12/12/24

it wouldn't be an issue to have breaks when i don't feel like updating but it's that i'm always meaning to sit down and write but can't find the energy. let's all blame seasonal depression. once again a labor of love is still labor i guess.

in the moment so much seems to be happening and when things quiet down i forget and it feels like silence. how is it december already?? the months pass without waiting for me. doesn't help that the last few days my body clock is all messed up and i knock out after dinner and wake back up around 2am. secretly i love having a biphasic sleep schedule and squeezing my precious gremlin hours into my day even now that i work roughly 9-5 but it's so weird and inexplicable and un-adultlike that it makes me nervous. i should just enjoy it because 2am in all its peace and quiet is still my favorite time of the day. putting on some persona 5 osts to really set the mood and take me back to late nights in lockdown...

the two consistent things in my life have been 1) eczema lol and 2) playing bass - somehow and thankfully, playing is something that continues to be exciting and relaxing and something i can't wait to go home and do every single day. even when energy is nonexistent and my fingers are cold and i sound terrible it always puts me in a better mood. i'm not very good and i just learn and occasionally simplify basslines to songs i like and have a good time. though lately i've been wanting to get an electric guitar and relearn - i'm finding so many good resources on youtube that i didn't have when i was younger. this new itch (no pun intended re: eczema) came to me when i got to see porter's pop punk-inspired band versions of my favorite songs live, it was so life-changing. i'm planning to make a mini daytrip this weekend to check out a guitar shop and hopefully bring home a decent used telecaster! i think i like how there's few bells and whistles, and its used often in the j-rock subgenres i really like, one of my favorite j-rock songs is "telecaster stripe," and it looks a little quirky but still classic.

the other big thing was my trip to hk - i'll save my day-by-day recap for /pocket but it was much needed and maybe top 5 happiest i'd felt in a while. unfortunately also the most anxious i'd felt in a while, mostly around health things because there were more times than i'd have liked when i did not feel well and i was so afraid of passing out while alone in a foreign country on my new health insurance plan... NONETHELESS the positives far outweigh the troubles and i didn't faint or get sick. it was really healing, just as i'd imagined if not more, to spend freeform time in the motherland and see new things and treat myself to food and kind of embed myself in the city and see friends and family that i didn't realize how much i'd missed. it's almost funny how clichéd it seems but what i planned out as a solo trip ended up being way more about the people i met and reunited with than the solo part. "maybe the solo trip all along was the friends we made along the way" -type punchline. i think it was a perfect trip. it is a little hard to explain to people why i went solo when they ask "did you go for family? for the concert?" because well yes but no - i'm not going to explain to everyone the nuances of my complicated relationship to the motherland and its imperialist history, but maybe i'll write a whole journal entry about it later. but for the very personal reasons that i don't usually bother to explain this trip was really meaningful and fulfilling. also i consumed so much beef innards, and pastries, and coffee, very satisfied. i will go back just for beef innards i'm not even joking. i didn't even know i liked it that much but it just hit different

i think i had other things to rant about and be a hater and unpack some internal emotional baggage but now i'm just thinking about beef innards and want to wrap this up on a good note. stay warm and take care!

9/18/24

everything feels awkward and off-kilter today so i came here seeking someplace safe and comforting.. autumn has suddenly become imminent because starting this week i haven't been getting the nice morning sunlight in my room but just a cloudy haze instead and i've found it impossible to get out of bed or have the motivation to do anything without coffee and fear... being on neocities reminds me of the meme? twitter-viral tiktok screenshot? where someone asks for "advice for young girls to feel more confident" and op responds something along the lines of "i think you should all focus less on yourselves" because neocities shines when i actually take the time to browse and meander and stumble into the unknown of other people's websites than just endlessly clicking around my own website. i dunno.. everything feels so scary and sluggish today like there's a fog over my brain but i'm hoping it's just a transient astrological storm. astrology as a fun proxy for reminding myself it will get better in time

8/27/24

another low energy day.. alone-time activity of the day was crocheting and rewatching my mom's favorite movie for the first time as an adult and— wow we really are our parents' children lol.. it might also be my favorite movie now. also terrifying(?) peek into my mother's psyche. "love in a puff" — who woulda thunk a romcom could make me giggle and kick my feet for 1.5 hours which felt like 20 minutes. the slice of life -ness and hk -ness really struck a chord with me... maybe love is real... saw the perfect letterboxd review along the lines of "worst anti-smoking campaign ever" (DONT SMOKE YALL BTW) the english subs kinda suck but thankfully i understand 96% of the audio and 99% with both english and chinese subs on simultaneously lol — i'm planning a trip to hk and lowkey this makes me even more excited to be back

8/24/24

once again where did time go? some much happened and yet nothing happened. last month i was feeling manic over a bad spell of limerence until i realized it was just that and then as if the universe wanted to make sure i don't do anything stupid i caught covid and was stuck in bed for days while i should have been celebrating my birthday. i spent my birthday quarantining in my room and speedrunning 2020 lockdown by revisiting every hobby ever and feeling crazy. but i got to celebrate my birthday soon afterwards and thankfully by then i was healthy and normal and i had a good time. in fact i felt very loved by my friends, even though i'm still battling the feeling that it's more than i deserve. (i really should find a new therapist) then i saw my favorite kpop boy in concert - twice in fact, because i traveled to see his group at two different stops, because i am crazy grown and make my own money - and as manic as that was it was possibly the highlight of my year. for someone who usually gaslights away their emotions i was pleasantly surprised to find that i can still feel genuine albeit parasocial love. (dw though i would never be a stalker - i believe if i did anything that crossed the fan boundary that the parasocial contract would be broken and he wouldn't like me so i keep a healthy distance - in fact before the first concert he walked outside to say hi to fans and he was 5 feet away but i didn't rush him or scream his name because i'm not embarrassing like that lol) also the way the concert was so good i missed him for weeks and also had more trans thoughts than usual for weeks. that sums up july but i really don't know what happened for it to be almost the end of august already. i've been home a lot, or wanting to go home. i suspect it's depression and/or some mineral deficiency and/or my ongoing acclimation to the work life, but all of those sound still like a stretch to me. my mom says it's just aging, aka becoming a grumpy hag, aka prefrontal cortex fully developed, but i don't like that either because i don't feel any wiser and i never had my hot sexy twenties to justify the fastrak jump to grumpy hag. i just want to be liked and loved and have friends but i also don't want to go outside or talk to people. actually i don't know what i want, but maybe it's not about want and i actually just need therapy and iron and vitamin d. i need to figure out my new health insurance... anyways in the meantime if anyone needs anything from me i'll be home practicing bass and making amateur dj mixes, that's the hobby of the month special on the menu!

6/24/24

astrology is real... the other day someone who i'd never met but saw me dance during rehearsal told me i give off sailor jupiter vibes??? never watched sailor moon other than a sailor neptune and uranus compilation video but i'm literally a sagittarius rising and JUPITER RULES SAGITTARIUS what are the odds..!

the aforementioned dance project just finished up and i find myself in a quiet lull again - why is it that when things get busy i want everything to stop but when it does stop for even a moment i lose all momentum and feel frozen to the ground and wait for the next exciting thing. when will i learn to rest? did my eleven months of unemployment not teach me anything. the weather is nice out but why do i feel so restless. there's a knot in my stomach

6/20/24

i came online to write about several recent moments of experiencing real joy, but then i got distracted by the neocities screenshotter which seems to be behaving differently which led me down a rabbithole and the conclusion is fuck the siloed web and bring back 240p. let me explain... (briefly because i'm about to fall asleep)

in the y2k/analog revival we should be also be asking ourselves if we actually need all this data and throughput and performance that modern computing has us take for granted. the electricity still gotta come from somewhere! don't talk to me about cottagecore if you are paying for icloud! once i clean out my google drive and get a nice cd player i'll know peace and enlightenment. luckily in the meantime i was still able to experience happiness - eating fresh fruit, taking the train, playing music... it's a relief to remember i can feel joy

5/31/24

well it's still may somewhere in the world so here's a may entry.. before anything i say gets overtaken by the gay agenda ™️ for a month straight (ha ha)

as usual, music has been my everything - even when i feel hopelessly stupid and lonely i know i'm not a lost cause yet because i feel so blessed by all the wonderful music that i still have the joy of discovering. there's so much to love and so much to say, which is something i take pride in. i can usually pinpoint why i like the things i like, and in return each one holds up a silly-mirror to show me who i am. sidenote which is why when making small talk i love asking people about their niche interests that i know nothing about because i like watching the lights turn on and the gears turn in their faces. anyways here's what i've been looping and itching to blab about this month:

4/28/24

it's my first free weekend after starting work where i don't feel exhausted and it actually feels nice to be alive i don't feel the crushing weight of anxiety today this is so nice... sweet sweet inner peace and sunlight...

4/26/24

it feels like i just started work yesterday but its somehow almost been a month - its not easy but its going really smoothly! switching my sleep schedule to regular working hours was less terrible than i feared (except the few days i had to wake up at 6am for some zoom calls in another time zone, that fucked me up bad) and even the socializing has come pretty naturally, but then it all hits me at once every few days, when i get home and feel completely drained and have to sleep immediately. as kind of expected my worst enemy is still my own anxiety, the stupid voices that hound me wondering if i'm doing enough or if i'll get caught slacking, to the point of feeling physically unwell at times. or maybe just everything combined, the sleep schedule and the coffee and the eating out, is overwhelming my body. it's the weekend now and funnily i'm finding comfort and familiarity in staying up past midnight.

holistically everything is going well! anxiety is going to be a constant for the foreseeable future but at least shes on payroll! i definitely feel more confident and grounded than a few months ago but the unmoored feeling is still there if not more poignant. i guess at this age there are just so many ways to be that its hard to get validation externally that im doing it right. not that the uncertainty ever stops me from doing what i want, but its more confusion and then resentment? i get the sense from talking to some acquaintances that they find me kind of strange and unpredictable, with a hint of awe or envy. this weirds me out because like... i'm just doing as i please it's not that hard? don't glamorize the idea of me in your head? also as someone who was bullied or outcast for most of grade school (that was a long time ago, yes i know...) i feel intensely suspicious like oh suddenly yall like me? i'm gonna take a logical leap here and say i think this is the reason i resonated a lot with revolutionary girl utena, specifically in the way that this review of it (contains spoilers, you should watch it if you haven't) articulates really well - its not just that utena transgresses gender roles, but that she does so and does most things simply out of her unwavering belief in her principles. not that the principles aren't sometimes naive or misguided, but she has principles and she sticks to them irregardless of what the hivemind of her gossiping classmates is saying. the essay does a really good job contrasting utena with nanami, whose sense of self is entirely constructed by the perception of others. maybe its a little arrogant to say i think i'm the heroic protagonist... i recently rewatched the matrix after a long time, and for similar reasons i resonated with neo... these days every incel elon bro thinks they're neo but i swear i'm not like the others lmao - anyways now that i'm thinking about it i think i could write a whole essay on common themes between utena and matrix...

