My last day of work was on Friday, and now I have just under two weeks to vacation in four cities with my family! By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be in Rome until the 3rd, Florence until the 5th, Venice until the 7th, and Berlin until the 12th. I already have blog posts scheduled until the end of August (which will more than cover the time I’m away in Europe) excluding my weekly Happy Lists, so the blog won’t go quiet, but I’m not sure how often I’ll be at my computer to keep up with my Bloglovin’ feed, reply to your lovely comments, and check out your awesome blogs. Tbh, I don’t want to be at my computer too often these next two weeks, and when I do find downtime, I’ll probably be submerging myself in a book (or that’s what I tell myself I’ll do anyway). But you can find me live on Snapchat and I’ll try to keep my Instagram up to date as well!

Ahh I’m so excited and anxious about the trip! I don’t think I’ll settle down until I meet up with my family in Europe, and then my anxiety about traveling alone will finally subside. I’m drafting this post “so far” in advance (I’m writing this on a Wednesday to publish on Monday) because I can’t think about anything but travel plans from Thursday onward, so that accounts for the lost second half of the week undocumented on the blog!

1. I had a fantastic Monday:
   – Last Saturday I got my wifi for my new apartment, but I wasn’t able to sort out my utilities until Monday because the office is only open on weekdays. It’s also only open during my work hours. It wasn’t a good week to ask for a day off seeing as it was my last week, and many of my coworkers finished the week prior, so not only were there many projects for me to wrap up, but I also needed to wrap up other people’s projects that weren’t finished. Basically, there was a lot of work to be done. So rather than asking for a day off (and losing a day’s worth of pay), I asked my supervisor to let me work remotely for the day.
   – I left for Philly early in the morning to maximise the time I had to travel before the sun peaked, ran my errands, got my utilities sorted, then headed to Joe Coffee. With an iced mocha by my side, I set to work.
   – Just after noon and finishing a good portion of the project I was working on, I gave myself a lunch break and walked down the block to Madewell. I’ve been eyeing their morningside shirt and now it was on sale due to their fall collection coming in, but the shirt was sold out. I was so sad because I’ve been eyeing it for almost a month now and was even prepared to buy it at full price (well, +student discount ;)), but I was too late! I left with a plain mustard and white striped tee with a boob pocket, which was on sale +40% additional off sale +15% off with student discount, which ended up being about $10. So I guess the trip to Madewell wasn’t completely fruitless.
   – Making my way back to Joe’s Coffee, I passed by a Barnes & Noble and decided to go in for a little while. I shoulda known it’d take me more than a little while. I can’t remember the last time I bothered going into a Barnes & Noble! (because I know I probably won’t buy anything; libraries are my friend.) I browsed a bunch of books and added a bunch of them to my TBR on Goodreads.
   – On my way into Philly I ran into Hazel and Fiona on the SEPTA train, and on my way back I ran into Rachel and her mom! Oh, also I didn’t get ticketed on my way into the city. Pro-tip: travel during rush hour.
2. Ami came over to the apartment to visit me and Victoria! We had a girl’s night of ddeokbokki with ramen and Toy Story 2 (Victoria and I were on a Toy Story marathon and Ami had caught us in the middle of it). By the time we finished the movie, it was pretty late, so we persuaded Ami to stay the night, so our girl’s night turned into a sleepover! And the next morning we made fresh blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
3. Julia, Amia, Victoria, and I finally watched The Secret Life of Pets! My favourite part of the movie was the part shown in the trailer, but it was overall really cute–ridiculous but cute.
4. When we got to the theatre and gave them our Groupon, the lady asked us whether we were 18+. We said yes. Then she asked if we were all 18+. We said yes. Then she asked us what movie we wanted to watch. And we said The Secret Life of Pets lol. I think maybe you need to be 18+ to use Groupon, and the four of us blessed with Asian youth didn’t look it 😛 But of course we proved our maturity with our choice of movie.
5. I was listening to Save Me by BTS and discovered that Victoria hadn’t heard that song yet, which means that I introduced it to her, which is a feat because Georgina and Victoria (who were roommates last school year) are always educating me about kpop. The apprentice has become the master.
6. Currently listening to Alone by Billy Lockett.

What was the highlight of your week?

I want to make an effort to remember the little joys in life, so my 52 week challenge for 2016 is to write weekly Happy Lists.

PS: 30. 29. 28. 27. 26. 25. 24. 23. 22. 21. 20. 19. 18. 17. 16. 15. 14. 13. 12. 11. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.