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May 6, 2026 3:02 AM
Some good things
A lot of things kind of feel like a mess right now--stress about all the things I need to do, my indecisiveness, not getting enough exercise, my sleeping schedule, my struggle to find a new apartment, having things be up in the air and incomplete when I just want to check a box and not have to keep worry about it...
But there are some good things
I feel good about what I'm eating. It's healthy, and I'm actually not stressing out about trying to figure out what meals to cook, which is the complete opposite of how I've been feeling for the past year, maybe even longer. I'm not making anything too crazy, but it's so satisfying to only ever have a small amount of ingredients in my kitchen and to use them up. I don't waste food!
I am back to practicing Teochew regularly. It's not quite every day, but I'm trying to make it a priority. And honestly, I look forward to it. I'm trying to keep it small and not give myself specific goals. Before I would try to add like five new words at a time to my site and to always post an update about it, and I realized that at some point it ended up just feeling like some daily quota that I needed to reach. And I am not about to put up with that emotionally manipulative duolingo learning tactic again.
Talking to people is good. I'm trying to make sure I keep doing that.
Today I was in a totally normal and uninteresting coffee shop, just getting some work done, when I noticed something about the music playing. It was pretty quiet, but it sounded...Cambodian. Like I'm brought back to memories of childhood, being at a Chinese restaurant during a wedding reception and people are dancing. I actually downloaded Shazam, but it was too late and the song ended and the music switched to something else. Oh well.
Ten minutes or so later, I'm listening and I'm like "no this totally sounds like a Cambodian song". I managed to Shazam it in time and it's "Old Pot Still Cooks Good Rice" by Ros Serey Sothea. (apparently it's a classic!) Why is this cafe playing Cambodian music?? I walked up to the (white) person working there, and they were playing songs from a playlist called "60's-70's asian psychedelia". "Yeah, I wanted to try something different, and I kinda dig it" Incredible.
May 4, 2026 2:13 AM
Spring
Why is it so COLD??!!
I was telling myself that it is MAY and I am NOT turning on the heat.
Well, I gave in.
March 1, 2026 5:26 PM
Go go go
Oh man, it's already March. Time flies when you're...sick I guess. Seriously, I caught some sort of cold this past week and after a few days I completely lost track of which day of the week it was. Usually that means you're not doing any work, but I feel like I've been working this whole time. I keep telling myself that I'm going to take a sick day, but it just feels like I'm taking a lot of "work-from-home" days.
I've just been go go go with my projects and with all the other paperwork and phone calls that I had to do. I logged about 80 hours of work on WTCS in February. I worked on it every single day. I recently watched this ConcernedApe video, and he talked about how he pushed really hard during the last 6 months preceding the launch of Stardew Valley. That's kind of how I feel about WTCS. We had a meeting, and the project manager asked me if it was possible to get the admin editing mode working in 5.5 weeks, and while I never promised him that I would do that, I said that it is possible and now I'm just like "I GOTTA GET THIS DONE"
Some people procrastinate. I feel like I'm the opposite. I see that I have a deadline and it eats at me until I get whatever I need to done. Speaking of deadlines, I did my taxes! And even though they were a bit more complicated than I'd like, I got it all done in one day.
The non-profit stuff is...progressing. I think. I will admit that I have moments where I start to panic a little inside and think "I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing-what-if-I'm-doing-everything-wrong" as I'm googling and reading lots of articles and reddit posts. But eventually I take a deep breath and remind myself that I'm doing the best I can.
I feel like I'm so close to getting rid of all the kitchen ingredients I'm trying to use up. Really, I just need to be done with my ground cloves. Everything else that I have, I know I can find a use for. But these cloves expired in 2017 and I can only make so much chicken shawarma. Once I'm done with the cloves I think that I'll officially say that my quest is over.
