YOU KNOW ME.

You have painted broad strokes of who I am: the girl in first place, the one who is first in line, and she who celebrates all other firsts. You suspect I?m that girl.

And I am. I am the girl who has a photo of her first plane ride, who wrote about her first contest, and who created a painting after a month of living on her own.

You know I?m a sucker for firsts.

I have finished five months of my Shanghai adventure. I could give you a list of all the firsts that have happened, but I would digress from what I want to really tell you. For the first time, allow me not to talk about my firsts. Instead, let?s take a second to talk about my seconds.

The last five months have allowed me to discover another interesting thing after firsts: seconds. Between the two, there is a fine line, one that separates and transforms the strangely foreign ?first time? into a surprisingly familiar ?second time.?

I decided to live by myself in Shanghai, which by any account I consider a feat in itself because shopping for groceries, cooking rice and doing the laundry are now tasks I have to do on my own. My commitment to doing these chores spells the difference between survival and non-survival. If I don?t do them, they don?t get done.

Groceries. The first time I went to the supermarket, I spent a small fortune to feed a hungry little girl, leaving the place with five big bags. For two weeks, most of the food lay untouched, and I was unable to shop again out of guilt since I still had too much food in stock. Suffice it to say that I learned my lesson the hard way: I was forced to eat the loaf of bread I foolishly thought could be consumed in a day, and to snack on the many chocolate bars I had picked up at random.

When I took my second trip to the supermarket, I was armed with a list and one bag to fill. Walking along the aisles, I already knew how much food I really needed for my tiny body, and the time it took for something to spoil. The second time around, I knew that the cooked chicken was a better choice than the beef stew, and that the number of cup noodles I needed should not be enough to feed a whole army. I learned to make a list and stick to it!

The once unfamiliar world of the supermarket became easier this time, and the fine line between the first and second time was crossed. Doing the groceries had started to become familiar.

Cooking. You can trust me to cook eggs and toast bread with cheese. You can trust me to open a can of sausages and boil instant noodles. You can call these things ?cooking,? but you would be too generous. Outside of those ?expert? cooking moves, I am a culinary klutz.

Rice was one of the first things I had to learn how to cook. Armed with a small sack of rice and measuring instruments, I did as I was told: wash, rinse, pour, measure, press button, wait. And wait, I did. The alarm went off and I opened the top to inspect my work. There it was: gloriously white and smelling of goodness, ready to eat with my meal.

Except it wasn?t. For fear that I would add too much water and turn rice into porridge, I had decided to put a little less. Result: burnt rice?and instant noodles for dinner that night.

A few days later, unfazed by the memory of burning rice, I tried again. Consulting my notes on the water and rice proportion, I repeated all the steps, closed the top, and clicked the button. As the alarm went off, I opened the lid to fearfully inspect my work. Gloriously white and ready to eat it was. Finally.

The once unfamiliar world of the rice cooker became easier this time, and the fine line between the first and second time was crossed. Cooking rice had started to become familiar.

Laundry. Out on my kitchen balcony is a washing machine, a world of detergent and spins, of light clothes and dark ones, and of rinses and water droplets. The washing machine was created to be as user-friendly as possible, with buttons that tell you the steps without having to think much about moving from one rinse to another. Everything would have been very simple if only the words on the buttons were not in Chinese.

I decided to do my first load on my own: light ones here, dark ones there. I was a diligent student when it came to understanding the laundry. I had already heard enough pink-sock-mixed-with-white-clothes stories to be careful about such things.

But no one warned me about tissues. More specifically, leaving tissues inside the pockets of jeans. You can sort all you want and have your load smelling dainty fresh, but one tissue can make your world crumble. Or your washing load. The tissue will break up into tiny white fur balls, stick on the surface of your denim jeans, and present you with a ?snowy surprise.?

A week later, I had to do the laundry again, with a fresh load of clothes to clean. Light ones here, dark ones there. And a thorough check inside all pockets for tissues. By the time my load was washed and rinsed, I was more than ready to call myself an expert as I lowered the clothesline and put my clothes out to dry.

The once unfamiliar world of the washing machine became easier this time, and the fine line between the first and second time was crossed. Doing the laundry had started to become familiar.

All this sounds superficially simple: supermarkets, rice cookers and washing machines. I should be talking about other things like philosophy, love and life when I bring out a topic like ?life?s seconds.? But I suppose there is beauty in the truth of something so simple. After all, seconds have the power to make the unfamiliar truly familiar.

Don?t get me wrong, I am still going through firsts, and of that I am thrilled?once a sucker, always a sucker for firsts. I spotlight life?s seconds now not only because I pity them for being pushed back to make way for the firsts, but because in hindsight these seemingly mundane seconds give us a glimpse of possible stability.

And that stability is all that I need to tell me that this once unfamiliar world of Shanghai, a foreign city one thousand miles from Manila, is starting to become home. It took all these seconds to show me that.

Here?s to life?s second times, and the ever-surprising quest of finding the familiar second in the once unfamiliar first.

Paint your broad strokes of me a second time around, because I am still that girl, but now with a penchant for discovering seconds.

Carmel Valencia, 27, works for a beauty company and is living out her Shanghai experience one story at a time.