Travel

dali πŸ‡¨πŸ‡³ china travel diary (pt. 4 of 8)

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to do my travel blog posts in a more timely fashion, and today we are going to continue not doing that! (I’m completely kidding, I have no such resolution.) Today we’re in Dali (倧理), which is the city my grandparents are originally from and the medieval capital of the Bai kingdom, which is the ethnic minority my grandpa belongs to!! Thank u Wikipedia that was cool 2 kno!

My photos start at a restaurant, and I have not much to say about it other than there was a lot of food but unfortunately I wasn’t a huge fan, as this province, where my dad’s family is from, is one known for very spicy food; Yunnan is to the south of the Sichuan province, aka Szechuan aka spiciest fuckin’ food ever. I can’t handle my spice and am a disgrace to my family and ancestors, so u kno, I deserved to starve at this lunch.

We ate at this restaurant on our way to Dali with some childhood friends of my dad, and after eating went to visit their house. So that was a car nap for me and some games on the phone involving llamas (or maybe alpacas?) absorbing other llamas (possibly alpacas) to become the ultimate llama god. He’s sixteen. I don’t know what the kids are up to these days.

It was really interesting seeing my dad’s friend’s house! All of my family members live in apartments in the city, so this is the first time (in recent memory, at least) I’ve seen a house in China that’s quite a bit larger, with multiple floors and a bit of a yard.

I’m working on a cross stitch of a Van Gogh painting, so these framed huge cross stitches were really cool to see! Each floor had one of a different plant, but I liked these the most.

My dad’s friend’s son (lot of relationships to keep in mind lol) recently got married, so they still had decorations up from that πŸ™‚

& off we go again!! To Da Li for real πŸ™‚

We’re heeeeere! We unloaded at our hotel and set off in search of dinner. I was pretty tired and it was rather late, but my aunt and uncle are intense tourists and leave no time for silly things like rest when there’s shit to see and dishes to eat.

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Life & Ramblings

january ’19 // month in review

1. and we’re back !

The first month of 2019 is over, and we’re back in the swing of things – sort of not really it’s weird. My spring semester started in the middle, so I’ve been back to school/work/intern/real life stuff for a couple weeks now. And I’m, how do you say this, not doing gr8. I usually go through this the last few weeks of a semester, when I just feel a bit tired and my attitude regarding everything is ‘eh, can’t be bothered’ and I’m just not very good at getting stuff done. But this time around, I’ve started feeling that and it’s liiiike I’ve barely even started the semester?!? Wtf brain?? This should be my last semester at community college before I transfer out, and I hope I can help make it a good one – so hopefully this lil funk o’ mine doesn’t last too long.

Image Source: Amazon, The Verge, and YouTube

2. favorites

Charles and Rodrigo from The Final Table: We’ve been watching the Netflix cooking competition The Final Table, and although that show itself is not a favorite (we haven’t finished it yet because we’ve been sad/mad that all the POC and women have been eliminated, and that the countries they had to cook for didn’t include places like China or Thailand or Ethiopia or a Middle Eastern country, also the host is annoying and the uber dramatic lights are maddening), it did introduce me to Rodrigo Pacheco, an Ecuadorian chef, and Charles Michel, a French-Colombian traveling culinary artist. Which, I mean. That title?! Traveling culinary artist!?? Cannot get enough. Charles and Rodrigo’s dishes always featured indigenous ingredients and went deeper than food to art. I’m someone who mostly dislikes the concept of fine dining as something way too expensive, pretentious, and small (those portions could not feed a gnat well), but their ideas were so creative and meaningful. They thanked the sea for their ingredients and tried to convey emotions through their products and I was screaming at the TV when they got eliminated.

