Tag: Blog

Why A.D.D. became one of the reasons I write

At my current job we have training on the computer that’s anywhere from yearly to every few months just so we have knowledge to do our job to the best of our ability. Essentially, keeping up to date with work information. Recently, one of my supervisors asked why I didn’t finish all my training, and it was now time for me to clock out. Only finishing one of my four training programs. Sadly, I didn’t really have an answer only because I was a little hesitant to say why.

The truth is how do you tell someone in that situation about having A.D.D.? I mean I know quite a few people have it themselves but on top of that, I’m also a slow reader. Always have been. Seriously, how do you tell something like this as an excuse for why it takes longer to complete any similar types of tasks? Which I really don’t like to look at it as an excuse but more of a reasoning. So instead, I just kind of shrugged my shoulders with no words.

The thing is though, it’s who I am and just part of me being me that makes me read slow and have a difficult time paying attention to most things. And the reason I read slow is so I can understand the information and use it to help me and possibly others, which I have many times already. Honestly, with this particular situation I feel like a lot of my fellow colleagues would just skim through so they can get it done and over with. Thus, leading to not fully understanding how to do things properly or maybe even correctly. But good for them if they know what to do afterwards.

Me though, I’m just going to continue taking my time, and not just for this specifically. I already know I have this tendency to get around to things a little late. It took a whole pandemic for me to enjoy the craft of writing and pages after pages later… I started a blog. And this blog here lets me talk to you all, indirectly. But it’s a place where I can share my thoughts, my feelings and especially my experiences. And a bonus is giving you all insight on life and hoping you could take each moment with you that maybe bring value in some ways.

So, I’ll do my best to continue sharing my life with you, whether it be meaningful or playful. Even if it’s not all the time and I know it hasn’t been. But I’ll do what I can to try to be more consistent.

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Is a blackhole just one big giant butthole?

Think about it… well, go on. I don’t mind waiting… fine. Have it your way. I’m reminded of one of the greatest life changing experiences of film called The Matrix. There’s a scene where the Oracle tells Neo that, “Everything that has a beginning, has an end.” Apparently, I took that quite literally. The blackhole eats everything within its’ surrounding, but (no pun intended) everything it eats, it has to spit it back out… right? If us humans have a digestive system and we’re technically made out of star stuff, that means a blackhole is evidently similar. We all came from the big bang for starters.

So… maybe Interstellar isn’t far off. I know the belief/concept of blackholes is to destroy everything in its’ path. But when we eat, we poop. Living organisms by default. Is a blackhole a living organism in disguised?

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Current Events & Distractions

Since writing about the wildfires (which if I’m correct was my first current event topic), I’m reminded of being back in high school. I believe it might have been freshman year. It was a requirement to take this class (current events) and honestly, I have very little memory of it. No clue as to what I wrote about. The one thing I do remember is a classmate of mine who sat right across from me. She was constantly wearing low cut shirts, and I just could not help myself (maybe that’s two things that I remember from that class). Of course, I took a peek… or several. Thinking back, I’m almost certain she knew I was staring. I feel like women are really good at noticing when men look. If so, sorry Laura. But maybe it’s also flattering?

So… current events. What did I learn from way back when? Maybe that I’m just a dog that has not been neutered! Or that after everything that I’ve discussed so far about my childhood and growing up, it’s starting to make a lot of sense why my average GPA was so low. It’s good to have blood flowing thru the body but when it’s flowing only to the other head. I’m done.

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The effects of being in the middle of the wildfires (sort of)

For anyone who isn’t aware of what’s been going on in North America right now (besides the World Cup), specifically in several provinces of Canada and the midwest region and parts of the northeast US, we’ve had (and currently experiencing) one of the worst wildfires of recent. At least from my experience considering this is home. Living in the trenches of the pathway from the smoke definitely has its’ effect… and I’ve already felt it.