okay tangent to soapbox my thoughts on utena: my first and only watch was like eating a kale salad - i actually like the taste but god the chewing is just so much effort... i enjoy the humor and the themes but it only pays off once you power through the convuluted motifs and uncomfortable scenes and initial confusion. maybe a second watch will change my mind but its more fun to discourse about than to actually watch. but most reviews online that i found on google search, even those coming from a queer perspective, barely scratch the surface of utena's themes and don't do it justice (the essay i mentioned is the only satisfactory one i've found so far), so she's definitely not for everyone. inversely if you deeply resonated with utena please be my friend lol

there are so many things i want to do and ideas to draw and books to read but time and energy are so finite... i want to write more but i'm falling asleep so this is it for now, be back soon i hope :)

3/29/24

that was the maybe the longest 2 months has ever felt.. i thought i would catch up here earlier but the happenings just kept happening, for the better though - because it felt like i spent 6 weeks just interviewing everyday nonstop.. i was reaching a point of losing my mind because over and over asking me variations of the same things and repeating my scripted persona over and over again but it finally paid off because i got a job :') anxiety is a bitch.. it didn't feel real or celebratory even when i signed my contract because i was afraid something would pull the rug from under me.. (i like to joke that, i stan loona of course i'm wary of contracts lol) but once those feelings settled down my self-confidence and general happiness seemed to slowly return on its own - capitalism is also a bitch because just knowing that i'm employable and that i'll have a steady paycheck soon like magically fixed a lot of the knawing screaming kicking voices in my brain.

i'm downplaying it but actually i'm very happy! i got the role that i liked the most, i like the team and the managers and the vibe of the workplace. i even negotiated even though i was terrified but i wasn't about to get wage-gapped lol and it worked! the past two weeks, after signing and before i actually start work, have felt like breaking the surface and taking a breath of fresh air (i slept in guilt-free and finally cleaned the depression mess in my room) but not necessarily relaxing, since i'm trying to maximize finishing up all my chores and todos while i have this time and this burst of energy and before i enter the unknown waters of my new 9-to-5 life. i only recently realized that most of my career has been remote i.e on my laptop in my room wearing pajama pants, plus now i've been away for almost a year, so to go into the office feels almost like uncharted - or, well, just forgotten - territory. it's terrifying but i'm also excited because slightly terrifying things are good for you and it means new plotlines to come. also excited to be making money again! thats a whole genre of anxieties magically disappeared away, off my shoulders. i start work next week so i'm making the most of my weekend writing this update, hanging out with friends, and sleeping in, nothing crazy. it feels so sweet to be proud of myself for once, to feel like i worked hard and it paid off and i deserve this little two weeks to myself.

surprisingly and thankfully i'm not too worried about the work, i'm sure i'll be able to pick it up quickly and if not like that's their problem for evaluating and hiring me to do it lol - i'm more nervous about having to meet people and socialize in a work setting because i haven't done that substantially in practically years and my social anxiety won't shut up.. it's a little silly but in preparation i've been thinking about what hobbies i have and generating new ones so that i would have something easy to talk about and relate to people because i don't really want to bring up my parasocial photocard collecting LOL a friend suggested i talk about my art and vending but i find it difficult to talk about my zines and fanart (coherently and without exposing my hyperfixations) and make it relatable.. i've been playing octopath traveler 2 and watching final fantasy playthroughs but that feels a little too niche but its an idea. lately i've been studying japanese! i know the bare minimum fundamentals but since its hard to get myself to focus and study properly, i've just been brute-force copying and translating passages from my favorite comic books and magazines. but i found that some people think this is crazy even though it's what works for my brain, and also i would have to explain myself as a jpop-obsessed weeb... so the most presentable hobby i've gotten into lately is streaming hollywood blockbuster action films. i'm the type to get concerningly invested in movies so watching a good thriller will get me in my head for days afterwards, but a good ol' die hard movie with flashy chase scenes and big explosions is generally a good time. also it's my cinephile dad's second favorite genre (after war films) so in a funny way it feels like a taste of home. some of these films are honestly awful and make me feel like i didn't miss much by not having watched them earlier, but that's actually perfect because i can stay detached and not get too emotionally invested. at its core this is also just another silly passing hyperfixation, but dare i say i'm a little proud of myself for overcoming a weird little fear i've always had of watching movies. i'm pretty sure i'll drop this for another hobby soon enough, as i've rotated through quite a few in this past year of funemployment, but it has been fun nonetheless and i'm ready for the next chapter of whatever~

2/6/24

i've been meaning to write but each time one story arc seems to wrap up another immediately takes me by surprise. i feel like i've lived 10 filler arcs in this past month. (i was talking to some friends and we theorized that we are currently in the time skip because all our 2023's were so forgettable)

i hung out with some internet friends in person - i was nervous because sometimes having only a niche interest in common doesn't necessarily mean you'll click but it was so fun! i should've given them more credit in the first place since we actually have very similar personalities but i think the nerves was mostly just the all-consuming social anxiety of late. i'm grateful this hangout helped ease the anxiety a little.

went on a road trip with some close friends - it was a surprisingly heartwarming bonding experience of being in a car together for hours, absorbing each other's music tastes, getting stuck in a huge storm and improvising our plans, daily nintendo switch parallel play time, and sharing our family gossip and generational trauma. also just being out in nature - vast expanses that i don't really get to see near home - felt refreshing. it was almost comical how immediately i was hit with the urge to glow up and self improve the moment we got back. "touch grass" is real... the manic glow-up energy was nice for knocking out some long overdue chores while it lasted, but i think it did flip a switch in my head, kinda á la devil wears prada - as i'm preparing for job interviews i'm realizing my wardrobe would not cut it if i had to go into the office, actually a lot of my clothes have gotten worn out or are kind of unflattering. i think a part of me is still stuck in college and she needs to gtfo. i'm looking forward to taking myself shopping once i sign an offer letter...

...which doesn't exist yet. fortunately though, since my last few entries i've finally heard back and gotten some interviews, and they're going okay - not decisively good nor bad, which means everyday i'm on edge (picture a shaking chihuahua), just a millimeter away from teetering between desperate optimism and self-loathing. today was one of the self-loathing days because i didn't do great on today's interview. in the past i have felt not great about an interview but ended up passing it anyways, but each time in the moment i feel so absolutely certain i failed it. i felt so terrible i had to immediately crawl back into bed and sleep until a headache replaced any coherent thought i had. it worked i guess? i ended up packing up some photocard trades, which is kind of a therapeutic ritual for me - it's me-time but in obligation to someone else. funny how it's one of the few things to snap me out of a funk because it basically tricks me into what is essentially self-care.

also last month, i attended my childhood best friend's wedding, where i also reunited with my other childhood best friend (we were a slightly volatile but inseparable trio lol) and all 3 of our families - i was also super nervous for this because anxiety and having to meet people that are important to my best friend and needing to show face and follow wedding etiquette which is a mystery to me - but it was such a wonderful time :') it was hands-down the net happiest time i've ever experienced in my life. the amount of love and joy that i was surrounded by, it was impossible to turn down, that my anxieties were all washed out momentarily. also seeing my best friends grow so much but also be exactly the same... it's a comforting thought that some things are forever.

i went to a concert of another one of my all-time favorite kpop groups! a bunch of my irl and internet friends were there, it was like a big reunion. the music and their performances were immaculate, that's a given! they basically performed their whole discography starting from 2017, which i'd never even dreamed i would see live one day. i'm both crazy and completely serious when i say i felt so blessed to be there, and for the friends and fandom. also pizza and cola because that was especially delicious after all the screaming and jumping.

my art is in a rut lately, which seems to happen often enough that i should look into that - i think at the root it's the unease of being too inactive on social media (as a person but especially as an artist i hate social media so much). i don't have anything to show lately, and when i force myself to make something that i think people would like it doesn't come out to my liking. i think i need to go back to drawing "for myself" for a bit... there are so many things i want to be that i've forgotten how to be myself!

wish me luck! - feels like i've said this so many times and for so long that i almost feel like i'm milking the pity... i know this isn't how it works but i'm hoping that some of my sense of self will miraculously return once i'm employed. fundamentally i know that capitalism and the job market isn't an indicator of my self-worth but it sure feels like it! at this point i just desperately need the validation that i put in the work and made the right choices. glow up arc soon *fingers crossed*

1/6/24

(metaphorically) i ran home to write this diary entry — had an internally turbulent emotional shitstorm of a day but i successfully stopped myself from vaguetweeting about it so here i am instead. quietly thankful for the uber driver who talked to me about music which snapped me out of my spiral for a bit, i always feel like chance wholesome conversations with uber drivers or fellow passengers are a little prophetic. OH also we spotted two coyotes casually walking on the street and he drove up to take a closer look, possibly breaking a traffic law or two but it's chill. might write a journal garden about fun things i've learned from uber rides.

what fully snapped me out of it though was distracting myself by re-remembering that there was this beat on soundcloud i really liked that got released as song but the original beat with no vocals got taken down so i spent 2 hours looking for it (unsuccessfully). officially it's "homesick" by olnl ft. donggyoung, but the instrumental was a track called "osaka" uploaded by the producer hye sung on soundcloud — and it's just so good on its own, sorry olnl! it's so niche that i thought i hallucinated the title and that maybe it was actually "kyoto" until i found a single person on twitter (not me) who years ago had raved about how good the song is along with the now-broken link which confirmed for me i'm not crazy and it's "osaka" and it's deleted now. scoured some reddit threads and the wayback machine and poked around the soundcloud api but it's just too niche to have been archived. hmu if you happen to have an audio recording haha

1/2/24

for someone who doesn't really adhere to holiday rituals the new years always kinda terrifies me more than the others. it just seems so imperative to end and start a year on a "positive note" and "set the tone" so when it's not picture-perfect i get incredibly nervous. mixed feelings about this one, i spent it alone cozied up at home and on neocities, the place where i feel the most myself and comfortable. i probably wouldn't have it any other way since my health and energy are at record lows, but the stupid little voice in my head wonders if i should've put myself out there, step out of my comfort zone, etc etc. i think my body answered that by suddenly feeling so anxious yesterday that i could barely eat and stand, so i forcibly had to stay in bed and REST and watch youtube and HAVE A DECENT TIME. man what a concept.

12/20/23

11/29/23

time is literally a flat circle because why does this journal entry from february 2022 echo exactly how i feel lately...

life has been chugging along alright, things going pretty smoothly, but internally it's been really frustrating to mentally feel like my feet are frozen to the ground, like i'm stuck in sleep paralysis trying to yell and wave my arms but my body won't budge. [...] so yeah i guess i've been stressed out. it's weird because i somehow still have fun with friends and laugh at funny videos and get my shit done, but i also feel like i can't focus and i can't relax and i can't enjoy things deeply. it's kind of unsettling. the days pass by in a haze while i'm stuck in place unable to make anything out of it. i hope this passes once i'm all settled in. i don't have any healthy coping mechanisms to manage this at all!! my anxiety and my higher inner self fighting for the mic for my internal monologue (anxiety is winning)

i should feel a lot more touched by this but i'm not feeling it (or anything) right now, but today during my weekly work-trade shift at a local art gallery (a nice much-needed rhythm for getting out of the house these past few months) someone bought one of my zines and asked me to sign it??? they told me it made them laugh and honestly that means a lot to me. moments like these are literally why i make art. maybe i need to remember that more often.

