogh print and beautiful leather chair.

finances: i did okay. spent too much upon getting home from marinduque. also spent too much on transportation but i've been taking the commute and walking and walking and walking a lot lately. invested a good chunk of my money in a family friend's business - it feels right to be less liquid. my depleted bank accounts motivate me to be less thrifty.

advocacy: started volunteering as a docent at the ateneo art gallery in july. gave a lot of tours and helped out at various exhibitions in the second half of the year. less opportunities when the school year rolled in due to surplus of interns. i helped out at an archival effort on the labor movement.

health: if memory serves, i didn't get sick this year. mental health took a deep dive in september with all the grief but that's to be expected. bit better now. physically i have never been stronger.

work: led a successful project in marinduque from january to june. briefly dipped my toes in tech from july to september. gave a cultural mapping training in naga in august. pretty much made the de-facto head of my ngo. interviewed a ton of people while assembling my team for upcoming projects. acquired contract for san pedro last month and currently working on the project proposal.

reading: neglected reading in q2 and q3 of the year. crammed a lot in q4 to make it to the 50-book mark. been reading a lot of manga lately - reread nana and picked up dance dance danseur. standouts this year: tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by gabriella zevin; the sympathizer by viet thanh nguyen; raise high the roofbeam, carpenters and seymour: an introduction and nine stories both by salinger. wish i read more non-fiction.

travel: spent a week in zambales in february. work in marinduque from february to june. work in naga in august. mindanao backpacking trip in september. two days in fukuoka in october. heading up to baguio for new years' with my family.

relationships: dumped a grand total of three boys. a hook-up along the way. none of these will leave a scratch save for my relationship with [redacted1].

family: my father died in september, cutting my mindanao trip in half. he converted to islam, apparently, and i had to go home immediately. saw my family from that side for the first time in a decade. my uncle, my mom's brother, died three weeks later. on good terms with my brother now (after all that tragedy it was inevitable). i should probably make more effort to spend time with my family.

hobbies: took art classes in january but dropped it. should pick that back up again. started bouldering in june. around the same time i also started cooking more. picked up the piano again in september. yoga and pilates in october. i feel like the latter suits me and my needs better, so decided to focus on that. started making video games again this december.

music: a lot of kanye. didn't like the new bad bunny album that much. my love mine all mine by mitski has been stuck on repeat. had the recording of hadestown on repeat when i first started dating [redacted]. listened to a lot of rachmaninoff, liszt.

friendships: grateful that i have become much closer to prisa and miyuki this year. living with jerome has mostly been easy. didn't feel all that connected to jorou this year, but he knew exactly what to do during that first wave of grief. i love hya and kat and joel too.

[mikhaela]

my favorite arrangement of my favorite halloweenesque song, a reminder that in death everyone is the same, a comforting thought given everything that has happened as of late