Over the past few years, Canadian wildfires seem to be a common thing. My first thought was, “how is this a thing? Canada is so much further north. It’s colder!” After doing a little bit of research, the rise in greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuel and other such human activities is the cause of climate change. Inevitably, this would lead to in this particular situation, wildfire.

Thursday evening overlooking part of the city (07/16/2026)
Friday afternoon just before the rain clouds coming in (07/17/2026)

July 16th, 2026

On this morning as I was heading into work, the moment I step foot outside I got a huge whiff of the smell. A lot of my colleagues described it as campfire. But this was a more toxic version of that. Where I live the air quality (AQI) reached as high as maybe 600 or just over. The weather app on our phones considered this not just unhealthy, but hazardous. The way the sky looked covered in such a thick haze made it feel surreal.

When you mix these all together, I was telling some family members of mine that this is probably what it feels like living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Sounds ridiculous but unless we make a drastic change, we could very well be headed that way. Deforestation amongst other things could take away our clean air.

So why is there no warning? I’ve had to do a deeper dive into this situation to find out how bad the air quality was in my area that tells me it’s best to stay indoors and do very little activity if possible. I get it, potential tornado warnings in our area sets off a sort of alarm on our phones, but not for this. It’s the air we breathe and it’s contaminated. I saw one too many individuals just going about their lives as if it’s nothing. Just from doing a trash run at work and what, I was only outside for barely 5 minutes, and it left my eyes and throat a bit itchy. I was spitting out my saliva quite a bit at one point and with hindsight, should have worn a mask.

Friday morning haze over the sun (07/17/2026)

The Next Day

Before heading to bed, the air quality alert was in effect until about noon Friday. But the morning of it all changed. As of right now, it’s been pushed back at least another 24 hours, which tells you the unpredictability of all this. The smell of the air was similar but less potent and same for the haziness of the sky. Seeing the sun through all the haze reminded us of that scene from Star Wars on Tatooine minus the multiple suns.

Besides that, we were still pretty busy at work. I was working in the drive thru for a little bit and did very little connecting with customers since I didn’t want to have the window open for too long. While I’m writing about this moment as it is very recent, the effects like I mentioned earlier was my eyes and just a little bit of itchiness from my throat. Just having to clear it every so often. Although it’s still early, I feel fine overall.

Friday afternoon wildfire haze (07/17/2026)

Business As Usual

What’s surprising to me yet not shocking to know is how everything went on as normal. Anyone in the delivery service continued on knowing they are constantly outside. No mask on most people. I suppose they are just building up their immune system or they really don’t care. I remember getting a tornado alert on my phone and being at home I was curious. Staring out my window of which I was essentially pressed up against as the storm approaches near, I would still see people just going about their day all nonchalant like.

It’s one thing to be a storm chaser, but this is something else and that’s just the way it is. Apart from covid, people don’t seem to be slowing down in life. It really is go go go. I’ll continue to adapt from this fast-paced world as I have been. But anything in my control, I’m just going to slow it down and stick to my own pace. I find comfort there.

Whatever happens, stay safe out there.

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It’s Just a Competition… Right?

“And the winner is…”. There I am, standing between 8 other competitors. As second and third place was already announced and I’m still waiting to hear if my name will be called. My heart starts beating faster and faster, despite already doing my presentation a while ago, my anxiety just suddenly kicked in without a moment’s notice. What’s about to happen? Is this my moment?

The Beginning

In my line of work, I’m a barista… but with a little extra flair. From all my past experiences and mistakes that I’ve made, I almost always tend to in a way evaluate myself and what I could do better or differently. In other words, I can be pretty hard on myself. And when I first started out as a barista, it was no different. I was not great, but it was also because I didn’t have enough experience from the work. Oftentimes I would be the one that just connects with customers more than anything else. As I finally began to put in more hours at work, I was given time to bar and make fancy lattes and whatnot. Eventually I got in a rhythm of my own and the speed progressed with it and now I’ve been considered dependable no matter what role I’m given. And that’s what it’s all about for me really.

