S Y D N E Y

I’m more at peace now and I’m trying to have a good time!! This whole getting to have 100% me time will only last for about a month and a half now. But hey, I’ve been jamming out to some great tunes and meeting up with friends and trying to do my best. 

Patrick introduced me to Yaeji a few months ago with a YouTube video of her doing a makeup tutorial as one of her tracks played in the background. drink i’m sippin on, Guap, and Feel it Out are some of my favorites from her. A Pitchfork article mentioned the special quality in her voice, making it different from other house music. It’s true! It’s something sweet, lully, dreamy, and firm all at once. I finally reunited with Patrick and Jason with Karen when we went to San Francisco for a weekend (to see all the friends who moved up there and my birthday!) We went to the SF Museum of Modern Art and ate some yummy takeout Ethiopian food while sipping on some free birthday concoction I created at Starbucks (Vanilla Latte with two pumps of hazelnut and two pumps of peppermint.) 

We stayed with Sarah, who started a new research job at Stanford!! Anakaren gave us a comprehensive campus tour, with free access to Hoover Tower, and Sarah showed us her lab. That’s the most I’ve walked in about 5 months so I was real pooped by the time I got a chance to sit down. We made our own breakfast that morning: avocado toast, with eggs however you liked them, mozzarella cheese, with a side of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Sabor Brasil album. We also met up with Amber the night before and celebrated the reunion with some cool costumes (This guy dressed up as Pennywise and it was crazy good. He won the costume contest.) 

Above: a polaroid pic by Andy Warhol

Mom plays Blondie sometimes and dances along, so I decided to have my own go at it. Next thing I knew, I was dancing around in my room trying to study. At least I had myself a good time. Ran through the 1981 Best of Blondie album many times, bangin’ to Rip Her to Shreds and Rapture (!! man from mars !!)

I went to visit Devan a few weeks ago and he told me to “take a pen!” He had ordered a box of Uniball Signo 0.5 capped pens because they were so smooth and made his penmanship beautiful. He’s not wrong, and it was a really fun pen to write with while studying! It definitely felt super smooth and I felt like I didn’t have to put much stress on my hand while writing like I do with other pens. I ordered a box for myself as well.

Since finishing The Office, my next task has been to finish watching Parks and Rec. Currently on the last season!! I have some downtime now that I’m utilizing to spend time with friends and Netflix before this kind of time will never return. Next shows in mind: Gilmore Girls, Master of None...

At least in corporate America, traditions return. Which means that the world sees the basic form of me come to full form as I order hot peppermint mochas at Starbucks even when it’s 90 degrees outside because I want to celebrate a Southern California winter aggressively and no one is going to stop me. 

Lots of studying, lots of coffee, lots of jazz. Take a listen to one of my favorite tracks from Esperanza Spalding’s 2004 sophomore album, Esperanza. You just HAVE to listen to it. It’s really good. 

Above: tour poster for Nai Palm