April is about to end and I realized I haven’t shared my March Bullet Journal Set-up yet. So here it is, my one -minute flipthrough video for March!
My theme for March is “Memories”. Sort of vintage-theme again and the aesthetic still revolves on color brown and green. Here are the highlight spreads for the month.
Wow, it’s already been three months since I started this bullet journaling hobby. And I have no plans of of stopping this. Bullet journaling somehow lessened the stress of me being naturally scatterbrain. For the month of April, I actually made a step-by-step video on my set-up. I have no issues with the shooting. But the editing is taking time. Ahh it’s not easy. But I hope before this month ends,I would be able to publish it.
Follow my bujo journey in instagram and youtube. Feel free to comment that you came here so I will follow you back. I would love to connect with you.
Or you can take my invitation to be one of my my International Blogger Friend. The basic idea is to have at least one blogger friend in each country. In the Philippines where I live, I also have a separate directory called one friend in each PH Region. For more details, just go to this link. I hope you accept my invitation!
Remember you are awesome,
Gurezu ❤
For inquiries and collaborations, LET’s CONNECT!!!!!!
Oh so the quarantine is extended in my country and to top it off, I’m spending it alone in a dormitory. Oh lala! But I fret not. In fact I am surprised on how well I’m coping with being alone. One that truly helps me right now are bullet journaling and blogging! All the more, I started to doing blogging collaborations for non-Philippine based bloggers. And here is one of them, featuring my collaboration with China-based blogger Libera Tarts!
Which is better from Makoto Shinkai’s famous masterpieces, “Your Name” or “Weathering With You”?
From the time we decided on this topic, Libera have only watched “Your Name” and it’s her favorite movie. Unfortunately , she missed the theatrical showing of “Weathering with You”. That’s the complete opposite for me though. In my timeline, I have watched Weathering first because a friend and a fan of “Your Name” invited me to watch it in theaters. I’m aware how popular “Your Name” is and I’ve been always curious but did not have the chance to actually watch it for years. This blog collaboration gave me a new exciting purpose to finally watch my forgotten copy of “Your Name” in my laptop.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
My draft of thoughts about the movie in my bullet journal after I watched “Kimi No Nawa”.
As Kimi No nawa’s story progresses, I couldn’t help but to see the parallelism of the story to its successor Weathering With You” .
1. Both involves teenager protagonists.
Kimi No Nawa couple: Taki and Mitsuha
Your Name is about Taki and Mitsuha, ordinary highschool students living miles apart , found themselves swapping bodies one day.
Weathering With You couple: Hodaka and Hina
Weathering With You tells a story about a runaway highschooler named Hodaka who met Hina in Tokyo and together, they put a business utilizing Hina’s ability to bring out the sun in a short duration of time.
2. Girl protagonist entangled in a supernatural phenomenon.
In Kimi No Nawa, both of them are involved in a supernatural phenomena. However, it was Mitsuha who has the heritage of body swapping running in their family thorough generation. Her grandmother explained that this happens because of their role as the caretakers of the shrine.
Taki and Mitsuha trying to communicate when they swapper their bodies.
In Weathering With You, Hina was the one who possessed the ability to clear the weather. She got it when one day she was mesmerized to a ray of sunlight and followed it until she reached it on a rooftop. A seemingly magical encounter with mythical creatures happened and she woke up with the ability to clear the endless rain in Tokyo. She was later referred as “Sunshine Girl or the Weather Maiden”.
3. Both are detached from their parents.
There is a lack of parental guardians in both movie. Although in Kimi No Nawa, Mitsuha has a father but they are not closed. She and her siblings felt like they already divorced their father emotionally. and is not living with him. They have their grandmother instead to take care of them. Taki seems to be living independently even as a highschooler.
The same with “Weathering with you”. Hodaka ran away from home. No backstory or whatsoever why. Hina and her adorable brother “Nagisa” were already orphan but Hina proved to be such a dependable sister. She works on part-time jobs and is an incredible chef.
4. Girl protagonist has cute sibling.
In Kimi No Nawa, there is Yotsuha, always grumpy waking her sister up every morning. Sometimes she acts like she’s the older sister. She’s an elementary student. She also performs the family tradition of taking care of the shrine and creating sake through the mouth with Mitsuha.
Yotsuha
And then there’s Nagisa of “Weathering With You”. Even as an elementary student, she’s popular with girls. He gives advice to Hodaka like an older brother sometimes. Nagisa is also with them during their weathering gigs.