I bought a sweatshirt the other day. I want to buy more clothes that are cozy or make me feel good. I scheduled a haircut for later this week. I haven't had a nice, professional hair cut in like...8 years? But I think it's time for one.
February 3, 2026 5:44 PM
Funemployed
So are you still funemployed?
Yeah, I guess you could say that. It kind of feels like I'm working two jobs right now. Two...volunteer jobs 😵 Almost every morning I write a little bit in my journal and I make this whole checklist of everything I want to get done that day. Honestly, I really like writing my daily TODO list. And since I hate working from my apartment, I've just been finding different places to work: the library, coffee shops, The Space. (I was feeling very blah being cooped up from the snowstorm) Today I'm writing this blog post from the climbing gym.
I felt very emotionally exhausted on the first day of the year, and my emotions have been aaalll over the place during this month, partly because stuff with The Space has been so up in the air. Right now, I feel pretty good though.
So we are going forward with the whole turning The Space into a nonprofit thing and I am trying to make sure we do everything that we're supposed to do. Honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm trying to do a lot of research and reach out to more knowledgeable people (and man it always feels like I'm bothering people 😬). I spent two weeks writing bylaws. I've already made more phone calls and emails than I'd like. I'm consulting with a lawyer for the first time in my life. But it finally feels like we have a clear path forward, and things are coming together.
Speaking of The Space, we held LEFTS, and despite the fact that I got attacked by inanimate objects twice in one day, I still had a great time.
Working on what I'll call "admin submission mode" for WhatTCSay has been a lot. It's probably more work to add this one feature than it was to do every other code change I've done for this project all combined. And I've even started tracking how long I spend on this project. It's good to be able to make incremental changes and get feedback on them though! Every time I make one change, I get three more suggestions on things to improve and I just file it all away for now because I'm trying to get an MVP out.
I've been working on WTCS so much that I haven't had time to actually, you know, practice my teochew. I am trying to squeeze in just a little bit of teochew flashcards (from my own website!) every day. I think it does help a little, but I'm itching to do more! Today I added two new words to learningteochew! If I even just added one new word a day, or spent a little bit of time watching a teochew video, I could learn so much more.
As for an update on my clean-everything-out-of-my-kitchen goal, I'm down to 19 ingredients! (and two of them are cayenne 🥵) I've crossed out a lot of items, but I think it'll still be months before I get through everything. For the most part, it feels really good to be able to get through an ingredient. But there was one night where I tried to make a microwave cookie in a mug (with my last bit of chocolate chips!) and the microwave literally DID NOT TURN OFF after the timer was up. I ended up with an extra burnt cookie. 😩
Dan and I did spend a week in Philly, and I will admit that it was really nice to not feel any obligation to cook things for a few days. During one of the days I tried to find my favorite instant noodle (Mama mi, flat rice noodles, clear soup, green package). We went into every single grocery store in Chinatown, and we did not see it anywhere 🙃
I'm really looking forward to it getting warmer, so I can get out to the clothing store, because I'm in desperate need of new clothes. Two of my jeans ripped in the crotch area last week! I'm down to only one pair of non-ripped jeans! I've also got this huge pile of laundry that I need to do. We did laundry last week. I think there's two loads worth of clothes that need to be washed now, but the washing machine at the apartment building is currently broken. There's always some issue with the laundry at least once every other month. I know I've said in the past that I like doing laundry, but no, not this much 😑
But to end on a positive note, one of my friends started making this really cool online game that I won't name since it's just in beta testing, but it's made me so happy to play a little bit each day, and I'm even hoping that one day I'll be able to contribute to it! (once I'm a little less busy with my adult responsibilities)
January 4, 2026 7:49 PM
Happy New Year
Man, 2025 was absolutely nothing like I expected it to be. I was looking forward to a year of relaxing, a year of doing things for me. It didn't really feel that way. And I want to get my thoughts out, so buckle up and click on Continue Reading if you want to see a recap of my past year, and what I'm hoping for the year to come.
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