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Hello!

Hello, hello!
So. Intro blog post.

My name's Patricia Valle and I live in the Philippines. Born in 1996, is a fresh college graduate from the University of Santo Tomas. As I am currently writing this, I am reviewing and preparing for the Psychometrician Board Exam on October. I am not enrolled in any review centers so it's all on me. Haha! In a few days, I will be going on a trip to Cavite with my extended family to go swimming (even though it has been officially the rainy season for a few days now). And then the week after, I will be going to Cebu for a week with my family. What the exact plans for the vacation is, I don't know. I just know we'll be there for a week. So. What is this blog for?

My first love is reading. I don't know when it started but I remember always reading and re-reading the fairytale books given to me and always loving the books gifted to me as a child. But I distinctly remember when I came to realize and when my love for reading and books became so evident. I was in the 5th grade when I found myself borrowing books all the time. Back then, we were only allowed to borrow three books for a maximum of a week. But I would go back and return the books 3 days after I borrowed them as I had already finished them. I was reading at least one book a day! I didn't find it particularly different until my friends told me it sometimes takes them the whole week if not more to finish just one book. By then, it had become routine for me to go to the library. I already knew where to look for the genres I enjoyed. Writing came soon after that. Reading other people's creations was so fascinating to me in that I also want to make my own and have people read and enjoy them. But I was shy. Showing what I wrote to other people scared me and although I joined our Journalism Club, I didn't get to publish anything until the end of the school year. And by then, I was still hesitant to have it published and have people at my school read it. But ever since then, I knew I would forever love and enjoy reading and writing.

But around that time as well, YouTube started becoming big. It was another platform for creators to showcase their creations, interests, hobbies and life. And so, I started getting into makeup. Yes, it was still around my 5th grade. I know. I was young. I used to only watch videos and never trying things on my own. But I eventually started with doing my hair. I became known as someone people can come to to do their hair. I remember trying out different ways to curl your hair with no heat. I'd wash my hair at night, put my hair in braids, use newspaper, socks and everything else I saw to make curls for my hair. I enjoyed doing it as my hair is stick straight and very black. I was a teenager. I wanted to try different things. There was also a time when I would wash my hair at night and wake up extra early just so I could do my hair. I used to curl my hair with a flat iron we rarely used that already had a chip on the ceramic iron. Yes, I eventually damaged my hair so much. I did not use any product to protect my hair and I used cheap hairsprays that made my hair dry and crunchy and my hands sticky.

Slowly, I started doing my makeup as well. I started with my brows. I used to do my brows without really having them shaped and plucked. And blending was non existent for me. In my head, blending wastes the product so I don't blend. You can imagine how that was. Oh, and I used an old eyeliner pencil my mom had. It was pure black. Yup. But can you blame me? I was only 13. I remember when we changed our Prefect of Discipline. She was a lot more strict and I was always late. I also remember how one time, her assistant noticed I had brows on and made me remove them. I felt so naked without them I actually cried. I tried not to show it but I felt so miserable. For me, make up was to make me look better. I had so many insecurities about myself. I have dark skin, I was fat, I have acne and I just wanted to look a bit better. Doing my hair and makeup was like a shield to me.

Fast forward to a few years and here I am. I still love makeup and doing hair. The makeup world also seems to boom recently. And I would attribute that to the internet, with the trends people start and the videos people put out of reviews and new products that they try. Makeup changed and advanced so much in just these few years. And I love it. I find so much joy in seeing how makeup has improved and is continuing to evolve and how people seem to enjoy it as well. I still love makeup so so much. It's no longer a shield to me. It has become a healthy interest and hobby. I no longer do makeup to hide what I think are my flaws but do it for the fun of it and for the art that it is. I've never been artistic and creative but with makeup, I like to believe I am. I love telling people about the makeup I saw, the makeup I tried and having them try it out and see for themselves. I've found so much joy in it. And although I'm a bit hesitant, I have decided to share and contribute my experiences to the place I learned it all from, the internet.

You might be wondering why I decided to take up Psychology in college and not something related to writing or cosmetics. I think I was heavily influenced by my younger sister in deciding what to go with. At the time, I was debating whether to go with Communication Arts or Psychology. And I only took entrance exams to two schools, UST and UP. To be honest, I only took the entrance exam for UP because my parents wanted me to. And I remember them telling me to just try it. If you don't know, University of the Philippines is the top school here in the Philippines. I think of it as the Philippine's equivalent of Harvard. UST would be considered another Ivy League school. In my head. A lot of my friends applied to at least two other schools. But UST was the only school that I saw myself fitting in. So I took the exam there stating Psychology as my first choice and Communication Arts as my second. I had already thought of which would give me more opportunities for work, which is Psychology, and made it my first choice. I passed the exam for both. So, how did my sister influence my final decision in which program to take? At the time, my sister started having panic attacks. None of us in the family has heard of any relative who experienced it as well. It was safe to say it scared us. My sister has always had poor health. So the first time it happened, we thought it was because of her anemia but the doctors did not find any physiological source of her signs and symptoms. So I thought, if I could learn more about her panic attacks and what it could mean, I could be of actual help to her. Over the years, my sister has less and less of her panic attacks and thankfully, it did not develop into a full disorder. But, that doesn't mean I chose Psychology wholly because of my sister. I have always found Psychology interesting, and thinking about it practically, it will offer me a lot of possibilities, it was just that last nudge that my sister gave me.

But something that I realized as my college days passed, is that as much as I find Psychology interesting, it's not it for me. At least, not the whole picture for me. My initial plan was to take up Masteral courses in Clinical or Counseling Psychology but halfway through college, I decided that I'm not going to push through with it. That's also the reason why, unlike most of my classmates, I decided not to find work as I review for the board exams. I decided to, in a way, go back to my roots. Which is writing. I told my parents and my friends that should I decide to find work, then I will. But not something that will require me to be contracted to stay at the company for more than three to four months. Why? Because we'll be migrating to the States early next year. And I want to take this opportunity to just rest and relax. I have been studying for most of my life and if you think about it, I'm still studying for the board exams. I'm not planning on mooching off my parents for the rest of my life, but I have always found myself trying to attain just one goal; find work so I can earn money. And I don't want that anymore. And to be honest, I don't know what exactly I want to do for the rest of my life. But that's a question I have always asked myself. This time, I'm going to do try to find an answer to that in an environment I am comfortable with, with the least amount of anxiety and stress, and an environment I can control and take charge of as much as I can. And this blog is part of that.

And so here we are! I hope you will enjoy and find what I share helpful and entertaining. Till my next post!

Pat

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