Nothing much to update on the final day on 2018. I was charing my joy con for Switch for the small gathering. I wanted to buy Just Dance 2019 for Switch but sadly, I didn’t have time to do so.

I had my final tennis session with my buddies. Minul didn’t show up because he thought it was raining since he was caught in the rain at Gadong. See you all in 2019 😀

Day 7. YEESSS, I survived for a week so far. There has been any drastic change in my habits or feelings. I did feel lighter than usual in terms of not bothering about social media. It’s such an anti-climatic day since it was the final day of 2018. This was the day I started to slow reflect what has happened in 2018 and having that rewind button on your head can take a toll on me. Furthermore, I couldn’t rely my flashbacks by going through my IG feed. Hence, I had to jog my memory on my highlights of 2018.

I didn’t do much on the Day 7 but more preparing on a small gathering at my place. A simple one and a pretty last minute one. So let’s go quickly on my top picks or highlights of 2018.

1) Maggi Purge Challenge. The first ever challenge that changed my personality, fighting one of my biggest addiction – instant noodles. It has been more than a year now and I don’t even crave for Maggi 😀
2) My Nepal Trip. At first, I was skeptical because I have never been to Nepal and loads of uncertain thoughts in my head. It turned out the other way. I truly love Nepal especially Thamel and Pokhara. There are still cities I have yet to explore. The best travel trip so far this year and I will make my plans to go again in 2020.
3) Cuckoo Trip to Seoul. This was early in March with a bunch of social media friends and the local media. I really had a great time, visiting the Cuckoo factories and also sight seeing in Busan and Seoul. I think it was kudos to the ground handlers and also Hui Ting for taking care of us and the awesome hospitality since Day 1. I hope for another trip again to Seoul.
4) Grabbing a podium finish in Toastmasters. It was the first time I received a Toastmasters trophy at Area Level. After competing numerous times over a span of 4 years, I inched my way to the top three for both International Speech and Table Topics. Let’s see what this year brings for me.
5) _ _ E. I have known this friend for a few years already but it was only this year, things started to gel and we simply had a lot in common and interests. I know it’s cliche but you’re a gift to this wonderful friendship and bond we have. It’s a great reminder that to not take things for granted or lightly. For more adventures and excitement in 2019. Thank you for being such an amazing friend.
6) Social Media Purge. Of course!!! This is maybe the best highlight of 2018 and the toughest challenge to date. To not access Whatsapp, Facebook and most of all, Instagram. A few weeks ago, this was just a thought in my head if I could pull this off. Today, it’s a reality and I am very proud that I can do without social media. I shall be back soon.

So these are my quick bits on my highlights of 2018. Let’s hope for a much prosperous year ahead and Happy New Year to all my friends, families and readers. You all have been super awesome and thank you for reading my updates.

One of my favourite board games and even the newcomers love Werewolf

So we played Werewolf, Telestration and Cards Against Humanity

Thanks guys for coming last Monday

We had a bit of karaoke for some entertainment on New Year’s Eve

Sending off Derby who will continue her final year in Vancouver after completing her first two years in Melbourne University. All the best, Derby xx

Having guys talk over Jollibee. Now will these boys be “tested” one day? (Inside joke)

Day 5. I’m actually getting used to this haha. I feel freer and lighter at least. Temptations to be curious gets lesser and we normally kill the curiousity through social media or gossips. True or not? I’m a sucker for new information as it has become part of my job to know what’s going on in our community. With the ongoing purge, I’m beginning to see the other side of the spectrum. Do I like it? Yes. Will I change my perspective? Maybe yes, maybe no. It’s still early days but it’s kinda a good to have this kind of awareness.

Have I been eating a lot and napping lately? Not as much as the first two days and I’m kinda blending in with my daily routines. I still have the habit to carry my phone in my hand though this time, I hardly check my phone because of the absence of notification. I still anticipate for SMS though. Ah, speaking of SMS, it’s so different from Whatsapp. People then to reply slower on SMS as compared to Whatsapp. I would say 70% of them are slow repliers LOL. I am yet to determine why they would take their sweet time to reply through SMS.

I’m now 7 days away from the end of my social media purge. I have friends who have been very encouraging on my journey and it’s kinda ironic that some of them can’t even live without IG and Whatsapp for a day. Well, there’s a way to go about this. What you can do is build your purge through having shorter hours to begin with. Say, start with 4 hours without playing with your phone (in your waking hours, of course) and build it from there. Perhaps, that could be another challenge I might just take within this one week – not to touch my phone for a day. Hmmmmmm… Scary but that’s a different ball game to deal with.