11/13/23

time is a flat circle... everything comes and goes in ondulating cycles... i'm relieved to find my energy (i.e. will to get out of bed) has seemingly returned again. i had a nice weekend where i both got to chatter with online friends and gossip with close longtime friends which helped put me at ease and give me some clarity. one of the resulting realizations is that i should stop hesitating on whether or not to post/sell my niche fanart and just do it because people that share my interests and my values is really hard to come by and fanart is a means of finding community at its core. so i've been on a roll churning out drawings (that i'm actually proud of) on my ipad, to a point where i have a bit of hand and back pain... a labor of love is still labor after all...

11/5/23

i was going through another rough week mentally stuck in bed (and daylight savings is nawt helping at all) but today i finally saw a live set by one of my favorite artists ever and i think that emotionally fixed me up once again (will to live has been restored) — i know it sounds silly like that, but something about jumping to really fucking good music in a room with a bunch of weebs and gays made me feel something... makes me want to make art that can make people feel the way i felt jumping in the club. of course i'm still fighting the voices (that have gotten louder lately in the time i'm stuck in bed) that tell me i suck at it but at least the will to try is there. somehow music is always the thing that's there to catch me when i fall, as silly as it seems, but the silliness of it is also telling of the pureness of it... like if that's what will get me out of bed on bad days then i'll take it. lowkey wish i had a better ear so that i myself could make music but i think i'll stick to just making my shitty mashups and doing illustration lol

11/1/23

but the past is a funny thing... during one long phonecall with my mother i reminisced about my high school days and gloated a little about how i always followed my intuition where my classmates would halt in fear of breaking some nonexistent rules. it feels almost overindulgent to reminisce, for fear of having peaked then, but my mother pointed out, since you're good at it, couldn't you do it again now? a decade later i'm at the same crossroads, just looking a little different. i could really use a bit of high school me's fearlessness lately

9/21/23

august and half of september flew by once again! if only i could make it a better habit to write more frequently so that i don't feel like i'm writing the iliad each time i update.

the biggest update that sort of explains my absence here is i tabled at my first zine fest last weekend! in fact my first time tabling/vending since i sold handicrafts at my school holiday fair in middle school. the last few weeks were such a doozy of churning out designs and running between the print shop and the stationery store. not like that's a surprise, this kind of manic energy was exactly what i'd hoped for and it was a much needed bit of creative fuel. of course, at the expense of having some sleepless nights and becoming even more nocturnal but nothing crazy or even close to the stress levels i was experiencing in my last few months of work. i had a few moments of crushing anxiety and imposter syndrome around my art but i know it's part of the push and pull of growing as an artist. and the zine fest went incredibly well and my heart is so full! so many people stopped to look at my art and chat and buy stuff! people were interested in my ideas and would ask me about it? i met people who are also on neocities?? connections that don't typically happen on social media and that you start to forget about when you haven't touched grass in a while but are so precious and keep me going. i am itching to relive the high and prepare for the next vending opportunity but i need to take a quick breather and also the ideal event is harder to come by than i thought. the zine fest i tabled at was actually the perfect one to start me off, it was first-timer friendly and well-organized and super supportive. but then again the challenge is the fun! i just close my eyes and do stuff, which has worked out serendipitiously so far.

8/2/23

i say this every time to a point where it feels a little heartless but i've missed being here. finally another sweet lull in between periods of busy-busy when i feel like i have room for turning my thoughts into words. i'm trying to remember what kept me from here for the last 7 months and i'm relieved to find that life has indeed been happening rapidly and vividly (as opposed to the scary alternative, me and my life at a complete standstill)

• new year new work project that made me want to pull out my hair 60 hours a week for 3 months
• asia trip with college friends i hadn't seen in years! gets sick during the trip and takes weeks to recover afterward -_-
• the day after i have a late-night breakdown and cry about how stressful work is i get laid off! along with most of my team
• a much shorter/closer trip to see my best friend heals my psyche after the crazy month
• depression!
• another trip with friends to see some kpop boys, i relearn how to Have Fun stress-free
• doing a ton a dance cover projects, to a point where i and my body hate myself
• birthday! friends!
• get sick right after my birthday AGAIN >:(
• push my comfort zone going to art events and asking friends to hang out x_x
• try to make art but keep losing focus thanks to good ol imposter syndrome

overall i'm pretty optimistic though! everything is going according to "plan" like i had imagined a few years ago - work a few years, save some money, then loaf around and reconsider if i want to stay in that career path. of course it's not as cute and girlboss as i might have fantasized but i'm ticking every box. in this rest time i've also learned a lot about myself and the world with a closeness and softness that i feel like i didn't get to when i was working and mostly perpetually stressed. exploring places and meeting new and interesting people feels like when ffxiii finally opens up the open world map lol - anyways i'm glad to be back and i hope this time (this time knowing myself a bit better than before?) i can keep it up a little less infrequently ^^;

1/9/23

happy new year! i hope you had a restful and/or exciting new year, mine was unexpectedly both – i think this was the happiest new year i've ever spent, it makes me a little emotional to even consider that. been feeling kind of lost/unmotivated/stressed at work lately but other than that, december was really good to me – one of the highlights was i got to see my favorite kpop boy group sf9 up close in concert! maybe to some it's just another concert and not necessarily the flashiest one or most popular one but it was so special to me, to see them again after two long years, having grown and changed so much. the other highlight was definitely new years itself – i didn't cry this year! i got to spend it with one of my best friends from college and also some of the new friends i made this year. i feel equal parts relieved and sad that i'm in such a better state now than the last few new years.

and any thought of coming up with new years resolutions has slipped my mind, but it's not like i ever really believed in them anyways, as an infp. in a way i think my new years resolutions manifest on their own, based on how i feel about the year that just passed and also the first days of the new year setting the tone for the rest. not to pressure myself to spend these first few days picture-perfect, but i've spent them happily. i've been stuck at home thanks the heavy rain, cold recovery, and burn out, so i've been a confusing combination of a little depressed and really cozy, but it's been mostly happy and really healing to spend time by myself doing nothing really productive. like i manifested in my last entry indeed i baked canned croissants and ate all of them immediately it was great! i think the tone this sets for the new year is to live freely and happily and feel more grounded in myself.

i think this is on my mind because it hasn't been easy to feel that way. most days i don't feel like i'm living a proper adult life? for essentially a now-yuppie solidly in my mid twenties i feel some sort of pressure to have matching furniture and coordinated dinnerware and to host nice dinner parties where i socialize gracefully over expensive wine, but i have one cooking pot and totally mismatched plates and my cooking is inconsistent and improvised and i offer the occasional guest cheap sake in a mug. i'm happy and healthy like this so it shouldn't be a problem so i'm not sure why i feel so insecure. but i saw a tiktok lately that got me thinking: the gist of it was that vintage clothing becoming mainstream cool has diminished designer clothing's significance as a symbol of wealth, so the home is taking its place, i.e. the new signifier of wealth is to having the perfect home decor and associated lifestyle. this got me thinking about how my idealized concept of what my home should look like is probably pretty constructed and unrealistic. and i don't think i would live like that anyways, and i could if i really wanted to but i don't. my apartment is a little chaotic but it works and it's fun. even with my one pot one pan and one knife i have cooked up some really good multi-course meals for myself. it's also just fun and i feel like a wizard making magic potions! i still do feel like a child but maybe that is a wonderful sacred thing. if being an adult means sticking to banal rules and routines then i'd rather not. if being an adult means taking care of myself then i'm kind of doing it already :)

i have more thoughts about this year's so-called new years resolutions and about my love for sf9 but i am falling asleep so those will wait and probably end up in the journal. hope i'll be back online soon! i don't spend nearly as much time tending to this website as i'd like so i hope i'll rediscover that spark and energy.

12/3/22

its interesting to observe the seasons ebb and flow — the change in weather here isn't that drastic, and i guess daylights savings and the shorter days make it more tangible, but a shift i hadn't noticed before is the bustling energy and busy social schedules of the warmer seasons, versus more days spent quietly alone, cooking and cleaning and sitting with my thoughts since autumn began. its a shift that i hadn't noticed in the monotony of living in my parents house in the 'burbs, and after all it is my first winter since moving out. i'm enjoying this extra time being alone with no social plans much more than i expected, in fact i think it was much needed to balance out and recuperate from the hectic fun-packed summer, that it feels like a breath of fresh rain-soaked air. can't wait to bake some canned croissants and play some video games

11/20/22

how did another 5 months pass just like that? and a whole 8 months since i moved out. reading my old journal entries i remember clearly the person i was and the shit i was going through but it simultaneously feels so far away, because i've come so far and moved on and grown up so much in that time. looking back at these few months, i really am proud of myself. i had forgotten that i had this kind of strength inside of me. i don't need their approval as much anymore but my parents also acknowledged that i'm doing well on my own, which is satisfying

in the last 5 months since my last journal entry, i...

• turned another year older
• got two more tattoos
• traveled in a foreign with my friends
• traveled to new york city by myself, stayed in a hotel by myself
• figured out my vision insurance and booked an eye exam by myself
• made lots of new friends
• grew closer to old friends
• had friends try my cooking for the first time
• used the dishwasher for once
• experienced a lot of gender euphoria

i've been thinking about my art and what i wrote in my last journal entry about my website being a place for my saddest times— it's been frustrating to feel less productive in my artmaking, even though i know deep inside that it's equally unproductive to try to force it. i think i fear that the creative spurt i experienced in 2021 (while i was depressed lol) will never come back, but maybe that's not true because i think i just needed to grow in other ways before i come back to my website or my sketchbooks the way i did then. these last 8 months i've been so busy absosrbing new experiences and unlearning and learning wide-eyed like a child exploring the world, in contrast to my 2019~2021 when i felt so stagnant and stuck in place that the only way forward was inward. it is true that this website holds my saddest times - it's not necessarily a bad thing, but just like visiting my now dusty room in my parents' house, i feel the nostalgia creeping in with the threat of holding me back in the past. i've changed a decent amount since i started this website so i think it's due for a visual refresh to realign with my current stage in life. it's not going anywhere!! i just want something fresh to look at and (maybe more importantly) code that's cleaner and easier to maintain lol - with the cooler weather rolling in and holiday season approaching i seem to have a little more breathing room to spend time alone and reflect, so hopefully i'll have some time to work on slowly transforming this website. kind of like a long-due haircut

in my last entry in june i also talked about feeling unmoored— recently on a 2-hour phonecall with my friend i described my feelings of being unhinged since moving out and being independent, but my friend pointed out that what i was describing was actually me re-evaluating my moral compass for all my decision-making - this blew my mind because i realized that the tumult i'm feeling is still the aftershock of unlearning all the arbitrary rules and worldviews that were hammered as fact into my brain by my very opinionated parents. the freedom of being able to develop my own worldview feels almost wrong or illegal, a temporarily feeling of lawlessness as i started from scratch. but now that it's been a little over 8 months, i see the light at the end of the tunnel because of how much more grounded and comfortable making decisions for myself i feel now. i can see now that the unhinged feeling isn't something inherently wrong with me, it's just part of the recovery process from a significant (positive) life change.

