@MegaKyodaiBanrai

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 23 September 2021

Thank you very much for your generous renewal of sponsorships @LykeLyka, @CoquiCoin, and @Pichi28! More blessings to come!

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 23 September 2021

Blending Different Hues With Oil Pastels It has been another week where I would share with you the series of my personal art journey that started more than a year ago. This time, I explored another medium that most of us would be familiar of because we had this along with some crayons during grade school days. I present to you my **oil pastel** works. These were mostly done during February and March this year. In case you missed my previous episode, check this out: Spreading Colors Through Spray and Aerosol https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/spreading-colors-through-spray-and-aerosol-d3aae8e1 The right kind of paper makes a huge difference! (based on experience) Before, we usually use oil pastels on bond paper or oslo paper in our homework or art projects during our grade school and high school days. It works, but to a certain extent. But I have discovered a paper that is perfectly made for pastels in general including colored pencils. This brand is called the Canson Mi-Teintes (not sponsored lol). This paper is excellent due to having enough tooth for the pastels to grip on, which makes them stick to the paper without the risk of being smeared easily. It also facilitates easier blending and allows more layers due to the thickness of the paper. I was irritated using oil pastels before due to their difficulty to wash since it has lots of oil content in it. But I can say that it's one of the easier mediums to play with as it blends so well and you can cover large areas quickly. In these works, I tried to cut the paper crosswise in order to avoid wasting a lot of paper. The oil pastels themselves I bought these ones again from Shopee sale during February. I chose the Mungyo brand because I see lots of people recommending it for the good price in terms of quality and blendability. Before, we usually use the Pentel oil pastels as they are cheaper and have good blending as well. They have creamy consistency when you try a blending tool, cotton swab, or even your hands to blend the colors. First Attempt: Moon and Sunset Landscape This is the first project that I did and I am glad with the results. I was able to capture the sunset glow before the skies totally turn into night time. The moon is an exaggeration and I experimented with some colors to express the light coming from it. Silhoettes were like the cliffs that we see from mountains or large hills. It was done by using the black color alone. As for the stars, I experimented using acrylic to spread them out, and it worked even if the pastels are oily. And here's my personal assistant and curator who sits in and judge my work. Well, it looks like he loved it! He said that I could do better next time. Second attempt: Colored Pencils and Oil Pastel Background With this, I tried combining oil pastels and colored pencils which go hand-in-hand. The pencils are useful for details while the oil pastel offers efficiency in covering backgrounds. As a subject, I tried Bulbasaur because I am a die-hard Pokémon fan (even from my previous article I chose Kingdra). The background suggests his typing which is Grass/Poison. Third attempt: Beach and Seashore The third attempt for the time was this top view of a beach. This was inspired by the summer season here in the country that starts in March and ends in July. The beach really calls us again, it seems. I was having some difficulty with this because the colors are quite hard to match considering that my set does not have the teal, aqua, and sand colors. In order to capture well the feel of the beach and waves, I tried to blend and mix several colors that are close. For example, in the aqua color I mixed some light green and white with light blue. And for the white sand part of the beach, I mixed brown with some white by blending. It took some tries and the desired result was achieved. Key takeaways Oil pastels are a common medium that is well-suited for both children and even professionals because of its great covering power as a dry medium. You can easily "paint" landscapes and backgrounds with these and achieve seamless blending. They can be combined with other dry mediums like colored pencils which covers the tiny details. Even if you are having difficulties with creating art, you can achieve fantastic results with them, as long as the paper you are using is right for these. ***Thanks for reading and I hope that you enjoyed it! See you in the upcoming parts!*** ***For my recent works, try to navigate through the previous parts here:*** **Part 1:** **It's Never Too Late to Learn Something New (Start of Journey)** https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/its-never-too-late-to-learn-something-new-2c73f8be **Part 2:** **I Was Encouraged to Just Keep Going (Colored Pencils and Inktober)** https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/i-was-encouraged-to-just-keep-going-e7524424 **Part 3**: **Taking the Next Step, While Dealing with Memories and Loss(Acrylics)** https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/taking-the-next-step-while-dealing-with-memories-and-loss-9cebef80 ***Part 4:*** Spreading Colors Through Spray and Aerosol(Airbrushing) https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/spreading-colors-through-spray-and-aerosol-d3aae8e1 ***Part 5: Blending Different Hues With Oil Pastels*** ***[#23]*** *Published, September 23, 2021*

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 22 September 2021

No One's Going to Boss Me Around, For Now It's already 2 months since we had our last academic requirement which was our thesis. And just Friday last week, we had our graduation that isn't really memorable in our opinion, as we didn't have any interaction that very day. The school just sent us an email saying that we have successfully finished our academic years and congratulations. It was planned that we will have the actual graduation when the pandemic situation will return back to normal, but I wonder when would that be. Lingering thoughts being unemployed My classmates and schoolmates belong in a graduating class(GC) messenger group where it was established 3 months before graduation. All of the requirements were announced by the officers in order to guide students what they need to do in order to be included in the list of graduates. In the past few days, there are several job offerings that our GC president gave us from different companies with reputable status and names. The positions look enticing as well, though it's unfortunate for us not really fitting in the job descriptions. Most of them were for chemists, and we chemical engineering grads want to work in a lab to be honest. Though there's a law and code of ethics that doesn't allow chemical engineers to work in a lab unless they have a degree in chemistry. It makes sense as chemical engineers shouldn't eclipse the work of the chemists in the lab, and we are supposed to work in field or large-scale plants. In our circle of friends, all of us live in the provinces outside Manila, and I am the closest one living near our school if they are not in their boarding houses. I usually travel back and forth between home and school everyday. Now all of them are in those faraway provinces and it will require them to board if they want to work in the city, while I can travel at least 1.5 hours combined in and out of the city. Working face-to-face would be a huge gamble considering the situation, and it's not comfortable travelling daily from long distances. I said, I am my own boss right now We had a conversation in our group chat regarding the plans we have for the future. The three of them are looking for freelance work online or anything that allows them to earn, while I told to them that I have my boss right now, and that's me. They were laughing a bit with this proud declaration of mine. I continued and mentioned that I try to live off with crypto right now, using the platforms that we all know and love as well as spreading out different investments and assets that I accrued from several years. They were reviewing for boards from May-August while I made these months fruitful by studying different things about cryptocurrencies and opportunities. I tried to invite and teach them but said they are not interested. What kind of mindset is that? Despite my willingness to try and help them, they just shrug off all of the opportunities that I am giving them. Is it hard to post or write daily about our experiences? Or they are just lazy and investing time in the wrong things? Well, I am proud of myself that I was able to progress financially for the past months while they are always telling me that they didn't learn from the online review. As far as I hear them saying, they have wasted time and money in the review. I have made the right choice to shift my time and mindset into somewhere else and go back into reviewing and preparing for boards next year. If I didn't spend time posting content or investing into different ventures, I will not have any money by now. And since I hold all the time right now and free to make my own decisions without someone making interventions, I can be responsible of my own actions and thoughts as well. I am not judging them by their decisions, it's just unfortunate that they disregard the opportunities that come into their way. One of them mentioned it's better to play mobile legends LOL. ***Anyway, that's a long rambling for now. It's a hump day and we should remind ourselves that we should grab opportunities and possibilities that come in our way, and you do not have the right to complain if you didn't try anything to level yourself up (in my opinion).*** **Lead image from Pixabay* ***[#22]*** *September 22, 2021*

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 20 September 2021

We All Love Monday, Let's Get Busy! Did I say it right? Do we really love Mondays, or it is the day where people dread the most? I do hate Mondays to be honest but that was during my school days, where the early mornings feel so heavy. It's due to the fact that we squeeze the tiny bits of time every Sunday, making sure that we consume the weekends to its fullest extent. But as I have mentioned in here, weekends do not feel different compared to weekdays for me, at least in my current situation. But I need to get busy and lots of stuff done! https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/weekends-doesnt-feel-what-it-used-to-be-yet-it-remains-special-29a18c56 Let's greet these people a Happy Monday, you are all inspiring and making me motivated this day! A Difficult but Doable Plan We had an insane plan for the very start of the week which is to write down at least 3 articles at once this day! I had a talk with @KrisCastro that we should try writing the three articles in advance if we are planning to publish an article that is scheduled every other day, specifically Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then for Saturday, a bonus article will be done that will be a dedication for #Caturday. For me, I personally want these 3 done already today so I don't have to rush things daily and free up the space on the following days, to maximize my time reading different articles here, or use the time for doing other things. If there's something that came into mind, I will try to write it down as quickly as I could or list different topics that I can prepare. I find it easy when things are laid down in an organized manner and there's less excuses to get things done. By finishing this, it can potentially allow me to publish more articles in the next days, as the pressure wears off and lots of ideas can motivate me to hit that Publish button. For Wednesday, I can potentially write 2-3 articles for Thursday until Saturday. Then Sunday will always be my rest day for all platforms. Get at Least 2 Artworks Done This is probably the most challenging thing for me to accomplish, but again it is doable. As a disturbing matter of fact, I had an unfinished work sitting on my easel for 2 weeks already and is collecting dust. I only noticed this when I did general cleaning during this weekends. From designing, planning, up to the actual execution of the project, it can take up to 2-3 days depending on the size and difficulty. I was filled up with different tasks last week and always checking on the prices of tokens in Benswap, and it can be pretty distracting. Doing the 3 articles in advance for a day will hopefully give me a breathing room to do more works alongside the daily errands. Let's go for Productivity! I know that being productive is difficult, but staying focused and getting away from several distractions will help us accomplish more tasks without fail. If we try to re-structure our schedule, we can find the sweet spot for everything. It can be for free time, managing work, reading articles, and so much more. Since this is the first day of the week, we still have a long way to finish our tasks and goals. Remember, never lose focus and keep grinding, as we will be able to get those rewards soon enough. https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/revamping-my-schedule-for-better-productivity-ab9f1053 Well, what do you feel about Mondays? Is it really dreadful, or is it the day you are always looking forward into? Whatever your answer, we must embrace it as a blessing. On my way to writing the 2nd and 3rd ones! ***Thank you for reading. I hope that you'll be able to execute your plans for this week!*** *Lead image from Pixabay* ***[#21]*** *September 20, 2021*