Enjoy the 5th Day updates of my Social Media Purge journey. Adios.

I told Reuben about the recent awful Robin Hood movie starring Taron Egerton and I told him that I preferred Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves when I watched it as a kid. Reuben was right that back then that Prince of Thieves is cheesy after I rewatched it on HBO yesterday. But yea, it’s still way better than Robin Hood (2018).

Did you know Guardian has 22 outlets in Brunei? The 22nd one opened at Annajat Complex. Image taken by Azrol Azmi of Borneo Bulletin.

Cooking is therapeutic indeed. I went grocery shopping and here’s the menu for yesterday’s lunch

…. And I ended up cooking Chicken Garlic Tomato Rice. I love it 😀

It was stated in the news that it’s gonna be rainy in the next few days. I was supposed to play tennis but it rained.

After a grueling 96 hours, a winner was crowned for Brunei Film Blitz. Wan Amiurl Azizan Hj Ibrahim, won for his short film, Yang Hilang Akan Berganti (What is lost will be replaced) and he won himself a two-year Diploma in Screen and Media scholarship sponsored by Progresif. Image by Wardi Wasil from The Scoop. Click image to read full details.

The Gala Night hosted by Brunei Film Blitz with the Minister of Primary Resources and Tourism. Image by Wardi Wasil from The Scoop.

Behind the scenes at a wedding recently. The waiters were prepping before dinner at Mulia Hotel.

Congratulations Valen and Cristal on your wedding celebration

A unique wedding as I witnessed a traditional gesture. The bride side has Murut ethnicity.

Always a pleasure to video Ruby on stage. My favourite number was Versace on the Floor. Awesome!! And good job to The Sequence for lifting up the warm audience.

I was nervous when Arsenal broke the duck early in the game but Liverpool came back stronger and gunned off Arsenal 5-1 with a rare Firmino hat-trick. Liverpool lead the table by 7 points.

Day 5 status so far. Not bad.

I woke up early in the morning of Day 3 and headed off to give my blood sample of my routine health check. Let’s hope everything is fine and hopefully my cholesterol is lower than before.

Normally people say “Time flies fast”. Well, not for my case. Day 3 began and it was not as challenging as the first two days I must say. It still felt longer though and I have nine more days to go before I break the purge. Now, I did mention earlier that I was looking for distractions, positive ones, like reading or writing for a start. Well, I haven’t gone down that line just yet. Maybe in Day 5 or Day 6.

The temptations to play with my phone is still there. The most active apps I used are Football Manager, Words with Friends and some Zynga games and not forgetting SMS. I’m glad that I didn’t have the urge to check my IG and Whatsapp for that matter. I know it felt that I am missing out a lot of what’s going on in Brunei or those hot topics on group chats. Yea, aren’t we all addicted to those too? I will be lying if I should I’m not.

Sometimes I wonder if it will make a difference if I were to carry out the purge on a non-holiday season. I find it slightly less challenging at this period because most of us are in the holiday mood and not much work can’t be done anyway.

I bumped into a friend last night and she gave me some morale support on my #socialmediapurge (Thanks, Ida). She sees the benefit as we are all too caught up with social media and forgetting what’s in front of us. It’s good to see that this movement is raising awareness on how social media has impacted our daily lives.

Let’s see what Day 4 brings. Thank you once again for the support and encouragement.

This is truly a sad case and I hope the culprits will be dealt for. I am totally against animal cruelty.

Congratulations to Qurratu’aini Qayyimah for her solo expedition in the Himalayas. This is tough bucket list for me.

I have been catching news online and this was one of the headlines on the CNN app. With Brunei’s economic growth slightly down this year and with the recent oil plunge, year 2019 doesn’t look promising. Furthermore, there have been cries of unemployment here and there. There’s still hope indeed. It will be interesting how the upcoming LegCo in 2019.

How Day 3 looks like now on my social media folder

I had a short swim and did some laps. It was great to be in the pool again, relaxing and listening to music.

One thing I realised is that I don’t have to bring my power banks around as much because my phone life is quite healthy since I don’t use my social media which can take a lot of battery juice.

