205. [Monthly Wrap-Up] Media Diary #9 - January 2025

31 Jan, 2025

Hi everyone!

I am so so late on reporting my monthly wrap-up. I got all tied up and now I finally found time to refresh and write. The good thing is - I could backdate my blog posts hehe.

Table of Contents

🗓️ January 2025

Blog:

1. How did blogging go this month?

Blog posts by the numbers:

Number of long-form blog posts (including this one!): 16
Number of short-form blog status posts: 25

Total: 41 new updates this January!

2. How did I get on with any new things that I tried?

Status update section on my blog. Sylvia was so kind to help me out with making the adjustments and customizations for my blog. I think the status update helps me get my thoughts out in the open at a faster rate, I guess? I don't feel like I have to write a long-form thought, like I usually do. It's fun to have little updates from my life here and there. I enjoy getting emails from my status updates as well! I believe it's really nice to stay connected and people can just tune into what I'm up to whenever I have a quick thought.

Postroll on my blog. I was really inspired by Jedda’s post about postrolls, who, in turn, drew inspiration from Brandon. I really like how I can share all of the posts that resonate with me in a public archive like this. I had tried implementing a blogroll, but sometimes I don't stay up-to-date if something changes or the blogs becomes dormant. I think a weekly/monthly postroll is what really propels more sharing and more community-driven interaction. It makes me happy whenever I see happy guestbook messages. I also respond to emails as well :) I'm trying my best to be a better email penpal, even though life gets in the way.

Clickable images on my blog. I use this link to embed images on my post. I got this link from Rat, when I saw the bookshelf link! I thought it was neat and I wanted to have my own images like that too :)

Away

Trips

I think I went on many excursions when I was in the US:

12 January 2025: Stinson Beach, went to a very hipster and artsy birthday party in Marin County.
18 January 2025: Enjoyed the great outdoors at a friend's homestead in the forest, went camping north of Boonville, California
31 January 2025: Started my solo road trip, went from Sac to SLO

Food

When I went back to the US, all I really did was ate my mom's cooking and a shit ton of Mexican food because I knew that I would be so limited when I return to Asia. I absolutely love Mexican food. I had chalupas and enchiladas often. My goodbye meal with my friends was enchiladas covered in mole. God, it hit the spot.

Some photos of the meals I had:

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Relationships

I spent a lot of time with my family this time around. I came back for the holidays and was really happy that I had some quality time with my relatives. I also spent a lot of time with my friends over the weekends.

I guess for romantic relationships, I decided to put myself out there again lmao. In order to, perhaps, find a trend or pattern in my quest to find a mate, I opted to make a spreadsheet about my dating habits. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of data entries to be honest. I feel like there might be a point of diminishing returns when trying to find a partner.

To the people I went on dates on, I made it clear that although I'm from the US, but I'm only in town for a short while, as I'm a perpetual nomad living abroad! Funnily enough, they still continued to go on dates with me, even when I said this disclaimer before the date. I reflected on this beforehand, thinking that it would be unfair for me to waste their time since I won't really be in the area, but they insisted to go out with me anyway? I told them that I'm here for just a little while, which I think they presume that I would be a quick hook-up or something? I reserve the right to approve or deny any offer made to me while on the date anyway. Why would I want to reject them and not allow them to have a lovely date with a lovely lady (heh).

I went out with 3 people. I had 7 dates in total. Two of my dates were veterinarians students, the other one was a IT specialist. When I went out with the vet students, I didn't know that their student cohort was so small, so they knew each other, but I didn't tell them that I went out with both of them... They both talked about how small their program really is and mentioned one another by name, independently. I made sure that I didn't bring up that I went on separate dates with each of them. It's just... the vet program was so small so I had to stop dating both of them lol. The IT specialist guy was a little bit abrasive. He asked me to go hiking in a really secluded forest after one date. I quickly waved him off after that. I stopped going on dates after that. It gets a bit tiring, and as I said before, perhaps maybe diminishing returns.

Personal

New things I'm doing:

Listening to entire albums.
Breathing and being present in the moment more.
Cooking new homemade recipes
Spending quality time with friends and hearing their perception on things
Processing my negative feelings instead of tucking them away instantly. Only compartmentalize for a little bit until I have a safe space, both physically and mentally, to feel it out.
Studying more programming languages (React is hard for me, but I'm trying my best...)
Collecting more photos of experiences and loved ones
Hiking and being one with nature
Romanticizing moments in life
Being a pleasant stranger and having good conversations with random people if they approach me (I already do this, but I try not to wave them off unless they are an absolute nuisance. I think, sometimes, people just want to have a slice of perspective)