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 19 September 2021

Bella: The One Who Got Her 9 Lives Consumed? I was busy yesterday from errands at home that I was not able to create a post or a new article which is supposed to be this one, for #Caturday especially. But anyway, everyday can be considered a Caturday lols. I am sorry if there was no time for me to check out your works. Please check out these amazing people, they continue to inspire and motivate! The cute and adorable, bleeping catto! We had generations of cats, for almost a decade already. Due to the amount of cats who cone and go into our place, only few actually stayed in our home. Meet Bella, one of the latest cats from our humble abode. She came from the 3 year-old mom we call as Nanay, because she loves to make more cats, and often pay us a visit. We didn't know that Nanay stayed in our place just to bring out Bella into the world. Of course, we took care of her and made sure that she's in a comfortable place to live. Bella is the first cat who we usually bring inside and sleep near our beds. There are instances that she's on rotation, sleeping from the rooms of my parents, mine, and my sister. What we like about her is that she knows when and where to poo or pee before sleeping, so there's no hassle for us to clean up some mess. She went out, and got missing for a week Our cats usually stay in our front yard and garage where they can easily go out to explore outside. It is not a problem for us when they go away for several times a day as they usually return during lunchtime or dinner where they eat. However, there was a time that she got missing as we woke up early in the morning to check her out. We tried to seach in every nook and cranny of our house, as well as with the nearby places in the neighborhood. We tried to call her name but she didn't come out. She's a very intelligent cat and will respond or come when called by her name. We were just hoping that she will come back anytime. As it took more than 3 days of her not coming back, our worry was through the roof that our precious Bella would not return. On a bright, sunny Saturday morning, my mom was cleaning out the yard. Meanwhile, our neighbor was cleaning their car. What's peculiar about the car is that my mom heard several meows coming from there. It sounds very familiar and she suspected that it's from Bella. She approached the neighbor and asked if there was a cat underneath. To their surprise, Bella was stuck under the car engine for **WEEKS**! She's covered with a lot of grease and dirt that we have to bathe her. We were thankful that she's safe, and we thought it might be one of her **nine lives was taken, and she had 8 left.** We took this phrase as a joke but we couldn't imagine how she can survive for long in an unfavorable conditions. The neighbor was travelling 30 kilometers daily and we wonder if she was part of that. Another incident that took one of her lives It was 6 months after the incident, and she's healthy and jolly. As if there's nothing happened for her experiencing that event. And hey, she got lost again this time, but for a shorter moment. She accidently fall of from our terrace as she tried to jump from the post straight down the ground without any support like leaves and grass. We know that their bodies are flexible but to some extent. Thankfully she took the fall like a champ, with one of her lives acting as a cushion, it seems. Becoming a mother of Chubs Bella is a kind, intelligent, and cute catto. But of course it's part of her instinct to reproduce at some point. There were times that she returned late at night instead of the usual and we suspect that she found someone to harbor some kitties. Several weeks have passed and her tummy is noticeably bigger than it was. We knew that she's carrying kitties. She delivered them in our home and she had 4 kitties of different colors. However, it's unfortunate that only one survived, which was Chubs. I had a photo of them together where they hug each other, from my older phone. And she got lost again... For good Bella and Chubs love each other and we see them bond together like a family do. They smell and clean each other, share some food, and even play together. She's really good at making herself kitten-free for a year and just enjoying the catto life, sleeping for hours and eating, then sleep again for another 24 hours. One morning, she got lost again and we thought, she might just be roaming around the neighborhood. But Bella never returned after waiting for more than 2 weeks, and we lost hopes of finding her. People say that cats will do their best to get out of our sight when they are suffering or of they are about to pass. Since we didn't saw what happened to her, we assume that she got away into some faraway place, or that her 9 lives were entirely consumed. No matter what, we still cherish our moments with her and Chubs, and we know that her legacy was left with her son right now. We miss you a lot Bella and we're hoping that you are in a good place right now. Thank you for reading the story of our lovely Bella! She's a cat who went through a lot, and it teaches us how to keep going no matter what obstacles we face. ***[#20]*** *September 19, 2021*

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 15 September 2021

9.15. Mid-Month Decisions: Token Shopping Spree! I know that people since midnight have been hoarding vouchers and more items to take advantage of the 9.15 payday sale. Meanwhile here I am paying close attention to the prices in the crypto market to check for good deals. It was a crazy day yesterday, as lots of coins and tokens from the crypto world have dipped significantly. And it's a no-brainer that one would take advantage of this drop in prices to buy bargains of these amazing tokens! And aside from that, I would like to look back into the past 14 days and see where my finances are going in terms of crypto investments. *Please note that none of these are financial advice. I am just sharing my personal experiences and please always DYOR before jumping into investments and spending money you can afford to lose. I hold no responsibility for your financial decisions.* *Also, prices shown below are subject to changes due to the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies.* Where did my 1BCH go? If you have seen my previous article here, I was really lucky to catch the $3 per $EBEN price that the converted tokens is around 2 BCH. So I decided to save 1 BCH in my pocket while the remaining goes into the pools and farm in Benswap. In my MetaMask wallet, I saved 0.23 BCH reserved for gas fees and some purchases during the dips. Then the 0.77 BCH is tucked in coinflex, for easy transfer of funds between MM and my coinsph wallet just in case it was needed. https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/taking-the-last-weeks-risks-now-resulting-in-high-rewards-a131179a As a safeguard measure, I transferred 0.23 BCH into my coinsph wallet then converted into fiat. That was the best decision since BCH dipped from $780 to $670 overnight! I was left with 300 $EBEN staked from 555 $EBEN . The rest of the BCH is on HODL. Playing with the green doggo For days I have noticed fluctuations in the price of EBEN and I tried to buy a bit more when it reached $2 in value. Then I tried to unstake around 100 EBEN and put it into BCH-EBEN liquidity pool (LP). Then I bought more EBEN during the dip yesterday at $1.54 Then it dipped even further into $1.28 lols. Dips are unpredictable where it will stop. And I am willing to risk for **impermanent loss** this time since I am not going to withdraw my token fron the LP, as long as the prices are low right now. Just keep farming green doggos. Token shopping spree under SmartBCH I also decided to get some tokens during the dip, and bought those that are pretty cheap and has a great potential for the future. I am willing to risk a bit this time. I bought 67.6M $ARG and 3673 $KTH from 0.05 BCH. Imagine if they exploded in prices someday. Passive Income from Benswap With my staked and pooled assets, I currently earn 5-6 $EBEN daily which is $8-$12 depending on the price. As interest rates and prices change, these values might change. Still, this is a pretty great daily passive income already. Exploring BSC (Binance Smart Chain) with Cakes and Cubs Since I gained decent amount of knowledge and idea from benswap DeX, and SmartBCH DeFi, transitioning into BSC is very easy. I have learned some ideas from different crypto gods here fron their articles lols and wanted to diversify my assets. Just plug in the RPC address and details of BSC in your MetaMask. You can find the complete details here. Then you can send your BNB from Binance to your MM wallet under the BSC network. https://www.google.com/amp/s/academy.binance.com/en/articles/connecting-metamask-to-binance-smart-chain.amp The first thing that I did was to explore the browser and find pancakeswap. I am happy that the price of $CAKE dipped from $24 last week to $19 at the time of purchase. Bargaining cakes sounds delicious. And right now it is pumping at $21. The good thing about auto-cake is that it compounds automagically and no need to monitor it daily. It still has a decent APY which is better than letting your money sleep somewhere. I've seen that $CAKE reached its maximum at $44 months ago. I am hoping that it will again go up beyond. Next is Cub Finance. I used this not to earn lots of $CUB but to stake DEC-BUSD LP in pools, which allows me to get more daily airdrop points for Splinterlands. The value that is in DEC LP pools is 2x worth in airdrop points, plus there is an interest rate for this is better than holding it in-game. I am aiming to get at least $1 worth of airdropped SPS daily. Under the BSC DeFis, I spent 0.16 BCH at the time and another 0.1 BCH for SmartBCH DeFi. Currently I have 0.2 left in my coinflex wallet. Where did the 0.31 go (from 0.77 total in wallet)? ***Well, that's time for another article tomorrow!*** *How was your September? Did you make significant financial decisions? No matter what it is, let's hope for #BetterSeptember!* **Lead Image by* *Tamanna Rumee* *on* *Unsplash* https://unsplash.com/@tamanna_rumee?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText https://unsplash.com/s/photos/shopping?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText **[#19]** September 15, 2021

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 14 September 2021

A Cousin, Recovering From Her Childhood Wounds Several weeks ago, I wrote an article about my cousin who suffered from painful childhood, coming from the abuse and maltreatment of her father. As our extended family often talk several days weekly or during Sundays, we share news and developments between us. This aims to be the continuation of her experience. If you want to know about the entire story, you may want to start out here: A Cousin Ruined by Family Problems https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/a-cousin-ruined-by-family-problems-f0341562 I thank you all for your generosity. More BCH to come! Bored and Unfulfilled 30s She endured decades of boredom when she stopped studying for college, as her father told her to not study education as a profession. This resulted into a massive consequence because not only she got bored and unproductive, but also losing the opportunity to work considering that being a teacher requires extensive knowledge, discipline, and ethics. Staying at home, she only does household chores, watching tv, and listening to music, which is a typical rest day activities to people who work or study during the weekdays that can make someone receiver from busy activities. However, this is not the case for her as this daily activities do not contribute to her own personal growth, and not being able to communicate with other people compromises her social skills. Signs of Aggression and Depression Within the span of the past 5 years, it became apparent that ate Jobelle was fed up with the boredom, lack of growth, and the wounds of her past still haunting her. There are several instances that she showed aggression, depression, and being close-minded to her own family as well as to her relatives and other people. She smashed the expensive computer monitor of her brother due to misunderstanding. Of course the older brother got mad and knocked her out of home for several hours. Her parents, who are old enough did not escape the wrath of their daughter. An incident happened where she strangled her mom because of a small argument about the food that she didn't liked. This caused an intervention from the neighbors and barangay officials, and she even said to the officials that they have no manners and uneducated after they scolded her. As for her deep grudge and hate towards the father, there are times she was bullying him that he's weak and mentioned he will die soon quickly. Since her father suffered stroke, hypertension, and kidney problems, he had difficulties walking and communicating. According to her mother, she said that their house will burn into ashes if her own family will not obey or cooperate. Unfortunately, in the August of 2019 her father passed away and she even "celebrated" it. Addressing her mental health problems We had a nighttime conversation as a whole family last 2 years ago here in our home, during Christmas reunion. We were talking about the sadness and depression and opened up our feelings to relieve ourselves. As we mentioned that we would like to go into a mental health institution to heal, she didn't like this and declared that there's no way she'll end up there. Around March 2021, the rollout of some vaccines came into their place. My aunt and some cousins had a brilliant plan to finally end her suffering: Trick her into going for vaccination, but only to end up in a mental health facility. To make this work, they will all go as a family with the use of my other cousin's vehicle. This will make it believable and raise her confidence that she's safe. As they landed into the facility, she realized that it was all set-up. Escape is now impossible as her family and hospital staff got hold of her and immediately injected a sedative. For several hours she fell asleep and unconscious. After waking up, her mother comforted her and she asked, "what happened? Why am I here?" Her mom embraced in response and ate Jobelle finally replied with a warm hug. The doctors said that she will need to go back in sessions to cure her mental health problems. Crypto Got Her Back Two weeks ago, we received a news from her mom that she's doing great. And now, being jobless is not a problem anymore as her brother helped her earn money through playing a blockchain game, where she earns commission. The daily earnings reach $3-$5 daily. The curious catto in me asked what game it is and he mentioned it was CryptoBlades. Well, it would take more investment for me to start and I would focus on Splinterlands instead lols. We are glad that she's back on track again after decades of suffering. Slowly but surely her wounds from the past will heal with time, and more opportunities await her in the crypto world. Who knows, she might become a 1BCH holder next time. *Thank you very much for hearing my cousin's painful story, coming to an end.* **Until next time!** *Lead image from Pixabay **[#18]** *September 14, 2021*

