eclairarts

Note/Update: 

This year, I lost someone close to me. I wrote this before I found out about @lookfindfree‘s passing. I am still mourning and I have no words on how to describe how I feel right now. It still doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve lost so many people already but having to gather my thoughts about grieving is different than just accepting fate which is what I’m doing now. I still have no words for it... 

For now, I am sharing the things I am thankful for this year even though it has been a very trying and challenging year for all of us. 

I also have to give credit to Rowena Tsai because she was the one who formulated this. You can look at the Productive Potatoes Notion Page she shared a few weeks ago: https://www.notion.so/Productive-Potatoes-Worksheets-54c2ac27e0cd484bbda17f94c5890acb

5 Favorite Things I Own From This Year:

1. The PC Setup I use now (I’ll share my setup in the future!) 2. Gouache Tubes and Other Cheap Art Supplies 3. Atomic Habits and Other Self-Help Books 4. My new room/ our new house 5. Huion Kamvas Pro 13

5 New Experiences That Brought Me Joy:

1. Drawing and having fun. Realizing that if I want to improve my art I have to quit being a perfectionist and just draw. 2. Being in a state of flow at work especially when I finished overcoming an obstacle or a roadblock. 3. Getting hired at Goodwall and having the experience of working with other designers. 4. Learning by doing. Learning how to use new equipment and/or software. 5. Video calls with friends no matter how rare. 

5 Memories I Shared With Others:

1. Birthday parties with family. 2. Staying at home and being close to my pets. 3. Homemade Samgyeopsal with relatives. 4. Being able to talk to my grandma. 5. Phone calls with close friends. BONUS: Singing online with friends via Smule.

5 Moments With Myself / Lessons Learned:

In the episode, they talk about how smoking hot (’smokestack’ in Karen and Georgia’s language) the Boardwalk Empire version of Lucky Luciano was and I laughed my socks off. BECAUSE YES! A REFERENCE I ACTUALLY KNOW. Also remember that time I was obssessed, super obssessed, with Boardwalk Empire? Yep yep yep! 

AND I got it all mixed up coz I thought they were talking about Anatol Yusef who actually played Meyer Lansky! Lucky Luciano is played by Vincent Piazza! Hahaha. 

There are a lot of feelings attached to this cartoon and one of the main reasons why is because when I was with my ex it was one of the few tv series that I watched with them. 

So I got really sad during the last episode of Bojack. 

It ended. Now what?

I hoped for a happy ending and it was more of an open ending wherein *spoilers!* Diane and Princess Carolyn cut their ties with Bojack. It’s kind of sad but also they had to do it, which is understandable and in so many ways cathartic. 

And ever since I watched that ending, I got into writing some realizations I had in my life. I guess one thing I learned from the show is sometimes you got to turn yourself around as Todd said when he was talking about Hokey Pokey with our main character. People change and sometimes we don’t get the closure we want in a relationship. We don’t get to choose how things end or begin and sometimes life just has a way of kicking you in the butt. 

There were so many nuggets of wisdom in this show that just makes sense. If you’re wondering why I put that gif there, it has something to do with my personal life. I won’t get into it. It’s just something that resonated with my current situation. I just find that episode really hard to watch but at the same time I learned so much from it. 

This is a book about books. This is about a library and most of all the Unwritten. When Claire found out that a scrap of paper could mean war between Heaven and Hell, she goes on an adventure with the Arcane Wing's Andras, her assistant Brevity, a demon Leto and a rogue book named Hero.

I picked up this book because I love libraries and books about librarians. But the thing about this book is it isn't just about Claire being a librarian of the Unwritten Wing. It's also about stories and other realms bigger than herself.