Hello there, Steemians!

I greet you warmly by the hand.

As for my first post, I owe you guys an introduction. Please dub me Nikki. Circa December '93, I exited out through my mum's V after a 9 month, all expense paid womb stay. As a second addition to the Gagno kids, my parents named me Nikki because my older brother's name is Nikko. Matchy matchy!

Not so fun fact: Being born in December means receiving just one present for both Christmas and birthday! #CapricornProblems

Usually with earphones on, sleepy face and squinted eyes due to the glaring sun, I hail and walk the streets of Cebu - Philippines' Queen City of the South.

My natural hair is wavy but just a year or two ago, my hair turned frizzy curly magically and no one knows how and why. And yes, I have googled why and it has always led me to cancer related diagnoses(Im pretty sure someone can relate lol).

Past vs Present hair:

One of my greatest frustration is not having a good enough nose bridge for my eyeglasses to have a tight grip on, all thanks to my deteriorating vision plus astigmatism. Has an anti slip been invented yet? Please do let me know ASAP. Haha. I suspect that I am still immensely unfamiliar with myself. Im lazy but I love to be busy. Tired but always on the go. Impatient but can wait forever. I got a lot of stuff going on in my mind but I always, always, find it a rough job to jot it down, especially when it includes documenting my exact feelings and thoughts. Which is why keeping a journal is difficult for me. I would often find myself staring at a page with a pen on my right hand, unsure of how to start and what to write.

I have the most adorable furball doggos, Oreo and Brazo, in the world- an unbiased, honest opinion from their human mom. Allow me to grace this post with their photos:

I believe theyre both more loved by my parents than I am because 99.9% of the time my parents would call, they would ask me how the dogs are, without even asking how I am. I then die a little inside

I've convinced myself of being a vampire in my past life because I could go on for days with only minimal hours of sleep. But I scratched that theory off because I have great love for garlic. Or maybe I was a vampire with an unusual palate for garlic flavored dishes who committed suicide to simply have a taste of the forbidden ingredient. Wait, what?

Traveling, like many others, is my favorite kind of escape from the busy city life. Be it at the beach with my toes buried in the sand, or at the mountains camping out gazing at stars shining bright as ever with barely any light pollution, or by the river, laying down, listening to the water as it streams down or simply being in my hammock outdoors, enjoying some breezy air. Thinking about it makes me want to go and pack some clothes already! And check every pocket for some change for transpo. Haha.

Back in 2015, when me and my housemates traveled to Camotes Island, we met Naida, a traveler from Catalan who decided to ditch all her plane tickets for other countries to stay and live here in the Philippines simply because she couldnt get enough. She quickly became a part of our family and she ended up living with us for a year! Whenever we travel, we make sure to mingle with other travelers for some good vibes over music and drinks. It led us to a lot of crazy times so I got interested and signed up for Couchsurfing. My housemates were a-okay and that was the beginning of hosting a lot of travelers, offering them a space in our home and our time for free! In total, Weve hosted 30+ travelers from different parts of the world and boy was it an awesome experience I dont mind taking again! Some were from New York, Japan, Hungary, Madagascar, Poland, Amsterdam to name a few.

Check out my Couchsurfing Account!

On another note.. Can someone sign me up for Spenders Anonymous? This bad habit of compulsive spending is becoming way out of hand. The voice in my head which urges me to purchase something with thoughts of someday using the item for a good cause is too convincing. So dont be surprised if Im broke most days(Currently has Sephora.com opened up on another tab)

There are a lot of things that puzzle me. One of which includes the longest unanswered mystery of my life: Why does a pair of some of my socks go missing?? Is there a secret cabinet in my house they find solace in?? Or is this some kind of a paranormal activity? Ghosts with a unique way of scaring people: let a pair go missing! Speaking of which though, I have been in some situations considered paranormal but lets not linger on that topic because Im writing this intro post at 1:53am.

Moving on..

Pet peeves! The list could go on and on but the topmost ones include tangled wires. UGH. They give me the most uncomfortable head aches and it usually wouldnt take long for me to go and seek someones help. Another is when people dont flush toilets! How hard is lifting a finger to push that button that flushes your stinky mess?! Also, Nicholas Sparks' movies, moms who talk about their child too much, people who dont say "thank you" and "please", undercover cops' terrible acting at grocery stores, popped collars, #NoFilter, people that stand as soon as the plane lands.. and like I said, the list could go on and on. This just reminded me of an app I downloaded weeks ago called Hater. It lets you meet people who shares the same intense distaste on certain peeves! LOL at this random plug. Haha.

What else can I say about me? This post is getting too long and I doubt if anyone's reached this far (if you have, comment down "tequila" for a free virtual tequila shot!!) so let me narrow down a few more not so interesting details about me in bullet points:

• I love to make a mess in the kitchen to create anything edible and digestable. With a mindset of not giving ayone the possibility of a numerous bathroom trip!
• Although I have tried being a new student in a new school more than 10 times, initiating a conversation first gives me high level anxiety
• Only a handful of people know my real name which I dislike a lot
• I am addicted to caffeine and I simply cannot live without rice! #TrueAsian #RiceIsLife
• "Ketchup" is my favorite word. I have chosen it back in 4th grade because I just like the way it sounds lol
• 95% of the time, you will see me wearing my black Dr Martens 1460 8 eye leather boot.
• As opposed to my normal, deep, manly tone of voice, my customer service voice is very friendly, perky and girly
• I am so used to people commenting about my chinky eyes. "Can you still see when you laugh?", "Are your eyes open?" The best one yet though, which has remained my favorite for a long time was "If I would surprise you, I will be using a dental floss as your blindfold". Beat that!
• What fuels me in trying to earn some cash? TRAVEL FUNDS!!! Need I explain more? Oh and food and liquor too.
• I find it waaay easier to make friends when drunk. Like most people, I turn into someone different after around 8 bottles of beer (Ive been told I have above average alcohol tolerance. And no, definitely not a good thing because youd end up spending more! And youd get more anesthesia shots than usual!). Haha. But I can handle my liquor well.. sometimess. Heheeee.
• I really have to cut this already so let me end this by saying Im a typical millenial whos into uploading so called IG worthy photos. Soo follow me in instagram? cue in drumroll for shameless plug its @dubmenikki Some photos I took:

P.S. Huge shoutout to my friend and now housemate @ellamielle for introducing Steemit to me! I now have a lot of entertaining posts to read through to kill some time!