People talk about self-care a lot, but I think that most people don’t think about it the right way. They use it as an excuse to “treat yo self,” when in reality, self-care is “often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do,” and it’s explained so well in this article by Brianna Wiest on Thought Catalog. “True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.”
This past week I was on spring break, and the previous week I shared my optimistic plan for spring break on the blog. The most important but most daunting item on the to-do list was making headway with my job search. At the beginning of spring break, I had a feeling that I’d get through most of the other items on my to-do list as a way to productively procrastinate my job search, and I was right! I completed all my academic assignments for the week back from break, completed the first iteration of design work I was hired for by the campus theatre department, and prepped four weeks worth of content for Her Campus Bryn Mawr. No wonder I felt like I couldn’t catch a breath! But it’s been a good kind of busy–a kind of busy that relieves stress. Now I’m getting back from spring break to finish off the last half of the semester, and I think I’m in a good place.
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I vlogged every day of spring break, which was one of my spring break goals so yay, but not all days or clips made the cut. It was important to me to keep the vlog short and sweet and somewhat logical (as in, followable), partially because I wanted to get to the good stuff and not waste people’s time, and partially because if I could keep the vlog within the duration of one song, then I wouldn’t have to find another song. (Finding music for Youtube videos is so hard for me! Anyone got tips?) Because the vlog wasn’t in depth, I thought I’d talk about my week in more detail on the blog to supplement it, since I share weekly updates here anyway!
Saturday
Madewell had a sale through Monday, so I popped by their store to buy new socks, as my favourite pair had ripped and quite a few of my other socks were on their last leg (ha ha ha…) as well. And of course, I took this opportunity to browse the rest of the store too. With the sale, I ended up buying a two-pack of ankle socks, a two-pack of low-profile socks, and a plain grey v-neck (I’ve been wanting more v-necks to show off my new necklace haha). I also wanted the sadie stripe button-up (new season!), but I don’t really need more tops, so imma wait and hope it goes on sale later. I also like these ankle socks, but I didn’t see them in store.
After Madewell, I went to grab brunch and co-work with Victoria at Pie & Plate Cafe, though it ended up being lunch, as we didn’t get there until 2:00PM. The town in which the cafe is located is a bit out of the way for us, so it was nice to visit over spring break when time wasn’t an issue. For our mains, I got a mac and cheese pot pie, and Victoria got a mushroom risotto pot pie, which we finished at 3:00PM. Then we moved onto dessert; I got a chocolate peanut butter pie, and Victoria got a lemon gingersnap pie, which we each got through half of around 3:30PM. We needed to leave the cafe at 5:00PM to catch our train back, which left 1.5 hours to be productive; to think we had planned to be productive the whole afternoon! Photos from Pie & Plate on Instagram. Full blog post coming up… eventually.
On our way back home, we popped by Chinatown to grab dinner to-go.
Sunday
Since I spent most of Saturday out, Sunday was my day for productivity:
I finished editing the photos I shot for a surprise proposal. I won’t be sharing this photoshoot on my blog, but I did sneak in one photo from the shoot into my February in review blog post (it’s the last photo).
I prepped everything I needed for Her Campus, which entailed drafting and scheduling four weeks worth of content, editing and scheduling my writers’ articles, planning our Spa Night event, prepping sponsored content for the website and Instagram, and drafting a week’s worth of Instagram posts.
I did all my readings for my Digital Cultures class for the week back from break and submitted my weekly response paper.
Monday
I walked to the campus pool (30 minutes from my apartment) and swam for the first time in several months. It took me awhile to get used to the feel of the water again, but it was a good swim. I’d swim more often if the pool hours weren’t so weird, if the pool wasn’t so far, and if I didn’t have to worry about packing and carrying swim gear. I’m hoping that I’ll find more motivation when the weather warms up; I was pretty good about swimming regularly at the beginning of the fall semester when the weather was nice.
Then I headed to Penn for my Art of the Web class. Even though I was on spring break at Bryn Mawr and Haverford, I still had my Penn class, as Penn’s spring break was the week before (for new readers: I’m a Bryn Mawr student majoring at Haverford, and am currently taking classes at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and UPenn, which are all part of the Quaker Consortium, plus Swarthmore, but I’m not taking any classes at Swarthmore this semester). It was exciting to see my classmates again and hear about their spring breaks. Their spring breaks were lit and I lived vicariously through them. I didn’t feel any FOMO though; I’m quite content spending my spring break relaxed in place.
Tuesday
I found Call Me By Your Name online, watched it, and also subsequently watched three hours worth of press junkets. Did I watch all nine 15-minute parts of “Armie Hammer & Timothée Chalamet cute moments” that someone curated on Youtube? Yes. (They didn’t create a Youtube playlist, but here’s the first part, and you can let Youtube’s Up Next do the rest. Also that person has uploaded a tenth part since I watched.) My favourite tracks from the film were both by Sufjan Stevens; he has a new fan in me. I especially loved “Visions of Gideon,” and man, that scene in the film was amazing (and all done in one shot??).
So yeah, that was that day.
Wednesday
I had planned to thrift in the city and then work at a cafe before my evening Penn class, but I had stayed up the previous night writing my long-delayed Highlights of 2017 post, so I decided to sleep in and do work from home until I needed to leave for class.