Quiet by Susan Cain: I read this while it was slow at work and finished it in (I think) less than a week. I couldn’t stop talking about it to literally everyone, so here I am to do so again! This book’s tagline is “the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking”, and it goes through the scientific basis for introversion/extroversion, the perceptions of both in US history, and psychology/neuroscience studies that support Cain’s argument that our extrovert-focused world misses out on a whole lot by devaluing introverts. I’m definitely an introvert and this book helped me see the value in not being as gregarious and loud as I’m ‘supposed’ to be in professional and personal situations, but even if I wasn’t so obviously introverted, this book is so interesting! It’s well researched but written very accessibly, and before you even know it you can explain what having a highly-reactive amygdala means or why Harvard Business School students are fucking up their annual mountaineering test. Ten out of ten could not recommend enough.

3. non-favorites

Tumblr banning NSFW content: I’m 21, so I’m what the old people might call a ‘digital native’, and I’ve had a Tumblr since I was fucking thirteen. I know it’s ridiculous how much time I’ve spent on that godforsaken website!! Tumblr was, of course, bought by Yahoo, and it’s been a frustrating platform for what feels like forever. In December Tumblr banned all NSFW content, which means no more sex acts, no more nudity, and no more “female-presenting nipples” to deal with the proliferation of child pornography and pornbots on the site. Cool cool cool cool, right? Totally good decision? I’ve spent so long on Tumblr and it feels a bit weird to say this, but it’s been a solid chunk of how I’ve developed in this life. I discovered so much stuff on Tumblr, from feminism to porn to fandoms I wrote fanfiction for (pls don’t @ me I will never share this) to studyblrs to in-depth Harry Potter meta essays to artists and bloggers I discovered seven goddamn years ago and am still following. There’s things I would definitely not prefer to see on that site, to be sure (RIP me the night I was looking at the Kung Fu Panda tag to try and find some fun trivia and instead saw a bunch of furry porn with Po and Tigress), but the ban on NSFW content makes what was a safe space for artists, sex workers, fandoms, and people just discovering what they like about “female-presenting nipples” into a barren shit hole. This site is going to die, it’s just a matter of how or when, but its parent company certainly isn’t helping things with decisions like this.

Terrible professors: One of the political science classes I’m taking this semester is a nightmare, and I have no qualms about passing judgment so quickly because I’ve heard terrible things about this professor and now I’m experiencing him 4 rl and THEY’RE ALL TRUE AND IT’S AWFUL. I’ve been lucky enough to escape truly awful professors so far, but this is a class that is a major requirement so I’m stuck here… And oh my god why do they have to exist? Why do there have to be professors who are unorganized, confusing, and about as engaging as a used floss string??

4. goals check in

At the end of December, I said I’d like to do three things by the end of January, so here I am, keeping myself accountable damn it.

  1. Clean my bedroom, esp. getting rid of clothes and furniture
  2. Fix my hoop earrings
  3. Exercise twice a week

On this first goal, I will say that I did a little less than an OK job. I’m a really messy person who doesn’t like to get rid of things (read: I am a hoarder in the making), like my parents and their parents before them, so combined we’ve got almost 300 years between us of being Marie Kondo’s worst nightmare. Taking that into account, every little helps, right? We have this room in our house which was my old bedroom, and we used it as a storage room for a lot of our shit while our renters were here. They’ve been gone for a long while, and we haven’t cleaned at alllll. I started cleaning it myself, but it’s really hard not getting really overwhelmed at the sight of piles of clothes and papers and assorted knick knacks from before I was born. I took 6 bags of clothes (from my mom and myself) to consign/donate, but I’m afraid I haven’t made progress on the furniture front. Mainly I’m just, like, how do u get rid of this huge desk??? My bed, desk, and storage unit were all from Ikea, and it was easy enough to get them in because we just took the box into my room and assembled them there. But how am I supposed to reverse that movement and get them out??

I did the second one though! I dropped my earrings off at a jewelry store literally four days ago when I remembered my monthly blog post thing, and I should be picking it up soonish. This took like thirty minutes and most of that was driving and finding a place to park, but it’s taken me so long to do. I’ve been meaning to do this for absolute months, and it’s one of those things that I’ve been putting off. I’m looking forward to having my everyday hoops back!

On the note of exercise, I did so a total of six times this month… which is a little less than ten, which was the goal (twice a week). I’ve never met a form of physical activity that I didn’t dislike heartily, but I hear it’s good for your health to move around and stuff.

