projects | blog
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.