A Few Things to Start Off the Journey

An ordinary person with extraordinary adventures.

Hello, Hive Community! 🙂

My name is Samantha (you may call me Sam for short) and I am from the Philippines. I created this space in an attempt to put all the good things in one place, thus, my blog name wholesamdiaries as in the "wholesome diaries". But before I go on and introduce myself, I would like to thank @patsitivity for helping me onboard here on Hive and Ninz from @lakwatserangthik for introducing me to this platform.

Alright, let's go! 😃

I suppose it's safe to start with the things that pique my interest; so let me begin with the thing I can't survive a day without – music! Definitely, I got my love for music from my parents. In my younger years, long before Spotify existed, our Sundays were filled with light rock music softly humming from the radio. Now, I honestly don't know how to listen to music in a non-obsessive way. As of writing, my favorite artists include Taylor Swift (!!!!!), Ed Sheeran, John Mayer, Kodaline, and NIKI. I also have my favorite local Filipino artists: Lourdes, Ben&Ben, munimuni, and Syd Hartha to name a few.

_{Photo taken during the Limasawa Tour at Ayala Center Cebu last 2019 - my first time to see and hear Ben&Ben perform live!}

Aside from music, I also love to read books. I can still remember the very first book I have read when I was about 12 years old. The story was about a rat falling in love with a princess. It sounds very silly, right? But I will never forget about it as it was the book that has taught me that all the impossible things are only those that you don't dare to dream about. winks

Anyway, if you are still reading up to this point, let me take this chance to tell you how the things I do became significant in my life. And above all, I hope to inspire you to pursue and create whatever causes revolutions in your heart.

Writing

Being part of our school paper and joining competitions in campus journalism since grade school, I was accustomed to technical writing. As I tried to explore different writing genres way back in my teenage years, I found out what I love doing the most – writing poetry/prose poetry.

_{Photo taken last 2019, during a leadership training that I co-organized. Many thoughts were popping in my head at that time so I decided to write them down on paper.}

I had my first blog way back in highschool, when I created an account on Tumblr. What I liked about the platform is that, you can write anonymously and most of my friends were not into it. Because at that time, I was more comfortable to write knowing that the people I know won't be able to read my writings.

Since I am the type of person who keeps everything to myself, writing has really helped me express myself and somehow release some burdensome feelings. When I started sharing my works, I’ve seen how they have affected other people’s lives positively. This is one of the reasons I continue to sew these words together.

Art

I grew up looking up to my father, who was a draftsman – a person who makes detailed technical plans or drawings. As soon as I started to learn how to write in my childhood days, I got interested in arts. I always tried to find time to imitate the drawings on my textbooks when I was 5 or 6 years old and even got an art award at the end of my 1st grade.

I owned a sketchbook full of animated characters from anime movies and manga in high school. But it is only in 2020 that I really took time and effort to enhance my skills and started doing digital arts. Later in 2021, I began working on traditional art (i.e., acrylic on canvass, gouache on fine art paper, etc.) and started accepting art commissions. I love to do landscape and scenery artworks the most! However, I am a work in progress and am still learning and experimenting on other art techniques on different media.

_{Some of my digital artworks and me on the center of the collage hihi.}

An unforgettable moment relating to art for me was when I asked my father to teach me how to draw. He answered me with these words, which I carry in my heart until now:

"The first thing to do is to observe and then, figure out how to do it. You have to learn it yourself."

These words only made sense now that I have grown up. The more I do art, the more I realize that it is something very personal, that no one else can teach you how to do it as each artwork is a piece of you that you decide to put out there.

Photography

In an attempt to collect all of the beautiful memories I have in life, I became fond of photography. To see beauty in the ordinary things is what I've learned from doing this hobby. My favorite subjects include nature, the sky, and people (especially strangers!) For me, there's an unexplainable beauty in capturing the unguarded nature of people you know nothing about and capture their most candid moments in the most unexpected way.

_{Photo snippets from my instagram account.}

What you can expect from my blog

Honestly, I don't plan on limiting my blog on one specific category since I write about almost anything and do a lot of things! To give you a preview on what you'll be reading from me, I've enumerated sub-categories for my writings (since I, too, like to organize what I'll be posting here 😅)

Life Log
I am a person who frequently reflects on anything life throws at me. I also like to write down special moments that happened in my existence so someday I could look back on them again and remember all the things that conspired to put me where I may be in the future.

Art Update
Did I say I do art? Oh yes I already did, ha! Anyway, I am a traditional artist who runs her art page on Instagram and Facebook. Aside from doing art itself, I also love to document my art process and talk about the things that inspired me to create the pieces. It would be very fun to talk about the stories and inspiration behind each artwork that I have made.

_{Some of my traditional artworks that I am proud of, and a happy Sam on the center of it all.}

Travel Zine
I love traveling very much. If only I had enough money to travel every week, I definitely would! Aside from seeing beautiful sceneries, traveling gives me a sense of freedom and it also allows me to open my mind on the different cultures of people from different places.

Food Junkie
Since I love traveling, what's a trip without trying the different tastes from the places I've visited, right? Usually, I like going to cafés and restaurants and of course, with the help of the internet, I am able to find places with good food and, mostly, with good ambiance, too!

_{A local coffee shop introduced to me by my cousin.}

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Alright, so I think this sums up all the things I'll be sharing to you as my introductory post. There's still a lot of things to know about me, so keep posted on my future blog posts! An upvote, comment, follow, and/or reblog will be highly appreciated.

Thank you very much for reading my first ever post here!! I'll take delight in writing for you again soon.

Love,
Sam ♡