All in all, pretty OK. Not perfect, but progress is progress. For February, here’s what I would like to do!

  1. Be done with my Common Application to apply for transfer to private schools (the deadline is March, but early March so I am shootin’ for sooner rather than later)
  2. Clean!!! (I know this is a redo of my January goal, but 4 rl this time. My specific goals are to a) Konmari fold all my clothes, b) go through my old school stuff and get rid of it, and c) just take care of 1 item of furniture oh my god pls)
  3. Plan my upcoming holidays (I’d like to visit colleges over spring break, and my dad has a business trip to Rome in the summer that I would l0o0oo0ve to tag along to)

Fingers crossed, y’all.

5. photos n more ~~

Before my bb brother left us for winter break, we all went to the SF MoMA – they had this really cool exhibit on Chinese art after 1989, but we got there too late and spent too long moseying around the rest of the museum to see this one properly. We got here just as they went “Attention! The museum is closing in thirty minutes!” over the loudspeakers and my bf and I looked at each other like 😦😦 before trying to dash around to get to it all. I don’t know enough about Chinese culture, art, and political thought, and the bits that we managed to see before the security guards were like ok seriously kids get out were so interesting. They even had the original of Ai Wei Wei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn which I wanted to spend forever gazing at. Afterwards, we went to this amazing Indian restaurant which I have completely forgotten the name of, and ate so much I had to unzip my jeans completely.

Wanted: a patron to buy me a fancy phone to take better portraits of Luna. A family friend took this photo with his phone and I AM IN AWE. My iPhone 6 comes nowhere near.

This is a cute pic which makes me look like a cute coffee drinkin’ gal but it’s all a fake bc my friend said ‘hey hold this and laugh u look cute!’ lol.

Same friend, different coffee date, still her coffee lol.

I painted a CLIF bar and a banana for my studyblr. It’s hard to art, y’all. It’s so hard for me to pick up a thing and start doing it because I’m always so scared of failure and ugliness and fucking up, but every time I just do the damn thing I’m like, hey! It’s not perfectly amazing at all, but it felt nice! It felt good! Groundbreaking, I know.

+ a few links:

A 30-year-old cat named Rubble from Exeter had a birthday party;

The question that illuminates the sexist discourse around the Bezos divorce: Will Jeff Bezos Get Half of MacKenzie Bezos’s Fortune in the Divorce?

A great Slate article on the fit-mom online phenomenon/community and how it’s just the latest in women being held to super rigid physical standards (Why do we love dad bods but abhor the slightest hint of flab on moms? Who carry the fucking baby for 9 months??)

Here’s to February, folks!

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Life & Ramblings

2018 πŸ’— a look back

We are a good couple weeks into 2019 and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it’s been a time of ~reflection~* and appreciation~** but here I am doing just that and adding my voice to the masses of possibly deluded people who believe that the next year will be life changing!!!! Last year I set 21 goals/resolutions/that kind of thing for myself in 7 areas, so I want to look back and see what happened with all those things I started the year wanting to do.

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Life & Ramblings

december 🌧 month in review

The year is over and it’s 2019! That means that I’m D O N E with this monthly series – sure, some of them were shit, and some of them I finished halfway through the next month, but I published one thing each month! I know there are people who post like 4 times a week, but this is good for me, OK? And I’m gonna keep doing it this year! The month of December was tiring. It’s the exhale at the end of the school year and the year year, and it felt like that scene in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where she’s like “Anything’s bearable if you count to 10!”

1. vancouver

Over the Christmas holiday, my family went to Vancouver! Now that my brother is away most of the year for school and I soon will be too (that day cannot come quick enough), my parents are very into ~whole family activities~ and wanted a winter holiday together.

I loved the city’s Art Gallery, which had exhibitions on Dana Claxton, a First Nations artist (above), and Guo Pei, a Chinese designer best known for this dress that Rihanna wore to the Met Gala a few years ago (below).

