01. navigating post-grad life, finding new hobbies, friends & family, coming up with a schedule, (lunar) new years, music! and self-care

~~~the girl is very busy ❤︎

             entry is running a tad bit l8,

but here's my start of 2025

settling into josei life 

i was still recovering from the flu but i spent new years at home alone watching lucky stars and daily life of high school boys (lol) with susu (our neighborhood cat)…also finished up my dec blog since i gained some energy to finish it up

my real new years started four days after cause i banned myself from leaving the house for two weeks until i was fully recovered (and able to taste), thus my first real outing was grabbing seafood boil with my friends for the first time in a decade

seafood boil in theory is delish but if you know how lazy i am i despise having to peel seafood and getting my hands dirty (；´・∀・)ゝ”

finding things to do..

two weeks of the flu in fact did a number on me

keeping hands busy = recreate wallpaper

feel free to check it out~

and a very productive job searching + portfolio planning sesh along with my friend &got some design work done by doing her business card

it might've been more like this since we sat at a cafe for almost 9 hours but my friend can't sit in the same position for too long, and did the entire thing in one sitting (with slight changes throughout the week) then went home K.O'd from the reality of it all....

~~❤︎

and some housekeeping stuff like cleaning my car from dust that piled up in two weeks, selecting a few books to buy, finding some car accessories...

finding cute car decor suited to my taste is so difficult so my car still looks like it belongs to a serial k*ller with nothing in it （￣□￣；）i've been on the search for this hk dashcam in white but so far no luck~~~(;   ᷄ᾥ ᷅ )...

and family time 

ㄴ cousin baked us a round loaf of bread ദ്ദി=´∀｀)

i h8 spaghetti but i came over for dinner anyway

just to make up for missing christmas...

_my digicam also came in^^

ㄴ canon ixy 90f~~~★

first test shots are always pics of my room cause i only care about how it captures my typical color palette 『 』 (´ω`●) i set the coloring to neutral which is perfect for me cause it automatically lowers the saturation and temperature

baby susu & big boss

edited the exposure a bit after but i'm pleased with the outcome for the first time...however i should've searched harder for one that didn't cost 300 dollars and a piece of my dignity

i'm in the shadow dimension

okay they kind of got me good here cause they've been planning the 2000s agenda for them a while but it hasn't creeped up on me full effect until this cover release...wonbin-jaejoong scheme at full throttle ㅁㅊ

                ...ψ(・⺫・‶)

not a fan of their designated color (yellow-orange)

               i'll just admire the merch from afar...^^;

／|　　       |

||. | ∧_∧       |

||.  (´･ω･     | it seems that i've opened up

||oと.       Ｕ|  a door to leisurely activites

||　|（_）Ｊ|

||／￣￣￣￣

...

pickleballです

went out with my cousins to play pickleball to start off my ’25 resolutions of going outside more and saw this dog named soju…i didn’t know this pickleball shit gets serious cause all the courts were taken and everyone looked like they were ten years into corporate playing on a sunday afternoon. get ready to die behind it

it was kind of embarrassing cause cousin 1.0 and i are noobs and cousins 1.5 and 2.0 already know how to play so you can imagine me chasing after the ball 100x cause we could barely get a proper rally and i felt bad for people waiting on our nonexistent match to end #EpicFail…will be in my training arc (new PostGrad schedule)

and ceramics painting!

 i enjoyed this so much...my friend and i thought we'd be able to breeze by painting two but we spent two hours painting one ceramic (mind you...we have one medium plate and a mug) so we will be returning to our latest favorite pastime (* ‘﹃’ )( ˙ε . )

 haven't had the time to pick it up so depending on how good my mug turned out i will include it in february's blog~(^^@)

first purchase of the year

my sio bag ( ◕ ⩊ ◕ *)

the size is quite generous and i love the way it looks on black/white outfits..i’ve been thinking of getting this bag for a few weeks since i’ve been wanting to change up my collection and get something with diff texture ᐝ҉* (ˆ. ̫ . ˆ_)

i used to hate fuzzy bags and still sort of do since they catch dirt easier and “deflate” depending on the material but this one was too perfect to pass up (polka dots + bow)

popular to contrary belief from the looks of my page....i mainly (only) wear neutrals out so having this bag will at least make my outfits a bit more interesting (｢`･ω･)｢♪

first book of the year is 『all the lovers in the night』 and i haven’t gotten used to reading in my schedule yet so i keep trying to paint an ideal setting to sit and read when i should be picking it up whenever i get bored/doomscroll...

