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Hello World!
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Old & Older Friends
Do you feel it’s necessary to have friends who are a lot older and wiser than you? Just to have someone wise around and help you through life? Or do you feel it’s better to go through life experiencing things on your own and learning the hard way, along with the rest of your friends figuring life out (I’m just assuming your friends are relatively close to your age)
anonymous submission on June 8, 2018 @ 10:10am PST.It’s funny you should ask this question (well technically, you submitted this question on June 8, 2018, so oops?), but nevertheless, I just tweeted something fairly applicable last week:
I had dinner with an old friend of mine last week. Long story very short, like V short, we met at a club because he was a DJ and I was enticed in the #NiTeLyFe in college. We matched on Tinder months later and somehow became friends out of it (shout outs to all the Tinder homies I’m still friends with from 2013). As the years went on, his circle and mine started overlapping, and from then on, we’ve shared birthday/half birthday parties, he’s dated one of my best friends, and we’ve stayed platonically close. He’s dabbled in a plethora of different professions, and has ultimately found something that is incredibly synergistic with his passion, talents, and skillset — all while being incredibly lucrative.
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o hi there~
It’s been a while.A long while.
Like, a whiiiiiile while.
I apologize, as my blog is filled with posts of empty promises, as I would fall into this constant cycle of writing, getting busy, becoming sad when I realized I wasn’t writing as much, motivating myself to write again, setting deadlines, and then…
falling victim to the same cycle again 🙂
BUT IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN NOW. I’ve realized that without my crafts (whether they be writing, reading leisurely, dancing, etc.), I lose myself. I’m unable to identify with the version of myself whom I love the most, and that relationship is honestly supposed to be the most important relationship to me, so why am I neglecting her?!
RIDICULOUS.
New writings coming soon, stay tuned + I appreciate you still hanging onto this underqualified blog.
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Over Thinking 010: Roommate Habits, Dating a Coworker, & #shootyourshot2018
If you're still not familiar with the Over Thinking series, click here to familiarize yourself.
In an attempt not to procrastinate, I've set reminders to schedule new upcoming posts.
We'll get through this together, I promise :') -
Small Talk 004: Forever with us
It's been a little while since I've felt a real loss, and the feeling is such a blend of unwelcomed nostalgia + a reality check + reflective moments of one's self and one's surroundings.
This morning, my team and I were told that one of our photographers had passed away last night.
sigh.
As my former manager put on a brave face and choked back a few tears to comfort us with as much information as she had, it was difficult for me to comprehend what was happening. Although I've dealt with death over the years, especially in ways that vary from my own father passing to a friend taking his own life only hours after I had chat with him, it is still never a feeling that I can ever understand or process entirely.
unwelcomed nostalgia,
a reality check,
reflective moments of one's self and one's surroundings.While trying to process the situation and think of his family and his life as we know it, it was clear that this news was affecting more people than one would truly imagine. He wasn't just an employee or a coworker; he had been with the company for over a decade, bringing a fun and positive energy to any and everyone he interacted with, and acting as a mentor to those who seeked guidance from him professionally and personally. Although he probably hated to love it, he was a Work Dad – our Work Dad.
unwelcomed nostalgia,
a reality check,
reflective moments of one's self and one's surroundings.On my first day at my new job, a coworker walked me around and gave me a light introduction to a few people we would run into while walking down the hall. We ran into him, and he asked if I'd like a tour of all the photo studios, and he gave me the most extensive walk through of each studio, where the photographers/stylists/models worked, and the lay of the land. I remembered thinking to myself,
"Wow, he really didn't have to go out of his way to show me anything. I'm not working in the studio, and I won't really need to be on this side of the building, but that was really awesome of him."
As I think back on that moment and every other since then, I can only be reminded at how full and pure his heart was. His intentions were always so genuine, and he truly put a smile on my face everytime we chat. It made me realize that those types of interactions are so rare these days, and I am so grateful to have experienced it.unwelcomed nostalgia,
a reality check,
reflective moments of one's self and one's surroundings.Most of us mere mortals don't fall under the category of being incredibly rich or smart; we aren't known for inventing anything cool and we're most likely not billionaires.
The marks that we leave in the world won't be immortalized in accolades or accomplishments.
It is how we treat people and how we affect their lives that'll leave us to be unforgotten.Feeling helpless as I saw coworkers who were under him look absolutely destroyed, there is no doubt that his presence will be Forever with us. Matt, I really hope you're eating a box of Twinkies up there and snapping as many pics as possible so that one day, we can all join you and take a look at how far we've come.