The city was real cool. I’m going to try and do a lil blog post on the trip, but honestly I was fucking tired. Usually when I travel and tourist I’m a little rabid about itineraries and I want to hit at least 4 places of interest in a day, but I was way off my game with this trip. We flew there three days after I ended finals week, and I was tired as shit. That’s a lesson learned, I guess – don’t schedule fun trips right after a brain-draining time, or else you will only make it to one (1) museum instead of the six (6) you wanted to. No one is more disappointed in me than me, honestly.

Lol OK bemoaning of my lack of energy aside, we also went to Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, which is where the feature image of this post is from! Tara Milk Tea on Instagram posted a ton of pictures of her trip there on Instagram and those really capture the ~spirit~* and sparkliness of it much more than mine.

2. goals check-in

Last month I decided I would broadcast my top 3 goals for the month out to my hypothetical blog readers and check back in to see how I did at the end. So I am doing that. I should probably also mention that I completely forgot about doing this and what goals I had until, like, two minutes ago when I skimmed my last month in review post. My December goals were to:

  1. End the fall semester with A’s in all 5 of my classes
  2. Do this beginner workout calendar from Blogilates
  3. Clean out my room, incl. getting rid of some furniture

I think I did #1, but I’m not entirely sure yet because final grades aren’t out quite yet. I’m mostly sure. I just don’t really want to say I’ve done it because I’m the kind of person to always fear something could’ve gone wrong and everything is ruined and I’ve brought dishonor on my family and cow etc. I’ve done absolutely none of the rest and I’m realizing that these were kind of unrealistic goals for a month where I was finishing school and doing finals for two and a half weeks and out of the country on holiday for another week… For January, I don’t actually begin my spring semester until the 21st, so my three tasks for this month will hopefully be a little more feasible:

  1. Clean out my room, with the main goals being getting rid of my old furniture and clothes (to charity stores or consigning them)
  2. Fix my hoop earrings, which I complained about in some month in review literally eons ago and have pointedly done nothing about (they’re similar to these and the top part that clicks on has fallen off, and I’m sure they should be easy to fix myself if I could only find out how)
  3. Exercise at least once a week, incl. going to the gym with my boyfriend, running outside by myself, doing some YouTube video workouts, or just walking around and getting that step count up

Fingers crossed I get at least two of these done! Or just part of all of them!

3. favorites

The Big Family Cooking Showdown: My bf and I finished this show this month and it’s amazing!!! It’s like our beloved Great British Bake-Off, only the judges are actually fun and not complete dicks (see: Paul Hollywood), and with cooking instead of baking. I love how British reality TV cooking shows feel so homey and cozy with the location, compared to the American ones which have smoke machines and dramatic lighting and everyone’s crying from stress lol. I also love the graphic design when they describe the dishes being made. Big fan of typefaces, as you know. Anyway, it’s available on Netflix and the second season can’t come soon enough for us!

Professors who are understanding when you spill water all over your laptop the week before finals: I spilled water on my laptop at the most inconvenient time – not that there is a convenient time to do so, but I feel like the week before final exams is o the worst end of the scale, no? It wasn’t as bad as it could be and I’m, u kno, thankful it happened after I submitted my UC application and only had one final paper to turn in for a professor who was very nice and understanding about my dumb mistake. Thank god for instructors who understand people are humans and some have terrible control over their limbs!!

Bb brudders: My bb brother goes to school in the UK so the holidays are the only time when I really get to see him. And it’s, you know, really nice. We’re quite close, and I’m not really close with my parents, so it’s such a relief to have someone in the house I call home who I really enjoy. The holiday season family dramz are taking their toll on me, if you couldn’t tell, and I am itching to move out.

4. non-favourites

My skin: My skin has been so bad this month. A big part of that probably has to do with finals week stress and the resulting not taking care of myself at all (as in, eating poorly, sleeping terribly, not washing my face, etc), so I know I only have myself to blame… but it’s so D: you guys. Why do skin problems have to be a thing?? Might I take care of it from the inside out if I swear off cheese??? Perhaps!! But I love cheese and am unwilling to deny myself that!!! Anyway, my skin had a period of time earlier this year when it was really fucking clear and that was such a nice time, and it’s funny how you don’t appreciate that shit until your skin feels like sandpaper.

