Welcome to my blog!

Now what the hell is this?

For the longest time, I always considered starting some sort of website or blog to keep a record of what was going through my head. Whenever I saw characters in movies or books typing away on their laptops about drama or work in their lives, I daydreamed if I would ever do that myself. Well, here I am – 20 years old, sitting in my London dorm room under fluorescent lights typing away. Manifesting it!

I don't have a clear vision of what this'll be yet, but I know I at least want to have this as a dedicated space to do some little book reviews. I was talking with a friend yesterday and we were reminiscing on how much we used to read as kids, and how we both lost that sometime in middle school or high school. As a kid, my dad would take me to the Pleasanton Public Library and I would sprint through aisles of books in the kids' section, looking for the next few volumes of Magic Tree House books or shiny new fiction books on display. I used to rent out four to five books at a time, speed read them, and go back in a few days to repeat the process all over again. Books were equal in importance to TV, soccer, friends, and the Wii -- yet, somewhere along the road I stopped reading for leisure and constrained myself to the curriculum of whatever English class I was taking at the time. For the most part, I enjoyed reading the books and stories that my teachers provided the class, including but not limited to: Beloved, Night, To Kill a Mockingbird, Things Fall Apart, etc. But, between the ages of 14 and 20, I read ... three books outside of classes? Maybe? Which, considering I could read three in the span of three days as a kid, is a little sad to me. I think BU has sort of opened my eyes to literature again (shoutout all the HUB classes I had to take), and fun fact: I even considered minoring in English for like, three semesters. Spoiler! I'm not minoring!

Very randomly and recently though, I've been on a reading roll and want to keep myself accountable. I've sped through "the book that TikTok is obsessed with," aka It Ends With Us. I just finished Crying in HMart, and I'm currently fascinated by Klara and the Sun. Each of these books has reignited that childlike sense of wonder and imagination. As I read about Michelle Zauner cooking jatjuk, I'm transported to her kitchen, watching over her shoulder as she tends to the simmering porridge under the warm glow of her overhead lights. I read lines over and over again until they bubble up sadness, giddiness, anger, or frustration. And then, I think to myself, "Wow. I need to keep this somewhere." So, there's purpose #1 of this blog. To keep a collection of quotes from books I read and to write about how they make me feel.

Another thing I've been thinking about too is authentically and coherently sharing what's happening in my head: putting out long-form posts like this to my friends, family, and strangers. I acknowledge that I'm a bit of a yapper and want to be more intentional with the conversations I'm having. I feel like this blog can help me get some of the static out of my head, so I'm not jumping back and forth between random topics in conversation. I'm scatter-brained and I need structure, so thank you Wix for making this built in blog feature! If you know me, you probably also know that I am a pretty anxious person on the inside despite my efforts to "fake it 'til you make it." I could give you a whole laundry list of things that stress me out, but then you'd be scrolling on this page endlessly. I'll probably write about these things too, but instead of just filling up text with my existential dread, I want to find some optimism, hope, or actionable steps to mitigate the stress. I guess we'll see how that goes, but I think that'd be nice too.

I already regularly journal, but this does feel different because of the purpose. For one, I don't have the physical capacity or patience to quickly write longer pieces or essays by hand. I can hear the voices of all my professors and teachers who said "hAnDwRiTe NoTeS sO yOu RetAin MorE iNfoRMaTion" -- I think my right hand would fall off if I tried to do that. Two, I think this form is better for sharing things that I'm learning about or passionate about. My journal is reserved for deeply personal topics or silly stories that my future employers or strangers online don't need to hear about.

I was going to apologize for the rambling and likely incorrect grammar in this post, but I've decided not to because if you've made it this far, clearly you don't care about that. Plus, I'm trying to be less apologetic for things I don't need to be! This is my personal project and I'm tired of being a perfectionist, so I'm gonna put this through one go on Grammarly and call it a day.

So, there you have it. A quick introduction to my blog and what its purpose is. I'm excited to keep writing on this moving forward. Even if no one else reads it, I'm personally stoked to have informal book reports and pseudo-philosophical musings to pretend I'm a humanities major again. Who knows, maybe I'll throw in some recipes and fun stories in here too. This blog is my oyster!