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 11 September 2021

Caturday Special: Meet The Grumpiest of Them All! As a cat lover and started having cats for for almost a decade, we really value not only our own cats but also those who try to explore our yard and vicinity. One day, I met a catto that struck my attention, because our first meeting was full of tension lols! Happy weekend to these amazing people who shower their support and continue to inspire everyone with their works! The Grumpy and Romantic Encounter I was roaming around in our backyard garden as I need to water and check on several plants. I can see some cats that are familiar since I see them daily. But on a pillar that encircles the perimeter of the garden, I saw a catto who had a really nasty stare that will make you feel alarmed and experience fear, as if you have done a grave mistake. From the looks of her body patterns, it's a calico cat that certainly applies only to females. Her body looks pretty buff and fatty which is pretty cute. But when you look at her face, you can see the disappointed, curious, and "mataray" or grumpy look. On the other side of the fence, there's a male cat who is following her every moves, and is trying to call her attention. He sniffs and tries to move inch-by-inch until he comes close. But Ateng didn't like this and distanced further from him. She's really picky and I would consider the male cat a pretty cute one as well. It seems that she was a bit camera shy or do not have proper interaction with people that made her grumpy. Her owner told me that she was neutered before, and grumpiness became her second nature lols. Maybe she wants more kitties! And there's her boyfriend who's stalking her until today. Why Ateng? After having the day of the encounter, I sent the picture to my friends and parents, because it was worth sharing. That face must be seen by everyone! They saw the photos and grinned from that expression of hers. It seems that the grumpy charm of this cat appeals to them and even said, "Does she carry all the problems in the world? Why so mad? " We had a group chat for my online friends and a friend recommended the name of Ateng to her. Locally, the name Ateng can be related to a woman that is being grumpy or moody, but sometimes it is used like "Ate" as a polite call to woman. And it seems well-fitting so the next time I see this cat, we will call her Ateng. Further Meetings It took weeks until we met again in the garden. The second encounter was pretty exciting because I met her owner who was feeding other 11 cats, and that means more opportunity to see more cattos! And there she is, Her Grumpiness playing with herself in the corner, minding her own business and the future. Since the gate leading to our neighbor's yard was open, I was able to get in and take a close-up shots and a short clip of her musings. In the GIF above, she's clearly minding something deep inside. It doesn't matter if I am focusing on her closely as her thoughts are more important. I was able to get closer after her owner fed them in the afternoon. She talks a lot and her meows are cute. It sounds like she's not grumpy at all with the high-pitched voice, but it still contradicts her expression lols. Where is she right now? Since the past few weeks, I wasn't able to see Ateng in our yard as frequent as she does, and there's a time that she prefers a new yard from another neighbor. Also, the rainfalls might have prompted her to find shelter somewhere. If ever she comes close to us, I will take that opportunity and pet her a lot. See you back soon, Ateng! *Today was a pretty wet weekend as the monsoon winds from a strong storm in the north is still present. It prompted me to sleep like crazy again. And the airdrops from yesterday are crazy mad that I slept late! There's even people who complain a lot, considering that those coins are given for free lols!* ***Thanks for having a read and I hope you enjoy the weekends! Happy Caturday as well!*** ***[#17] September 11, 2021***

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 9 September 2021

Spreading Colors Through Spray and Aerosol It's been two weeks since I posted my personal art journey through the past year. It's because the last two weeks has been spent through numerous ventures like trying out a blockchain game, exploring a new BCH project, and being lazy in general. But now that we're here, let me continue from the last episode where I explored acrylics and had some fun with it. https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/taking-the-next-step-while-dealing-with-memories-and-loss-9cebef80 These people are really inspiring and pushing me to get out of my lazy zone! Thanks guys! Not an entirely new medium, but a type of brush! While searching through different kinds of brushes that can be used for acrylics online last November, there are filberts, rounds, liner, flat, fan, and many others that offer a unique type of brushstrokes depending on the project that you are working on. But there's something that caught my attention which is the **airbrush**. It allows the release of paint with the help of compressed air from a compressor, and the airbrush itself is the metallic instrument that has a small cup in it to store paint. Mine is a dual-action airbrush which allows you to control the amount of air and paint by pushing and pulling the trigger. I bought mine during January when I used my funds from the allowances and side hustles from school. It's a pretty expensive brush I would say, but it's worth it! I used my acrylic paints instead of buying ones that are thinned down for airbrushing. I got an airbrush medium that will allow thick acrylics to get through the tiny nozzle of the airbrush. Also, I got a masking fluid to hide out important places where paint is not desired to be. Then there are tiny containers that store paint which allow you to dispense droplets. I used to store my paints here dedicated for airbrushing. With a little bit of research, I did find out that there are stencils used to create intricate designs from airbrushing. These are really useful because it can be otherwise time-consuming and will take more effort to produce patterns by painting them manually. Inspiration from Home I am still in awe looking at our walls in the living room because it feels regal and something out from a royal castle. It gives a welcoming atmosphere that makes you feel special. It makes me want to go into a palace or hotel that has similar ambiance. My mom said that the carpenter used a large airbrush and compressor dedicated for home use and a wall stencil during the painting process. This then inspired me to try using it in my future works. Taking it to the Test After having all the things that I needed, it's time to make the use out of it. What makes airbrush special is how it creates smooth backgrounds and gradients, along with the use of stencils while saving a lot of time. Most importantly, it allows me to create out-of-focus background or the **bokeh effect** seamlessly**.** My first attempt involved the subject of having rainy nights. It's because this scene reminded me of going back home from school during night classes, seeing lights from the bus while raining. It feels nostalgic to remember that time. The first thing that I did was to gesso a spare watercolor paper to prevent it from warping and absorbing water from the acrylics. Then I painted the background a solid black as a base layer. I used the circular template while switching into different colors to create random circles for the bokeh look. I am glad that it was working well and liked the appearance of bokeh circles. However, I was not satisfied with the colors because they look dull. The yellows look like neon and the blues went too dark. It's a good thing airbrushing is just as forgiving as acrylics and I painted over those areas. I wanted it to look more similar and have some glow similar to what we see from lights at night blurred from camera (I often see this look from movies or television series.) After several attempts and multiple layers, I was able to achieve this final result. I didn't imagine that I will be able to accomplish this to be honest but I just kept going until it looks good. Then I manually added the rain droplets in to get that rainy night atmosphere. This was also posted before in noise months ago: https://noise.cash/post/162607xv Important Learnings Airbrushing is an easy tool to get used to, especially if you will use it for out of-focus backgrounds, stenciled patterns or getting a smooth look without the brushstrokes from traditional brushes. It also allows you to speed up your work because of this and create beautiful results. I will also try it with other mediums like watercolor or colored pencils to create specialized effects. Colored pencil is a pretty slow medium to work with, and using airbrush for the background helps a lot. This drawing was done months ago and I tried using airbrush for the background and colored pencils for the Pokemon, Kingdra. It allowed to get it done faster with great results. I am looking forward to do more works like this. And currently I am still working on a painting that I didn't touch for 2 weeks LOL. ***Thanks for reading and I hope that you enjoyed it! See you in the upcoming parts!*** ***For my recent works, try to navigate through the previous parts here:*** **Part 1:** **It's Never Too Late to Learn Something New (Start of Journey)** https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/its-never-too-late-to-learn-something-new-2c73f8be **Part 2:** **I Was Encouraged to Just Keep Going (Colored Pencils and Inktober)** https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/i-was-encouraged-to-just-keep-going-e7524424 **Part 3**: Taking the Next Step, While Dealing with Memories and Loss(Acrylics) https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/taking-the-next-step-while-dealing-with-memories-and-loss-9cebef80 ***Part 4:*** *Spreading Colors Through Spray and Aerosol* ***[#16]*** *Published, September 9, 2021*

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 8 September 2021

Pluviophile Before, Pluviophobic Today We have a stormy weather today due to a typhoon and it's a very dangerous situation to be outside. I can hear the ear-splitting thunders and high speed winds howling like it's a ghost trying to boo us during the day. Some of the trees, plants, and light structures outside are ripped already. We have a cover in the balcony used to shield against the strong winds and rain but it got destroyed so quickly. Our poor cattos need to be evacuated inside and shelter them. Combine it with strong rainfall and you've got a deadly natural force that covers the vast majority of the land, that can last for a few hours up to several days. Exciting Rainy Days This situation reminded me of my childhood (around 5-10 years old) when I really loved seeing the rain and play with it. We're still living in the dark and cramped alleyways where rain doesn't have room to enter due to the overlapping roofs. Every time I hear on the local news and radio that there's going to be rain or typhoons coming, I feel excited. It's like celebrating an occasion that I anticipate a lot. https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/living-life-in-the-cramped-alleyway-a6f901dd During those rainy days, I am just watching the droplets and mist and I have some contraptions made to collect the water from the rain. It consists of several plastic bags or containers that are shaped like a trench which is efficient at collecting and moving rainwater. And I am happy because our roof is pouring so much water like waterfalls during a heavy rain which I took advantage of to collect more water and bathe with it. My mom and aunt noticed that I liked playing with rain and scolded me, saying that it can cause illness like colds and fever. They prohibited me to go outside and tried to add a collecting trench in the roof that will collect the waterfalls that I highly enjoy. As I grew up I noticed that I slowly lose interest in playing with the rain and realized how weird I am. Instead, I played with videogames, especially when classes are suspended. Yes! Doom and Gloom Within the Storm Clouds When I reached high school, I noticed that rainy days are really bothersome, even for a few minutes especially during the entry and exit of school and break times, though we all love it when classes are suspended. As college days came in, the suspended classes are pretty rare anymore and the local government or schools would declare suspension only for grade school and high school. As if college students are waterproof! There was an experience of mine that I have to prepare for a quiz that day and the heavy rains drenched me before the class started. The feeling of cold and wet during exams is not great and distracting. In my case, I don't like it when a sudden brownout happens or a long blackout occurs especially that we need the Internet to deal with daily tasks and transactions. It also gives me a mood that will affect my productivity like a nap taking 3 hours or more, or not being in the mood to do important matters and relying on relaxing activities to cope with it. Lasting Impact and Damages I wish that the current typhoon rampaging in our place would quickly stop as it has dealt some damage to high prone areas already. Our country is facing at least 20 typhoons a year or 2-3 per month. Millions to billions worth of damage to structures and displacement to people is quite depressing and it will take months for some to recover. There are areas that get flash floods within 10 minutes of decent rainfall and mountains have landslides. Some crops die due to excessive water or uprooted by the winds. Over the past decade, it took several repairs to our house as leaks from gutters and roof appeared. Currently, we need to repair again after this storm ends and the last time we conducted a general fix was 5 months ago. What we fear is that when rainwater goes into some of the electric linings at home. We had an event before that our light bulb melted into liquid glass as the water caused it to short circuit. It happened directly to our dining table as we're about to eat dinner. After minutes of taking a bite from food, a bright spark from the bulb happened and we were frightened, quickly leaving the table. Thankfully no one was hurt and it was fixed quickly. Overall, dealing with heavy rains and storms is not fun and with heavy consequences, sometime leading to unforgettable traumatic experiences. Are you a pluviophile or ombrophobic? How's the weather in your place today? Please stay safe at home if you are experiencing the same weather as I do. ***Thanks for reading and see you in the next one!*** *[#16] Published September 8, 2021*

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 6 September 2021

Taking the Last Week's Risks, Now Resulting in High Rewards It's a busy, chaotic, and manic Monday again for most people and don't you feel like days are feeling exponentially faster? Because for me, it quickly went through without almost a trace of what happened from the past 7 days. However, there's significant risks that I took from the past week that made this Monday feel amazing! `*Disclamer: None of this is financial advice, always DYOR first. I am just sharing what I experienced and happy to share it with you.:)` Meet these amazing people who always inspire me to do my best in writing! They are the people who I look up to! The risk that made me highly addicted to a game After hearing from several people in different socials and online articles, I've heard of the blockchain game Splinterlands. The smallest risk that I took is by getting that Summoner Spellbook that costs $10 which allows you to play ranked battles, earn from daily and season rewards, as wells as gaining the ability to earn a resource in Dark Energy Crystals (DEC). I am already hooked a lot in the first few hours of gameplay and wanted to play more! The consequence is that the Energy Capture Rate decreases from 100% to 1% of the current amount, which reduces the DEC you get based on that percentage. It reminds me a lot of the Pokemon card game or the main game's battle system a bit. After the first quest reward, I got a card which is worth 7 dollars! And in a timely manner I got into Silver III that gave me 12 chests from season rewards, reaching 1600 DEC. That's almost $11 in value, which means that the 2 days of play I profited 8 dollars which allowed me to get more than what I invested into (with a bit of luck of course. ) Last week, I devoted most of the time to this game, learning all the fundamentals, strategies, and possible investments + passive income opportunity based on what you put in. Youtube, Discord, and some of the articles and forums from Reddit, Peakd, and Hive provided me most of the information that I needed to get started. It became clear to me how this is a great opportunity to enjoy the game and earn passive income from the assets you get and put into the game. With the spare $200 in my pocket that I am willing to move via investing in any cryptocurrency, I decided to place $140 into this game. Then I bought all the necessary cards and rented some that I needed to advance in at least Silver 1 league for 4x chest daily with higher DEC rewards in ranked. Those cards can be rented out to others for some earnings too. The rest was put into DEC for more airdrop points. Also, it's amazing that I am still part of their SPS airdrops that runs for 324 days which is greater the more assets you have in-game, such as DEC and the power you get from cards. The airdrop is another source of passive income. Currently, my rate is at ~$0.6 daily which can net $15-$17 per month, not to mention that my assets increase daily due to the rewards. Decent Risk, Crazy High Reward (2 BCH Achieved! 🤯) I also mentioned from a recent article that I took a bit of risk that I put in 0.1 BCH to buy 500 $EBEN at $0.12. Last time I checked, my account now holds 555 $EBEN at 3.012. It just keeps on pumping and hopefully it won't stop! https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/taking-the-first-step-out-of-my-crypto-comfort-zone-b94589f6 I like exploring new things, and I am glad that I did risk something that I believe is worth risking for. When the pre-sale of tokens and SmartBCH started, I had some doubts but I put trust in BCH and in their projects. I wish I bought some cattos ($CATS) too lols. 😹 *Thank you very much for setting some time reading this! I am glad to share my experiences as always to inspire others. Never be afraid of taking risks, but make sure it's a calculated risk! Never put too much on the line that you are not willing to lose.* ***With high risks come high rewards!*** If you want to learn more about setting up your smartBCH , I highly recommend reading this article by @ Jane which is a guide that I followed before. Have a great week ahead! https://read.cash/@Jane/benswap-smartbch-complete-guidelines-for-beginners-and-the-risks-3bf38352 *Lead image from Pixabay *[#15 ] Published September 6, 2021*

