When I was a kid I’ve been very curious of many things. My older cousin who used to babysit me have told me now that I’ve grown up that if there was a thing I would not run out when I was still a kid, it would be questions. She said I have so many questions about the people, and a lot of whyfors about things that revolved in my world. Why would I not ask, I saw other kids (my childhood cousins and friends) playing with their toys and have comfortable rooms while me, I struggled to sell cooked bananas on the streets under the heat of mid-day sun in the villages just to bring a little comfort to myself? I even massaged other people’s feet just to convince them to buy the food that I sell.

Now that I’m beginning to be capable to have the things I’ve missed in my childhood, I’ve decided to start making a change in my life by breaking a record that I would always remember and never forget. This week, after 21 years sleeping on the floor on a mat, I’ll finally have my own bedroom (hopefully)!

Last month was the advent of one the most busiest months I’ve ever experienced and will still experience since I decided to work at home last year. And I have some few gripes: I realized working at home isn’t necessarily be the most comfortable place of work — at least not for me. Unlike in the office, there is no air-conditioning here and temperature surges up to 35C in midday and 29C in nighttime. I’ve endured that for over 365 days while working at most 18 hours a day including weekends and holidays. And for all the efforts I exerted in the past months, I feel that I don’t deserve anymore to be sleeping on the floor. So, I’ve decided to use a good fraction of my pay to finish the rooms of our house — and I will call one of them as mine.

Here are the pictures of my room before it was worked on. This used to be our clothes room. No one sleeps here because there are lots of tiny, crawling and flying insects and large geckos you’d never want to know.

Here are the materials that were needed for the room work that I have paid. The sand and gravel is free (because my father’s siblings own a small quarry), the 10 bags of Holcim cement cost Php 2000 ($45 USD), and the labor is Php 3000 ($70 USD).

The partial completion results…

I’m not expecting the rooms shown in the pictures to be completed this month since I run out of budget for the paint. Would you like to sponsor a gallon? I also don’t have a bed yet, so I guess when the painting of my room’s walls is completed, I’ll sleep on the floor for a while.

In addition, I want to get an aircon too because I really needed one. However, the price is beyond my budget so I think I’ll earn and save for it. Heat has been one of my work adversaries since I worked at home because I sweat a lot when the temperature is high and it aggravates my hereditary, high androgen level-caused body acne. Good thing I earned some few bucks to have a dermatologist’s checkup last month (something I really wanted to do before but can’t afford) and the doctor recommended me to use Duac gel. Good thing I’m getting positive results from it.

I am still thinking what color to be painted on my room’s walls. I like a very light skyblue color, lime yellow-green or cream — so I’m tad bit in dilemma deciding which one looks best for me. I just can’t wait to occupy my room. At least I made a record and I can have the experience of having a room in my own family’s house before I go abroad one day — and the best thing is that it came from my hard work. Surely it would be worth another blog post once the room is fully complete!