I’ve been a bit sparse on my blog and in the blogosphere this past month. I had a bit of a personal crisis at the beginning of the year when I was struggling with finding my desire to write, but right after I finished writing that post, I felt much better. Mentally, I was ready to go back to my regular programming. But then I got busy and couldn’t find the time to write. This weekend I’m planning to go to a work session with local Philly bloggers though, so I plan to hash out those blog posts I’ve been meaning to write! The work session is just a time for us to co-work at a cafe, a time meant to be set aside for blogging because many of the local Philly bloggers have other jobs and don’t have a time like this to set aside for blogging, but doesn’t have to just be for blogging. The work sessions happen monthly, and I try to go if I’m around (i.e. not away from the city for winter/summer break). It’s a low-key way for me to meet, befriend, and network with local Philly bloggers; this environment is much more comfortable for me than a blogging conference!
Classes, dinners, taps // weekly update
As I mentioned in my previous post, I got back from winter break at 10PM the night before my first day of my last semester of college. I’ve been living out of my suitcase. I was supposed to unpack and organise my room over the weekend, but somehow the weekend passed me by. My plan was to stay focused on school Monday-Friday and finish all my assignments within that time so that I’d have the weekend free to blog, hang out with friends, and run whatever errands I needed. But I finished my Friday morning class at 10:30AM and was like, nahhhh. Maybe I’ll unpack next weekend. Or on Wednesday; I only have an evening class on Wednesday. (Why does it feel like I’ve already been in school for a month already?? It’s only been a week!)
Tea, homework, music // weekly update
When this post goes live, I’ll be in my first class of my last semester of college! I don’t feel prepared for it. There was a lot more I wanted to check off my list before winter break ended. But I had the random urge to binge The Vampire Diaries during my last weekend in Beijing, so productivity went to shiz. The only good thing that may come of it is that maybe I’ll be adjusted to the time zone already. I don’t have a lot of time to recover from jet lag because I’ll have arrived in Philly at 10PM the night before my first day of classes. Well, here goes!
2017 reading challenge
Wow, I read a lot of books this year (at least for me). 58 to be exact. For comparison, I read 27 in 2016 and 28 in 2015. I went really hard at the beginning of the year over winter break, kept it slow and steady during the spring semester, went really hard over summer break, kept it slow and steady at the beginning of the fall semester, lost my mojo a bit, and slowly worked on bringing it back, which is where we are now.
Usually I share a mini review of all the books I read throughout the year in one large blog post in chronological order, but I think that’ll be a little too much for this year, so this year I’m going to divide it up by genre to make it a little easier to digest (the collage above is in chronological order though, if you’re curious).
Note: You may or may not notice that there aren’t 58 books in this post and that’s because a few of the ones I read were trash #sorrynotsorry.
Also note: My brief descriptions with every book don’t always include summaries/blurbs, because you can just click through to Goodreads and check out the blurb there. My descriptions are mostly about my impressions.
Water, pyjamas, brunch // weekly update
It’s my last week at work; next week I’ll be back in Philly for school! It’s time for me to go through my mental checklist of what I need to get sorted before winter break ends, which mostly consists of updating my resume and LinkedIn, consolidating my class schedule and figuring out which classes I want to shop during the first week, prepping everything for Her Campus Bryn Mawr, and drafting as many blog posts as I can so that I don’t have to worry too much about it once school starts, because who knows how crazy it’ll get? Oh, and if I have any time to read, that’d be nice to squeeze in too.
Favourite posts of 2017
I remember that when I was drafting my favourite posts of 2016 last year, there were blog posts that came to mind immediately. But this year, I had to do a little more hunting to find my favourite posts. Although I’m generally happy with most (if not all) of the blog posts I publish, there wasn’t any one that I was especially proud of or that meant something especially deeply to me, except for one. I think I’ll need to do something about that this upcoming year.