6/15/22

i miss being here and updating my website regularly... it's nice to be able to sit down with my thoughts. i haven't been able to do that lately because life has been so busy? usually fun but work has also been largely on my mind. it feels a bit sad to say that i'm on here less because i'm happier and having fun, does that mean that this place holds all my saddest and worst times? i love my websites and i want this place to be a constant in my life but i just feel so unmoored lately, not enough of the stillness i need.

4/16/22

everything's been such a whirlwind that it's been tough just to find a quiet moment to sit and write. and now that i've put it off for so long there are so many things to tell you about! the big update is i finally moved to the city! without too much trouble or resistance, which is a blessing. i'm sharing a spacious place in a cute neighborhood with my friend and we've been getting along really well, and my parents like the setup too and helped me move without any weird attachment, and i saw my therapist a couple times to talk through the transition - everything's going so smoothly! the only jarring part is the major change of pace, from sleepytown to bustling city, friends and friends-of-friends hosting stuff seemingly every single day of the week and i just have to be able to say no sometimes because i know my body's limits. even though i'm a cityboy through and through, it's just expectedly taking me some time to readjust and build back my energy and my confidence.

it's so invigorating to be out here! it's kinda cheesy but today i got off work early to wander the neighborhood and get groceries, and everything and everyone was so nice to me. someone in a convertible had the top down and was blasting some oldies, and the pedestrian in front of me was dancing a little to the song. everything feels so fresh and bright. i'm remembering how hopeless i felt just a couple months ago and it's wild to see the contrast. i have a lot to be thankful for but also i'm just relieved that i somehow got out of a hole i didn't even realize i was in.

the other major shift has been the process of recovering my sense of self. taking care of myself and figuring out new rituals and habits have been a process, but this came more naturally than i thought. cooking and cleaning for myself is kinda fun and i don't dread it. the hard part has been relearning that i can take my body wherever i want and spend my time and money however i want. i can go outside and get on a bus and go watch a movie if i want. i can get a tattoo if i want. which is exactly what i did~ 1) everything everywhere all at once is a wonderful movie that made me laugh a lot and then cry my eyes out. never felt more read by a piece of media. 2) last time i checked my parents didn't like the idea of me getting a tattoo, but i've been pretty set on doing it once i had moved, as a treat for myself and with the hope that i would magically feel like i have finally agency. it's not exactly magical, but i love how it looks on me so much and that feeling easily overrides any doubt that i have. i'm still gonna wait on telling my parents though lol. life really is just an rpg game with endless choices and side quests! there's so many more exciting side quests that i've got going on, but i think that's enough words for today, so i'll tell you all about them later. i hope you're doing well, good night!

3/5/22

seeing the light at the end of the apartment search tunnel and almost instantaneously my focus at work, my optimism, my energy has returned?? like a cloud is lifted from in front of my eyes

3/1/22

new month new me? the sentiment from my mopey february entry lingers but things are moving forward and looking up whether i'm ready or not

2/15/22

it's almost strange how quickly the crushing pessimism from the last entry passed. the feeling of emptiness and not being able to feel deeply remains but i guess a bit of optimism returned to replace some of the void after i toured a couple apartments last weekend and got food with some friends. a glimpse at what's good and possible i guess. yesterday i went to the basketball court near my house to skate a little, it was really nice. i was really happy and the feeling lasted all day. paradoxically joy comes so easily sometimes.

2/12/22

it's only been 10 days since i wrote the last diary entry but it feels like an eternity. at the same time i feel like i wrote it yesterday. i can't tell if i feel like time is moving quickly or very slow. in previous entries i mentioned how it feels to come back to neocities after a week or two, but this definitely feels different from those times.

so yeah i guess i've been stressed out. it's weird because i somehow still have fun with friends and laugh at funny videos and get my shit done, but i also feel like i can't focus and i can't relax and i can't enjoy things deeply. it's kind of unsettling. the days pass by in a haze while i'm stuck in place unable to make anything out of it. i hope this passes once i'm all settled in. i don't have any healthy coping mechanisms to manage this at all!! my anxiety and my higher inner self fighting for the mic for my internal monologue (anxiety is winning)

i can't tell if i feel better after writing this out. i'm not so sure who i'm writing this for. this all sounds like i'm trying to justify something to someone, but what? who? myself? in theory it should be so easy for me to sign my own permission slip. what's stopping me?? okay it's getting late and my thoughts are wandering too far into the night

2/2/22

happy lunar new year! i hope you're doing well! i always wish i had more website updates and cool new ideas to share and to stay updated on my neocities feed, but i know it's unrealistic because i've been hitting my mental limits elsewhere and i want to be gentle on myself, i'm still learning not to view my creativity and my availability as endlessly milkable resources that i need to capitalize on. anyways... i think lately i've been nurturing my creativity in ways other than creating

an update on skateboarding: can't ollie yet but i've been making slow and steady progress cruising and practicing little tricks around my otherwise boring neighborhood. it's Absolutely Shocking (/s) how much my mental health improves each time i go outside and skate. i just hadn't found an activity that i actually enjoyed until now. also ironic that the flat and unremarkable suburban streets (where i hated taking walks because it's just... so boring...) have suddenly become a place i look forward to cruising through. i'm also enjoying the mental exercise of trying tricks that seem scary at first then practicing them to perfection. not enjoying the bruises so much, but actually i do enjoy feeling the most grounded in my mortal body since covid started. staying home almost all the time for 2 years was making me so out of touch with my body and so paranoid about the world outside, but maybe i think i can take it on again - a couple bruises is nothing.

work has been A Lot but somehow i've managed find slivers of time, usually right before i go to sleep, to read for fun. it's a little embarrassing but my idea of fun is non-fiction about mushrooms/architecture/cybernetics. not necessarily all at once lol - these are so nerdy but i actually stay glued and absorb the content?? it's actually fun to... learn?? college was fun but learning mostly wasn't, so this is a welcome discovery. architecture in particular is really cool because i think i've always taken an interest in spaces/places, and i think there's a lot of overlaps with the web ("online spaces") that can inform my future web projects. tbd!

my other update is, i've been talking about it for forever now but i'm getting closer and closer to moving out. i'm feeling nervous as fuck but still optimistic, maybe i could see this as one of the ways i'm nurturing my creative self. i know it sounds a little backwards but i forget to take care of myself for the sake of taking care of myself, whereas "self-preservation and personal growth so that i can make cool things and experience happiness" actually feels more tangible to me lol so that's what i'm doing!

things are looking up but doesn't mean i won't have shit mental health days, but if january is an indicator my 2022 will be far from being stale and stagnant, which is the one thing i truly fear, oh my god. i can't wait to tell you about all the cool things i see and do this year :)

1/16/22

i finally have a moment to (mentally) sit down and write after two (mentally?) eventful weeks. it's only the 16th day of january! hopefully the unpredictability means an opportunity for change because i felt so stagnant these last two years. anyways -

moving out is still very much on my mind. i still go through phases of excitement and inaction but with the added clarity of the new year (placebo maybe) and some arguments and conversations these couple weeks it feels yet more real. i decided that i really need encouragement, rather than purely reacting to feeling unbearably suffocated. so i made a little page to remind myself to manifest good things and take action, because it's way too easy to get comfortable or feel hopeless. right now it only has photos from pinterest, but i think it would be more meaningful to include my own photos, a reminder of good times i had in the past that i can seek out in the future.

the next eventful thing was i went snowboarding for the first time! right before the trip i was so irrationally nervous, even though i knew most people and everyone had made sure to test negative or otherwise stay home. i think it's the combination of covid anxiety (not wanting to catch/spread it as well as the social anxiety of fearing others would judge me for going on a trip) and my anxiety about any physical activity and social anxiety and - i'm convinced the pandemic has broken my brain: these last two years i barely leave the house once a week, and now i often feel so overwhelmed doing shit that used to be easy, like driving or taking the train or interacting with the cashier at the store... anyways that's not really the point of the story, although things weren't as bad as i feared once we headed out. the places we went were either outdoors or not very crowded so i felt safer (we drove, no airplanes). i was also really worried about being somewhere cold because my wardrobe is not optimized for snow at all, but it wasn't that bad and i survived! and i socialized and talked to people!

and the big one: snowboarding wasn't disastrous and actually really fun! we didn't have a lot of time but i figured out falling leaf and the feeling was amazing. i who suck at pretty much every sport was pleasantly surprised at my (very modest) progress. i think i know where i can improve (i.e. not doing falling leaf lol) so i'm kind of excited wondering when i'll ever go snowboarding again. that then got me thinking about the one time i tried skateboarding, how the vibe of cruising around felt similar, how good i felt when i figured it out pretty quickly. after the trip i had a fucking stressful week at work so i coped by watching a lot of snowboard and skateboard videos and tbh kinda fantasizing about it. so yesterday i got a (really pretty) board from the closest skateshop and started learning! my fantasies were quickly brought back to earth when i fell on my ass in the first 10 minutes and my board rolled down the street lol so today i took building my foundations more seriously and it was still really fun! progress feels simultaneously slow and fast, but this brings to mind back when i was starting out in color guard: the first week was so hellishly frustrating (i remember crying on day 3), but by the second or third week i was actually catching some tosses... guess time (PRACTICE) will tell :')

my notes last week on why i want to skateboard

• make suburbia fun again, while i'm here
• i like the statement of reclaiming public space
• health / exercise / leave the house
• appeasing my inner child, another in a series of doing things my younger self wanted to do
• feel less afraid, undo my quarantine anxiety
• the fun of continuously learning a new skill
• finally i can tell people my hobby instead of trying to explain my web stuff or my shitty soundcloud
• it looks fucking cool

maybe 2022 is shaping up to be kind of interesting at least. maybe i'm actually a little excited to see where it will take me. it's a little scary but i'll take this over feeling helplessly stagnant and empty any day.

1/1/22

happy new year! generally i try not to put too much weight on mostly arbitrary holidays and rituals, but nonetheless i hope you and i and everyone has a good one. i'm trying really hard to not put any inflated expectations for things in the new year to magically improve, but i had a quick cry right after midnight because i think i still held onto some expectations until i faced the reality that everything is basically the same. then after that i binged s1 of my hero academia until 6am, so truly nothing has changed but at the same time i'm making progress on my new years "resolutions" to watch more anime and live shamelessly lol

not really looking forward to going back to work and my multiple deadlines but also looking forward to the new wjsn chocome song coming out soon and to watching more anime (fyi i've been using this open-source command line tool to watch anime on my laptop it has improved my quality of life significantly lol)

12/30/21

hope you're having a restful holiday season :) soon i will separately post a 2021 lookback and reflect on my not-resolutions from the start of the year, but for now here's my more short-sighted thoughts. lately, the bad: feeling stuck at home during the holidays, pessimism and existential crises from the state of omicron and climate change, belated guilt for going to a concert earlier this month, sad to possibly skip the concert in january, unsure whether i like my haircut and then spiraling into gender panic. the less bad: finally exercising again, picking up my bass again for fun, worked some sewing machine magic to alter some clothes i got online, successfully cooked most of christmas dinner by myself, playing some new video games and watching some anime, so glad i took plenty of time off work to reset my brain.