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 3 September 2021

Revamping my Schedule for Better Productivity A week passed so quickly that I left some tasks lying around, waiting for me to pick them up! One of them is actually an artwork that's supposed to be finished last weekend, but some tasks and interests came in suddenly that I need to move and re-allocate time into them first. I got addicted with Splinterlands when I started it last Sunday and then I tried to set-up the smartBCH that I did here, after successfully following someone's guide. https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/taking-the-first-step-out-of-my-crypto-comfort-zone-b94589f6 Time allocation during the days of August Last July, I finished all the school related workload and the start of August means a lot of free time for myself to do the things I wanted, be it games, planting, arts, cats, and crypto-related matters. In the very first day of the month I already set my daily schedule in order for me to be guided because the catto in me causes my mind to wander and sometimes, laziness kicks in. The daily routine: Morning So I have noticed that I typically wake up 8 in the morning, so I used that as a starting point. For the first 30 minutes of the day, I prepare my breakfast or eat what my amazing mom has cooked for us, followed by watering plants outside, then I would go to different rooms to clean-up. As 9 am approaches, I will then set-up my mat in the room to do some cardio and bodyweight exercises which lasts for 15 minutes in total then rest afterwards. I will then go downstairs to help with the cooking or sometimes I will do it when mom allows it. Her hobby is cooking so she wants to do most of the work. After the cooking's done I will now focus on checking and responding into notifications and chats that I have on my computer and phone while resting. It doesn't take a lot of time and I will proceed checking articles here, while using Youtube as a radio lols! Afternoon and personal time Here comes lunchtime where our family talks about things while enjoying the food. We also have the television on to watch noontime shows. After eating, I am always assigned to wash the dishes. I know what you feel about washing those dishes especially from preparing the meal + after the meal. Now that most of the errands are done, I have to focus on the things for myself. This can be for planning and creating artwork, starting a new article, or enjoying the time for rest playing or watching videos from YouTube. What's worse is that I go to sleep for this hours and get nothing done. And those hours pass so quickly that I will have to do some gardening like watering the plants and checking out their situation. Since the afternoon becomes cold and there's less worry about getting sunburnt, I use this time to walk around the neighborhood to walk and capture some shots that are interesting. Going back at home I will help with preparing for dinner and we immediately dig in after the meal's done. Then I will take my bath for the day to freshen up for the busy night. Night time, the favorite part of the day I use the time for the night to post and check out noise for the amazing friends and content out there for around two hours. It's enjoyable to see lots of people around the world and makes my day complete. It will take around 2 hours to check all the notifications than I will stop. After this I will have my night snacks then start on my artworks by planning or continuing a work. I will stop until I feel sleepy. Below, you can see the summary of my daily schedule from my notepad to get a better picture: 8:00am-8:30am - breakfast, water the plants 8:30-9:00 - clean-up some rooms 9 am-9:30 - exercise and rest 9:30- 10:30 - help prepare food for lunch 10:30-12pm - check notifications from emails and stuff 12pm-1:00 pm- lunch time and cleaning the dishes 1:00pm-4:30 pm- write and read some article. Or stay lazy by playing, watching, and sleeping! 4:30pm-5:30 - gardening, and afterwards have a short walk around the neighborhood if possible 5:30pm-7:00 - dinner prep and dinner time 7:00pm-7:30 - bath time 7:30pm-9:30 - posting and exploring in noise, and some midnight snacks! 9:30pm- 1 am - Plan, create, and do artworks Revamping it a bit for September I have noticed that I have been inconsistent for a while especially near the end of the month, and being a slacker every afternoon since I slept a lot, limiting productivity. I decided that for afternoon it will be a time for myself where I can rest, play games, or watch videos. I will focus more on the night time where I can do all of artworks and writing. I usually achieve flow in creativity within the peaceful, quiet, and solemn night. By the end of September I hope that this revamping will help me a lot! This was a pretty long read and I am thankful if you have reached this part! So how do you manage your schedules? Do you plan for it or just go with the flow? Setting schedule takes some time, but it will help us be productive in the long run and avoiding procrastination. By the way it's already 1 am here and I must sleep! Tomorrow will be a weekend so I can slash some of the tasks and dedicate it into reading articles. **Lead image from Pixabay* ***[#14] published September 4, 2021***

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 1 September 2021

Taking the First Step Out of My Crypto Comfort Zone I am sure that most of us had an amazing August, mostly from our BCH accumulated and HODL'd for the month. Our hard work, effort, and time spent coming into fruition makes us feel rewarded and satisfied, wanting to push more this September. I congratulate each and every one of us who succeeded in our personal goals! For me, I currently have 0.53 BCH in my wallet that started from zero four months ago, and I spent some of them for expenses. I have no doubt that I should have reached **1 BCH** if I didn't spend some of it! Anyway, what happened during the last weekend of August really pushed me out of my shell to venture into the deeper world of cryptocurrencies. I am a crypto newb, up until today (to be honest) I have heard of cryptocurrencies around 7 years ago but I didn't bother researching about it. Probably because I am still a high schooler enjoying most of his life playing video games or having hang outs with some friends. When I hear of something techy, my brain would like to hear more about it. But in the case of crypto, the poor brain of mine would shut down. Money, finances, and investments are foreign topics for me. Little did I know that I am too late to the party. Fast forward into Christmas day of December 2020, our relatives came into our home and stayed for two days to celebrate with us. In the afternoon of the 25th, my older cousin mentioned something about her digital wallet earning lots of ROI. She mentioned that her portfolio increased by 132%, and she's gonna take some of it for some expenses. The curious catto in me prompted to ask about how did it happen. She mentioned putting in initial investment into different coins to take advantage of the fluctuating prices in the crypto market. Well, I am still clueless about this crypto stuff but she explained it in layman's terms. The basic knowledge of buying low and selling high is such an example. My mom heard of this conversation and she was amazed at this idea of gaining high returns in a possibly short amount of time. I got myself a crypto wallet that time and mom funded me $20 as a start. I did put some of my savings in as well, so let's say I had $50 total. After 3 months, our initial investment really took off and my portfolio rose up to more than 200% since I diversified a bit and **did my own reseach**. It was shocking how fluctuations happen so quickly in a matter of seconds. Then for the following months, lots of stuff already happened doing some quick trades. Time skip into the last weekend of August Last Saturday (August 28), I read an article here discussing SmartBCH, from an amazing writer **@ Jane**. She described her experience and added some instructions into it that I was able to follow. It's my first time to use Metamask, the gateway to numerous blockchain applications and trying to understand crypto staking, pools, and farms. That day, I quickly went in and purchased some EBEN tokens from BCH after the lengthy set-up. 1000 EBEN coins would cost around 0. 2 BCH and I tried exchanging mine to exactly 0.1 BCH into 500 EBEN coins. I am glad to that I was able to get it during the pre-sale which would end after 12 hours, as they are going to burn the unsold coins. I immediately staked all of it and call it a day. Three days after the stake This is my current balance as of now and I have gained over 30 EBEN for 3 days. The APR during the time of sale was around 900% and the value of EBEN is at 0.12 dollars per coin. I compound the harvested coins every morning. It's a good thing that BCH has very low fees per compounding too. I tried to look up how much is EBEN today and it's already at 0.302 dollars! That means the coined tripled in value and I also got additional coins to my stake. Not to mention that my initial 0.1 BCH became 0.25 in a matter of days too. Hoping for a better future With this, I have successfully dabbled into the decentralized exchange and I am thankful for SmartBCH and the team behind for letting me out of my comfort zone to try new crypto things. I am hopeful to see more people would try this with BCH as the gateway and support this project. Imagine if the coin value skyrockets to 1 dollar, **my 0.1 BCH would quickly become close to 1 BCH**! As an early holder of the coins I am proud to be part of this. That's all everyone! Later this morning I will be checking you out again, I got busy the whole day from some errands at home. Currently it's 1:45 am lols. Thank you very much! ****Disclaimer: Please take note that none of this is financial advice and please always*** **DYOR** ***before putting your money in. I am just sharing my personal experience. I may have missed something out too, as I am new to this!*** ***[#13]*** *Published September 2, 2021*

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 30 August 2021

Weekends Doesn't Feel What It Used to Be, Yet It Remains Special Most people would be excited for the weekends after experiencing the jam-packed and busy weekdays, usually from the manic Monday up until the fun Friday nights. Obviously, most people would enjoy Saturday and Sunday because these are typically the rest days, especially for people employed and working for someone. Even if people are unemployed or self-employed, they mainly dedicate their weekends for "me" time. However, my perspective of weekends changed, especially during the times of the pandemic. These people are amazing writers and supportive, take a time to check them out! Thanks to @Just1Dood for the new sponsorship! And I am also thankful to @fantagira and @CoquiCoin for renewing theirs! During the time of my school days from kindergarten up until college, there's the feeling of relief when I see the date and Friday as the current day in our board (from grade school until high school) and dread every Monday as it feels very sluggish to reach the weekends again. While I enjoy school with my friends, teachers, and professors before, it's the tasks and academic workload that's burning us out. Every day, we wake up early at around 5 am, start the classes at 8 am and end it at around 3 pm or 4 pm. We expect that after the long hours of studying, there will be like 2-6 homework to do at home, depending on the mood of teachers lols. Doing these after-school tasks can be quite time-consuming as some of them require buying materials like for art projects or there's a demonstration that the teacher wants for science classes. We're forced to go into the market for the materials which takes some time to get into. Not to mention the random quizzes given by any teacher from other subjects, it adds some time. Expect that we will be sleeping at around 10 pm or 12 am for the busiest of times. We only have 5-7 hours of sleep. Then here comes Friday, where most students would spend their money in shops nearby school that are mostly computer shops, or go into a nearby mall for eating and hanging out. We have to remind ourselves that sometimes, there will be quizzes or homework to do as a "gift" from our teachers to study more. (sigh) After I finally graduated from college this July, I am currently unemployed and using the time until the end of the year to do everything that I wanted, and take a break. Now, Saturday and Sunday feel like regular days to me due to my long vacation. Most of the time, every Saturday, I pledge to myself that I only have to do at 50% of my usual tasks every day, and spend the remaining time for myself like playing games, watching videos, or just sleep. Don't you feel that there's no distinction between the place to be stressed and the place for relation because of the work-from-home setups from the lengthy lockdowns? But what makes weekends special for me? Aside from being relieved of some tasks at home, the important habit that makes our family happy is communication between us. Often, we have a large video call group, and everything that happened during our week is talked about. The best thing would be the laughter and giggles due to the crazy stuff being told to each. The same goes with some of my friends. We have a scheduled meeting via video call at night time, when there are no obstructions, and our schedules align. These calls are probably the longest, imagine starting from 9 pm and ending around 2 am? We surely had a lot of fun. Do you know the people from our video call? I know some people here have already seen us in other socials too with this photo. Give some guesses from the comments below. :) And now, its weekdays again! Looking at my clock, it's Tuesday already at past 12 midnight! Time feels so quick that I have no idea about what day it is currently most of the time, glad that the gadgets remind me of it every day. Well, I have to prepare again for the next day, and hopefully, I'll be able to accomplish what I set to do. I wish the same with you guys, wherever you are currently. I have to go sleep right now and see you tomorrow! **Lead image from Pixabay*

