Pressing the Reset Button

This week was the only week that I had for Spring Break. I had a lot of different plans and goals in mind -- get started on my demo reel, read for fun, exercise a little more, travel a little bit.

Those plans fell by the way side. Instead of those plans, I began to worry about the future. I'm expected to graduate in the spring. SPCN is coming up in in nearly two months. I'm attempting to balance two jobs on top of and internship and everything going on in my life. There's a lot going on in my head and it hasn't even started yet. And when it hasn't started yet -- well, my mind has a tendency to think about every worst case scenario that could possibly happen (trust me, there's never just one worst case scenario).

And now I'm beginning to realize -- just breathe. Everything is going to be okay. Sure, this break wasn't the most productive. But it allowed me to press the reset button and reassess what needs to be done, and what needs to matter now in my life. To relax and enjoy the house that held all the dreams that I'm not carrying out now. To be with family and the ones I love. To just live and relish in the idea of being home. This quarter I'm about to experience is only one small part of the life I have and the life I plan to have. Whatever shit will happen, I will take with my chin up and head high.

But for now, I will enjoy the comfort of being in my pajamas, lounging at home and enjoying sunsets across the horizon as I rest up for the beginning of a new and final quarter.

Pieces

I wish people knew who I really was. Sometimes I feel that the girl that speaks so loudly your heart sometimes stops, the girl that always has weary eyes and seems so tired, the girl that can't seem to get a word in edge wise when someone with much more eloquence and charisma is in the room. That isn't me. That isn't who I want to be anyway. But it's funny how sometimes the person I am and the person I don't want to be end up being the same.

But the truth is, I don't want to be looked on as someone who doesn't have anything to say. It's a given, though, that a blank paper or screen is the best mode to capture a glimpse of me that not many people know. When it's filled with words that don't show a person's face, but instead a person's mind and heart.

This winter I realized that part of the reason people know me so well is because of what I put through writing. Essay writing, short stories and scripts, stageplays, scrawled notes in my journals...pieces of me that I put out in the open, crystallized in the pages or on the screen. A piece of me that can be taken by anyone. And yet only a few people have seen those pieces, have taken a glimpse. The truth is, not a lot of people really know who that person is yet.

This is the first step.

Planning My Year

Call me a nerd or what you will, but one of the reasons why I'm excited to start the new year is so that I can use my bullet journal and Passion Planner!

What is a bullet journal? The creator, Ryder Carroll can explain it better than I can on his website, bulletjournal.com. In a nutshell, it's a DIY analog system that allows you to plan, make to-do lists, and pretty much anything else you want it to do!

My supplies are simple for planning! I use Muji pens, Daiso highlighters, a basic ruler, and a squared Moleskine Classic Notebook.

This is my general January set up! Huge thank you to Kara from bohoberry.com who inspired me to do some of the layouts for my bullet journal!

Some new things I'm trying out are the habit tracker, which will hopefully get me in the habit of doing things that will make a positive impact in my life, like working out more and taking more fish oil pills (I know that's random, but they have really good benefits!)

I also want to start saving more and use the money for experiences and things that will benefit me the most. 

My favorite part about the bullet journal is that you can customize it to your liking. Planning is so much funner for me now that I can be creative, yet still maintain organization and focus on important assignments, projects, and goals. I've been bullet journaling for 14 months now, and yet I'm still learning and challenging myself with the bullet journal!

Something else I like to use is the Passion Planner, which uses a time blocking system to help you visualize what your weeks and months look like. I mostly use it for my weekly plans because as a UCLA student, the weeks in the quarter system are super important!

Hopefully this blog post stirred up some creative juices in your brain for planning for the new year! I think it's really important to have a good planning system to help maximize your time and focus, so if you haven't started using any type of planner of some sort, you definitely should!

Thanks for reading! Talk to y'all soon!

House vs. Home

I hate this place. The house is too messy. Its corners carry remnants of the past, heavy burdens that I can’t bear to throw out due to old yet diminishing value. The chaos is bundled into a small three bedroom house in the middle of no where. 

I love this place. Home consists of a loving family and a place to sleep, eat, and bathe. I love coming back and listening to my mother wash the dishes and my father watch television. The murmur of sounds and voices are a subtle reminder of the home that is still very much alive.