12/19/21

feeling a little better since the last entry because my work project seems to be wrapping up and i'm getting closer and closer to my week off but... can't help but feel a sense of doom as omicron rages on and it seems like no one (besides a minority of the most concerned and the most affected) is doing anything about it. my resolve to move out and start living my life is getting stronger, but... in this economy??

12/8/21

i sense another pessimistic diary entry coming up, because work has been beating my ass. which i feel like it shouldn't, because my gut tells me i was making steady progress throughout despite the roadblocks and unexpected setbacks but man it was so difficult and it feels so bad. that plus the social anxiety makes me feel really bad to 1) tell my team that i missed my time estimates and 2) meet and warm up to the new people joining our team lately and soon. that shit literally causing me to lose sleep and making my skin break out. thankfully i mostly solved it last night (4am? this morning?) and i feel noticeably better than yesterday, though i still feel so worn down, wrung out. and like... seeing myself like this, my higher self looking at my sleep-deprived earthly self with undereye circles, is kinda sad. especially because i feel so distant from being able to make art right now. these few days, seeing art online makes me so envious of others' time and energy and creativity. not to say that they don't deserve it or don't have their own set of struggles, just that i miss having that energy to create anything. deep down i know it's useless to look backwards but thinking about college when i was definitely more fearless about making art, even if (in my eyes now) it sucked. i also know that this feeling, even though right now it feels like the heaviest thing right now, can dissipate in a matter of days once i get some rest and recharge, but i'm still just so out of practice, the brain muscles have been left unused too long. makes me wonder if the "adult" work life has beat the joy and creativity out of me. maybe it's my own fault for letting it drag on like this.

i don't have any concrete resolution to this except i'll think about how i want to do better in 2022. to end on a happier note, i decided that i'm gonna treat myself more in 2022, so i already have a few concert tickets lined up, one next week and one in january! i'm going by myself because i regret missing some really good concerts in the last 5 years from humming and hawing because i didn't have any friends to go with. but fuck it if i wait around for other people to validate what i like i'm gonna die alone and boring. gonna get my booster shot and then see some of my favorite artists! hope this sets the tone for a generally better time in 2022

12/5/21

lately my social anxiety has been worse than usual, not sure why. feels like it creeps into every moment and interaction, whether online or irl. maybe i can blame instagram as usual, because i feel really weird about my social media presence lately, everything i post feels so cringe. also thinking about how a brutally honest friend (huhh usually *i'm* the brutally honest one! because i utter every thought i have when the social anxiety isn't quick enough to stop me, shoutout to my sagittarius rising) described me as perpetually caffeinated even when i'm not. another friend separately likened me to the 180 bpm osu-esque future bass that was blasting, saying she imagined it was what it sounds like in my head all times. and i think they're both right... tbh i think i knew this already, after all i've been like this pretty much since forever, but to have it described in words back to me is a weird exercise in viewing myself from the outside. this makes me a bit nervous, as i'm prone to overanalyze what other people think of me, but i keep coming back to the very grounding fact that i know i've been like this since forever, and it's not changing anytime soon. my inner anxiety voice wonders if this makes me weird and unpleasant, but my higher inner self assures me that this is my charm and should be treasured. still, the uncertainties persist and so i wonder what it would look like to finally (if ever) feel comfortable in my mortal human persona/avatar/mecha?? idk i'm just the little guy in "my" "brain" piloting this big dumb flesh mecha

11/26/21

another thanksgiving where my mental health is in the pits. i think there's something about thanksgiving in particular... especially when i'm at home already, celebrating with family doesn't really feel like a special event and i just feel more obligated than usual to stay home, which makes me lose it because i feel like i have even less independence/agency than usual. also the whiplash after hanging out and going on a chaotic/fun roadtrip with friends for the last 5 days and then coming home and processing the pile of accumulated social anxiety by myself while my parents think i'm insane and add to my insanity by telling me to simply stop having anxiety. black friday has been a highlight though - yeah i hate consumerism and shit but i just bought a few pieces from this clothing brand i've been eyeing since 2016 but i didn't have the money or fashion tastes or confidence to justify buying. confidence is still lacking but since the pandemic and lockdown i feel like fuck it, life is short and gender is shit, i need to wear this stuff before i get old and/or die. also i genuinely feel happier when i'm dressed like a creepy porcelain doll. and lately i feel like my irl friends are getting used to how annoying i am (regardless of whether that's actually the case) so i feel a biiit more comfortable to experiment with clothes when i see them. it doesn't really help that i live at home and my parents are passively like "why are you dressed like that" when i wear my favorite things but my internet friends always hype me up and that makes me so happy. mentally i always circle back to "i want to move out" but change is scary and kinda annoying

11/11/21 (2)

was feeling really shit today (seasonal depression? vitamin d deficiency?) until i caught up with a good friend and we ended up facetiming for 2 hours talking about everything under the sun... this is a reminder to call your friends

11/11/21

not sure if you noticed unless you've been keeping up with the neocities feed, but i added a new page that i really like! but i'm not sure where to link it yet. but basically i found a tool that solves the dilemma i mentioned in "a year online", of representing non-linear thinking on the web. even as a personal note-taking tool it's been really conducive to jotting down any stray thoughts and questions in a way that feels comparable to paper, but with the added benefits of hyperlinks and then publishing on here. you can create and save boards locally, so you don't need neocities or any web hosting to use it, 10/10 recommend!

11/1/21

i stopped working earlier than usual at a normal time today and my food even tasted better. is it that stupidly simple! also i have new website ideas but never enough time/energy to actualize them, and perhaps not enough people to discuss, develop, and hype up my ideas with? does anyone want to be my website friend pls hmu ;u;

10/30/21

(see the previous entry which i wrote a few hours ago) just kidding! i finally finished the sort functionality! i can finally sleep well, after a whole week of rolling it around in my mind and thinking about how to implement it in the moments before i fall asleep each night (i'm not joking i've been doing this since high school, trying to solve math problems in my sleep lol nerd)

10/29/21

working on a sort feature for the journal landing page because i'm tired of defaulting to chronological order but its more complicated than i thought lol // people on the internet actually read and like what i put on here thats crazyyy i feel blessed but still inadequate especially with my low volume of output lately, i know it shouldn't diminish my worth as a creator but its the imposter syndrome leaking into every corner of my life, dam // a moderate week at work but still feeling sapped and didn't get much website-ing done :( i'll be seeing my friends tomorrow for (early) halloween i hope that's just what i need

10/24/21

really happy with the new journal entry i just put up! it has just the right amount of messiness to 1) mirror the way my train of thought jumps here and there and 2) not feel like a polished and clichéd thinkpiece, like i'd feared halfway through writing it. also, unrelated but i was browsing are.na today and was reminded of a channel i follow called "website as architecture," which then reminded me of my latent interest in architecture and spatial design (is that a thing?) and my curiousity as to how it could inform my website-making, but this time i thought i should learn more and actually fuel this passion that i keep forgetting i have. i want to find some books and essays, and i found some free online classes around architecture that seem promising. i think this newfound appetite for knowledge this time around was sparked by some fun convos i had on discord about ugly vs good buildings. bless this discord server for reminding me that learning can actually be cool and fun! i'm so excited actually! who knew, i guess school sucks but learning is a different thing. i'll update with a journal entry or something when i have some progress and resources to share :)

10/15/21

feel stuck in a perpetual limbo between desiring independence and seeking validation. hopefully this will resolve itself when i move out next year (manifesting!) and maybe get a tattoo (hello kitty?) that my parents hate lol // not feeling myself irl lately, i don't know how i want to clothe and present myself, don't want to be perceived unless it's online // really want to work on my creative ideas but again and again i overexert myself at work doing not much but still feeling stressed, waiting for the holiday season to be my salvation // i'm falling behind on kpop updates and gossip these days, am i growing old? old and boring? boring or burnt out? god i hope not

10/10/21

happy one year to this little website <3 i'm so thankful for all the connections i've made just from putting up bits of code on the internet. here's to many more years, i love this little space i've created for my favs and thoughts and worries and dreams that i'm sure i will keep nurturing it, unlike all the productivity and social media apps that i inevitably drop after a few months. funny that the facebook outage last week (the most peaceful 6 hours i'd had all week) was perfectly timed right before my website-birthday, almost as a literary foil to contrast my cute little website against how those apps fill me with some amount of dread every time i reflexively open them without even thinking. alright that's enough of my anti-instagram sentiment, i'm sure you get the point by now, from how often i bring it up in this journal... i think i was stuck in a creative rut in 2020, having left school and still figuring out work-life balance and then thrown into a pandemic. but working on this website has been helping me build my sense of self, both as an artist and as an overthinker who needs somewhere to release all the pent-up thoughts and feelings and ideas. it's also started conversations with really cool people online, without which i probably would have perished, sad and isolated in my room. i want to keep growing this website, not necessarily increasing my view count or file size, but to incrementally transform it as i grow as a person. something something ship of theseus. i'm curious what new conversations it'll eventually lead me to. also i'm thankful to anyone and everyone who ever stopped by my website, maybe browsed around and wrote in the guestbook or come back for updates, or maybe none of that. paradoxically, being perceived might be just as important as existence in the first place (at least in terms of art). thank you, hope you're doing well <3

9/16/21

finally have a day off after one of my top 3 most stressful work weeks to date - i desperately need to dump thoughts that have been slow-cooking in the back of my mind. i'm back to feeling dissatisfied with the art i've been making. i think the easy answer to this is that i've been too overwhelmed by work to have energy for tinkering with my websites, which is probably my favorite creative medium. specifically i say websites, because i was able to squeeze in some drawing and zine-making in this past month, and while i'm satisfied by the outcome and the positive response, the art style and content just doesn't feel right. the issue isn't that it's not genuine, because this *is* how i draw and these *are* my experiences i'm depicting, but i think it's a symptom of feeling drained and pessimistic. these feelings don't translate literally into my art, but certainly means it's less inspired than i'd like. another practical reason is that i haven't had the energy to practice drawing (or other mediums, besides coding) at all, so i feel like i lack the visual language to communicate my ideas in the rare case that they're actually interesting. at this point it's tempting to jump to the conclusion that i should just get back into the grind and improve my drawing skills, but i think rest and health are implied prerequisites. and with that i think i'll go easy on website updates for another week or so, for my sanity - take care!

