Last I left you, I had just announced that I was planning to move from Philadelphia to New York City. Right now I’m still in Philly, staying with my friend Georgina, but no fear, I’m still working on moving to NYC. A few days ago I shared my post “Back here,” vaguely explaining how I’ve gone back and forth on things and not much has changed, and today I’ll take you on that journey that has led me to the same place I was when I started. Here’s what happened in between!
Books
Disclosure: I received free copies.
The Crowns of Croswald by D.E. Night // ★★★★☆ // This is the third physical book I’ve ever received, and the first physical book I’ve ever received signed! D.E. Night wrote, “Magic awaits!” If you’re a Potterhead and looking for another magical world to dive into, check out the magical school Halls of Ivy in The Crowns of Croswald. This novel is suitable for middle school, but is still a fun, light read for older readers in high school, college, and above!
Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams // ★★★☆☆ // This novel had a lot of potential and I was excited about the Black Mirror vibes I was getting from the blurb, but I don’t think that potential was quite reached. I would have been interested to see the characters and themes explored more deeply, but it felt too broad and unresolved, leaving me wanting. The novel is a good start though! Full review on the blog on Wednesday.
Movies & TV shows
It’s been an exciting month in entertainment for Asian-Americans! Everyone’s talking about Crazy Rich Asians and now so am I! I don’t often find myself in theatres, so I wasn’t sure when I’d get around to watching it, but a few friends were planning to go, so I hopped onboard. I am so glad that this film made it to Hollywood instead of being relegated to Netflix. I mean, nothing against Netflix, I love you, but it’s truly a different experience. This level of extravagance was made for the silver screen!
Because this film has been touted for its representation, there have been a few criticisms on that front, and here are some thoughtful articles I’ve enjoyed: “Crazy Rich Asians is a win for Asian Americans. But it gets Singapore wrong” via Vox, “Crazy Rich Identities” via The Atlantic, “Performing Blackness Won’t Fill Our Asian-American Culture Deficit” via Color Lines.
But the criticisms won’t erase the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I don’t want to downplay the significance of representation and visibility, but just as I regarded the novel as a fun read rather than as a source of cultural enlightenment, so did I regard the film. This film is a great stepping stone for future Asian-American creators, and it’s also a whole lotta fun! I laughed, I cried (three times at least omg and I’m not usually a crier), and I fell in love with Astrid. Her elegance! Her class! Her beauty! Her kindness! Her strength! Her moneyyy.
Related: guest post on the blog by Kat on why you should watch Crazy Rich Asians
Another great one for Asian-Americans has been To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before on Netflix. The minor characters fell flat for me, especially having read the novel, but I love me a good rom com and it sure was that! I love that rom coms are making a comeback. I didn’t know that they had gone anywhere, but everyone’s saying they died and came back, so I guess they’re back??
Also new on Netflix is season 5 of The Great British Bake Off! I’ve only just started and I miss Mary, Mel, and Sue, but I’m just as captivated by the beautiful bakes and illustrations as I was before.
A new Netflix show I’ve been trying out is Stay Here, which is a makeover show for Airbnbs (well, for “short-term rentals” in general, so basically Airbnbs) led by a designer and real estate expert duo. Not only do they makeover interiors, but they also help with online marketing by way of photographing and copywriting.
Two shows that Georgina and I have been watching together are Kitchen Nightmares and Masterchef Junior on Hulu. We switch between them depending on whether we’re feeling more dramatic or more wholesome.
Disclosure: This section contains affiliate links.
Shopping haul
It all started with Aerie‘s 10 for $35 undies… I bought ten pairs of underwear because I can’t remember the last time I bought underwear — certainly not within the last four years. How often are you supposed to buy new underwear? o.o I bought ten pairs of the same underwear to make life easier. Then Aerie told me I was $15 short from free shipping (you need to spend at least $50), so I browsed around and realised that it had also been awhile since I bought socks, except for the four pairs I bought from Madewell in March, two pairs of which were no-show, which made for the only no-show socks in my closet. So I bought two packs of 5 from Aerie, one being normal no-show (with no print, unlike the thumbnail image), the other being no-show for flats, bringing my total to an amount just enough to qualify for free shipping. If I could have chosen multi-packs in one colour I would have (black).