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 27 August 2021

Living Life in the Cramped Alleyway Ever since my birth up until high school, our family lived in a small neighborhood within an alleyway. That alley had lots of nostalgic moments as well as problems encountered within almost 15 years of stay. My uncle owned the house that we lived in and they bought it many years ago. As the larger house in front of our home was sold by the previous owner, my uncle bought it and transferred there. Then they decided to use the previous house as a rental home. Check out these supportive and amazing people, they are fantastic! My parents got married and decided to move in As mom and dad married in 1995, they lived first in another rental house just across the street adjacent to our alleyway. They lived there for four years while working, and as I was born in 1999, we moved into the rental home of my uncle. That home was helpful to my parents at that time because many of our relatives are also living nearby. If any problems or help was needed by us, everyone is close enough and has someone to talk to. My uncle's family lived just in front of our home 2 meters apart, and they have another rental unit upstairs where my mom's cousin lives. In the street outside of the alley, two aunts live in a much larger rental home owned by another landlord. The Memorable Days This house is tiny, being a studio-sized two-story home. On the 1st floor, we have our kitchen and sala (living room) while upstairs is an expansive bedroom. Even with this small size, we can comfortably move and can even accommodate some of our relatives and guests. There was a time when two of my cousins lived in us as they were studying for a university near our place. This humble home can accommodate every celebration such as Christmas, New Year, birthdays, and random visits from other family members. Even the farther relatives from provinces stay in for days or weeks. They liked staying in our place because my sister and I were the youngest at that time in the whole extended family, and we were the source of entertainment. Well, my mom and her sisters always had a good time when they talk, like every hour, you'll hear their laughs within the dark and cramped alleyway! As relatives were close nearby, almost every afternoon daily, the children will play while adults will have their talks about any topic. It's also a common practice and tradition to exchange our food every lunch or snack in the afternoon. As a kid who likes to go into different places, I often go outside to play with other kids on the street outside, or go into any of my nearby relatives houses. Some of our neighbors are close friends of our family too, so I tend to visit them as well. Then I tend to ask for food and snacks haha! During grade school days, my older cousins often assist me in different subjects as they're just a shout away from the other side of the alley lols. As I call them for help, they become available in the afternoon then give me free tutorial sessions. After the study time, it's time for play, TV, and entertainment between us. My mom often prepares drinks and snacks for these playful kiddos. It's making me feel nostalgic remembering those times, and I wanted to see my cousins again. The Terrible Days The bad and worst experiences happen not because of our family and relatives but because of the weird, unruly neighbors. We had a neighbor just beside us who are irresponsible and unhygienic. A middle-aged man named Mang Eddie had several batches of chicken, cats, and dogs that lived in their side of the alleyway. The problems involve having these animals poop in there, sometimes even in front of our window. The revolting smell is bothersome, and it even lasts for days. Sometimes their dog barks loudly non-stop for minutes, and every morning their chicken's wake-up call is resonating loudly through the cramped area. We tried to ask them to clean up their mess and avoid having pets that they can't take care of well. These poor animals don't receive the proper space, environment, and food, sometimes we step in to give some of their needs. Another issue that we have from them is that their carelessness has nearly caused the neighborhood to go in flames. There was an instance that they were cooking noodles on an electric stove that they left for hours. It came to the point that the device overheated and the whole thing was smoking, about to catch fire in the next few minutes. My aunt from the next house noticed the burning smell and immediately called the attention of Mang Eddie. She was so upset that she called the police to investigate the matter. They got their first warning, and there's even more that my aunt wanted to report. Another thing that these terrible neighbors did was tap their connection to a line in a post to get free electricity. And they have their water line secretly connected to my aunt's line, which she noticed as their water pressure decreased while their bills got high. They got reported, and their connections were cut with police intervention. Their family is involved in many illegal activities and mishaps that could spell doom for the alleyway neighborhood. Moving on to a better place After 15 years of memorable and terrible experiences from this small, humble home in an alley, my aunt and our family moved into different locations down south in 2010 and 2012, respectively. Both of us were happy to have found a new home that is significantly larger, better neighborhood, and has accessibility to different places. The areas are also peaceful and allowed us to own pets and even plants. I couldn't find any old photos or albums of our house before or any of the surroundings. If there's any that I would find, I would update and gladly share it here. Next time, I would be happy to share our move into this new house and other details, with some pictures hopefully. ***Until next time, peace!*** **Lead image from* *Pixabay* https://pixabay.com/photos/alley-corridor-building-houses-6341215/

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 25 August 2021

Taking the Next Step, While Dealing with Memories and Loss What to do next? After the Inktober madness that I did from October, it was decided that I have to take a week-long break to recover some creative and physical energy in order to come back strong in the upcoming month. If you haven't read yet the previous episode of my personal art journey series, you can go and take a read from the parts below, as this is a continuation of those. **Part 1:** It's Never Too Late to Learn Something New (Start of Journey) https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/its-never-too-late-to-learn-something-new-2c73f8be **Part 2:** I Was Encouraged to Just Keep Going (Colored Pencils and Inktober) https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/i-was-encouraged-to-just-keep-going-e7524424 ***Part 3: Taking the Next Step, While Dealing with Memories and Loss*** Check out these amazing people, they are truly inspiring and full of support! While resting and pondering for days, there was a question lingering in the back of my head about what to do next. Working with colored pencils was fun and addicting, but I wanted to have a medium that allows me to paint extensive areas with a brush, leading me to choose between the wet mediums. From there you have acrylics, watercolor, and oils. I am hesitant to work with oils yet because I am still a beginner and learning with different techniques, plus there's the concern of working with solvents and drying time of the oils. I pondered about getting watercolors, but I already have watercolor pencils on-hand so I need something different. Then here comes the acrylics, which I decided to get after crossing out the choices. I thought that acrylics are cheaper, forgiving, easy to clean, and easily accessible as long as you have the brushes and canvas alongside it. My First Painting Medium After the decision, I immediately went to the online store to get some knowledge about the prices of the materials. Thankfully, the timing was on point as the Shopee 11.11 sale is just a few days away! The personal budget is about to take a hit again lols. I got all the brushes, acrylic colors, and some canvases to begin with. I was so happy to start painting and I can't wait to get the first brushstroke on the canvas! It's time to get painting! As a newbie, I am still learning about the different acrylic painting techniques and the type of setup I need to begin comfortably. Since the materials arrived in the morning, I am so excited that I began painting after lunch. I was wondering about what should I paint that time, and quickly remembered our aquarium having lots of fish during my childhood. I got a royalty-free reference photo online of a fish that my eyes wanted. Then I watched some tutorials online about how to mix paints and blend acrylics. I am glad that I finished the painting after working with it the whole afternoon! I am trying to get everything feel "perfect" and I was satisfied with the results. The shading of the fish, seascape, and background bubbles was great. The unfortunate loss, leading to the cup of memories Around mid-November last year, we received a call at 9 am from our aunt that our uncle passed away. He had stroke that time and he peacefully rested as there's no sign of struggling. I consider my uncle as my second father since he was always close to me during my childhood. Their house was just a few steps away from us and I often pay a visit, sometimes sleeping in there. My uncle taught important lessons in life that helped me grow as a person. He was a good role model too as there was never a time that he got angry or impatient when dealing with anger or bad situations. His words of wisdom and stories often revolves around respecting others and being resilient about challenges in life. What really makes him memorable for me is his cup of coffee, which he often drinks every morning and afternoon. Those times we often talk casually, or he was imparting stories and wisdom. I am awakened by the smell of the coffee every breakfast and it's best to start the day with great life lessons. After the call, my emotions were hard to describe as I felt the shock, sadness, and grief. Since it was quarantine, there's no way for us to pay a visit to his final moments. Instead, I used the time to paint his cup that will always remind me of him, giving this painting a sentimental value. He passed away on a Friday, and the upcoming Monday was supposed to be his birthday. **Celebrating Christmas with the loss...** After the death of my uncle, it took their family for weeks to mourn until the burying of his remains. December is just around the corner and the plans of us having Christmas celebration and New Year was shattered. To move on happily for the holidays, I tried to paint a snowman because it is something that I want to personally experience when I go into a country with winter snow. I enjoyed creating this one because I liked the snow effect and the blue winter background. The shading of the body was blending nicely with the scene. However, his face went too white though. 😅 We had a great Christmas and New Year celebration despite the loss, and we decided that it's better to move on knowing that our uncle is having a great time in the Paradise too. And I personally have a resolution for 2021 to be more creative and create more art basically. The question is, what might be in store for me next year? **See you in the next part!** **All images and words are mine, original content* *Copyright by* ***MegaKyodaiBanrai*** *2021* ***[# 10, published August 25, 2021]***

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 23 August 2021

A Cousin Ruined by Family Problems On our mother's side of the family, she has a lot of siblings. Currently, there are four sisters (including her) and three brothers, seven siblings in total. Before, there are five brothers in their family but both the eldest and the youngest passed away. Now, let me introduce to you the second-eldest sister in the siblings, auntie Viola. She has a daughter and an older son. And the one who's struggling is the daughter named Jobelle. A bright and happy child in her elementary days Ate Jobelle is quite old now, at around age 35. But it would be easier to understand if we go back to her past, starting with the fun and playful grade school days. She was a child full of fun and happiness, especially during grades 4-6. Every afternoon there's an opportunity for her to buy snacks and biscuits, usually paired with coke and juices. The pastime in the 90's often revolved around anime, cartoons, TV shows, and playing outside, which she all enjoyed. Even if ate Jobelle was living in a happy and carefree style of childhood, she never neglected her studies. In fact, every recognition day, her name is called on stage, and I saw a picture of her in their home having lots of medals with numerous awards brandished on it. Dealing with the drunkard dad Ate Jobelle was a thrifty child and always saves a lot of money from her allowances which she often used for school projects, snacks, and toys that were common at the time. There's a large *alkansya* (a piggybank) in her room that holds many coins and bills in it. Every month, the alkansya is opened by unlocking the lid using a special padlock that only she has access to. One night at around 10 pm, her drunk father just got home, banging the doors and walls of their home. As he went upstairs, he went immediately into the room where he knows Jobelle is hiding an *alkansya* which holds a lot of money. Then he tried to open it but to no avail due to its padlock, and there's no sign of any keys nearby. Left without any choice, he smashed the alkansya on the floor, which cracked easily as it's made out of porcelain. Jobelle was taking a quick bath as her father stormed her room, and she was stunned after hearing the shattered alkansya banging on the floor numerous times. There are also the sounds of coins rolling around the floor. She immediately went upstairs and tried to scold her dad about what happened while tears flow down her face. Her mom, Auntie Viola, quickly went upstairs after hearing all the events in the room (Viola was watching a teleserye downstairs, and she knows the habit of her drunk husband every night). Viola was scolding her husband Domeng because she knows Jobelle was saving up a lot of money for her school project for next month. Domeng just muttered random words and swore a lot that time. Thankfully, it came to the point that the drunk man felt the intoxication and slept in his bed. The start of a traumatic experience Ate Jobelle did not recover well mentally after the incident, and there was a time when she hid inside the closet after hearing that her drunk dad just came home. The shattering, rumbling, and swearing of her dad came into her mind that triggered traumatic experiences. These experiences continued until the end of high school. In the final year of high school, she experienced malaria. This illness added to her set of traumatic experiences, including the blood transfusion, which made her feel uncomfortable. "I don't want you to go into college." As she graduated with flying colors in high school despite all of the terrible experiences she had, the time came where she had to make a career choice in college. Her dream was to become a teacher as she felt the passion for teaching younger people. The parents heard this decision, and they responded with a worry that Jobelle might not earn well with this profession. She insisted that this is her dream job and passion that would make her feel fulfilled. Her dad responded that he would not let her go into this profession and will not fund her college education. Jobelle cried a lot after hearing this, as her own parents shattered her dreams. She always asked the question, "What did I do to deserve all of this." Decades of staying at home due to depression Ate Jobelle was so desperate in life that she just stayed at home with her mom from the age of 16 until today at 35. She only had one job that her father's boss offered her, an assistant in a cake shop. It lasted only for a month because she was feeling uncomfortable being with other people. As I was in my elementary days, I am sometimes in their house, where we often talked about her life before, and she shared those experiences. She taught me in some of my subjects where I had some difficulties, and I can say she is really fitting to become an educator. However, as time goes by, her personal and family problems are becoming worse each day. Jobelle's past is still haunting her, with no job or dreams to work with. The worst is yet to come that she and her family have to deal with it... ***To be continued until next time!*** [#9, August 23, 2021] **Lead image from* *Pixabay* https://pixabay.com/photos/girl-sitting-jetty-docks-boardwalk-1822702/