it was a little damp for the start of the year but also a slightly hopeful takeaway for those who enjoy reading about quiet life and themes of loneliness i'd give it a go since it was quite the easy read~ there’s a character that mentions a track 【berceuse】 by chopin and i think this might be in my top 5 classical tracks

therefore, this is my extremely vague schedule from day to day

_wake up a little before noon,

make my bed, open my window....                      

to prevent myself from getting back in, i put rilakkuma on top

『beautiful day*』

i've been listening to jazz as i begin my day but most playlists are too serene with deep jazz and i need something a little more chirpy and bright so this is my go-to...

will pretend i'm giving off this vibe as i read for the duration of the playlist :B

     and try to get my steps in

i'll occasionally go out or head to the gym with my friend since we've established a schedule to camp on the treadmill every few days to hang out and also save up other activities to do..(*ﾟｰﾟ;)

besides sakamoto days...       

i've been revisiting these as well as i do other things 

january is overall quite mellow without dread; (i mean previously trying to squish everything in before a semester begins ;-;) things have been a lot slower so now i’m just basking in this time as i plan a more structured routine…(spoken like a true rilakkuma adjacent)

   and prepping for tết (lunar new year)

plus self-care~❤︎

i deliberately bought a pajama set for the first time but i wasn't aware how expensive they'd be so i splurged $130 for two pairs (:3ぅ　) and this was the cheapest i could find for what i wanted (something similar to jo's lounge, but settled for oggitt)

and this trader joe's chocolate croissant candle for triple the price ($12) since i didn't find any this season and i've used these last yr LOLOL

&sucrette!!! 

found this duo on my apple music recs and i’m so sad i couldn’t listen to the rest of their extremely limited discography since it's only available in jpn region (one EP and album) so i ended up downloading a few of my favorites on my choco phone

【countdown love】 - シュクレット

i also tagged all my mp3 files so now it looks neat and categorized

i went back and forth transferring my microSD since i figured i should label everything down to genre of music (ꐦ ¯−¯ ) after one file was successful i went back and did it to about 50 mp3 files (incl. adding album artwork) and this was the final result~

_nostalgia final boss

started 『letters to a young poet』 and i've returned back to my former roots of 2010s asian american culture by listening to old asam youtuber music..

yes...You...

dusted off my guitar and ukulele to play by chance/we could happen/lullaby and my fingers hurt so bad since it’s been almost 4yrs since i’ve ever touched a string without calluses (becos i love growing out my nails) but i cut them all off just to play again

touching a ukulele magically transformed me into this

-_-..                                                     wonbin pins on the guitar case to commemorate the day i ripped my fingers apart

we're in sync cause they dropped this video recently and i shriveled up into a raisin cause whatever they release is so in tune with my tastes...whoever was in charge of nudging them to make this content just finished watching a youtube playlist of RRcherrypie's videos

i've been keeping this korilakkuma strap in the packaging ever since i got it but it looks so much prettier without it and attached an extra hijikata choco charm

tea time

i can't capture my hair on an iPhone 4 but it's still quite brown so i was planning on dyeing it black the night before aespa con since my outfit was all black anyway ૮꒰ ｡っ -｡꒱ఎ

i was too lazy so i ended up wearing brown boots to match my hair

#SandwichMethod (´・ω・)

gals ヾ( ‘ – ‘*)

_lunar new years

chúc mừng năm mới mọi người

for tết i spent the days eating thịt kho my mom made me the night before, eating it again at my grandma's house, and more on the day of at the end of the night

and malatang for lunch

i'll never get tired

of thịt kho and malatang for as long as i live...

overall feeling blessed surrounded by friends and family (also because i received a generous amount of red envelopes from relatives on top of graduating recently www) so i conclude january to be fairly slow to make me more appreciative

i've had weibo for a while now but never promote it since i only use it for chinese audiences who tried to access my wallpapers...but all the girls on there call other girls baobao or baobei which is just baby so this made like laugh cause it's strangely super endearing in english ʕ ^㉨^ ʔ

　　∧ ∧                

　　　（^～^ ）~♪        

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┃ that concludes my jan ┃

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  hope this 2025 started off well for you

                                        & see you soon,