9/8/21

i stupidly had a medium-sized cold brew yesterday and had the worst non-sleep of my life, just dreading the end of the world until sunrise, highly would not recommend. also random but been chewing gum a lot lately, my weird sleep schedule makes me crave food at ungodly times so i chew gum to trick my brain, but also to feel like the delinq high school student that i wasn't... remembering how relatively straightedge i was back then, although already kinda weird. in 4th grade someone called me weird and they were right and it has stuck since

9/4/21

been thinking a lot about life lately. that sounds really corny but amidst the upsetting news headlines, shit politics, a whole pandemic and its non-believers raging outside, and me burning out at work and barely leaving the house again, i think it follows that i feel a little bit pessimistic. it's funny how life feels like an rpg - i often say this ironically, but it truly feels that way. shouldn't a role-playing video game, as merely a man-made simulation of real life, be simpler than real life? in mechanics and complexity, yes, but maybe real life isn't actually that complicated either, at least in principle. comparing my life to video games has been really comforting, espceially when i feel like i'm "doing it wrong" - life is an open world game like BotW, except the idea of a main storyline or quest is much less rigid. in most cases, you are not the destined knight burdened with the task of saving your entire kingdom from singular evil and subsequent ruin, unless you decide to be. me, i'm just doing some side quests, exploring a little bit, and vibing, without any intention of speedrunning or completionism or saving the kingdom. and i think that's okay.

9/1/21

hey there, it feels like it's been so long once again - i've been really overwhelmed by work lately. my lead specifically told me not to burn out because work is busier than usual, and lo and behold... my sleep schedule has been solidly flipped over for the past month-ish: sleep late, wake up late but just in time for meetings, take midday naps, work late at night, sleep late, rinse, repeat. i settled into this strange schedule in the first place because it works for me, but i'll admit that the negative points are probably exacerbated by the bigger workload than usual. feeling like i have so little time and energy for fun stuff lately, unless i stay up even later at night (it's 3am right now, which is actually kind of early lol). i felt the most relaxed and creative last weekend because i had an extra day off, but on monday i was back to being a whole zombie. waiting for work to chill out... also waiting for covid to be less bad so maybe i can have more distractions or reminders to step away from work? to be honest that sound a little too aspirational bordering on delusional, because i know i wouldn't magically change if covid disappeared tomorrow. i don't know. maybe i just need a vacation and some extra sleep

misc website thoughts - how to make my writings feel more like a garden and less like a static chronologic blog? specifically, how to update writings to grow as i grow while preserving the process - some idea of version control, but visually flattened to show history at a glance - i'm thinking something like google docs suggestion mode, but would it overly clutter the reading experience? i want to develop my "thoughts on neocities" journal entry without erasing the snapshot of when i first wrote it

8/15/21

and another weekend staying in. i feel a bit of fomo seeing hangouts and concerts and stuff on social media, but not enough fomo to override my overwhelming need/desire to stay home. i've been dead silent on my instagram account, which makes me a bit antsy but, like the fomo, i can't find the energy for it at all. work is still going full steam, so i've desperately needed these weekends to chill. as usual, doing little creative things is my way to unwind and lately i've been dabbling in garageband and audacity. i realized music is the one hobby i occasionally play with despite being awful at it - unlike my other creative endeavors, somehow i give myself permission to be bad at music and not feel pressured to post my creations for likes and stats, because its just fun.

8/8/21

finally got some rest this weekend after a really long week stressing myself out about work - i was so stressed by myself that i didn't feel like i had any free time besides squeezing in an hour before sleeping late each night to play some mahjong on my 1st-gen DS that i dug out and charged, works great - no internet, just vibes. i already decided last week that i would do nothing and stay in all this weekend to recuperate, and it worked :') i tried to sleep in on saturday but i think i was so used to stress-sleeping all week that i kept waking up, but sunday i got in 10 hours and finally felt better, feeling more peaceful and creative again, what a relief. my creative juices flowing again, just for me to go into garageband on my ipad again to make some cursed kpop mashups lol - it's just so fun to make without caring about rules or quality, i'm just fucking around, why not?

8/1/21

july was another tiring month even though i'd hoped otherwise - well, for the most part i got to take a break from my personal creative projects as planned, but with my friends all getting vaxxed i've had more hangouts lately and maybe i'm getting old or our brains were rewired by the pandemic, but going out every weekend has been unexpectedly exhausting. i'm craving some quiet time to tend to my online spaces, and myself too i guess. i notice that with any irl group i hang out with i inevitably curate and abridge myself to fit in with my surroundings, at the expense of me feeling less whole and a bit drained each time. also, i think this website needs a fresh coat of paint, tbd!

7/25/21

expectedly, another relatively long break from neocities after pulling a week of all-nighters to finish my ambitious birthday website (see the previous entry). projects like this are super exhilarating but obviously drain the physical/mental/creative energy out of me for at least a month. that plus a few weekends of social events one after another have just knocked me out, been needing a lot of naps lately.

but this weekend was really restful! i finally got my alone time (not counting cats), recharging and finally feeling creative and less anxious. the "less anxious" part especially is such a relief. i'm currently catsitting for a friend, and it's my first time living alone in over 2 years. the first couple hours felt so strange, but once i settled into it i felt so at ease and content, even though my friend's house is a little (a lot) messy. my other very type-a friend was shocked that i'd agree to housesit such a messy house but i'm doing very well, i guess i'm not type-a. i've been thinking about moving to my own place, but a few people have warned me about how lonely it can get so i'm testing it out, and i feel a bit more resolved now because i think i'll like it. i'm glad things are finally looking up a little bit, at least personally, while the world outside seems to burn (almost literally). but "the end of the world" is actually the easiest outcome, since the difficult stuff comes from living out each day, which i might as well do if our time here is so limited. it's getting late and my mind is wandering... anyways, i genuinely hope you're doing well :)

7/7/21

returning to neocities always feels like returning home after a long trip and crashing comfortably into my own bed. this time i was busy working on a little project on the side, which was super fun and fulfilling but sucked the living juices out of me over the last two weeks, so i'm very glad to come back and rest for a bit. the project was technically super interesting and got a lot of positive feedback, so i want to write up a journal entry with my reflections/learnings. in the meantime i will catch up on sleep and take it easy until my next project reveals itself to me like a prophetic vision lol. i'm also starting to feel a tiny bit discontent with how this website looks again, i think some pages could use a refresh but i have no timeline for when that will happen while i'm recovering my creative energy. i also want to catch up on my neocities feed and see what my neighbors have been up to lately, hope you're doing well :)

6/27/21

i have some updated thoughts since the last somewhat pessimistic diary entry - i had a really good time hanging out with my friends this weekend (there's some overlap with the friends i hung out with previously so i'm partially retracting my pessimism haha). i had a personal mini-crisis on friday right when i was supposed to hang out with one of them, but she was fine with my anxious self and i actually felt really comfortable and comforted. later we met up with another friend and we watched kpop for 3+ hours LOL - then today i hung out with a larger group to celebrate a birthday. there were some faces i hadn't met in person or hadn't seen in a long time, but nonetheless i felt comfortable and accepted and appreciated for my presence, even when i made a terrible joke or awkwardly tripped over my own words. i think i was wrong last time - i do feel like my friendships have matured along with us, slowly and not always very obviously but surely. or maybe its just me growing into a more mature mindset, with better expectations for my relationships. thats probably it. either way i'm happy about it :)

also, i haven't been as prolific about updates on this website because i'm working on some other website ideas i have. some of it can be found here, and i'm currently working on another one - i was really inspired by a url interactive zine fair i attended, so i decided to make a birthday party website for my birthday! its been a wild ride learning server-side web development for it (hence why i'm on neocities less, because i had to find another platform that supports server-side development), and i hope to show it off here soon. i actually have a lot of ideas for my neocities website too and especially the journal, but i'll get back to it after my birthday :) hope you are doing well, dear reader

6/19/21

hello i'm back! it simultaneously feels like it's been a long time yet not really. after lockdown has fully fucked up my sense of time and space for over a year, i hung out irl with some vaccinated friends the past couple weekends, which has been nice but equally disorienting. a lot of times i find myself much rather wanting to be online on neocities and whatnot than socializing irl/afk... is it a lingering symptom of lockdown, or is my body actually being honest for once about its wants, needs, and boundaries? either way, with things seemingly open now i regret how it's harder to decline invites again, purely for my own sanity vs pulling a covid-related excuse. i'm sure that not being in complete lockdown will be better for my mental health, but i also don't want to go back to my depressing pre-lockdown life, but i also cannot envision a new lifestyle for myself. i feel lost and unmoored. my online presence remains the only constant and safe haven...

6/7/21

i've mentioned last.fm here before when i made an account (in january? february?) to see what kind of music i was listening across all my different platforms (youtube, apple music, bandcamp, soundcloud), but now 5 months later i've decided to uninstall it. after a few weeks it was already pretty clear that kpop is overwhelmingly my top genre, and that didn't come as a surprise. yet, it feels kind of unfair because i have a lot of music interests scattered across different genres, but i tend to loop a handful of kpop songs while i work for 8 hours monday to friday for the predictability and to help me focus, so these few songs overtake my other music count-wise. seeing the stats week after week made me kind of self conscious to the point where i would try to avoid listening to kpop to kind of finesse better stats, which might be good for discovering new music, but it felt unnatural (lol) and kind of forced to have my behavior dictated by a statistic. i wish the app had a "distinct count" metric which would highlight the breadth rather than the volume of my musical consumption, but i guess the pm at last.fm didn't consider that, for whatever reason.

i'm starting to think that this is the central flaw with capitalism's obsession lately with data-driven decisions, because it frames truth as something easily capturable by a handful of quantitative metrics, and fails to acknowledge factors and symptoms not found by crunching numbers. this take might put me at odds with many of my peers at work (i work in tech), where so many people make a point to "optimize" their lives and their productivity, but i just want to live naturally and softly, allowing myself to morph and adapt with my mood and the seasons. similarly, i've previously mentioned using a productivity tracker to figure out what times of day i focused best, and after a few months i got my answers but my continued usage was becoming another piece of mental overhead too so i deleted that app. so this isn't to say that data is useless, because i got some interesting insights while using these apps, but i think relying on them long-term was creating more stress than use for me. not sure how to wrap this up nicely because i'm just thought-dumping, but i hope you might also re-evaluate what apps and routines aren't actually working for you and just delete them :)

5/29/21

it feels so nice to be back on neocities :') the worst part of being burnt out lately was feeling uncreative and having zero energy at all times, so i couldn't even de-stress by making things if i wanted to. i'm very happy with my website updates lately, so i finally submitted my website to another listing - it got accepted! it feels great to see my humble website next to some really creative ones out there. also starting to see my friends again - they stopped by to drop off coffee/food a couple times, and we just stood on the sidewalk and gossiped - it was so strange yet sort of comforting. i'm very excited to hang out with them for a longer period of time tomorrow, but i'm subconsciously very stressed about re-learning to interact with friends and the outside world afk and not just online... consciously i'm sure it'll be fine, judging by the few times i did have to do stuff and run errands outside the house, but i stress anyways. wish me luck :')

5/23/21

indeed the side effects of the second shot totally knocked me out, starting with nausea and chills at 6am, at which point i immediately took some painkiller (and throughout the day) which helped a lot. stayed in bed pretty much all day, did some reading, played a lot on my DS. despite feeling physically like shit it was a good day :)