Finals week: As mentioned in my skin grumbles, finals week was a thing in December and it was rough. The wildfires we had in Northern California meant we missed about a week and a half of instruction, and I think that fucked us all up a bit. My mind just felt a bit scrambled, as if it had gone onto holiday mode but then it was like owait we still have shit to do? And in less time?? AaaaaAAaGHhAh. My self-control was also incredibly shit and I spent so much time on Instagram and, like, didn’t floss and went to bed at 3AM for no good reason. I really need to work on taking care of myself while also getting shit done, and not doing the latter at the expense of the former.

This Aritzia belt that I fell in love with in Canada but cannot get: In Vancouver we went to Aritzia and I fell head over goddamn heels with this belt that the girl helping me was wearing, only to find out they didn’t have my size in stock. “That’s fine,” I thought to myself blissfully, “I’ll order it online and just deliver it to our home!” WHAT IGNORANCE. They don’t sell it anymore on the Aritzia US website! And I’m not allowed to ship from the Canadian website to a US address! Uuuguugh. If anyone is in Canada and willing to buy this and ship it to me, lmk lol.

5. more shit from my camera roll slash mind


A selfie in the Capitol building, in which I am a lowly unpaid intern. Heaves a great sigh.

LISTEN I know I do this thing every month but I TRULY believe everyone should watch The Good Place because these zodiac quotes are too good sometimes. Never have I felt so personally attacked by something. It’s great.

This lovely dog Kula comes into the restaurant I work in semi-often and I love her !!! She holds my hand!!

Some truly meaningful home decor at TJ Maxx. See also: sounds white but ok on FB.

One day I dream of having my house decorated for Christmas like this, but the cat looks like Luna!

She looks like a demon :’)

My Spotify recap did literally nothing for me lol because I like to play music for Luna when I’m out of the house so she doesn’t get bored. Literally everything on this (except for STRFKR, T Swizz, and Toro y Moi) is just that playlist for her. I think it’s hilarious.

Luna, wrapping herself up, bc she is the tru gift for us all !!

And to end, a wholesome Rudolph meme. A big goal of mine for 2019 is to be strong within myself and build up my sense of self-worth, and not be pushed over because I want to make someone else comfortable. Happy January 2019, and thanks for reading πŸ™‚

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Life & Ramblings

november 🍁 month in review

1. see u soon, 2019!!

Holy balls, y’all! It’s the last frigging month of 2018. My fall semester is three (3) weeks away from being done, and that means I’ll hopefully have just one last semester at this here community college before transferring to a 4-year school and graduating w/ a bachelor’s degree! I submitted my application to the University of California on the 30th, so I am washing my hands of that and trying to stop fretting about it until I hear back in the spring. So that leave me in the middle of four (4) papers/projects that I kept telling myself I would finish earlier so I wouldn’t be freaking out in the last weeks of the semester, but, well, here we are. I feel so close to the finish line of the semester and the year and my reward is Christmas (my favorite holiday), when my family is going to take a trip to sunny Vancouver! And just, you know, a wee break. I realize that could be construed to mean a pee break. I don’t mean that. I mean a small break.

Also, I think something that I want to start in my monthly blawg postz is a few goals for the next month (so this time, that’s December) and then in the next next month’s post (January) I’ll check back in and tell y’all how I did. Accountability via hypothetical Internet readers!

So here are my top 3 goals for December 2018:

  1. End the fall semester with A’s in all 5 of my class
  2. Do this ~beginner’s workout calendar from Blogilates
  3. Clean out my room, incl. selling my old bunk bed, desk, couch and getting rid of all the papers and homework assignments my family has kept since I was literally a fetus #hoarders

2. favorites

bestdressed on YouTube: Ashley came up on my recommended videos and I gave her a go and I’m straight up obsessed with her now. I do a lot of the ol’ watching of YT, scrolling through Instagram, and keeping up with that whole blogger/influencer world and a good bit of the people I first watched on YT no longer appeal to me so I’m really excited when I find new people who are talented, authentic, and funny, like this gurl~ She’s a film student at UCLA with great fucking style, her videos are so good and creative as well as well-edited, and she takes time to talk about sustainability in fashion and thrifting, which is always nice in a YT world full of hauls.