The Competition

This year alone has been more about praising myself and acknowledging that it’s okay to mess things up or not beating myself up too much if I don’t stay on task. Like my bingo card, it’s actually a lot. I see it every day and have to know it’s more up there as a guide. I’m okay if I don’t complete everything I set out to. With that, I decided to take a chance on something new. I saw a posting within our company website about a barista championship competition. What’s funny is I didn’t notice this post until the very last day to sign up. So, I thought, “why not!?” Let’s try this out!

Overall, this competition has 5 levels you have to compete in, advancing from one level to the next. Let’s just say, if you found yourself at the very last level, you could be competing in front of potentially thousands of people on stage. Sounds nerve wrecking? It is, but I had no fear… at the time.

And Here We Go

The first level was going up against any other fellow barista within your café. However, in my situation, nobody else signed up. So… I moved on! By a technicality. And once my boss figured out what the next level was going to be, she helped me out every step of the way. Supporting me through it all to the very end. What we had to do was practice making latté art and work on connecting with the judges, making conversation.

I practiced so much leading up to that moment, and seriously there’s a whole science behind latté art and to this day, I feel like if I make a good latté art, it’s strictly out of coincidence and luck. When that time came, I was with my boss, her kids and a fellow colleague to cheer me on. When everything started, to me it felt like nothing was what I imagined it would be. Like one of those reality vs expectation type of situation. My heart was racing the entire time. I did not expect this feeling. My anxiety may have peaked more than I could imagine.

We were given 3 rounds and on the second round I felt like a ghost. I made no conversation whatsoever with any of the judges and knew this was it for me. My break in-between the final round I just told myself I would just tell my story of how I became a barista and did exactly that. Plus, my latte art in that last round looked like a mixture of the Michelin man and marshmallow man (accidentally).

At the end, when they announced the winner, I’ll admit I still accepted I had lost but deep down felt maybe there’s a chance. I still had hope. And then it happened, my name was announced and I just stood in silence for a moment not sure what had happened. I was moving on!

By celebrating, my boss took us all out for ice cream. I pooped later that night!

Let the Games Begin

In that last level, I found out I barely won. But I won which is all that matters. However, even for this next level, I still had the mindset to just do my best and to only focus on my own craft. That was not the case, just like that last level, I had conversations with other competitors leading up to the competition. Just a bunch of baristas from around the nation getting to know each other and a little bit about our stories, which I tend to be more fascinated by. In this particular competition, we had to do a coffee tasting. For that, you get to choose your coffee of choice and essentially describe its’ origin, history and talk about the flavors and what your story and reasoning for choosing it.

There’s 9 of us total and I was right in the middle of it all through random drawing from a hat. So, once we broke away and the competition began, there were 5 minutes interval between each competitor that was given 10 minutes to do their presentation. At the beginning I left those that came to support me, but only to the back of the café to run my presentation over again in my head. I really wanted to get it right and make sure everything flowed naturally. Typically, when I go thru these story tellings, I like to have a good transition from one topic to the next.

Honestly, everyone that I interacted with could not be more supportive and helpful. This was more than just a competition. After seeing how some of the other competitors did their presentation, it gave me an idea of how I would showcase mine. And before you know it, I went and did my thing. Overall, it felt like a solid performance. One of the competitors I talked to I actually helped him with just a few things here and there. Afterwards, he did his thing and ended up taking the bronze metal.

So, here we are… in front of 8 other people competing to move on to the semi-finals. And the winner… was not me. The room fell silent, at least in my head. I remember applauding the winner, but the feeling was seriously like something you see out of a movie or TV show. As I stood exactly right in-between the top 3 finishers giving each other high fives then when the winner held her hand out for a high five to me, honestly, I didn’t even realize she was doing it. Eventually I did. I didn’t leave her hanging.

