Happy back-from-8-months! Up until a month or two ago, if you asked me what I was up to, the answer would have been Absolutely Nothing (video games) (eating) (sleep, to a certain extent). Now that I’m able to step outside of the house, I finally have some content as well as lots of life updates.
As a preface: I’m currently in the Illinois area, but will actually be in NYC from late July to mid August if any of you want to meet up. :)
Work
The Trib, the Journal, the… idk!
I did a 5-month part-time data visuals fellowship at the Texas Tribune and am now a few weeks into my graphics internship at the Wall Street Journal. The former was more difficult at first because I had only ever experienced one newsroom before. Learning workplace dynamics and newsroom structure on top of new skills quickly got overwhelming, and juggling school on top of that just made things harder. But now I’m done with college, and work is all I need to do, which is much more manageable.
That’s still weird to say: I graduated college!
On a more technical ‘work’ note, I got a lot better with Adobe Illustrator and Excel (here’s one example of a story I did at the Trib). Sometimes it’s actually relaxing to zone out, lose my mind for a couple of hours and move shapes around on a screen. Ha.
And now I’m looking for a full-time job.
Life
Mourning
To be frank, my grandpa died this spring, and so did my cat. Both of these things broke me, but on different levels. It’s strange and kind of shameful to say out loud that I sobbed uncontrollably about my cat (and continue to do so at random times when I visit home again), but only once about my own 爷爷—I suppose that’s probably because I only met him ~6 times in my life.
I think I felt his loss on a more existential level, in a way that resembles the diasporic angst I’m sure a lot of my friends are familiar with. Stuff about what could have been, language fluency, belonging, the chasm between us, et cetera. But all of this rings as self-centered and only makes me realize how little I actually know about him and his feelings; how many questions I wanted him or the rest of my family to answer. Initially, I did recall the memories I had of visiting him in Harbin and watching him do tai chi at 5 am, or drinking 酸奶 by his side in the summer, but then I all too quickly began wondering about my own life’s direction and what I should do next.
For example, when I say I want to improve my Mandarin, find a job in China/East Asia, and hang out with extended family more while they’re still around, I wonder if that’s actually just an egotistical search for my individual meaning. Or even writing this section—it’s all about me and moving on, because I know nothing about him. Does that make sense, and doesn’t it all sound selfish and ridiculous? But I have few other ways to process. Ah shit, made myself cry while typing this. Make that two times. I cried twice.
Meanwhile, losing my cat was just pure grief: my family was out of town at the height of his illness, so I had to watch him deteriorate and then take him to the euthanization appointment myself. He was relatively young (nine), and…I made myself cry again! I need to move onto the next section.
You get the point. Two forms of grief expressed in two different ways; incomparable but both upsetting nonetheless.
In lighter news, I had bangs last summer, and then I cut off a bunch of hair in January and looked like Jimin from BTS, and then last month I cut it off even more. So now I look like this:
Online Friends™ and other departures
From last December to May, I began using Discord much more frequently as a means of socialization during peak US covid. If you’re unfamiliar, Discord is basically a combination of Reddit and Slack, where you can join groups that are devoted to a specific interest or theme and then chat with other people. I unexpectedly actually made some good friends.
Then, once we got vaccinated and cases went down, my college friends and I were able to visit San Francisco and I made a side excursion to meet up with some of those online friends (saying ‘online friend’ feels extremely 2012 but oh well). The internet is a weird place, but Discord was genuinely such a great way to get me through social distancing.
While in SF, I also finally went out to bars for the first time—although I’ve developed an alcohol allergy, which sucks but is probably better for me in the long run anyway. I just order mocktails, admire decor and drive people around.
Once I got back from SF, I moved out in 72 extremely chaotic hours. I didn’t get to say goodbye to all of my NU friends, but I guess there will be other opportunities to talk to them (are they really goodbyes then??). Now, I’m back in Bloomington, eating plenty of peaches and practicing the same Debussy arabesque I always do.
Play
League of Legends: That’s right. I’m back. I’m truly beginning to believe that this game will always have a hold over me. My roommate got me re-addicted, and I’ve been playing with him and his friends. I haven’t done this regularly in 4 years. It’s such a painful experience.
Hades: I was obsessed with this game around November of last year! Just wanted to include it because Christoph and Andrew both told me to play after I made my last newsletter post. And they were right, it’s an awesome game.
Fun Home: I binge read it last weekend and now I’m really wondering how well the musical adapts it considering how dense the book can be.
Naruto: Yes, I’m working my way through all 700+ episodes. It started out as a joke just to see the queer subtext, but I also realized that every popular anime these days references it, so I’m committed now. At first it kind of sucked—the pacing is notorious—but sometimes I just want something slow, sometimes I watch it on 1.5x speed, and sometimes I watch with friends while inebriated. All three of those methods make it a lot more fun and memorable. <3
There are a lot of things I wanted to delve into but didn’t have time to for the sake of brevity (why I cut my hair, what else I did in San Francisco, how’s the job search, how I feel about graduating), but also because each of those topics would probably warrant their own post. That’s what I get for not updating this in 8 months. Hopefully you’ll get more answers next time (or just email me or something).
Anyway here’s a soft jazzy song for you. See ya soon and thanks for reading!
I had the same experience of being the only one home with my 1 yo kitty with an incurable blood disorder when she needed to be taken in...it is absolutely a deeply emotional experience and you don't need to minimize it!
Are you playing in the LoL Clash tournaments?? I am pretty impressed with how great it has been for connecting with people from all over...plus if you see any crazy Fiddle players, it might be my bf ;D