Nagisa
5. Both has Japanese cultural and Shintoism Sentimentality.
In both films, the Shintoism beliefs were added to the magical realism narrative of both films.
First what is Shinto? Shintoism is a major and an old religion in Japan.To put it simply, this is worshiping the spirits of the nature. In Shinto, you worship the spirit of the wind, the mountainside, and the river. They personifies the nature and call them “Kami” or Gods. That is why in Shinto, there are many “Kami” and they are often worshiped in places like shrine. This also explains why Japanese has high regard to cleanliness as this is the way of being close to God and paying respect.
In “Kimi No Nawa”, Mitsuha and her family upholds the responsibility of taking care of the shrine and making sure that the tradition continues like offering Kuchikamizake “mouth-chewed sake” for the Gods in the rock cave shrine. This has a big role in the plot of Kimi No Nawa as their Kami forged the interweaving and links of time making their body swapping magic to happen.
Mitsuha making a sake out of her own saliva to offer to the Gods.Taki later searched for that rock shrine and drink the fermented sake made by Mitsuha’s saliva which interconnected their bodies once more.
Weathering With You also makes use of Shinto beliefs and is a big part of the plot. Sunshine brought Hina to this ragged Torii gate which is usually the entrance of any Shinto Shrines and the Kami of heavens eventually made her the weather priestess. The tradition also of praying and performing rituals for clear weather are Shinto practices as well.
An image of a real Torii gate in Japan which signifies a separation of ordinary and sacred place leading to Shinto Shrines.
6. Both get separated with each other for years before re-uniting.
In Kimi No Nawa, the couple reunited after 5 years of the comet crash in Mitsuha’s town. Taki is now searching for a job. All this years, he felt somehow empty but he doesn’t know why because both of them lost memories of their body swapping ventures. Mitsuha feels the same way. At this time she is now living in Tokyo. Their train met in parallel and instantly it struck a chord inside their hearts that they have found what they were looking for. They took off the train and simultaneously looked for each other. In this pivotal moment in the staircase, they suddenly had this awkward moment approaching each other.
Hell yeah! You could not blame them. They could not explain why they seem to long for each other so hard while they haven’t met yet. Good thing Taki broke the ice, turned around and asked if they have met before. Mitsuha quickly replied that it seems like so. And finally, they learned each others names with tears of joy in their eyes.
Now for Weathering with You, the gap was three years. They got separated when the police arrested Hodaka after his successful reclaiming of Hina from being the weather sacrifice. They lost contact of with each other. When he got out of the probationary period, Tokyo is already submerged in flood because of the endless rain since the heavens lost Hina as their weather maiden. He found her one day praying for the Gods in the street. They re-unite and held hands with Hodaka re-assuring her that everything will be fine from now on.
5. RADWIMPS musical score.
Outside of the story, the emotional atmosphere were both performed by a rock group named Radwimp.
Kimi No Nawa – Just a Little More
Tenki No Ko-“Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?”
With this similarities, parallelism, for me both movies are indeed masterpieces and each has magic on its own. But which is better?
Now please understand that this is my own opinion and I don’t represent any group.
For visual aesthetic of animation and musical scoring, I choose “Weathering With You”. But for overall verdict, I would choose “Kimi No Nawa”. I felt that the story of this piece has more emotional intensity. It made me feel the longing to someone I don’t know or haven’t met yet. I felt the emptiness of searching for someone who would fill the unbearable void inside me. In short I felt more connected with Taki and Mitsuha’s emotions and consistently so throughout the movie. In Weathering With You, I lost it somehow in the chasing scene towards the end. The chasing scene was corny in my preference.
One again I invite you to read Libera’s take on weighing Makoto Shinkai’s masterpieces here mostly on “Weathering With You.” It was a delightful read as she uncovered lot of points that I did not notice myself.
Lastly, I invite you to be my International Blogger Friend. The basic idea is to have at least one blogger friend in each country. In the Philippines where I live, I also have a separate directory called one friend in each PH Region. For more details, just go to this link. I hope you accept my invitation!
Remember, you are awesome and wonderfully made,
GUREZU
For inquiries and collaborations, LET’s CONNECT!!!!!!
Note: These characters are base on Philippines setting
1. Healthcare Frontliners
Artwork by Elijah Tan
The real-life Avengers of this crisis. Everyday they have direct contact to COVID Patients which puts their lives at greater risks. In fact, as of this writing , 21 Filipino doctors had died because of corona virus. Main cause is lack of Personal Protective Equipment and the patients lying about their condition and travel history.
