it’s been four years

a lot has happened since the last time i wrote on this blog.

the pandemic happened. i got my first internship. i directed my first collegiate dance team. i learned to crochet. i quit ukelele (turns out i wasn’t that interested in it). somewhere in there, i turned 21 and bought my first drink. i fell in love. i quit a few clubs. i graduated college. i traveled a lot. i bought a car and named her button. i moved twice, first to mountain view, then to san francisco.

i had my first major heartbreak. i lost some friends. i made some new ones. i reconnected with some of the people i thought i lost. i started therapy. i got a tattoo. i started my first big girl job. i got over my first major heartbreak. i started journaling again, for real this time. i stopped reading for a bit, felt guilty about it, but know that i’ll come back eventually. i fell in love with myself again. i started picking up trash on the weekends for fun.

i danced a lot. i cried a lot. i laughed a lot.

i grew up a bit.

[Review] Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Series: N/A
Publication: January 15th 2019 by Simon Pulse
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, LGBTQ+
Source: Public library
Rating: ★★★1/2

Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

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Summary

Aspiring choreographer Sophie Orenstein would do anything for Peter Rosenthal-Porter, who’s been on the kidney transplant list as long as she’s known him. Peter, a gifted pianist, is everything to Sophie: best friend, musical collaborator, secret crush. When she learns she’s a match, donating a kidney is an easy, obvious choice. She can’t help wondering if after the transplant, he’ll love her back the way she’s always wanted.

But Peter’s life post-transplant isn’t what either of them expected. Though he once had feelings for Sophie too, he’s now drawn to Chase, the guitarist in a band that happens to be looking for a keyboardist. And while neglected parts of Sophie’s world are calling to her—dance opportunities, new friends, a sister and niece she barely knows—she longs for a now-distant Peter more than ever, growing increasingly bitter he doesn’t seem to feel the same connection.

Peter fears he’ll forever be indebted to her. Sophie isn’t sure who she is without him. Then one blurry, heartbreaking night twists their relationship into something neither of them recognizes, leading them to question their past, their future, and whether their friendship is even worth fighting for.

20 things i’ve learned since turning 20

woah happy 20th birthday to me!!

it’s a little bit past day of, but 20 still feels kind of momentous, no? it’s a little bit different than age 16 or 18, though, where i felt the effect of aging almost immediately when waking up. the world looked a little brighter, i felt a little more grown, it was a good time! maybe it was just finally being able to get a permit and vote, though HAH.

even though 20 isn’t an age that comes with the gift of new responsibilities (like buying alc huehue catch me in a year), 20 still feels old. i’m no longer a teenager, and i’m fully stepping into a new decade of my life. what i’m grateful for, though, is that i happened to turn 20 over break. i’m currently spending my thanksgiving break at my university, where the large majority of people are at home for the holidays. i’m chilling out here, pretty much alone give or take a few meet-ups with friends, but it’s… really nice to be able to ruminate on my thoughts and goals and ambitions for the next decade by myself. too often, going to a huge university, it’s really hard to find time to let my full introvert come out, and i make do with the few moments of solitude i can scrape together between classes and during meals.

that being said, i have a lot of thoughts and a lot of goals for myself after having an entire afternoon to myself and i’m ready to share on my lil diary-blog.

11/17/2019

hi i’m back what’s up y’all

one thing i’ve always struggled with is prioritizing. there is so much i want to learn and it’s hard for me to prioritize what i want to do at any given moment. i want to wear so many different hats and be good at EVERYTHING but the truth is that it’s near impossible to do that. today i’ve just been thinking about the people and students that i really look up to and how that fits into my goals and i’m starting to realize that i get really overwhelmed by other people’s success. i look at them and i’m in awe of how they got there and it really puts a lot of things in perspective in that their journeys in college are so vastly different from mine. thus far, my college experience has been largely defined by the dance community and the social groups that i have developed from being involved, not necessarily the academic side of things. if anything, academics have become largely tangential to the entire thing, which, i am starting to find, i’m not that okay with. the longer i am here at ucla and the more i am exposed to people that do what i want to do, i see that i have a long long way to go before i’m anywhere like those people. and it’s not necessarily the idea that i want to be those people (even though it seems like it), it’s just hard for me to imagine that i could ever develop the technical expertise to reach that level.

if i could go back and kick high school kelly for not taking CS2 and CS3 with reed, i totally would. learning python now is so much harder on my own than it probably would have been had i taken the class with reed. especially since my interests revolve largely around how beautiful tech projects can be. i like making things pretty and i like using code, something that’s really mathematical and technical, to make things *~aesthetic~*. i like how graphic design looks. i just like… pretty things. so like dance and code and all that ahahahahha makes sense doesn’t it? right now i’m a statistics major, but if i could go CS, I totally would although it seems like it would really hard to do that now. actually, maybe not because i heard CS is highly highly theoretical and i just want to be able to design and make pretty things with code. so i suppose it’s different but it’s also so much easier to find opportunities to learn code and such when your entire schooling revolves around it.