Pranika trying out the mochi from Japan. She loves the cinnamon ones. Yumm!!! We had Japanese dinner before heading off for a movie.

We took away some milk tea from Liho. It’s getting popular after its soft opening and I love the drinks too. My fav to go is the Avocado ones because they use real avocados and not the powder version.

People say “finder’s keeper”. I saw a dollar note on the toilet floor. I picked up and just left it by the basin. If it was a 1,000 note, will it be a different story? Hmmmm

I caught the Indonesian horror movie last night. My overall take – horrible. Why? Many reasons – the lead actress was really bad on screen. All the whiny laughs and her two-dimensional acting. Just terrible. Secondly the plot was just meh. Some scenes were really silly and illogical. The only redeeming factor are the home workers who brought comic relief on screen. The scares were also subdued. Verdict: 4/10 Pranika 3/10.

To detox after watching the totally crappy horror movie, I went on online and caught Upgrade movie which was released back in August. Wow, wow, wow!! I was totally impressed and if you thought Venom was cool, this is way cooler and I love the plot (original). It was humorous too for a much violent movie. This could be one of my honourable mentions for Top 10 movies of 2018. Verdict: 8.5/10

The #SocialMediaPurge that I have accepted for the next 12 days as my next challenge. You can still reach me on SMS, email and you can surely be updated through my blog.

DAY 1. Now it hasn’t been 24 hours yet and I’m already feeling weird and restless when I’m awake. My sleeping pattern totally changed. I’m still awake and it’s 4:15am. Maybe because I had a super long nap in the late afternoon that lasted 4 hours maybe (not a good way to nap and not recommended).

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it took a long hard decision to accept this challenge – #socialmediapurge – something I thought won’t be possible because half of my social media content relates with work. It is still possible if you can compromise and work your way around and the most important is to be mentally prepared.

The Maggi Purge was already a tough challenge where I have been addicted to Maggi Curry for more than 30 years and I treated it as my staple food. To simply cut the addiction wasn’t an easy task but I’m super glad I made the journey this far. It has been more than a year and I’m proud of it.

Now I have upped the game by challenging myself to a social media detox for 12 days which started from 12:00pm on 25th December 2018. Hence, I will be documenting my daily journey without social media and see what changes (internal and external) that I will go through.

A big thanks also to my friends who are also joining the #socialmediapurge for 3 days in supporting my cause. You can also give it a try and see how you feel about yourself. I’m sure you can do it. You just have to be mentally prepared.

Have you wondered how much time you spend on your phone? Just look at my stats which was a summary of my usage last week. Instagram has been part of my social media life and the stats shows how addicted I am.

I have shifted all my social media apps in a specific folder. The unread messages have been average. I shall only view them after the purge is over on 6th January 2019.

I did some shopping yesterday for my family friends’ children for the festive season. I also ended up receiving gifts from my friends too. Thanks Reuben, Allen, Fen, Ruey and Pranika for the gesture and the gifts. Thanks also to Nana for the lunch invitation. Love the food 😀

Awwwww… Thanks Pranika for this wonderful gift. Fitting to my current challenge indeed 😉

I spent too much time napping. Maybe I was tired from the night before or maybe I wasn’t use to not being able to access my social media, knowing that I still have access to my phone and wifi. Then again, I felt good after a good nap but I hope next time, it won’t be a long one as one of my aims of this purge is to make sure that I increase my productivity.

I spent time lazing in bed and caught some series and movies on Netflix. By the way, I caught Bird Box, Netflix original film, and I give it a 7. It had potential to be one of my Top 10 movies or even my honourable mentions. But it didn’t live up to my expectations.

Ah yes, I lazed too much in bed that I missed my dinner time. I had soto around 10:30pm and I kept munching here and there. Maybe it helped me to ease my withdrawals of this current purge and it has only been less than 12 hours.

Yay!! A good news though is that my friend is on the way back to Brunei. At least something to look forward in distracting my withdrawals. See you soon 😀

One of my friends joined the #socialmediapurge and this was her SMS tonight. Keep it up, my friend, and thanks for the support. It means a lot 😀

This was the state of my room at 1:00am and I was thinking to do something productive. I decided to clean up my room and I already had a long nap earlier in the day. So, why not? I purposely darkened the image so it won’t be an eye sore to you all :p

Yars!!! 50% done and I hope to continue tomorrow again. Shot taken at 4:10am today. Alright folks!! Time to head to bed..