Before class on Wednesdays, I always have a coffee date with Louise and Stephanie, dear friends and classmates from my Penn class last semester. We usually have our coffee dates at United By Blue, but a new food court had opened on Monday on campus just down the street, so we went to check it out. It was poppin’. I got a mushroom burger from KQ Burger, and Louise and I shared Thai iced tea and coffee toffee ice cream from Little Baby Ice Cream.
The night ended with my Penn class. Alice, one of my classmates, serendipitously asked me for thrifting recommendations–serendipitous because I had planned to thrift that morning, but it ended up falling through. We both got really excited about it and scheduled in Friday afternoon for thrifting.
Thursday
I ignored my alarm and stayed in bed watching Jimmy Kimmel “ask kids”/”kids explain” on Youtube. Then I felt bad and started doing schoolwork. Dinnertime came along and I finally left the apartment to grab dinner with Georgina at Pho Street (pho ♡ summer rolls ♡ Vietnamese coffee) (seriously Vietnamese coffee is the frickin’ best). On our way there, we passed by the Bryn Mawr Film Institute and I saw that they would start showing The Greatest Showman the next day, which I had been dying to see for months!! The Bryn Mawr Film Institute is our local theatre, and it usually screens popular films super late or independent films. Also, tickets are only $10 with student ID. I frantically texted people to ask if they would be interested in watching with me the next day.
After dinner, Georgina and I popped by the nearby organic market because I was in search of dried medjool dates to make Aimee Song‘s raw bars, which was also one of my spring break goals. (I looked for them at Trader Joe’s, but they didn’t have any. Apparently it’s seasonal; they had fresh medjool dates though.) I found the dried medjool dates and also browsed the rest of the market. It was an exciting experience and I felt very mature. Whilst browsing, I was talking to Georgina about how I recently looked into cruelty-free brands and products and learned that animal testing for many products is not just allowed but required by law in China (x), and someone working at the organic market overheard our conversation and joined in, which was cool.
Friday
I kicked the day off thrifting with Alice at Philly Aids Thrift. It was maybe my third or fourth time there, and it was Alice’s first. The shop certainly has a lot of character, as does its employees. When I went into the store, I had to drop my backpack off at the front, and they gave me a playing card to mark the cubby. However, when I was ready to leave the store and retrieve my bag, I realised that I had lost the card. The employee said no worries and told me to name the item in the smallest compartment of my bag (a pad of stickies and a packet of tea), and then gave me my backpack and told me I was psychic.
I didn’t end up buying anything, but Alice found four things. Before leaving the neighbourhood, we roamed around and settled at Plenty Cafe for a light lunch. I had been to Plenty Cafe before, but not at this location. I got ricotta toast (fresh berries, Amara blood orange liqueur glaze, pistachios, mint, sea salt , grilled sourdough) and Alice got avocado toast (pickled radish, cucumber, Aleppo pepper, cilantro, sourdough, feta). Photos from Plenty Cafe on Instagram.
After thrifting and lunch with Alice, next up was watching The Greatest Showman with Ami! I almost cried several times. Just in “A Million Dreams” alone (the second song), I almost cried three times. Even the last scene of the film, when I saw *the tree*, my heart fluttered. Before watching the film, I was obsessed with “Rewrite The Stars,” and I still am (Zac Efron is actually really good in that song…), and now I’m also obsessed with “A Million Dreams” and “Never Enough.” Also after watching the film, I like “The Other Side” now knowing the context of it.
After the film was making dinner with Georgina back at the apartment. On the menu was Aimee Song’s raw bars and frozen pizza. I played The Greatest Showman soundtrack the whole time. Georgina’s favourite tracks were “A Million Dreams” and “Tightrope.” We also played a ton of Bruno Major (not Mars), as we had seen him live together a few weeks ago; it was Georgina’s first concert in Philly, and she subsequently bought his album on iTunes :’) Full blog post on Bruno Major coming up… eventually.
The night was just a bunch of The Greatest Showman and Bruno Major. When dinner was finally ready, we sat at my coffee table to eat and I introduced Georgina to the new reboot of Queer Eye (she knew the original but not the reboot, and I knew the reboot but not the original). The raw bars turned out to be soooo good. They’re also really addicting to eat.
Saturday
Georgina and I decided to continue enjoying each other’s presence. We grabbed brunch at Green Engine Coffee; I got avocado toast, lemon bundt cake with hibiscus glaze, and a mocha latte, and Georgina got avocado toast, salmon gravlax toast, and two mocha lattes. Also their new barista is cute… ꒰⌗´͈ ᵕ ॣ`͈⌗꒱৩ Photos from Green Engine Coffee on Instagram.
After stuffing ourselves and delaying our responsibilities for as long as we could, Georgina and I headed to campus to be productive. Georgina took us to her studio, a part of campus that I had never gotten around to checking out yet. I did my own work whilst she did her studio stuff. Nobody else was in the studio, so I blasted The Greatest Showman and Bruno Major on repeat. It was wonderful. The last song in the vlog is “Second Time” by Bruno Major.
How was your week?