This hoodie from the Target kid’s section featuring cats reading books: As you can see, this is beautiful. It was, like, $10!! It’s a bit small for me, but they only had two left in the entire store, and the lady I asked said they were probably discontinuing it since she couldn’t find it online D: So I snatched it the fuck up and, I mean, guys. I have no idea why I was so mad about not growing taller when I was younger. Ya think 6’1 Amazonian supermodels could fit into this shit?!

The thrill of watching Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bring her whole self to Congress by Alexandra Kissinger for Vox: Idk if u heard but in November we had our US midterm elections and it was a wild ride!! The Republicans grew their Senate majority while Democrats took the House back and the most diverse freshman class of Congressmembers is coming the fuck in.

As a young Latina staffer, I hid who I was to fit in. Ocasio-Cortez is refusing to do that.

[…]

In 2018, this inspiring freshman class of women is redefining what it means to thrive in Washington. They’re not trying to pass as something they’re not or to act like they’ve been here before. And by sharing their experiences, in real and honest ways on social media, these women, many of whom represent historic firsts, are opening doors to help ensure they aren’t the last.

Alexa Kissinger

3. non-favorites

Everything happening at the US/Mexico border: There is this devastating clip John Oliver showed in his family separation segment where this little boy, Jenri, is lying in bed, sobbing, and he says to his mom “you don’t love me” (I linked to the whole thing bc I truly think the whole thing is worth watching, but that part starts at 15:23). And it’s, you know, one thing for us to have thoughts and disagreements on immigration policy in terms of national security, the economy, or the winning tactic for the Republican base, and it’s another to see the human impact of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy at the southern border. To think of removing young children from their parents in a foreign country, losing track of them, and then being like ‘w/e their fault for coming’, shows an incompetence and inhumanity that is sickening. Can you even imagine how devastatingly traumatic it would be to have that happen?

Something this guy said + my lackluster response: So, I’m in the polisci club at school, and we talk about things, and I sometimes get angry. This latest time it was this guy who tried to talk to me about how cultural appropriation isn’t real. How it went down was: Guy 1 brings up some internet drama where that white girl wore a Chinese qipao to prom. It’s an offhanded comment, and later on in our convo, I say something like “it’s like what Guy 1 said about that white girl’s cultural appropriation at prom!” AND THEN Guy 2 goes “pfft, I don’t know about that” and proceeds to say that 1) he’s half Asian, so as an Asian person, he doesn’t think I, as an Asian person, should take offense and 2) the Chinese Chinese people, you know, the real Chinese people living in actually China, thought it was great appreciation on Weibo and whatnot, so I, as a Chinese American person, should not. The second part of this non-favorite event is that I sputtered with indignation for a bit and responded that, first of all, people can have different opinions, and second of all, Chinese people living in China don’t understand Chinese/Asian American issues. The country I call home is built on the backs of racism against POC, including us Chinese. The country I call home didn’t want people like me to come here, to the point where the very first immigration restriction ever passed was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The country I call home is the home of my my memories of being bullied for how my eyes look or how ‘weird’ my food was. Chinese people living in China don’t live with that shit. AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT GUY 2 SAYS TO ME. He raises a slimy little Snape-like eyebrow and goes “oh, you’ve personally experienced stuff like that? The immigration act?” LIKE, YES, YOU ARMPIT. I WAS HERE IN 1882. Anyway long story short I left that meeting feeling awful. Some people who are conservative and love those ~crazy alt-right blogs that are just fucking the libs up~ are interesting to talk to in theory, and I know it’s important to do bc how can you make change otherwise, but in practice it just sort of drains your soul and you wonder how on earth some people can be so devoid of compassion, empathy, and ears. How did someone who is half Asian (he’s white passing btdubs so I never guessed or asked before) align himself more with the far-right and insist racism doesn’t exist? Is this my Bad Place??