Not only their lives are in peril, they were also discriminated in the community. Just check out this news. A nurse has been harassed and beaten. On top of that the suspect threw bleach to his face that caused damage in his eyes. All because they thought he has covid-19 just because he is working in a hospital. He’s just doing his job. This is just one of the heartbreaking stories of our frontliners being harassed and discriminated.
We welcome the month of April with a news of tragic medevac plane crash in NAIA. It killed doctors, airline crew and patient on their way to their medical mission. Full story here.
Recently, an artist named Aurelio Castro III paid tribute to our fallen heroes by drawing them their portraits. Get to know him and the doctors,nurses here in GMANEWSNETWORK.COM
Aurelio Castro III drew Dr. Greg Macasaet, Dr. Rose Pulido, Dr. Israel Bactol, Dr. Raul Jara, Dr. Marcelo Jaochico, Dr. Fransisco Lukban, Dr. Hector Alvarez, Dr. Racquel Seva, Dr. Dennis Ramon Tudtud, Dr. Helen Tudtud, Dr. Leandro Resurreccion, Dr. Nicko Bautista, Dr. Dino Ezrah Halili, Dr. Henry Fernandez, Dr. Sally Gatchalian, Nurse Arvin Pascual and Dr. Mary Grace Lim. Photo Credits to GMANETWORK.COM.
Know more about our fallen healthcare workers in the lenses of their love ones in this video from ABS-CBN. Grab your tissues!
Let’s not add to the burden of our medical warriors. Stay at home and don’t discriminate. To the government, please don’t ask for volunteer nurses. They are risking their lives and they deserve a proper compensation for it.
Twitter source unknown. CTTO.
2. Essential Workers Frontliners
They may not be patient-facing but they face great risks too as they are still out there interacting with people without knowing if they are carriers or not. They still go to work and serve our basic needs such as food , money and protection. . Finally we see that in the worst station like this, its their work that are essential and yet they are mostly underpaid. They should have hazard pay and personal protective equipment too
Grocery StaffFood delivery servicesGarbage collectors and cleaning servicesPolice and Military. Photo by Aaron FavilaBank Employees
3. Quarantine Tributes
They are the member of the household who holds the quarantine pass. The brave the long lines in the supermarket and groceries just to get the essentials of the family. If you are the quarantine tribute in the family, you should be proud of yourself as you’re sacrificing your safety too for the sake of your family. Don’t forget to sanitize when going back home from the run.
Things we learn: Their work is essential to our lives. When this is over, appreciate our essential workers by giving them a raise.
4. The Poorest of the Poor.
People whose livelihood depends on daily wages and won’t be having any funds during this quarantine period. They heavily needs government subsidies and relief goods. However, as this is not enough, they find it hard to comply with quarantine because they have to seek opportunities to have money. For them , the quarantine is a nightmare. Quoting from a news interview, they may not die because of coronavirus but out of hunger.
Just watch how a 55 year old lady cried helplessly as she was not given relief goods because she has no stub.
These tricycle drivers are still sneaking to work because they need to provide for the family.
5. The Middle Class
I once read that the middle class are those one hospital bill away from being poor. And in this Covid19 crisis, they are not included in the social amelioration program of the government. Finally, governor Jonvic Remulla voiced out the plight of the middle class. He actually summed it all in his open letter to the President. They are the largest population that pays the taxes and yet often neglected. They needed support too. Because of this the poorest of the poor and middle class had on-going word clash in social media.
Or if you are the member of the family who does not have the quarantine pass and just literally has to stay at home, then you are a hero too. Complying in quarantine is a sacrifice also. It’s not easy and some are struggling with their mental health for it. If you are doing your best to deal with this, maybe by binge-watching series, doing tik-tok videos, learning new skills, voicing out in social media, cooking and other strategy to combat boredom, then you are doing a good job.
Get some tips on how to make the most out of the quarantine by this awesome and funny comic of Real Life of Reg
7. The Work-From-Home Workforce
Mostly coming from BPO-IT industry, the favorable work-from -home arrangement has enable their operations to continue in spite of the pandemic. And it’s doing Philippine economy a massive favor. Those people working in BPO are now sharing this important message “the BPO employees you look down on are the ones holding the economy together right now.”
Credits: Comic Artist Sskait Statement on the left: CTTO
As advantageous as it sounds, working from home has it’s own woes too. Sharing with you a funny comic by Sskait.