5/22/21

i'm back (!) after a long almost-month feeling always burnt out and uncreative. i'm writing this while lying in bed because i'm kind of feeling the side effects of the second vaccine dose and i'm bracing myself for even worse, so i'm tucked in bed with all these toys and gadgets around me to keep me entertained - my DS, some books, some tylenol, some vitamin water, etc. weirdly, the act of anticipating being sick and bedridden for a whole day has been strangely liberating - this might be the first time in a while that i've given myself full permission to rest. i say that i'm lazy and hate work but anxiety always gets the best of me, so i end up always working on something even on my days off. but nope not today - well actually, ironically, in my mentally rested state i felt more creative than usual today so i actually did a lot of stuff (like work on this website!), but i kinda feel great. it'd be nice to stay like this for a bit :') i feel like i've missed out on a lot of my mutuals' website updates during my time afk, so i'm excited to go through them from the comfort of my bed tomorrow (i expect the micro-flu to hit then **sweats nervously**). i've missed being on here, i feel like i digitally returned home and finally took a deep breath

5/8/21

feeling a tiny bit better today, but only after having a 3am breakdown after the last journal entry where i suddenly and conveniently at 3am faced a barrage of revelations about the source of at least a fraction of my latest fears and anxieties. the entire next day was just spent in shock processing these revelations so i felt super mentally fucked and distant all day. i feel like i'm still reeling/recovering but i've had more revelatory (but thankfully less jolting) moments since - i started budgeting more seriously, trying to fully understand how everything adds up, and that's given me a renewed sense of agency that has lessened the anxiety a little bit. also kind of silly but kind of symbolic, but i decided that when i move out i want to get my first tattoo as a mark of my agency over my own body. oh and the other revelation i had was that if i don't change my mindset/lifestyle to address shit that was already bothering me pre-lockdown, my moody pessimistic self runs the risk of using the pandemic as an excuse to be resentful and closed-off even once it's safer and things open up. lockdown has been a time of (forced) transformation but it would all go to waste if i keep living like i'm in 2019 after this ordeal. admittedly change is hard, because i can't even envision what a happier lifestyle and a happier me would look like, since i haven't lived it - chicken or the egg?? actually i think i need to read books, my imagination is probably shit because i haven't read in forever.. how do people have time to read and learn for the sake of learning? i feel like i mentally perish at work a little bit, and once i log off i don't have enough braincells left to do anything but watch wjsn videos and cry a little.. how do yall do it...

5/6/21

an epilogue to the previous diary entry - afterwards i thought it wasn't actually burnout because i remembered i got my first vaccine shot earlier that day, because i completely knocked out that night and the entire next day lol... but then i continued being exhausted and vaguely depressed for the entire week so i was like "okay maybe it IS burnout after all" lollll

i've been seeing a mental health coach (aka therapist Lite) because i have no idea how to deal with my Feelings these days... we agreed i should work on releasing them instead of keeping them pent up, so here i am being uncharacteristically open (?) about how i've been, but also because i don't know how else to get it out of my system. i don't know where's the sweet spot between talking things out with people who care and straight up trauma-dumping on friends and strangers. in the past i've tried talking things out with my parents but historically that usually exacerbates my anxieties lol (because their viewpoint is never objective for me because i'm afraid of disappointing/scaring them). i am a little alarmed at how often i've been feeling terrible lately, but if i take an honest look at my pre-covid mental health it already wasn't great, i just had more distractions and less time to unpack my problems and journal them out. also because since forever i've convinced myself that my problems aren't real problems because i have a stable home and a steady income. except last thursday i couldn't focus at work for my life and i cried uncontrollably all day so mayyyyyybe lol - also im starting to think that moving out is my only or one of the few options for me to feel happier, but idk if that's necessarily true. just the thought of moving out has been creating so much anxiety, but maybe that mental pushback just means it's something i need to overcome for the better? i have no idea. i don't know. i wish i knew. maybe i feel a little better having written this out, i seem less insane in writing than in my head

oof my "jaja" song review still isn't done yet... i guess its fine, i ordered the album so maybe when that arrives it'll give me a boost to actually finish it.. kind of excited for my first penomeco album, plus i thiiiink it'll be signed :')

4/24/21

i think i'm burnt out again... i keep convincing myself i'm not, so the only way i can tell is by how uncreative i am.. i was pretty excited about watching a babycastles livestream and also second sky today (at the same time so i had two tabs open and alternated muting one or the other lol) but i was so tired i passed out midday and missed much of both :( i already took yesterday off but that was barely enough for me to sleep in and recover maybe 50%, and i'm stuck still paying off the interest on the body-debt of burnout...

4/20/21

after putting wjsn's "unnatural" on repeat non-stop for the last 2.5 weeks, i have a new musical obsession - my favorite rapper/producer penomeco finally dropped a full album - my god it is so well-produced and exactly my style, and in particular the title track "JAJA" and its music video are SO GOOD i almost don't know how to put it into words????? also no one in my close circles really follows penomeco, it's kinda sad... i ended up making my mother listen to me wax poetic about the album all day today lol (sorryyy) so she suggested i write about it, and honestly i can write a whole essay about the music video, which sets up the atmosphere and tells a story so well i cried the first few times i watched it. watch out for that journal entry coming soon, it'll probably be a long one ^^;

4/17/21

im so so so relieved to finally be done with this week - i haven't had a week that felt this busy since college. on paper it doesn't sound like much but i guess theres a big difference between working full-time and going to school full-time (and regularly skipping classes lol). among several other deadlines and things going on lately, i finally finished my zine submission (!) which has been weighing on my mind for the past month and stressing me out for the past week, because unlike my last submission which came together serendipitously quick, this one took a lot more exploration and restarting and tweaking to arrive at something i'm happy with. thankfully i do have something that i'm pretty happy with by the soft deadline, though i'm still plagued by self-doubt telling me its not good enough, but i'm too just exhausted to do anything about that lol. our zine should be coming out soon, maybe i'll post about it then :) i'm kinda excited to see my piece in print, and i hope seeing it in my hands will push aside that self-doubt :')

4/7/21

it's been an exhausting half-week... i was blazingly productive at work these few days but i think i burned myself out really quickly that way... but ironically after spending so much time staring at my work computer the only way for me to wind down is to stare at my personal computer and work on my neocities site lol

3/31/21

NEOCITIES USER NYANSEONG IS ON WJSN LOCKDOWN !! no actually WJSN's new song is so so so good i've been thinking about it and repeating it all day ahhhhh - i cannot express how much i love them and their music and their concepts, i need to make fanart but not sure what.. but i have some deadlines coming up so maybe jumping into a new side project isn't the best idea right now lol anyways stream "unnatural" and watch my best girls absolutely kill it ahhh <3

OH i almost forgot to link my finished webzine - i spent last weekend touching up my webzine from web art jam the weekend before, and it took way longer than i anticipated but here it is! writing alt text for all the gifs took a significant chunk of time because its a language muscle i havent flexed much, but its worth it because it has become a part of the artwork - take a peek at the alt text (maybe on a second playthrough) if you're interested :) anyways please check it out and lmk what you think <3

3/23/21

feeling kind of sleep-deprived again from the weekend, but for a wholesome reason? i spent all weekend working on a fun little website/webzine thing for web art jam. i decided to host it on github instead of neocities because its a one-time thing, so i thought it wouldn't make much sense with the neocities concept of profiles and feed updates - anyways. i wrote a whole word dump yesternight in my notion journal but i'll spare you all that and summarize. so i had this idea for a website floating in my head that would be convenient to make during web art jam because the theme is in line with some zines i wanted to submit to soon. but upon more research i realized that those zines didn't exactly fit my vision or my timeline, which is kind of a bummer BUT over the weekend i connected with so many inspiring creators and got the chance to showcase my webzine on other platforms i didn't previously consider?? now yes i am going to tie the moral of the story to kpop but somehow i feel like this echoes the brave girls story, how life has its strange and sometimes serendipitous timing. also adding to the kpop update, yes 1team disbanded but perfectly adding on to my narrative, rubin opened his instagram account and he's a tattoo artist now?? where one door closes another opens i guess truly

3/19/21

in the last month-ish i've been feeling really stuck creatively and undeserving of calling myself an "artist" but these couple days i had a huge epiphany revelation: i'm experiencing this because i'm actually at a crossroads / turning point in my interests.. 2 years ago i was super into photography (and not in lockdown) and churning stuff out pretty regularly so i felt really comfortable calling myself a photographer, but since starting full-time work my tastes/interests/availability has shifted a lot, to the point where i'm kind of lost and not really practicing or producing much art. i don't feel like an artist because i haven't created anything substantial and cohesive lately that i really enjoy. (i do love my website but it just doesn't feel very focused to feel like my "art", it's more of a messy sketchbook.) this was kind of a jarring and slightly embarrassing realization... i realized i'd been spending more time consuming other people's art online than making my own... but! i won't blame myself too much because i think i've been in a looong transitional phase of self-discovery (also in a global pandemic and witnessing multiple national crises), so it's wonderful that im finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. i think this realization is a solid kick in the ass to start working on my art again, like how i grew a lot in my photography back then. this time around i think i want to explore the web medium more, since my nerd ass actually really enjoys programming and the internet is perfect for lockdown.

maybe my realization had been sparked by joining Web Art Jam lately? some really inspiring talks and just being around a really cool community, kind of like when i discovered neocities. i feel super nourished with inspiration, so its time to get to work :) the jam is happening this weekend so we'll see what i can hammer out - convenient because i have a few zine submission deadlines coming up... diamonds are made under pressure or whatever, amiright. shoutout to neocities too for planting these seeds in my head - i think high school me who wanted to be a game/web designer would be happy to see me now <3

3/19/21 (2)

SHIT. "REVELATION." that was the word i was trying to remember earlier but i didn't, so instead i used "epiphany" and now my shpiel sounds like one of my corny high school english class papers....