Au Revoir

I studied; I practiced and kept working on my storytelling like I was rehearsing because the way that I saw this felt like it was a role and I didn’t get the part. Now, I will say I had about a solid 4 to 5 weeks to practice which I did a lot of studying but only until about a week prior, I started my story like it was my lines. There was a lot of information to know and remember, and I did the best I could, but you can only ask so much for someone with A.D.D.

When the top 3 were being announced, all I was hoping for was to be a part of that. To be on the podium. That’s why when second and third place was announced and I still haven’t heard my name; it really did feel nerve wrecking. And where does that leave me? After having some time to let it all sink in… I was sad. Maybe even depressed (but honestly for about a day and a half). Like to the point where I’m uncertain if I need cheering up or just to decompress what I went thru on this little journey.

Overall, I know I could have done better. Absolutely. What I was still trying to work on was fine tuning my craft. I believe the story telling was great but after a little more reflecting, I rushed myself and didn’t open up opportunities to connect with the judges as if they were just any other person. I know those that came out to support me let me know I did really well and thought I should have at least placed but these things happen. I’ll learn from it. But I told myself that this here was just a one-and-done type of competition just to see how far I’ve come. And honestly, I have come a long way. I’ll take this as a learning curve and will continue to better myself every day. For me.

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What Did I Want to Be Growing Up?

To some people, maybe their dreams stick with them throughout their childhood and into adulthood. Others, their dreams change constantly. Like me for example, what I wanted to do with my life was more about what was really going on in the world. Like what influence had a deeper effect on me. Let me break it down for you…

Michael Jordan

Oh yeah, the 90s was prime Jordan all the way. Watching the Bulls with my brothers was a whole experience in itself. From what I remember, if we weren’t watching the game we were playing it in the driveway. Oftentimes together but even when I was by myself or wanted to play, I would go out and make up scenarios in my mind to drive the experience playing basketball alone much more meaningful. I kept at it for a while… at least until the next big thing happened.

Tiger Woods and my uncle

Talk about revolutionizing the game of golf. Tiger was like a professional version of Happy Gilmore. The new wave of crowd and fans he brought in was surreal. It was shortly after his career blew up was about the same time my uncle introduced us all to the sport. I feel that with this particular game, everyone starts out terrible. I was no different. I used to get really upset the first few years of my golfing career. Eventually that changed (thank goodness), and I finally became a decent golfer. Which is why they say the game is mostly mental than physical, but it helps to have a good physique for the game.

This game however stuck around for me. I really did want to go pro, but I forgot to eat my vegetables during the crucial moments of my life and just stayed short and unworthy. But to this day golf still is one of my biggest passions in life.

The Hidden Reality?

Even while my childhood dreams continue to change, one thing that took a long while for me to notice was what didn’t change… cars. Fast cars. This realization that happened only just a few years ago made me wonder, “am I a professional racecar driver in disguised?”

Always was into cars growing up. For Christmas, I would get anything car stuff for the longest time. You know one of those electric racetracks that only require you to put your finger on the trigger. But if you press down all the way all the time, the car launches off the track. Like when Tim added more power to his car in Home Improvement. [insert grunting here]

Anyway, a little while after two crucial points hit: The Fast and the Furious released and my brother buying his first car and modifying it while I just watched him whenever I can on the weekends. I wouldn’t even say anything most of the time, if I heard him doing car work in the garage, I would stop anything I was doing and go out to see what he was working on next. This eventually would inspire me to do the same to my future first car. And I tell ya, if I could I would have never sold it because I was too lazy to look for a job to make money and instead went this route. Life choices.

With the Fast and Furious franchise (although they lost their way in the later films in my opinion), never knew how much my life would change. When that first movie released on DVD and my brother bought it, I watched it pretty much every day after school for who knows how long. It was my whole life for a while. And before I go deeper down this rabbit hole, I’ll save that story for another time.