I hate this place. In the house, all I want to do is lie down on my bed and think about things. Things that are going wrong, like my brother’s hospitalization. Things in my life that I want but are far from reach, like employment after graduation. Things that need sacrifice and work, like happiness in the future. Things in the past that come back to visit. Things in the future that haunt me. Things, overthinking things, all in the space of this house, a subtle reminder that things are far from easy.

I love this place. Smells of lumpia and pancit linger in the air. Home is where the food is. It is comfort after a long day, a long week, a long quarter, a long year. Food and home fill my stomach with warmth and happiness.

I hate this place and I want to leave.

I love this place and I will come back. 

Motifs of Life: A 2015 Reflection

I fail at fulfilling New Year’s Resolutions, like majority of people. The hope of a new year pushes us to make goals and carry them out, but for some reason, we end up losing sight of those goals after barely 2-3 weeks into the year. They’re inconstant and inconsistent with the bigger scope of our lives.

There are things in our lives, however, that remain constant. The constant motifs of life, as I like to call them (because English major). They’re not things we consciously seek out; rather, they are the pieces of ourselves that make up who we are, that never fail to leave us, no matter how many times we try to leave them.

Looking back on this year, and the years before, I feel that a common motif in my life is flight. It’s kind of funny because I joined a dance team called “Take Off” earlier this year and I wrote and directed a short film called “Jet Lag” last year. Seems only fitting, right?

But actually, flight resonates with me on many different levels. It suggests wanderlust, a desire to travel, which is something I love and aspire to do in the future. It suggests escape, something that happened once I graduated from high school, and happened again when I started college. It suggests loneliness, because many times I had to flee from places that made me feel alone, only to realize that I had to comfort myself with my own loneliness in order to feel better.

Flight has appeared many times this year, even though I didn’t physically get on a plane. I had to mentally escape from the intense amounts of stress I felt over the summer and Fall quarter. I had to fly out of my comfort zone when it came to performing on stage, whether it was as a dancer, a singer, or an actor. I flew away from problems with broken wings, but I always returned with better strength and motivation.

Now here I am, waiting for the 2016 to come, a year where I’m expected to graduate in the Spring and fly off into the world of employment and job hunting all while still figuring out what it is I’m supposed to be doing with this life God has given me.

What does it all mean, these motifs in our lives? To be honest, I’m not so sure. But if this motif occurred last year and the years before that, and reappeared this year, I’m pretty sure that it will pop up sometime next year. It's inevitable. And I can’t wait to see how this motif will develop and branch out into other motifs next year and years to come.

I don’t believe in New Year resolutions. But I believe that the New Year is the perfect opportunity to reflect on not just this year, but in past years. I don’t believe in setting goals for just this one time of the year, I believe in setting goals year round. I don’t believe in putting efforts to improve myself once the New Year kicks in, I believe in trying to improve myself constantly, every day. And with the acknowledgment of this common motif in my life, I hope to use it to my own advantage and make the most out of it for next year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Arizona: A Grand Road Trip

Out of a whim, my mom and I packed a few of our belongings into my Corolla and we drove for 5 hours east to Gilbert, Arizona from our humble hometown of San Bernardino, California to visit family. The drive didn't feel that long since we ate, talked about life, and admired the views on the way, which soon became just plain desert about 2 hours into the drive. Nevertheless, we arrived to Gilbert, and the first location we went to the day after was Sedona!

Sedona has beautiful cacti and red sandstones, and the town itself is very quaint and ranch-like. I immediately felt like I was in Cars Land back in Disney's California Adventures as I was cruising in my Corolla. One of the things we tried in Sedona was  prickly pear ice cream! Unfortunately it wasn't the bright purple color like I saw in pictures, but it was still pretty tasty!

Of course, our Arizona road trip would not have been complete without a trip to the Grand Canyon!

On our 4 hour trip from Gilbert to the Grand Canyon, we ran into some snow! It was refreshing to see snow cover the desert landscape, almost as if we were in the countryside.

The views of the Grand Canyon were beyond words. The picturesque sunset behind the Grand Canyon definitely made the freezing 20 degree weather afterwards worth it.

I would advise trying to go to the Grand Canyon as early as possible. My mom and I barely made it two hours before the sunset, but I wish we had gone sooner to go around the South Rim to get as many photo ops as possible. There are also a lot of opportunities to hike, which I was unable to do due to my mom's aching legs.

Oh well, guess I'll have to come visit you again soon, Arizona! :) 

Broad Adventures

Kicked off the first day of my winter break by spending it at The Broad museum. Here are some of my favorite art pieces.