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Over Thinking 009: Alcohol Makes Me Less Awk, 32 YO Male Chinese-American Struggle, & Once A Cheater
If you're still not familiar with the Over Thinking series, click here to familiarize yourself.
Hello, is this thing on?
It's me, Christina!
Remember?
Yes, yes, it's been a while, but I feel like I've strayed away from my writing as of late, and I'm just trying to recenter myself. It's not that I've been off center; rather, I feel like I've just developed a new equilibrium
and am trying to find that new balance
(not the Nikes).I'm so grateful for all the new followers I've gained this past year, and I forget that people are new and haven't gotten the chance to get vulnerable with me. After having posted it on my Instagram last week, I felt like I pressed the refresh button on my blog, my open mind, and my open heart.
There were a ton of new vulnerabilities submitted, and I promise I'll get to all of them in the next few posts. With that, let's get into some of your anonymous thoughts and questions!
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Consistency vs. Intensity
I was standing in line at Starbucks and scrolling through the plethora of videos on my FB feed because that's basically what FB is, am I right?! Usually, I don't watch or stream any videos because I'm not on an unlimited data plan and am constantly paying $15/month extra for those overage charges (oops), but I had already connected to that free wifi, so I felt like a video-watching baller.
I then came across this video:
I nodded along after every sentence, as I believed in it as well. It's not about the intensity; it's about the consistency of the little things that accumulate over time. And no, we aren't talking about the little materialistic things (although stacks on stacks on staaaaacks of Gucci bags are nice tbh).
We're talking about the small gestures,
the unspoken acts of kindness,
the sweet moments of give and take, with you altruistically and unknowingly giving much more than taking.I went through the comments per usual, and scrolled through waaaaay more negative feedback than I would have imagined. To me, the argument of consistency versus intensity seemed, well…
obvious,
but to quite a few others, it wasn't as black and white as such.
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Over Thinking 008: Post-Grad Crises, Career Choices, & My Soundcloud is FIRE
If you're still not familiar with the Over Thinking series, click here to familiarize yourself.
Where in the world did February go? Or January, for that matter?
I'm beginning to really identify with people who tell me that time really flies once you get into your mid-late 20s. Quarters/semesters in high school and college used to feel like they
d r a g g e d o n & o n & o n . . .
and now, I can barely remember where the days/weeks/months have gone. Yikes.
In any case, that is no excuse for me leaving your questions + thoughts unanswered, so I will do my best to keep up a more regular schedule. I've noticed that a bunch of these questions are always centered around two things:
confidence and careers.
I've written a post on confidence (or rather, conning yourself into thinking you're confident), but maybe a career post (or video!) will be coming soon! In the meantime, let me answer some of your questions that have been collecting dust in my ask box!
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2017 Goal Recap: Get a Raise/Find a New Job, Create Consistently, & Help Others re: Resumes, Cover Letters, Personal Statements
If you're reading this, it's too late (sorry, I couldn't resist finishing the sentence like that even though it's 400% irrelevant). Ok, but seriously, if you're reading this, you've either been redirected from my Modern Love post, or you just found this because of the very enticing title — and by enticing, I mean the run-on sentence of a title because succintness has never really been my thing.
The goals are in the first 1:30, so you can stop after that, unless you want to watch my year of ratchetness. Be my guest, but just make sure to come back here!
So, did I get everything done? Let's break it down – but quickly, because we all have shit to do (or do we).
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Modern Love
At the beginning of 2017, I made a short video lying in bed with some fairly realistic goals to start off my year. Throughout my highs and lows of 2017, I found myself remembering that video and those goals, reminding myself that I had some work to do and to not let the January 1st, 2017 version of myself down.
My goals were simple:
- Write at least 1 blog post every two weeks on my personal blog
- Get a pay raise or start a new job
- Submit a piece of writing to the New York Times
- Hang out with more people one on one (and make them play Pie Face)
- Help as many people as possible with things involving writing
They were all fairly easy.
Ok jk they totally weren't, and I was going to give a quick overview here, but as I started to develop a little on each topic, the post got longer and longer, so click here for a separate post on a brief overview of my goals and how they were/weren't achieved.
A good way to set goals for yourself, both long-term and short, is to set realistic goals for yourself; there's no way I'm going to learn how to be invisible by the end of the year, so I'm probably not going to set a goal as "Learn how to be invisible," unless I'm talking about being invisible in a social setting, like metaphorically, in which case, ok maybe. However, setting a goal that isn't impossible but is challenging enough, and is well within your Zone of Proximal Development (ayeee Masters Degree in work okaaaay), is optimal.
And long story short, I kind of achieved all or parts of each goal that I set for myself…
except for one.
underqualified as f_ck 