For now, let’s say when I find myself driving down curved roads, I like to use the same line that professionals would use. I have this tendency to keep my speed up especially going on motorways but oftentimes I’m stuck behind drivers that will take almost any curved roads really slow… which I get. You’re being safe but the one downfall about that is you don’t accelerate fast enough getting on motorways where anyone already on it has to make these decisions they shouldn’t have to. “Oh man, do I slow down, speed up or merge over?” And if they can’t merge over from traffic, then they have to make a choice.

Me? I like to remove that choice for them. My style of driving is keeping everyone flowing smoothly (when they can). Now to be clear, I’m not weaving in and out of traffic or speeding like crazy. I go at what I’m comfortable with and stay out of the passing lane when possible. In theory, you would think this is pretty simple for anyone driving to manage but sadly it’s not… uhh, anyway I digress.

So, where was I?

I think it’s great that there are those out there who know what they want to do with their lives and stick it through. Here’s to hoping you enjoy it and that you’re living your life to the fullest. While I’m still figuring out mine, it’s just something that I can’t quite commit to. Only because I’m uncertain of what it is I want to do. Even today. To stick with one path and hoping it does work out. Maybe I’m just wired where I like to experience life one moment at a time and going with the flow. Someday maybe I will find what it is I’m looking for, but until then…

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Making Progress

Let’s talk about where I’ve been or what I’ve been up to these last… I don’t even know. The reason why I haven’t been posting. Instead of going into details about the what, I’d like to try something different, if I may.

A while back, when I started my blog, I wanted share with everyone stories and experiences of my life. Everything that I could remember that was worthy of sharing, no matter how silly or dumb it was, to possibly something relatable to you. Or at least something that got your attention about me and what I went through. The thing was, in the early stages of my writing, I would be all over the place. Wanting to write about so many different topics not necessarily having anything to do with my life (which isn’t a bad thing). And with that I had trouble completing what I would call my assignment. I wanted to write about everything that I forgot to write about anything. And that’s when I found myself struggling to produce anything valid.

It wasn’t until just recently that going back to the year that I decided to start a blog was a new life I had just created for myself. I carried the memories and all that with me but looked at my life from another point of view. I was changing. Evolving. Learning a lot on my own and rarely from others. And I don’t mean others teaching me a new skill or anything like that. But with life itself. I think most of us go through life learning on our own (at least for me), no matter how difficult it is. I have this tendency to learn the hard way, and not just from my past, but even to this day. Just not as often.

I’m not saying that I don’t like the man that I’ve become, because it got me to explore different jobs apart from what I’m used to. Eventually though, I landed a role that I really enjoy, even though it meant making less than a lot of my more recent jobs prior. Despite that, I haven’t felt this good about myself mentally in a while. But over this time period I have lost some friends from my little evolution, and every so often I do think about them. Others, not so much because I would develop trust issues with people. In the past year or so, I kept trying to explore down my past. Just remembering what made me the way that I was. How clumsy I used to be and how I would be a little too good with self-deprecation. It’s weird how much I miss those things about myself. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to. Guess that’s just part of evolution within ourselves as we age. Some things don’t change though, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

This year, I’m trying something new. From a big part and thank you to my niece, I made a bingo card. Just something I would like to see myself do more of or even trying something new. I figured because it’s on a literal piece of paper and I made sure to have it somewhere I could see it every day. This could be my motivation to actually want to do these things. And I’m trying! It’s slow but it’s progress.

And speaking of progress, that’s what counts. The effort to do something. Even though there’s a lot to conquer with this bingo card, I don’t expect to complete it fully. But I’ll be damned if I don’t at least give it a shot!