4. camera roll~

The last week and a half of November was beautiful. Because of the smoke from the wildfires, where I live was rather dingy and smoky and grey for a while, but after the rain and wind came… Who says California doesn’t have seasons?? We’re a fucking autumn wonderland. (This is outside UC Davis’ library btdubz)

Christmas merch feat. dogs!!!! I wish I drank coffee so I could buy and use cute coffee mugs.

I put some stickers on my laptop! The ‘votes’ one is from the CA Secretary of State’s office, the ‘chill pills’ one is ban.do from a planner I bought and never actually used (turns out I dislike that planner format), and the peace sign and rainbow are from Glossier. I was a bit of a dumbass tho and put the vote sticker over the Apple logo, and it looks real cute when my laptop is closed, but the Apple logo lights up when it’s in use.. didn’t think that placement entirely thru πŸ€·πŸ»β€β™€οΈ

Things u can depend on ur mom for – taking cute pics of u. Things u can depend on urself for – being too dedicated to eating to look candidly cute :/

It was my mom’s birthday this month! My dad and brother were out of town, so she and I went to an art museum. We made some stuff and had a gander around.

Mm much art much focus. Is there anything so satisfying as making shit with your own two hands and having paint all over them afterwards?

A beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog I met!!! His name was Gus and he was huuuuuuge

Sometimes I think of the “canyon full of poo poo” line from The Good Place and start giggling in the middle of lecture or a library or some other inconvenient place like that that makes me look like a crazy person.

My baby girl went to the vet this month and was so brave!!!!!!!!

If anyone is around the Sacramento region, I discovered this cool music library called Musiclandria! I’m trying to do a big clean out of our house and donated my old violin (which I hated playing lol) to them.

I decided I really wanted a pair of black boots this month and this outfit is dreamz. Idk how she wasn’t freezing in NY with that though. A fur coat and Docs surely can’t be enough to make up for the mini skirt + crop top thing?

My boyfriend, who Luna likes more than she likes me, went away for a week for Thanksgiving, and Luna had no choice but to love me and cuddle with me.

I’ll leave you with this sweet sweet Chinese joke and no fifth bulletpoint bc like my brain is fried and I have so much schoolwork to do. Thanks 4 reading guys and see you next time for the last installment of this monthly series!!!!

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Travel

kunming πŸ‡¨πŸ‡³ china travel diary (pt. 3 of 8)

We are going to get right into this next segment of my summer travels without dwelling on the absolute eons that have passed since my last update. In this segment – hangin’ out w/ my bb brudder + my grandpa’s 80th birthday + a visit to my great-grandparents’ graves.

When we last checked in, we flew from Yinchuan to Kunming, which is the capital of the Yunnan province where my dad’s side of the family is from. It’s nicknamed the ‘spring city’ because of its agreeable weather, in that it “always feels like spring” and is not too cold and not too hot. That is absolute bullshit, as far as I’m concerned. Spring city my ass. That place gets COLD in the winter! I was way salty about that during my gap year when I spent time there. False advertising. Still a lovely place, but false advertising.

OK moving on clearly I’m still not over feeling victimized by weather 3 years ago

First things first after getting off a plane and setting your bags down – eating!! My grandparents and my aunt cooked this delicious table of food for us. Hot top if anyone’s ever in the Yunnan province, it’s known for its amazing wild mushrooms. There’s like a billion kinds, all are delicious, some are very expensive, and I could eat them forever.

My brother and I also wanted to eat rice noodles (η±³ηΊΏ/mixian), so we went to a lil shop outside my grandparents’ apartment to stuff our faces some more. One problem with Chinese food in China is that it’s really fucking spicy, especially in the southern provinces, and I can’t handle my spice. So I guess that’s the problem with me, huh? Anyway, that’s why my noodles broth is clear and my brother’s bowl is all red and yummy looking. (The underpants are a thing I saw and LOL’ed at, bc putting ‘greedy little bear’ on your genitals is an opportunity rife for sexual innuendo, and I’m not sure they were going for that.)

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