Wishlist
Labour Day weekend sales have really tested my self-control! Good thing I’m poor. I’m just gonna casually share these with my mother and see what she thinks… She’s always going on about how my wardrobe is in dire need of better clothes (•̀ᴗ•́)
Anticipating my need to have professional clothes, I’ve been looking at dresses because it’s a whole outfit in one! Thinking about pants and tops separately is too much to plan for, and I really despise shopping for pants.
I’ve loved this forest green for awhile, and now that it’s a trending colour, I’m finding more and more items in this colour. I’m loving this fluttery formal dress from Treasure & Bond, this sweater dress from Abercrombie that can be dressed up or down, and this casual polo dress from Abercrombie. I think this assortment of forest green covers my bases!
Veering away from forest green and into a chic black, I’m loving this black fleece dress from Abercrombie with a pop of blue and red, this black dress with rainbow stripes from Replica Los Angeles (no, not a rainbow dress with black stripes!), and this elegant black dress from Black Halo.
For something more fun and flirty, I’m loving these ruffled wrap dresses. Admittedly, I probably wouldn’t wear the yellow dress from Glamorous very often, and part of the reason I’m taken to the black dress from BB Dakota is because they call it the Holly Golightly gingham dress. The black dress could totally be work appropriate though! But I also like how the model dresses it down with Converse.
My lust for jumpsuits continues with this number from Abercrombie.
Lately
If you haven’t been keeping up, I’ve been spending almost all of my summer with Georgina, as my apartment is right next to campus and Georgina has been working a summer job on campus. Her job ended at the beginning of August, which also meant that she would be kicked out of her on-campus apartment, and since I had an extra bedroom in my apartment (my roomie during the school year was abroad for the summer), I offered my place to her. We moved all of her stuff to store in my apartment and had a great weekend finishing up our Harry Potter marathon, ordering in pizza, cooking up our own meals together, and exploring the city. One such exploration led us to the Academy of Natural Sciences, which I had never visited before. I learned about incomplete metamorphosis, in which larvae don’t form pupae and instead grow slowly to resemble adults but without wings. They’re called nymphs. Do all caterpillar larvae undergo complete metamorphosis, or are some incomplete? Sad. Anywho, that evening Georgina and I watched Night at the Museum.
Following the weekend, both of us had coincidentally planned to leave for NYC on Monday, and both of us had also neglected to buy our tickets until late, which gave us the opportunity to buy our tickets together. Georgina stayed in NYC for a week and a half to go back home and see family, and I stayed in NYC for a week to see my family and also see high school friends. I don’t know how, but it seems that everyone independently decided to make their trip to NYC at the same time! I mean, it worked out well for me so I’m not complaining.
I stayed with my mom and my brother Ken at an Airbnb. They were in NYC because they had just dropped off my youngest brother Danny in Connecticut for summer camp, and NYC was an opportune vacation spot as they waited for Danny to complete his week of camp before they would have to go back to Connecticut to pick him up on the weekend, and then all fly back to Beijing together. I capitalised on this vacation by having my mom go apartment searching in NYC with me (Ken mostly stayed in the Airbnb — his favourite way to vacation). At this point, we had decided that we were interested in purchasing an apartment for investment purposes (not renting!). I was a bit daunted by this decision because it felt like this would mean I would be tied to NYC for a good amount of time, and I didn’t even know what I wanted to do yet! But it’d be nice to not have to pay rent, and my mom was interested in investing in real estate in NYC, so I was down for it.