My Bingo Card that was made back in February.
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Love is Stronger than Hate

Truer words have never been spoken so well from such an icon. Of course, I’m referring to Bad Bunny. I agree completely with what he’s saying, even if I didn’t know what he was singing. But it doesn’t matter. I understood what he meant. And the storytelling in his performance alone could tell you that. I just wanted to add to this by saying that the reason I believe, as humanity, why we struggle so much with that is simply because we forget how to love. We have so much hate in our… loins! I don’t know. Just somewhere deep down that we let it become our persona, of which I’ve mentioned before how we hide behind a façade too often. But I really feel like that’s already changing!

Remember the movie Inside Out? Some people are “controlled” by a specific character that is a feeling/emotion and that just becomes their normal. Riley was a happy girl and I know it’s been a little while since I’ve seen the movie, but wasn’t her father the angry character?

So, who controls the helm inside yourself? Because where does hate get you in life? I get it though, sometimes life isn’t on your side. At least it can feel like that at times, whether it’s more often than not. But I honestly feel like it’s all about your mindset. Don’t pretend to show love. Express it! Feel it! Who knows? It can be contagious to others where they see it and genuinely become happier, and if you notice them experiencing it, could also make you happier. And at the end of it all, you forget why you hated in the first place.

From yours truly…

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The Right Title

When you’re making up your own story, which can be for a book, movie, or even a blog post, it’s never easy. Sometimes it can be a cinch, but lately for me, it’s been a struggle. No matter how simple or complex the story, I put in the research so I can make it right. The less voids/holes in the plot the better. Of course, it’s not going to be perfect.

However, once I have an idea of the story I’m going for and a little research later, I find myself going further down this sort of rabbit hole of a title. Could be simple or catchy, but I also want to make sure it isn’t copying anyone else’s which I find incredibly difficult (just because I don’t know how the world of copyright works and that it’s everywhere no matter what you do). And by this time, it’s almost impossible to come up with your own title that’s an original, unless of course you make up your own words. Like putting two words together, and somehow unfortunately for me, some made-up words I’ve looked up were also taken. Now I’m at a crossroad. But at this point, I think I’ve just accepted no matter what I decide to make my stories title, it’s my story, and no one else’s.

And that’s currently the story of my life lately…

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The Stress of Moving Out

It never really occurred to me why moving out can be so stressful… until now. One too many times I still find myself moving from place to place not thinking when will this temporary living situation be a bit more permanent. It’s been over 10 years now since I left home to what I would say be on my own, except I wasn’t for the most part. I at least had a roommate for most of that time. Only in the past few years was I officially on my own and sadly enough, I kept the empty boxes and added on to those boxes. Nothing has really ever felt like home since moving out. The older I get, the more responsibilities I seem to have and that time to enjoy life just kept getting smaller and smaller. Work from one of my previous employers burnt me out where I spent the next couple of years doing absolutely nothing. And now the time has come where I’m packing my things once again…

The reason for my move this time, and this is not an easy thing to say… but it’s money. If living paycheck to paycheck wasn’t bad enough, I had to deal with car problems on top of that. It was the latest issue that sealed the deal in my moving. Even though life hasn’t quite gone my way lately, I’m not mad about it. The way I see it, this is a new chapter in my life. Sometimes you have to take that step back before soaring forward through the skies (I know, that was a bit cheesy).

What makes this stressful is how even after I had to give my 30 days’ notice that I’m leaving my apartment, I still find myself not taking action. Hardly anything has been packed up and my 30 days are almost up. And I’m starting to feel it. But maybe it’s just because I’m tired of doing this so often, and so many times. And just like every other time, I do have items I tend to sell and donate.

This move will be quite painful for me. I may have to leave one of the jobs I work at, and I really do love it. I love the people I work with, and it’s been such a joy. You know you have it well when work doesn’t feel like work. And unless I’m willing to commute almost an hour just for a part-time job, I don’t know if that’s worth it. Especially with my car running the way it has been. Well, whatever I decide to do, no matter what happens, I will look at this as a new chapter in my journey. Life may not be easy, but I’ll be damned if I don’t get to live it!

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