Welcome to my new blog!

You read that right, I'm starting a new blog! While I haven't deleted my old one, I've moved all of the more personal, reflective posts from that one to here. My original blog was meant to be a space for all the recipes I liked and the notes and alterations I included, but I eventually started writing about anything I wanted.

Now, all of those entries will be on this pretentious-sounding, wannabe French aesthetic blog that I've titled "joie de vivre." I might feel terribly embarrassed about that choice in a few weeks, but for now, I think it's a decent definition of how I've been feeling lately and how I'd like to feel more often.

Let's do an update on my life, shall we? My last personal post was six months ago, right after COIVD-19 forced me to come home from Stanford. I'm still living at home, feeling better about it than I thought I ever would, and so much has happened!

I did spring quarter online, learned how to code in C++ while hating every second of it, completed my 7th grade wish to learn Latin, dipped my toes into the publishing world, and drove on the highway for the first time.

I repainted my room (It was light pink for ten years)!

I moved my brother into his new apartment in Boston, started running in the park more frequently, and repainted my room. For fall quarter, I'm taking a leave of absence. I could explain and justify my decision, but I've done that too many times already and would rather just elaborate on what I'm doing during this time.

Academic & formal work commitments

• Running The Stanford Daily's multimedia workshop - Along with my awesome partner in crime Sonja (the Photo/Video editor at The Daily), we're running a four-week multimedia workshop for high schoolers to teach the basics of photo, video, and podcast journalism! Over the summer, I was a desk editor for the summer journalism program, and I was really excited for the opportunity to work on this one too. Our high schoolers will be producing their final projects soon, and I'm so excited to see what they've been working on!

• Managing the podcast section at The Daily - I'm still the podcast editor at The Daily this volume, but one of the most exciting things over the past few weeks has been getting more staffers to join my section! I was mostly a one-woman team for the entirety of Vol. 257, and being able to tell people to do research and conduct interviews (as opposed to actually doing them myself) has made me very, very happy. My goals for this volume are to expand the podcast team (seems pretty successful so far), create a strong community within the section to help retain staffers, expand the number of listeners of The Daily Brew, and find a replacement managing editor for the next volume. Although I love making podcasts and owe them a great deal for helping me integrate into The Daily's community, I want to explore writing and contributing to other sections, starting with Arts & Life and the Reads beat.

• Teaching ballet classes - This is pretty straightforward. I set up a barre in my basement, show combinations and share computer sound over Zoom, and teach ballet classes. Fun times!

Club participation

• Writing for A&L - Like I mentioned, I want to start writing for other sections of The Daily. I'm so excited to write for the Reads beat (AKA sub-section) of Arts & Life! I'll get to write book reviews for debut novels from Stanford students, cover book-related events, and generally meet people who love books just as much as I do. It'll be a grand time.

• Facilitating community for Cardinal Ballet Company - With my co-social coordinator Ana, we're in charge of all things *community* for CBC! COIVD-19 made this leadership role much more important than I'd originally predicted, but I can't wait to introduce our new company recruits to the incredibly supportive, wholesome, and wonderful family of CBC.

Personal, creative pursuits

• Making time for creative passion projects - One thing I really wanted to prioritize while taking time off school was giving myself more time and space to explore creative projects. After training in ballet for so long, I can't help but feel its perfectionistic mindset in almost everything I do. I've been coming to terms with accepting amateurism and patiently climbing the learning curve that accompanies any new worthwhile pursuit. I'm also reminding myself that not everything I do needs a practical purpose, and trying something out just for the heck of it is as valid a reason as any.

• Learning how to use Final Cut Pro X - This program has a 90-day free trial, which is pretty much exactly the length of fall quarter/my leave of absence! I took a Skillshare class (for which I also used a free trial) on the video editing software, and I'm practicing filming my own videos and editing them.

• Complete the Couch to 5K program - This app supposedly trains you to run a 5K in eight weeks. Plus, it's nice to get out of the house whenever I can.

Self-improvement, character development thoughts

• Constantly attempting to figure out work-life balance - I'm starting to dislike the term "work-life balance," since it sounds horribly buzz-word-esque. Regardless, I'm terrible at balancing work and life at home. It was much better at Stanford, where I could have endless conversations with friends about any and all topics. Seriously, they ranged from serial killer ASMR to the issues of wealth disparity and ignorance. I guess that's just college. At home, I'm used to a much unhealthier mindset of working myself until I can't think anymore and doing that until I hate my work. As far as cycles go, it's not a good one. However, I have been making an effort to do better! I watch movies with my mom on weekend nights, walk and/or run in the park, and give myself downtime during the day to make up for all my late night Pacific Time Zoom meetings. Productivity guilt isn't an easy thing to let go of, but now is as good a time as any to work on it.

• It's okay to like stereotypically female things?? - I don't know where this fits in, but it is something I've been working on recently. I used to think — in some weird, toxic masculinity-esque way — that liking fashion or makeup would make me seem contemptible or shallow. Maybe this was because ballet dancers were also associated with being extremely feminine in mainstream media, and I hated how people would go, "OH you're a dancer?" *twirls around with arms above their head* Anyways, meeting awesome female friends in college has given me the space to talk about those things without feeling uncomfortable, and I'm excited to see what other fun thoughts I dig up as I get better at accepting that part of me.

Exciting stuff! My daily routine is pretty variable, since there's a long list of what I'm doing and/or feel like doing that day. So far, I've been enjoying my leave of absence a lot, and I'm looking forward to writing more about it in the future. I hope you enjoy poking around my new blog and that you stick around to read more of whatever interesting or uninteresting life updates I provide. Until then, get ready for spooky season; it's gonna be October tomorrow!