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 21 August 2021

I Was Encouraged to Just Keep Going This article is part of my personal art journey, which started here. This one is a continuation of the events that happened previously from there. https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/its-never-too-late-to-learn-something-new-2c73f8be After being thrilled with doing most of the drawings in a month, I decided to spice some things up by adding some colors to my work. With the use of my savings I got from my allowance, it helped me buy some watercolor pencils and colored pencils, and a large 50 sheets sketchbook. I decided to get the top-end pencils for this because I thought they could help produce the best results with quality supplies. With that, I only have to worry about improving my skills without fighting with terrible supplies. I had an experience before in high school where my colored pencils were literally made of chalk and made it scratchy to use without any pigmentation. I don't want to experience that struggle again. This is probably the most significant investment at that time since it cost me around 60 dollars for all of these materials. A Month full of Practice and Experimentation I was delighted with the decision to invest in good art supplies. I can really see the difference it had on my work, even if I was not skilled yet. Of course, the results will depend on the artist, but these tools were really cooperating with what I wanted. I started with the very first page of my sketchbook, and I drew Cosmog, one of the Pokemon that I liked because of its design and color scheme. It looks like a fluffy cloud full of stars. Next is the sky paintings made of watercolor, swatched in watercolor paper. I liked creating this one because it was simple yet full of color. Next is the drawing of Rhea, a character from a game that I was playing which is Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I didn't capture her face well, but she turned out cute lols. Next, another night sky in watercolor full of purple, with the moon, stars, and shooting stars. And finally, a realistic egg sunny-side up. This is really challenging because I wanted to have a realistic result. Capturing the values and shading was hard because it is full of grayish-white colors. But I would say it was well-done considering it was my first time successfully doing a realistic piece. Prompted with InkTober A friend of mine who likes to draw a lot discovered that I was into drawing just recently. And he told me that I should try joining in with the different prompts for Inktober. In case you didn't know, during InkTober, people are invited to submit their own works made primarily with ink based on the different prompts assigned that day. For example, on the first day of October, the prompt is about fish, so you need to draw anything fish-related. This challenge lasts for 30 days and you must draw every day based on the topic. As a beginner artist at that time, Inktober feels like a tall order for me, considering that you must draw every day that is in line with the daily topics provided. Nevertheless, I gave in and decided that this must be an essential step for my artistic growth. I did break some rules for this challenge because I am not officially in it. I am just joining for the sake of my own practice and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. The first week was a success for sure, and it gave me the confidence to push even further until the end of the month. The second week's prompts were really fun because I was smiling when I saw the cat, some Pokemon that I included, and the disgusting ice cream! For the third week, everything feels a lot better and colorful! The personal favorite that I did here was the cat's eye in focus, which is another attempt to do it realistically. And of course, there's the cute catto who sleeps so deeply. For the food prompt, I did a dish inspired by the anime Food Wars, where the recipe is a vegetable terrine as far as I can remember. And for the last stretch of InkTober, I feel that my drawings did improve a lot better than the first week of the challenge. It really gave me confidence to sketch and color and felt satisfied because I finally did complete the challenge on my own terms. It helped me become more creative because of the prompts and draw the characters and things that I really like. My Greatest Fan While I was doing the challenge daily, I was also posting these in Tsu last year. It is the social media that I consider as my safe place because people are not really judgmental or do not care at all (lols)! And there was a person who saw my works daily and applauded me for it. I wasn't sure why because my work wasn't phenomenal. But seeing this person made me starstruck because she's one of the best content creators on that platform. I always admire her owl and wildlife photography. Heather (TheeOwlQueen) is such a down-to-earth person who I consider my friend on the platform at that time. Her praises made me continue doing the work and feel confident about my works. I actually asked her why she was happy seeing my works every day even though they are not the best, and she replied: " You know what, I really admire your dedication to drawing everyday. Until now with my age, I can't even draw a properly. Seeing you draw makes me happy to see your progress as a beginner!" After hearing those words, I am just speechless. I never heard such genuine praise from a person I didn't personally know. No one did recognize my efforts other than her and I would say that was the real turning point for me to continue creating. After October and Inktober, I decided to create more stuff. And with that, it means that I have lots more to share with you in my year-long art journey! Discover what kinds of medium I will use and the types of work I was able to do with them. Until next time! ***My personal art journey series:*** #1: It's Never Too Late to Learn Something New https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/its-never-too-late-to-learn-something-new-2c73f8be #2: ***I Was Encouraged to Just Keep Going*** ***[Article #8, August 21, 2021]***

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 19 August 2021

There's So Much Time Pressure on My Part I am currently lying on my bed, thinking about the topics that must be written or drawn and painted. There's also the option to sleep, watch, and play with the time I have for now. It happens very often, and there are days that I won't do anything because I don't feel like it. It makes me feel so bad when I don't accomplish anything for the day, especially when I envisioned some plans to happen for that particular time and day. Unfortunately, either my mind or body does not go hand-in-hand, which leads to accomplishing nothing. Seeing other people making lots of productive results increases the pressure even further. There's always the feeling of inadequacy about not being able to finish what I wanted. When I was in the middle of college, seeing some of my peers from high school finish their respective fields of studies fueled my guilt that I should be able to complete the same way they did. It made me feel a little bit jealous that they managed to get things done quickly while I'm stuck here waiting for something to end in the way I wanted it to be. But as time goes by, there's an essential attitude that I managed to learn that helped me get through these kinds of feelings of self-doubt while being left and lost compared to others. That attitude is minding my own business, which is not surprising and straightforward enough to understand. We may have seen others at the prime of their lives enjoying their riches, victories, accomplishments, and many more things that people might be jealous of. However, we must remind ourselves that our timelines and stories differ from person to person. You may not be successful in the present time, but you will surely be in the future. Never let others' victories invalidate your successes as you knew that you are doing your best at the pace you can do. Keep fighting until you reach your goals. So while people out there are reaping the fruits of their efforts, here I am chilling and enjoying myself. I know when to move and decide the right time to do something based on how I feel. Based on what I have seen from the lives of my extended family members and some older people, they would always tell me the right time would come for me to become successful. It's just that I should never rush things because some people did it earlier. And there are even notable stories of people who got successful in their business and love life in their late 40s-60s. Of course, some people are manipulative and trying to control what you feel about being left behind, asking you personal things about why you do not have any girlfriend/boyfriend, jobless, among many other things. People like to talk over others because they feel insecure about themselves, or they just don't have any business to mind that they started invading other people's personal spaces. Just ignore them as they are not worth your time and energy. I want to remind you and myself that we should never rush things, as mental health is much more important! You will never function well if there are some roadblocks in your mind. Always take care of your well-being first before while being realistic about the current situation you are facing. Life is already challenging, and you should pat yourself on the back if you are still here happy, blessed, and content in life. Remember that there are no time limits, and only you can decide how you are going to finish things at your own pace. Never let the pressure consume yourself! ***Tomorrow, I will continue about my art journey so stay tuned!*** *Lead image from* *Pixabay* https://pixabay.com/illustrations/time-clock-clocks-waves-meeting-2132452/

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 17 August 2021

It's Never Too Late to Learn Something New I was never good in art at all, even from childhood until college. I remember when I had trouble with art homework that I have to contact my two older cousins ate Anne and kuya Jon, who had incredible skills in creating works, to do most of my art *yikes* ! Currently ate Anne designs cakes for a living, and Kuya Jon is working in a graphic design company. They had inspired me so much to create any artwork back then when I was younger, but my hands don't want to cooperate with my mind. Every line and shading that I make look wonky and won't improve. I tried a lot, but nope, I just felt that art wasn't cut out for me. Art Lessons and Activities in High School I remember way back in high school when numerous activities revolve around the art subject, as even in the likes of Science and English subjects require us to work with drawings and caricatures as homework and seatwork. I managed to get them finished, but the results were never satisfactory. I would constantly compare my work being similar to grade-schoolers and beat myself up because of it. Around 3rd-year high school, I had an art teacher who was so laid-back and didn't bother teaching us the proper techniques and fundamentals. He will only discuss around 10 mins of a particular topic and terminologies, but almost no demonstration at all. And then, he would ask us to create something based on what he discussed, which would often leave us feeling confused and lost, aside from those few classmates who can draw and paint. Those few people were easily recognized by our teacher with their abilities and always commended them while working on their creations. In a 3 hour long class, our teacher often walks around the room to see what his students are creating and leaving some good comments. He is generous when it comes to grading, but our concern is that we do not learn anything properly in art. No More Time in College As I went to college, things got way more difficult and complicated, considering I am studying engineering. The only drawing that I learned was the technical drawings that are often associated with engineering. Our engineering drawing professor was so strict and bad-mouthing us when we create terrible works. That class is so depressing and too difficult for me as he required us to create multiple submissions of several tasks. He also instantly gives a failing grade in a glance over your work if it doesn't fit his standards. I almost failed that subject too. As years passed by in college, I never encountered any tasks requiring complicated drawings. It was just simple diagrams that would describe a particular process. Then the pandemic came in Last year, the pandemic shook everyone around the globe. Most work and schools shut down, and it prompted people to do their tasks at home. By that time, I was already about to finish my academic subjects. Here comes August, where I finally finished everything in school aside from my research paper which was moved until 2021 to be completed due to the circumstances at that time. Having no more schoolwork to work with made me feel so bored that even playing games and watching online didn't help that much. With so much time now in my hands, I finally decided to revisit my intention of improving my drawings that I couldn't do after several years. I tried drawing my favorite characters from anime and even some random stuff. I was pleased with the results because I can see that I am improving with the time and effort I am investing into it. Some of my earlier works at the time The first medium that I worked with consists of pen, graphite pencils, and charcoal. The work above is the one that I did first, which was Irene Belserion from Fairy Tail. I drew her because the anime just ended, and she was a great character. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to give her any justice. I was about to throw the paper, but I decided to keep it for future reference for improvement haha. Next was Jigglypuff as a Pokémon character that I drew. I decided to give her a try because I thought it was easy, but I was wrong. Those edges were nasty and irregular. Another subject that I have at home is our cat Chubs. He was posing nicely and decided to take a photo of him. I was able to get some of his likenesses, but there were not many details in here. I started using the old charcoal pencil that was in my pencil holder and tried to use it. I was satisfied with how bold the lines are, as well as the shading. I fell in love with charcoal because it makes it easy to finish some pieces and the bold, dark lines and shading it creates. Finally, this leaf was simple, yet I had real fun creating this. I enjoyed making the minor details while shading some parts of the leaf. After all of these mini-artworks, I said to myself that it was never too late for me to learn art and a new set of skills. I was never a prodigy or talented with it, but my perseverance and determination to continuously try and improve after every bad work allows me to hone my skills. I researched about the Old Masters that some of them only did art at around 30s-40s during their middle ages. If you ever feel down that you're too late with something, never get discouraged! Everything comes with time and practice. *Thank you very much for reading my art journey this time! I plan to create a series called Bryan's Art journey or something along the lines which will contain all of my experiences and growth as I venture the world of art!*

