So I’m back from New York, had the time of my life, ate plenty of food, and visited my future grad school. It was awesome, but the stories will have to come later on when I have more time to share photos and the numerous anecdotes collected during the trip. New York is now my favorite city in the world, and I’m looking forward to hopefully living there soon.

As soon as the plane touched Manila soil and I opened my phone, I found out my maternal grandmother, who helped bring me up as a kid, passed away while I was in flight. I had no idea because I was snoozing, eating, reading or watching movies up in the air, and even my boyfriend knew about it before I did. Life’s kind of funny like that, but hey, you can’t have it all. I’m just happy that Mama, as we called her, is now in a better place because she had been suffering intensely for years. Also, I’m glad that I saw her just before I left for New York, and even took a few photos.

I apologize to blog readers for the lack of updates—the moment I left the airport, I’ve been doing things nonstop for the wake and I still have to tend to my regular job (and holy cow, I left a lot of stuff to do because I went on vacation) and some stuff for grad school. I feel like such an adult now, far from how I was last week when I rode on the Central Park carousel. It’s all part of being twenteensomething, not all of it is fun; but I promise, more stories soon.