3/13/21

feeling super inspired but sleep deprived... half-baked ideas floating in my head but not enough energy to want to do anything about them.. zzz

3/12/21

some thoughts on recent kpop news (bear with me, there is an interesting, non-kpop-related moral of the story) - lots happened in kpop this week but notably, one of my favorite groups 1team announced their disbandment, and brave girls is suddenly at the top of the charts for pretty much the first time in their career. life can be so fickle and treat people so differently at the same moment in time.. the 1team announcement didn't really come as a surprise after they've been completely social-media-silent for 3 months, but its still sad because they are so talented and had so much potential. on the other hand, the brave girls comeback(?) has been the most wholesome thing in 2021. [to recap, brave girls was on the verge of disbandment but then a fanamde edit of their song from 4 years ago went viral and reminded everyone how good that song is, shooting it to the top of every korean chart ?!] watching them in recent interviews and performances (as well as the video that went viral) and just seeing how happy and blessed they look to get an unimaginable second chance in the fickle and brutal entertainment industry is so heartwarming and gives me so much hope. i was looking up more brave girls content and was reminded that the member eunji had briefly appeared on the tv show queendom, but didn't really get much screentime or attention from it, but now the clip of her appearance has 1 million views on youtube? i feel a little bad for doubting her back then, but then its wildly humbling to realize that her appearance wasn't for nothing, that it would come back 2 years later, and their song would come back 4 years later. reminds me that the universe has its own timing, and nothing we do is ever wasted... 1team has blessed me with such good music in these last 3 years. and maybe sometimes miracles like brave girls happen, it just takes years and a bit of well-timed luck for your hard work to come to fruition. they look so radiant! i will cry

3/8/21

feeling a bit exhausted in a good way because i've been exercising(???) daily the last few days - i've been exercising regularly with a friend over facetime for a few months now, and lately i just realized i gained a tiny bit of muscle since last summer? what a relief because i thought i was gonna fully deteriorate thanks to this lockdown. back in 2020 i could tell my joints were getting really creaky and my stamina had gone to shit, like one stroll-lap at Target would lowkey knock me out LOL but these days i feel a little better, its a really encouraging feeling - shoutout to my friend for bugging me to exercise or else my joints would have fossilized by now

3/5/21

great i feel slightly less hateful today lol. still listening to onf "beautiful beautiful" nonstop it is a bit of an obsession; this performance video is my favorite version and i watch it on loop. i watched it so much i started to pick up the choreo so i started to learn it and mannn the cardio of it all. also someone on discord shared this cool small web directory today and some of these websites are lowkey mind-blowing ? i feel inspired but then the dissatisfaction with my own work is settling in again... i want to submit my site and also i want to join an art-themed webring but i haven't made anything in forever i don't feel qualified hmmmm - whatever i should try to sleep at a socially acceptable time today ALso this journal.html is getting kind of hefty, note to self i will refactor it into iframes sometime

3/4/21

oh man its one of those "spend too many hours mentally at work, take a nap at 11pm, then binge kpop and uwu at my favs" kind of nights. i love onf and golcha a surprising amount for not being in my top 5 groups. many thoughts being thunk... just thinking how its really annoying that some (many?) of my irls assume im extremely horny judging from how much i love my kpop boys when no ? literally i am the least horny person i know ? 99% of the time i feel 0 sexual attraction to these idols or anyone really (the two kpop exceptions so far were moonbin and jaeyoon lol i digress) - i just really appreciate pretty people with really good stage presence, and that enthusiasm comes off as "horniness" im guessing because the people assuming that about me *are* that horny themselves. how do i let people that i'm probably ace/demi and to leave me alone without going through the motions of "coming out" ? i find the concept of "coming out" really restricting, as if i have something to keep in the closet when i feel like an open book that no one is reading (or they're Spark Notes-ing it all wrong). i guess if you are reading this, then congrats on knowing im probably ace and if you keep assuming shit about me go fuck yourself~ <3

3/3/21

happy march! i'm glad i survived february, what a month - i started out the first 12 hours of february 2021 fucking up both by knees and then concussing myself a little bit, and also it has been a whirlwind of a month on kpop twitter lol. i'm super exhausted today but it feels really calming and reassuring to work on my website a little bit, it feels like reclaiming a part of my day for myself that was full of work and meetings and group chats and virtual hangouts

and maybe it's the fatigue talking but i'm going through one of my regularly-scheduled creative ruts where i'm not satisfied with anything i put out and i compare myself to other creative twenty-something year olds who seem so much more prolific and talented. this is kind of why i haven't been able to pick up animal crossing again; nothing i do or make feels satisfying or enough. maybe it's also the social media conditioning talking, and this is the symptom of being on social media more lately. i can't even say i fantasize about deleting twitter/insta because i don't think i have the guts to. they're my only connection to a lot of people in my life/network.. i don't want to be forgotten and lonely AND having no audience for the occasional art post or soapbox-ing... though now i am curious how life would be without social media, because i don't know, and maybe the real thing i fear is the unknown? also i feel... kind of disappointed in how my website looks? i think this might be the "notification addiction" talking again, since i've had fewer interactions on here lately, because i feel like my website needs an overhaul, but only because i'm afraid of it becoming stale and irrelevant and boring, and god wouldn't it be the worst thing to be boring lol

i do hope/think/know these feelings will be temporary... i do have some ideas for new pages and some optimizations i can make, which hopefully will give my website (and my creative psyche?) a breath of fresh air. also i have my eye on a couple of zine open calls; if i get accepted that'll boost my esteem but if i get rejected lol... i think i will be able to handle it because unlike job rejections, it feels like they are rejecting what i'm offering vs rejecting me as a person? unless because my art is my baby it will still make me feel shit? too many questions and not enough brain cells to answer them, good night! zzz

2/26/21

oh wow it's been 2 weeks since i last updated... as foreshadowed in my last diary entry, i kinda got wrapped up in social media (INST*GRAM) again.. i did gain some cool new mutuals there and posted some of my art/creations/ramblings and actually got really good response, but now that the short-lived hype is settling i'm starting to feel antsy about my "brand" and how my profile looks again...

however i had a revelation that my social media brand is the fact that i have no brand? 2 years ago i was very much a photography account, but these days my interests and aesthetics are all over the place and that's okay, because i am me and eventually my personal style will show thru. due to the way insta is designed + glorified hustle culture these days + the very real reality that many artists rely on insta to make a living = it is common to see strongly branded ig accounts, but i have the privilege to not need to pay rent with my art so i can afford to have a shit-looking ig account, who cares??? now if only i could actually body this mindset, instead of worrying about and hating my profile once a week...

also i've been really into arts and crafts lately and i made a stuffed plushie friend! she's a bunny! she is so beautiful i can't wait to introduce you to them! i'll make a page for him once i take some nice photos. but basically the ~15 hours per week i was spending on my website was totally diverted to making them and their little outfits by hand. he's so cute he brings me so much joy honestly

2/10/21

on today's episode of My Complicated Relationship With Instagram... i made another account..so i now have 4 active accounts.. thats not even the worst part - today i posted an old drawing study on my art account, just to have some fresh content on my profile, nbd BUT immediately after i got my first likes on it i started to feel the notification addiction creeping in again... man they really design for that addiction.. i'm also a little sad that i'm less active on neocities these days, so i think i need to sit down and evaluate what i want from The Internet before getting back into things. actually i realized that i was getting the same notification-high on neocities too, so i wrote a chrome extension to hide my follower and view counts. maybe i'll clean it up so i can share the code for anyone interested

i honestly want to try social media again because i want to make internet friends, esp to connect with artists, but by design this would require me to fix up my accounts to show off my Brand as an Artist, and i literally have Nothing right now lol and i'm simultaneously going thru a mini identity crisis where i want to see myself as an artist but these days i don't make anything and i have zero motivation to do anything but watch Dreamcatcher videos. i need to think about this - this sounds like content for another journal entry

2/7/21

today was great - i woke up to a couple packages arriving earlier than expected, the best feeling during lockdown imo. one of them was my makeup mini-haul, and i got some stuff for my mom too so we unboxed it together and it was really exciting. then i did my face with the new palettes and took a ton of selfies and then washed my face lol. vibin

2/3/21

i'm only three days into the week and it's already a mess lol on monday i pulled/bruised both knees then fell down the stairs and lowkey concussed myself??? i kept getting a headache so i took half the day off and played persona 5 and strangely it was the most relaxing day i'd had in a while?? since then i've been listening to the P5 soundtrack almost nonstop and i'm always amazed how good it is. maybe i'll write a journal entry just raving about how good P5 is so far, since i'm barely 20% through. i think i'll be so sad when i finish the game, but thankfully that's not for another 70 hours lol

1/31/21

man i'm fucking exhausted. on a funner note i finally got a last.fm account - i can't wait for this app to tell me that my most listened song of the month is the new golcha or dreamcatcher song that i have been streaming nonstop *pretends to be shocked*

1/30/21 (2)

tw death mention - i woke up to the news about sophie and i thought it was a sick joke because i was just thinking about her yesterday.. tbh im not the most diehard fan but i think this hit so hard because her music made me believe she was invincible. rest in peace, sophie

1/30/21

mentally i've been a bit away from neocities.. i think after the intense sprint to finish the zines page i need a little break before my brain gets flowing with ideas again. also i've been starting on a new project at work, which is super new and exciting but i think i was subconsciously really stressed because i've been having weird food cravings and sleep patterns... i made the mistake of buying a big box of cocoa puffs but not enough milk, so i ended up stress-eating cocoa puffs dry from a bowl and my father laughed at me for eating "bird food" and now i can't unsee how it looks like cat food i'm turning into a catboy like my username oh no /ᐠ.ꞈ.ᐟ\

1/18/21 (2)

been working on the zines page all week - i'm so excited to show yall what i've been working on, but it's just taking sooo long... last week i thought i would be done this week, but that is clearly not the case. i guess this mirrors the mistake i keep making in my day job of underestimating how long things take. bugs and edge cases keep popping up that take time to design around and fix. i really need to learn to double my estimates before i make any half-promises... it may not be obvious but the upcoming page update is the result of 20+ hours of ideating, photo editing, writing, coding, and debugging. i hope yall have fun browsing it once it's up :)

1/18/21

it seems that a common argument these days for hating mint chocolate chip ice cream is that it tastes like toothpaste. it does, but this argument is on the basis that toothpaste tastes bad - what are y'all brushing your teeth with?? shite????? /lh

1/17/21

a 3-day weekend kicked off with a whole day of staying in bed while working on my website, nice. i'll probably be writing less in this entry because i've actually been journaling regularly in my wjsn diary? this kind of consistency is new to me, but a pleasant surprise because i previously thought it was impossible. maybe i'll post photos of some pages because it actually looks so good

1/8/21

very long week (i live in the US). today was nice though, because i'm 99% done with this work project that has taken me 3 months (which is 3x what was originally estimated...) also my kpop haul arrived today, including my wjsn "season's greetings," a type of kpop merch that typically includes a calendar, sometimes a planner, and other fun things like stickers and photos. now i feel like my year has actually started! and now i have a wjsn calendar to brighten up my work area!

1/7/21

i spent the last few days stressing over work (even tho there is barely any work yet since its the new year), but today my brain seems to be back to normal so i actually have free time, during which i watched youtube clips of skyrim/oblivion glitches and out-of-context kingdom hearts for hoursss. well-spent imo

1/2/21

happy new year! today on My Complicated Relationship With Instagram, the account of a zine i follow and admire followed me back??? and the account has a skinny ratio so it's probably not a bot?? but then i forgot about it and didn't check insta all day because i now have notifications turned off (would recommend)

12/25/20

merry christmas! right before i went to sleep yesterday, i posted on insta about my xmas page. i'm personally really happy with it so i expected some positive feedback in the morning, and when i woke up and checked, there was none.. and likely because i wasn't very active last week, my story views were down >50%... i told myself that i would keep a strictly business mentality on insta, but i inevitably still feel this way :(

12/24/20

wjsn's "for the summer" mini-album still slaps now that it's winter - 5 bangers guaranteed to temporarily ward off seasonal depression. very different vibe from all the rainy day lo-fi i've been listening to but i need a balanced diet!

12/20/20

i first read about digital gardens last week, and today i'm thking about renaming this page "garden" to move away from the pressure of publishing well-articulated writing, to something more spontaneous. actually, i was considering adding a new "stash" page so maybe i can combine them

12/19/20

im so insanely caffeinated rn??? i got a cold brew with a starbucks gift card and istg it tasted like it was cold-brewing for weeks... i feel so wired and i want to make art but simultaneously feel like i can't :(