The First 31 Days of 2022 So Far

The first few days of 2022 mainly set the mood for the rest of the month and it wasn't as I and many others expected. People who tested positive for COVID-19 skyrocketed to the thousands daily in the Philippines. It was apparent when it also appeared on my social media timelines of friends and acquaintances sharing their unfortunate health status and hoping to recover. It makes the scare personal given people you know are a part of the growing number of cases.

So the month was mainly a lockdown for us for our own safety. My family stayed at home for the entire month and I only left home for a few essential errands, including getting a booster shot.

Our city government had a scheduled vaccination day reserved for our village and since I completed my vaccinations over 6 months ago, I was due for my booster shot. Thanks to their drive-thru vaccination site, it lessened my anxiety of having to fall in line with several others for a vaccination. Even if I was alone inside the car, I was double-masked, wore a face shield, and even wore my "keep your distance" statement shirt. The process was smooth and I got my booster shot in less than an hour.  

I was hoping for minimal side effects and heard stories from my friends about their experience after getting the booster. For me, I experienced a sore arm and felt tired the whole day. The next day, I had a slight fever accompanied by fatigue and just rested in bed the whole day. When the fever subsided, I just needed to wait out a prolonged headache which was at that point annoying cause it prevented me from doing anything cause even looking at my phone caused me a headache.  It was Day 4 when I felt normal once again and immediately resumed my backlog of house chores.

This month, I also had to postpone some tasks and plans, including visiting my father-in-law at the cemetery and my mom for her 4th death anniversary. Hopefully, I'll get to resume some tasks and be able to visit them too.

While at home though, I kept myself busy being a social media consultant and content creator for a client. All I can say is I'm learning a lot about Qatar and its culture.

As part of my self-enrichment plans, I took an online course on personal branding for Instagram and 

enrolled in a few more courses to enhance digital marketing strategies. Some of the topics served as a refresher and some served as valuable insights for an ever-changing social media landscape. I was excited to put some of the strategies into execution and thus, I finally created an Instagram account for my toy photography. Follow transformersAD on Instagram to see more of my work.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by PhoTOYgrapher - TransformersAD (@transformersad)

On the hobby side, I haven't been able to set up photoshoots for my toys but it's a good thing I have thousands of photos from my archive. Hoping I'll be able to work on this more and create stunning phoTOYgraphy in the months to come.

February 1 marks the Lunar New Year and it's the year of the tiger. I was born in the year of the tiger but I choose not to wait for any opportunities, luck, or success but plan to chase them like a tiger.