On Monday night, Georgina connected my mom and me to her cousin who is a real estate agent, and by Tuesday we had the next two days filled with showings. Wednesday and Thursday were long days. There was one afternoon in which we walked up and down Central Park West several times because that’s the way our appointments worked out, and there was this one doorman who would always wave to us with an excited bounce in his feet (not “in his step” because he was just standing in one place at the door, not stepping anywhere). My mom asked him for a selfie and we learned his name was Reuben. At the end of those two days, 15 showings later, my mom and I had agreed on our top two properties, and my mom and I also each had our own third preference. At that, my mom and Ken left for Connecticut, and I headed over to my friend’s place (in NYC) for an exciting weekend ahead, reuniting with our high school friends.
Some highlights of the reunion were learning how to play pool at a bar (I suck), dancing at the Museum of Sex (okay I was ready for bed but it was an interesting experience), an intimate concert experience with Sofar Sounds, and a potluck. Sofar Sounds is a really cool music event startup. How it works is they announce a date for a city, people can buy tickets, they reveal the location the night before the gig, and it’s not until you arrive that the artists are revealed too.
After a packed week in NYC, I was so ready to go back to my apartment in Philly and relax alone. I didn’t have much time to get too comfortable though. On Wednesday, Georgina came back with her mom in tow to start moving her stuff out of my apartment and into her new apartment in Philly. They moved from Wednesday to Sunday, sleeping over at my apartment between the days and finishing just in time before Georgina’s new job would start on Monday.
Whilst they did their moving, I was working on getting in offers for the apartments my mom and I had chosen, deciding what to do with my stuff in my apartment (my lease would end the following weekend), and packing (even though I hadn’t yet decided what I’d do with all those boxes and disassembled furniture). Georgina’s mom was so helpful with my storage/moving situation and helped me find storage with UPS. The great thing about UPS is that they can also ship your stuff, so when it comes time for me to move to NYC, I can simply have my stuff shipped over and I won’t have to find another moving company. UPS wasn’t the cheapest solution, but at that point, I had too many different things to deal with, and my contract with UPS would take care of all my storage/moving needs at once, so I went with them and splurged a little. I packed my life up into four boxes and five pieces of disassembled furniture. Besides that, I also brought over one box of valuables and miscellaneous items to store at Georgina’s new apartment.
At the same time, I was dealing with securing an apartment in NYC. Unfortunately NYC requires a lot of financial information from potential buyers, which is confusing for my family because my parents live and work abroad, which is troublesome because that slows down the process of getting our offers in, which is troublesome because NYC’s housing market moves so fast. In fact, our first choice is no longer available, our second choice is already in the negotiating stage with the potential buyers, and my third choice is no longer available either. My parents are still working on getting their paperwork together so that we can be ready to put in our offers when we find another place we like, but I have a feeling that it’ll take awhile.
So now I’m back to square one, looking at rentals in NYC, planning to sign a one-year lease. And guess what? I’m looking with Kat, who I roomed with junior year when I first moved off campus (she went back to live on campus senior year because she was graduating a semester early and thought it’d be easier for me to find a roomie for a full academic year instead of half — true). It wasn’t until after we stopped being roomies that we realised how lucky we both were to have each other as roomies junior year, as we have similar living styles and get along well. Mostly. Ya know, except for the usual torture true friends put each other through ৲( ᵒ ૩ᵕ )৴♡*৹ Anywho, excited for that.
Meanwhile, I’m staying with Georgina at her new apartment in Philly, since she serendipitously has an extra bedroom in her two-bedroom apartment, as her first roomie situation fell through. I’m so lucky to have her place to stay at, but I can’t stay here forever, so I’m giving myself until October 1 to find a place in NYC and move out, which also gives Georgina until then to find her roomie.
And somehow, in the middle of all that, I’m looking for a job. I’ve had interviews with three companies that have all gone well, but I’ve been waiting awhile to hear back from them. I had really wanted one of those to work out and work out quickly, but it hasn’t been quick. And even if one, or two, or all three don’t work out, I want to know that too! But I can’t put my job search on hold to wait for them, so I’m getting back into the job search grind.
O boi. It’s been a busy and stressful time. But I closed off the month in the best way by celebrating my birthday with Georgina and Victoria over dinner and dessert in Chinatown. I really needed a carefree night like that!
How was your month?
PS: july 2018, august 2017