8. Social Media Warriors
Well, there’s a whole lot of category for this one and I don’t want to attempt to break it all down. But all I can say is Social Media has empowered the voice of the people. Healthy arguments are fine. I believe that helps us to send the message to the government if we are collectively happy or not. Just don’t resort to bullying, name-calling and harassment. Also make sure that you share factual news.
Meme credits: CTTO
9. The Elitists Who Forgot to Check Their Privileges
Not putting rich people in general, but it’s obvious that there are elite people who can’t understand the plight of the poor. Mostly it’s prevalent to our government officials. their lack of empathy has affected the way they device plans to ease the real situation of the common Filipinos. Just look at how dismissive they are to the real situation of public transportation in the country. Unfortunately, it carry over in the time of pandemic. As much as we understand the objective of quarantine, the sad reality is there are families who can’t just afford to sit still at home like rich people can.
To those who are complaining about the quarantine period and curfews, just remember that your grandparents were called to war; you were being called to sit on the couch and watch Netflix. You can do this”.
Some immediately commented that poor Filipinos won’t even have access to Netflix. Although he explained his side already and that statement was not original , this already offended a lot of his followers and marked him as insensitive. Same graphic was shared by Mocha Uson and Lea Salonga.
This screengrab came from this article in rappler and it’s a good opinion article on how the apathetic some celebrities and government officials are.
10. The Praised Politicians.
Looking at the brighter side, some LGU leaders are receiving positive attention because of their quality ideas and response to the crisis. Of course there are more politicians like them out there. But undeniably, Vico Sotto was the most talked about mayor in social media.
I’m highlighting Vico Sotto and Gatchalian’s tweet to each other regarding adopting ideas and best practices in response to Covid19 quarantine period. Reading their tweets give me hope for the country.
11. The Fundraisers
Caritas Manila is just a sample. But even ordinary households go out of their way to make personalized PPE ‘s for their nearest hospital and some lead fundraising drives to provide to the poor. If you want to help , this google drive link holds a spreadsheet of details of the different groups that coordinates efforts to help hospitals and the needy.
12. Hated Politicians
If there’s any good thing about Covid19 , it brings out the true colors of many politicians. The frontrunners for this category will be Joy Belmonte and Koko Pimentel . Aside from them, there are also reports of mayors missing in action. I hope people will always remember this lesson and vote wisely in next elections.
And it’s beyond my understanding why DOJ find it hard to charge Koko Pimentel while his violation is obvious.
13. The Pasaway’s (the Non-Law Abiding Individuals)
So there are people who can’t just follow the simple quarantine protocols. They are not going out to seek for work and groceries either. Sadlymost offenders are adults. Just look at the sample below which happened in Mandaluyong City. The residents hold an illegal cockfighting event ignoring the strict social distancing rule. Gladly they were arrested as deserved.
14. The Office of the President
People love him. People hate him. The great divide continues. But one thing is for sure, we should all pray that he and his team would be successful in leading the country in this time of pandemic. We should follow but remain level-headed critical of their ways. Or else, every Filipino will spiral down along with this virus, no matter what our political preference is.
15. The COVID-19 Victims and Their Families
Covid19 chooses no one. It targets the rich ,the poor, ordinary , celebrities, young and old. But the most vulnerable are the senior citizens. The alarming truth is the number of patients is now way beyond most hospital capacity nowadays. Hospitals have no choice but to send some patients home to have their self-quarantine. But even that was a hard thing to do because the community won’t accept the patient to go back into their homes either. Just like the case here.
Covid-19 patient sent back home by the hospital to do self-quarantine but Barangay blocked his return.
Fortunately, there’s way to recover from Covid-19. Some already went out of their way to help on the research and development for the cure.
Still the worst reality was the fate of the fallen victims. They die in isolation without the comfort of their love ones. The family can’t even say their proper goodbyes. The body goes straight to cremation. To add to the pain of the grieving family, they even have difficulties in finding morgue or crematorium that will accept the body.
This story from Facebook detailed the fate of the OP’s father who was made to wait in scorching heat of the sun because hospital could not admit new patients anymore. He died positive in Covid 19.
Together our heart bleeds for them, And I hope we continue to be law-abiding citizens. Staying at home will contribute greatly in stopping this pandemic.
Do you think there’s a role lacking in this list? What is your role is in this quarantine period? If you’re not from the Philippines, are these characters also in your country?
GUREZU 