September 2026 Updates

Hello! Tagal na since my last update. Ang daming nangyayari sa buhay hahaha 😆

I initially intended to post this yesterday, but life happened again and now I just wanna do a free flow type sesh while just noting all the things I wanna put in a quick update.

I’m also gonna add this in the weeknotes tag as well even if it’s technically a “it’s been a while since I last did this regularly” just for the sake of making it make sense if I go through my past posts 😛

Officially retired from events organizing

… for now? 😆 But yes lol

I did mention this in my previous post—and lol I said I’d write something in the few days after that but this took me a month to get back to—but it’s now a bit more official: I’ve stepped down as Friends of Figma, Manila¹ User Group Leader, technically effective around July 2026 but it was more formally processed August 2026 😆 The new leader is Jasmae Mino! 👏

We all met up at the start of September as a last hirit for me to hang out with the volunteers for one last time :)) Some of them technically also met each other for the first time in person (after collaborating online haha) so at least lahat na ng volunteers ko sa FoF Manila magkakakilala na 😆 Kaya niyo na yan friends! I can still try to help out kung sakali pero give chance to others na ‘ko dito haha

I’m still game to help my friends who are still in those communities if schedule and time permits, and to share events to my feed and to others as I have done in the past, but mostly I did this to generally take a break from actively organizing events in the local tech space.

Looking back, I was already either attending local tech meetups since 2016, and I vaguely remember already trying to help out in other events (like for UXPH) around 2017~2018. Whether I count those years or if I just consider the time when we first started FoF Manila—which, back in October 2018, was named Figma Philippines² and then renamed to Friends of Figma Philippines around 2020 when Figma made the community program a bit more official-feeling by lending a helping hand to those organizing communities around their platform—I have been organizing events in the local tech scene for around 8-9 years.

That’s a lot of years! 😅😆

I’m happy we got to do a buncha cool shit over the years and even got to know so many people through organizing events and community meetups. I’m thankful for all the connections and memories with the people I’ve gotten to know more over the years. 😊

But, as a lot of people who do this thing know, this gets tiring after a while and my interests and priorities have changed as I grew older 😅 lol basically sinasabi ko lang tumatanda na ako and kaya na ‘to ng mga mas nakakabata or mas may ambisyon sa mga ganitong bagay :))

To end this section, I’ll just add here some photos to remember the years that have gone by 😁 Some of these photos are just screencaps already uploaded in the FoF Manila chapter page, which technically I also uploaded in the past nyahaha

My current interests so far

I still have my thoughts on design and tech and the whole shebang sa industry, and if I do share it from time to time. But I don’t want to make this the only thing I write about, and honestly I don’t think that’s the main thing I’ve been writing about in my blog 😆 I mostly just either share some random code tidbits I encounter or just whatever is interesting to me at the time :))

That being said, I do wanna list them down somewhere. In order of when I remember them:

• kendo — Started this year January, and so far I enjoy each keiko! I will try to take the shinsa³ this October 2026, just so at least I am not kyu-less anymore 😆
• (frontend) coding — basically just me continuously making changes to this website and maybe making some side projects, since now I have the time to do so :))
• gaming — this has never gone away lmao but is now more enabled as we have a PS5 Pro at home, and I have Steam, and… yeah gets niyo na yun 😁
• bike commuting — been around 1 year since I got my trusty red foldie Gold Ship and I’d like to grow that number more since it will most likely be my forever bike ❤️
• drawing — wew this one I haven’t really done in a long while. I still have a bajillion notebooks lying around though, so I definitely will not run out of paper 😂 not sure if I’ll go back to digital art, as I currently don’t have any means (AKA a drawing tablet and I sold my iPad a few years ago) but when there’s a will, there’s a way! 😛
• writing(?) — basically what I do here where I write mostly to my future self and just bringing along others who may come across this post haha
• ice skating — I have my very own recreational skates, thanks to a friend! ⛸️ I haven’t really gone out to ice skate that much though since I got it, but mostly it’s due to schedule concerns and… I have yet to get myself to do this type of activity solo again haha
  • last time I did this on my own was 2019, and since then I’ve only really gone on the rink if I’m with a friend 🙈
• mahjong — Is there a point to listing this here? Well, it is still a game I very much would like to play with friends, and I have the means now AKA I bought a table that is at a friend’s house at the moment, and now I feel even more empowered to just gather 3 other people and play the day away 🤣
• anime and manga — also something that has never gone away since I started it :)) Dami dami kong binabasa at the moment and we’re also up-to-date with the latest anime season 😆 Ewan ko na lang if I’ll get around fixing the Manga and Anime list here in this blog as my attempt to write notes on memorable things I could look back to in the future, but I guess we shall just see 😝

Also recently got a fountain pen

… and this is my attempt to get back into writing in my hobonichi 5-year planner 😩 The past few months have been a woozy and whenever I do try to sit down and write some stuff, my hand gets tired quickly with my current writing habit.

I have been invited by other friends in the past to try using fountain pens, but it’s only recently when I decided to just go and get it. Initially I was a bit intimidated by the prices of fountain pens in general, tipong bakit ako gagastos sa mahal na bolpen pero after trying out another friend’s fountain pen, I’m going to take some time to see if using this helps with the ngawit I feel when I write.

Medyo mabigat rin kamay ko when I write, which contributes to me getting tired kaagad after writing stuff for maybe 2-3 days worth sa planner. And that’s just, what, maybe 5-7 lines? Nung ginamit ko na yung fountain pen kanina, konting effort lang may nasusulat na ako. I think that’s nice. I do feel like I’m unlearning and relearning how to write, though, kasi there’s some recommended way to write with a fountain pen and when I try to do that, it feels awkward for me as I’m so used to using my fingers and/or wrists instead of my whole arm 🙈 But I’ll see haha

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I’m gonna try to get back to posting updates weekly again, even if it’s just short, just to get back into the groove of things. I recently also felt the pressure again from the internal voice to “do well” in updating my blog… what the hell does that even mean haha but I guess that is something I still am actively working on with myself. :)) To just do my own thing, wag na ma stuck sa what ifs in my head 😆

That’s all for now! Balik na ako FFXIV hehe if ever you’re in the Meteor JP server, lemme know and maybe we can hang out for a bit in Eorzea~ Say hello to me as Arya Tsukino mehehe

Footnotes

1. I have mentioned this briefly in a previous post, but to expound further: FoF Manila was formerly known as Friends of Figma, Philippines. We rebranded following the Friends of Figma brand refresh that happened earlier this year. ↩

2. Technically not allowed to name it like this even before haha but the late 2010s in the Philippines were a time when I remember there were a lot of [insert tech language] Manila/Philippines groups that existed 😆 We were just following the general trend :)) ↩

3. Literally, “examination” in Japanese, based on what I searched. It’s basically the grading exam if you want to rank up in kendo. As Andy Fisher (7th Dan) said in his post about it: “[Shinsa] asks whether our Kendo itself is moving in the right direction.” ↩