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 16 August 2021

A Week Full of Tears and Sorrow Starting the second week of August was full of enthusiasm and motivation. Lots of plans and routines were set from the past week that were targeted to be done based on the days and times scheduled. But things doesn't always go according to the plan that made my schedule scattered last week. Fresh and Productive Monday It's a hot, sunny, and bright Monday morning. You can hear the birds chirping outside while seeing the skies full of deep blue colors, and there's hardly any sign of rain coming soon. After waking up, I took a quick breakfast and had a bonding time with the cats. Shortly thereafter, I went back up stairs to have an exercise session lasting 20 minutes, mostly cardio and stretching. Next, I took a quick break and checking some notifications on my phone to check and clear them all. With an hour left before lunch, I planned about what should I draw next, considering it's going to be my return to making some art. I quickly thought of cats and tried to do the big cat Jaguar, which you may have probably seen from my post in Noise. Immediately after lunch and washing the dishes, I went to my easel to prepare my work and taped down the paper. Without any second thoughts, I quickly drew in the jaguar and shaded it with charcoal pencils, one of the fastest mediums to work with. It took me four hours to finish the piece. Then at the right timing, a door bell rang which indicates that my new mushroom has arrived! It's really exciting to see and grow again the new variant as my curiosity and enthusiasm with shrooms got insane! Developing an Illness The next day, I woke up with sore throat with some body pain. My mom and sister told me that they also have the same feeling and it's a flu that we got. We remembered that every August-September of a year, we often get flu or colds because of the abrupt changes in weather and temperature. And the patterns of weather last week was insane actually, imagine raining so hard with the sun shining so bright and hot? Or having strong, cold breeze that blows frequently while the temperature is around 30-32 degrees C. We rarely get ill within a year but these conditions often causes us to feel sick. Thankfully we have stock of meds and citrus fruits that can help fight it. My plans for that day was to write an article here alongside creating a new work in acrylics. But I just feel oofed after noticing that some of the bottles were already exhausted. I felt the need to rest in the afternoon and slept instead. There goes my productivity down the drain. Delivery of a Tragic News It's early Wednesday morning, and around 4 am I woke up due to the pain in my body and throat. I drank lots of water and went back to sleep, with the help of some ointments and lozenges that relieve the pain. I rested a lot until lunchtime is about to come. Just before starting to eat, we saw and heard an ambulance nearby which stopped in front of our neighbor. Then we saw the breadwinner of their family being enclosed with a cloth, with the head exposed. We were absolutely shocked to see this and got a message from the neighbor beside them that he doesn't have any pulse. It has been 5 days since the man stayed at home as he's feeling ill. His work is being a driver of a van that carries passengers from different cities. The night came in and we heard that the man was immediately cremated and at that point we can't get near them as they weren't tested yet for COVID. My mom texted her friend (the wife) and said that she must stay strong for her child daughter, and don't hesitate to ask for help and comfort. She just replied with a simple "thanks". Following his footsteps... It's Friday afternoon and we just finished eating lunch. Then we heard a familiar voice of a child who cried and shouting that her mom passed out. We can't approach them even if we wanted because they are still under quarantine. No one is really willing to even if we wanted just because of the risk. Instead, we contacted the rescue quickly while comforting the child that everything will be all right. It took almost an hour for the rescue to come in, and obviously it's too late already for the woman. The rescuers tried to revive her but without any success. We all cried after hearing that because of the fact that the child is too young to experience this with herself alone while we are powerless to give help due to the nasty COVID situation. Several ambulance and government vehicles came in to the scene to assess the situation. It took around 6 hours for them to standby in the scene while waiting for the nearest relative to come in. At 7pm the ambulance took the body and disinfected the place to ensure that there will be no contamination. Their house was marked with a yellow tape, police line. The daughter was carried by the social workers to their facility to help facilitate her psychological recovery. What's even interesting is that it rained so hard with rumbling thunders hours after her passing. It reminds me of the movies where it rains after a grieving situation. Everything that happened during that day was hard to absorb as it all happened so quickly. And it's heart-wrenching to see a small child left alone with virtually nothing. Mom's Help Desk Due to the event, my mom literally became a help desk or broadcaster where friends and people around the neighborhood contact her and asked what happened. She told everything in short but concise details about the death of the two couple. Mom was telling them like she had a script on actually. All the calls took around 3 hours as people were contacting her consecutively. I can imagine that around 10 people called her that very day when the woman died. But to be honest, we were all clueless at some details because we don't go out from our gate just to hear and see some news from there. Recovering during the weekends, and starting with a fresh, new week This Saturday and Sunday, our condition is finally improving with no more fever and body pain. Only thing that's left is some cough and sneezing. And we have lost some sense of taste due to the cough and cold. Food sometimes tastes bland that we do not eat that much. Hopefully by tomorrow we get fully recovered. We are also wishing that the child will get a good quality of life with her new "parents" who will take care of her, most likely her nearby relatives. Their family is actually pretty close-knit with us as we celebrate parties and exchange food, gifts, and many others. Hoping for the souls of the deceased to have peace and rest well in Paradise. May this real-life story touch your hearts and reflect on how life is so unpredictable. We would never know our when will be our end, so please be kind and gentle to those whom you love. At the face of death, we are so helpless and hope that people would have good memories with you. Everything that happened last week was really hard to absorb, yet we keep on moving in life, especially that we are blessed at this current situation. *I have to share this with you guys first because I felt that this is the best way to release some feelings from within, which made me lost my productivity and activity here for a while. Thanks for reading!* **[#4]** *Monday, 16th of August 2021* **Lead Image from* *Pixabay* https://pixabay.com/photos/candlelights-candles-flames-wicks-2179184/

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 10 August 2021

The Path Where I Got Lost, Until I Found the End My previous article talks about the dreams I had during childhood. If you wanted to know about that first to get a little bit of a background, you may want to visit it here. https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/a-childhood-dream-molded-by-adults-1dffb494 **Way Back in 2015...** It is finally time for me to finalize decisions for applying into universities. I tried taking entrance examination for two colleges: one private engineering school and the other is public. For the public university you are given three programs that you can choose from. I wrote into the application form my top three choices (preferred to least preferred): Psychology, Chemistry, and Chemical Engineering. And for the private engineering school the choices were Chemistry, Biological Engineering and Chemical Engineering. I followed my own decision with this list. The results came in after a month, and I was surprised that I wasn't accepted into the public university. The reason was, there isn't enough slots for my chosen courses and they actually prioritize people living within the city for it( I live in a province close enough). So the only option was the other and I chose chemical engineering from the other uni. It all went with a terrible, depressing start My first semester was a hot mess. I really felt the pressure, difficulty, and all-nighters that older people talk about college. Since I don't live into a boarding house I travel back and forth 20 kilometers, facing the difficulty of traffic and getting a bus back home. I end up almost always standing in the bus for 1-2 hours every ride. The subjects here are considered as introductory as we had algebra, trigonometry, engineering drawing, and other minor subjects. I failed in both algebra and trigonometry while barely passing the drawing subject. It made me realize how bad I am at all, that's considering I am an honor student in grade school and high school. With that, I have to go repeat the subjects again in the next semester to get a passing grade before advancing into the next. Thankfully I did not have any failing subjects after the first blood. Second year of college went in and this is when most of my classmates got kicked out of the chemical engineering program because our department had a very strict rule with regards to retention policies. There is a major exam that students need to pass in order to process, and you only have to fail once, or else you get kicked out and must select another degree. Most of my classmates shifted into other courses or got into other schools because of this. The department said that out of 400 students who entered in the degree, only around 90 were left, which is really depressing to hear. Thankfully I managed to pass that, but the hardest has yet to come... Streaks of failures have started That second year of college got me into thinking that I don't fit into this choice. I got nearly expelled from the program since there was a subject that only has one chance of failing and the final exam is going to be a gamechanger for this one. That subject is Chemical Engineering Calculations 2 which is not supposed to be difficult, but our professor was really grinding us with his exams. I studied day and night for that examination due to the fact that I don't want to waste all of my efforts for this degree to just get kicked out because of one critical subject. The exam day came in and I was nervous because that's the only chance I got. It seems that our prof had a really great day because he just used our old quizzes and compiled them into the final exam which means we know how to solve the problems. Even though it was easy, it took us 3 hours to solve the 5 question problems within 4 hours and 30 minutes. We were able to get through this. Another frustration of mine was the Calculus 1, and 2, and Physics 2& 4 subjects because I failed them all. It added further into my episodes of self-doubt, frustration, and sleepless nights. These failures added up and degraded my sanity. That school year made me a walking zombie due to my mental issues that time kicking me out of reality. I had numerous classmates that failed much more than me but I don't want to think that it's okay to fail numerous times, just once. Regaining momentum after the brutal losses My third year was really a blast, when I did not fail anymore and I was enjoying the college life to the fullest. Our numbers have dwindled to something like 40 in just one class, but it was the best because we felt like high school students again. For 2 more years, we stayed and helped one another as a whole and this made us confident, happy, and enjoy learning. Our major subjects are intimidating for sure, but we studied as a group and aced major exams with ease. It was like an adventure where we enjoyed doing the things related to academics and there's no stress at all, aside from my daily commuting and night classes. This continued until the time we are supposed to part ways. The terrible pandemic ruined the marching... After almost 6 years in college, I was able to finish all academic subjects and requirements this July for my degree which was supposed to be last year. In the first month of March 2020, we received a news that we are going to have a lockdown where schools need to close. We were left with a month before we are supposed to graduate and complete everything. The pandemic did extend my year unfortunately but I learned a lot last year. Last August 2020, I did finish the classes but my research paper was postponed and restructured because it was supposed to be a wet lab experiment, where the procedure is done on-site. But due to the lockdowns and prohibited face-to-face meetings, we were left with no other choice but to do simulation experiments or computational studies that can be done in any computer. That means I worked on and off with my research paper for almost a year before completing it at the end of last month. And now, a poll was created by the school if the graduates of this year would prefer face-to-face to virtual graduation. Students chose the actual experience instead of the virtual, but it might happen later after the lockdowns again. We are really hoping that this terrible pandemic and lockdowns will end so that we can finally march with freedom. Doubts for the Future, But Wish Me Luck! For this year, I planned that the following months after until the end of 2021 to be my "rest days" where I can do anything I wanted. For January 2022, I wanted to review first for the licensure exams here in the country so that I will be ready by May next year. Currently I am enjoying read.cash and noise.cash for talking with other people, discovering them, and sharing my own experiences. I have made new friends out there too, along with the ones that I knew since last year. Hopefully by this month I can accomplish the goal of nearing 1 BCH. Aside from that, I will resume into improving and creating artworks. I just started learning last year and it was an incredible journey for me. I can't imagine how much I have progressed in the span of the year learning multiple mediums at once. But I have lots of things to learn yet for sure. I am excited to see more surprises before this year ends! My college journey was difficult and strange, but it helped me learn to be persistent and keep going until I succeed with it. And I hope that this long read gave you the courage and inspiration to keep going, no matter what problems you are currently facing. **See you in the next one, where I'll be sharing my art journey!** **Lead Photo from* *Unsplash* https://unsplash.com/s/photos/end-of-the-road?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText

@MegaKyodaiBanrai 8 August 2021

A Childhood Dream, Molded by Adults What kind of dream job do you want in the future? I just finished my studies in college this July, and only attending to some requirements needed for the documents. I was amazed at how I reached this kind of personal achievement which actually went through different decisions and dreams that I envisioned before. My parents and relatives often asked me during my childhood about what career or job should I get in the future. It's a difficult question to answer for sure, especially since I am still a child with no idea how jobs or career works. Children only knows the general idea behind each job. When older people asked me what would I see myself in the next 15 years or so, ( I was around six years old that time) my answer would be **" I will become a pilot!".** Then they would ask me why. My answer would be because I wanted to travel the world and experience flying! It sounds like a fun profession, isn't it? After five years, back in grade school around fifth grade, there was a time when I had difficulty seeing what was written on the board. I asked my teacher if I can sit in front to see the notes from the board. My teacher moved beside me while standing and answered, " Why can't you see that from here? I can see it clearly from here where you are seated. If you are having a hard time, you must consult an eye doctor." she said. That made me feel nervous as I don't like my vision to get worse or else I need to wear specs. I told my mom about this after coming back home, and she said that we should schedule an eye exam the next day and thankfully got the glasses which helped me taking notes in class. But I am not a fan of having glasses as all because it is disruptive and annoying to wear at times. My mom and aunt told me about the dream of being a pilot someday, which requires perfect vision. Also they added that it is expensive to get into a good aeronautics school, so I should reconsider blah blah, something like that. That dream felt like impossible now. ***Being a pilot might not be for me at all...*** Confused and Clueless in High School? Around my third year in high school, we had a test that would determine what kind of career path and course we should choose in College. The test results told me that I am well-fitting for **linguistic, scientific, and psychology related careers**. I am still confused about what should I choose as my mind wasn't set into any choices. Then in fourth year high school the pressure I felt was incredible. Even in the first semester of the school year, most students are already set into applying for entrance exams in their chosen universities alongside their chosen career paths. Meanwhile I am still wondering what I really wanted to achieve, picturing the kind of life that looks ideal for me. That time, I went for **Psychology** since I wanted the kind of career where I can learn about the human mind, talk and help people suffering from their personal and mental health issues. Second semester came in and we have a very talkative Social Studies teacher who wants to dig into the life of her students. She suddenly asked the class to write an essay about the career path we have chosen for college. After submitting the paper, she skimmed through everyone's work while mentioning each one's content. As she saw mine, her face was full of shock and disapproval. She told me, **" Bryan, why did you choose this? You're smart and it will go to waste if you go with this."** I am considered as one of the best students in our class, consistently getting *hakot awards* (getting most of the awards and medals every recognition). That might be the reason why she told me that my potential is wasted. I have told the same career path thing to my mom and aunt and their sentiment was **" Are you going to earn from that? Please reconsider it.*****"*** That made me overthink a lot actually. Asking for Help and Guidance My father is a mechanical engineer and my uncle (his brother) is an electrical engineer. I approached them to ask for help regarding this situation. Both of them told me that engineering is hard for sure due to the math, engineering majors, and technical drawings. Since I am not good at drawing that time and hated it, I chose an engineering major that doesn't require complicated drawings. Also, I want a food or chemistry related major, which led me into considering chemical engineering. I told this to my parents and they even shared this to our extended family. They all approved, but I don't feel confident about it. I had lingering thoughts that time asking myself, "Is this career path really for me, or for my parents and relatives"? It seems that most of the inputs regarding my career choices came from the older people around me, while I am being clueless at all... ***to be continued*****...** **See you in the next one!** **If you wanted to know a bit about myself, let me show you** **my introduction****.** https://read.cash/@MegaKyodaiBanrai/today-is-the-best-time-for-me-to-get-started-i-guess-611f5015 **Image Sources:** **Lead Photo by* *Randy Tarampi* *on* *Unsplash* https://unsplash.com/@randytarampi?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText https://unsplash.com/s/photos/dream?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText * *Airplane by* *John McArthur* *on* *Unsplash* https://unsplash.com/@snowjam?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText https://unsplash.com/s/photos/airplane?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText * *Specs by* *Arun Prakash* *on* *Unsplash* https://unsplash.com/@its_arunprakash?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText https://unsplash.com/s/photos/specs?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText [#3] August 8, 2021

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 5 August 2021

Tyrone was Supposed to be our Dog, but a Stray Cat Took Over his Place! Tyrone, the Super-Hyper Dog Our cousin is a certified dog lover and their family currently has six dogs under their care. Last year around late October, their neighbor gave them two male puppies. One is named Tyrone and the other one was Jack. The pups are around 1 month old before they decided to be given to us. Our cousin lives around 15 km away from us and thankfully, they have their vehicle to go in our place. As they have entered our place, we happily met the two dogs. Choosing is tough because both of them have a good personality. In the end, we have chosen Tyrone because of his playful and fun personality. He is a cheerful doggo that has high energy levels throughout the day and never stops playing around. Our aunt has given us a 1-week period to decide when we are sure to keep him in. Within the week, we observed that he kept his playful personality but it got worse. He ate the slippers outside, destroyed some garden plants, and messed up with things at home. My mom became stressed out because of this and she decided to contact my aunt regarding the situation. After the call, our mom told us that Tyrone should be sent back because she understands that he needs other dog companions that might affect his behavior, and Chubs (our only cat at the time) is afraid of him. She stated that it was hard for us to let go of him due our bond even for a single week. Then the weekends came when Tyrone was finally sent back to his original home... Then, our Backyard Neighbor Saw a Stray Catto... My mom has a very generous friend that she often meets in the afternoon from the backyard. The day after Tyrone left us, they had a conversation that afternoon. Let's call her neighbor ate Elma. Ate Elma said that she saw a white, beautiful cat eating leftover foods in the cafeteria that she works from. She got concerned because that cat is looking ill with some sneezing and colds. The next day, she went back holding the kitty. As we saw the poor little one, our heart melted because it's cute, although his illness that made us feel worried. We hope that he will get well soon, while supporting him with vitamins that the vet gave him. Wondering what name we should give him, we went for Tyrone, as we missed that dog that we must let go of. Chubs were mad at him when they first met, but after 2 days, we saw them cuddling with one another. Like nothing happened at all. Months have passed, January came in, and Tyrone's illness persists. His bouts of sneezing gave him a hard time. He grew up a bit, thankfully but we were hoping that he won't suffer this long. After January came February, and thank goodness his health concerns passed already with our care. Mom Went Into an Online Shopping Spree Our mom started becoming an addict in online shopee-ing haha. Shopee is a trendy online shopping platform here because of the monthly deals like free shipping, cashback, and discounts. While she was scrolling her feed, she saw a shirt made for cats. It made her curious, of course and told us her plans about it and added it to the cart immediately. She bought four designs that are well-suited for Tyrone. The shirts are colored blue, red, green, and yellow. It reminds me of Christmas colors. Aside from the shirts, we also decided to buy a bed that looks comfortable with a freebie of a blue heart that acts like a pillow. He didn't like it at first as he kept ignoring it, but he felt good with it after some weeks. The shirts are often replaced every week. But there are times that he soils it very quickly, that in one afternoon, his shirt is full of mud and dirt after rolling outside. When we try to remove the shirts, he feels the need to wear one. It might be making him feel like having a comforter around. Weird Purrsonality Tyrone is playful, crazy, and acting like a hooman. Sometimes he sleeps with his back lying on a flat surface. And his loyalty is stronger than a dog especially when it comes to our mom. Everywhere we go, he follows. Sometimes we scold him when he gets too crazy with behavior and answer us with a cute meow. We can say that we are so thankful and lucky to have saved Tyrone out there. News came to us from ate Elma that Tyrone's brother got hit by a car outside. She was about to adopt him, but before she went back, his lifeless, crushed body scattered on the road. I can't take how sad and brutal that was. As we had numerous batches of cats before, there's no contest that Tyrone is the best one. That's why we take care of him so much and try to give him the best kind of living possible. We also had the superstition before that the cats who lived provide us financial and health guidance. So far, within the past 10 years of having them, we did not experience any severe crisis regarding health and finances, even if they take some share of the expenses for food and maintenance. We thought that they must be sharing us one of their nine lives too, haha. **And I guess that's it!** It was a pretty long read, but I am thankful if you read it up until the end. I wish that my cat's story made you smile for a bit or uplifted your spirits. See you in the next one! (*I saw Ateng staring in my window. I have to go check her out.*) ***[#2] published August 8, 2021***

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@MegaKyodaiBanrai 3 August 2021

Today is the Best Time For Me to Get Started , I Guess After countless invites and recommendations made by friends in noise.cash,  finally  I decided to jump into read.cash!  I had the intention to join when I first discovered this platform but I need to focus on finishing my research paper in school first, to gain lots of free time to write and do my other hobbies. Thankfully that research defense was successful and only a few steps needed for me to get out of college. Those friends that I knew who started writing here have excellent articles that I often read as they put up links there in noise, and it made me feel inspired to create my own. I am familiar with how read.cash works as well as how to write articles, though I might be missing something as there are obvious differences between the two sites. And this is also my first attempt to write a long blog to be honest! I guess I need to get out of that comfort zone to learn something new. **Why choose the username MegaKyodaiBanrai?** That username seems too long, but ever since I started joining socials and websites almost a year ago, I went with it. If I am going to explain the meaning behind it, that actually represents how much of a Pokémon geek/fan I am! Mega refers to the *Mega evolutions* while *Kyodai Banrai* is actually one of Pikachu’s signature moves in Japanese (It doesn’t necessarily mean that my favorite is Pikachu though) and I like the way it sounds. My current favorite mon is the ghost horse Spectrier. During the username creation process I wanted to create a rather unique one but still referencing my favorite ever since I was in my grade school years.  But my actual name is **Bryan**, and you can call me that instead of the obnoxiously long *MegaKyodaiBanrai* haha! But it's up to you, whatever you fancy. **What are the things that I would like to write about?** I enjoy writing about my personal experiences in life as well as the things that interest me such as my newfound hobbies like creating art and some photography.  As an *introvert* I am a quiet person when it comes to personal interactions, but my mind is just full of noise that this platform might be the perfect outlet, if need be. People often tell me that I don’t spill  lots of details when talking, but little did they know that I can write pages of a particular event or stuff, as long as my mind and body can handle doing it. The same goes with my wild and imaginative mind. Oftentimes I reflect daily about life and create fantasy worlds in mind and that will take some minutes or even hours before sleeping! Aside from that, I can share some things that might need an article-long read instead of the short paragraphs that I often post in noise.cash. **And why did I decide to join read.cash?** I actually enjoy reading and writing a lot, ever since childhood. During my grade school years, teachers tend to notice how good I am in both  reading and writing skills. It continued until high school when I became an associate editor in the school newspaper of both languages (English and Filipino). But my interest and hobbies in writing ended in college, as I chose engineering. Pretty much most of my time is invested in studies and resting  instead of writing.  With that, my writing skills might have stunted after almost 5 years of  hiatus. And now that I am just one step away from graduating from college and finally having the liberty of my own time, this might be the best opportunity  to go back and write again just like before. And of course, I can potentially gain new friends here that I can interact with just like with socials that I have joined. Sometimes people that we encounter as strangers first might become our best friends, especially if both of you were really meant to connect with one another with the same goals and mindset. Last but not the least is of course, to earn, HODL, redistribute, and learn more about BCH! After all, this is one of the goal of the people who own and sponsor this website. I am still quite illiterate when it comes to the big picture of crypto world. I am really thankful that such platforms exist. Not only can you showcase your experiences and skills, but also you get rewarded based on your efforts and interactions with other people. With that, I am looking forward to reading your articles here on read.cash and hopefully we’ll get to know each other better. Cheers and see you in my next article! **The lead image was my first acrylic pour, and it turned out unexpectedly great!*