i just wanna learn so much and it’s hard! ahh!!! why am i like this yo. i wanna dance (well too!) and play ukelele and code and these interests are just so far from each other that it’s hard to figure out which ones to prioritize. time to do some soul-searching ig? or i just need to pick one and run with it for a while because otherwise, none of these will ever be achieved and that’s honestly the scariest thought of all.

growth is so hard to quantify! i tend to measure achievement through physical achievements and rewards but i think that it is largely a product of my high school environment where you weren’t really considered good enough unless you won award XYZ. much of my growth in the past year i would say is mostly social and emotional? i still think i have problems with saying no and prioritizing what i need to get done and being patient (ahhaa spot my last angst post on this blog) but i really really want to, for once in my life, have a goal and stick to it until the end. someone plz tell me why my personality has made it way harder for me to do that and how i stop doing that plz and thank you okay

❤ kells

10/28/2019

huuuuu i always come back here when i’m at a loss for what to do and just need to journal… usually i do it in my journal but i don’t have it on me so hello old friend.

i’m really grateful for how many opportunities i have been given this lovely ol’ year. my schedule is packed and i can already tell that i’ve grown in so many ways because of them. from stepping into some of my first genuine leadership roles since entering college and proving to myself that i am capable of things i didn’t think i was, second year has already been really good.

at the same time, i wonder if it’s too much. while i was keeping it together for the first month or so of this year, in the past week i have… failed a midterm, turned in a hw assignment late, and just today, decided to play hooky from work because nothing really was happening and everybody was gone (okay that one is a little more justified). i often wish that i had more time to hang out with my friends, but i also know that i’m very passionate about the things that i have chosen to get involved with.

there’s this one part of the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson, which i read last year, that i keep remembering. while i did resonate with a lot of the book, this one part about fear of changing our identity and who we are really struck a chord with me. i realized that a lot of times, i’m afraid to try to go for bigger opportunities and roles and chances because i don’t think that i could ever be capable of becoming the person that does those things (wooo that was a weird sentence). like a year ago, i didn’t think i could ever be a good enough dancer to make it on to one of UCLA’s competitive dance teams. but now i am. and i still question if i belong there. wow imposter syndrome SUCKS.

the same ideas apply to me as a stats major that wants to go into data science or journalism. i can’t fathom ever being skilled enough or smart enough to have a lucrative time in those fields. but i know that i am. but i’m just so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of knowledge i have yet to accumulate because i’m excited but also doubtful that i could possibly understand that much. i mean yagirl can barely get through her linear algebra class, how could she possibly survive those upper division statistics classes? i guess math is different, but at the same time who the fuck knows amiright?

(on a less serious note, it’s the same with ukelele. like i’m trying to learn but it’s hard to imagine that i’ll ever get good enough to consider myself an amateur ukelele-ist i guess? right now, i’m just a girl that bought one off of amazon)

yet this year has also proved those ideas wrong. the ease with which i stepped up as a director for ASC or a workshop coordinator for Statistics Club was shockingly simple and i think i’m doing a relatively good job. there are definitely kinks to work out in my leadership style, but i’m really not doing such a bad job all things considered.

i guess at the end of the day, i need to stop being so hard on myself, and recognize that i’m doing the best i can. i’ve made hella mistakes this year but that’s kind of what life is all about right? keeps things interesting and gives you the drive to get better.

that being said, i think it’s important for me to set some goals for myself that aren’t necessarily academic or hobby-related. like yeah yeah, i wanna perform at Battle Royale (please that would be the dream) or bring my GPA up this quarter (bc rip spring quarter) and maybe land an internship but i’ve been lacking some goals for my mental, emotional, and social health. i have a lot that i want to learn how to do, and honestly, i’m like 19 (almost 20!) and have the rest of my life to slowly get through each one.

so…

• i want to practice patience. for myself, for life, for others. i need to understand that i can’t push myself to go faster, be better because those things take time. not being patient with myself is the opposite of being gentle to myself, and of all people in the world that i can control to be nice to me, it’s myself.
  • also crushes don’t turn into relationships overnight so like chill out babe you got way too much on your plate to be putting 100% of yourself into a crush lMAO
• be able to recognize that mistakes are okay and will happen. nobody is 100% on top of things at all times and this year, i really challenged myself to do the most so like mistakes should be expected lolz. i kind of thought i’d be more okay with making mistakes but like yagirl was pretty good about not making them in the past and she ain’t doing so good right now about them whoops. this goes back to the being patient with myself thing though because i need to be less hard on myself.

aight well back to schoolwork bc these internships aren’t gonna apply to themselves!

kelly ❤

first quarter done what next?

hello hello!

today is december 19th, 2018 and i have just finished my first quarter as a college freshman. it’s been about three days since i’ve arrived home from california and boy oh boy has a lot happened in three months. i guess i could say i’ve learned a lot about myself but it’s more like i’ve gotten more confused hahaha.

educationally, classes aren’t too tough yet. coming from an incredibly academic high school magnet program made midterm and finals szn pretty easy to handle. that is not to say, of course, that i was not stressed. college stress is a new type of stress because on top of classes is the extra element of managing your own time, meals, and health, something that admittedly, was automatically managed for me in high school. going to school from 7-3, extracurriculars until 6, and then dinner sometimes afterwards meant that by default, leftover time was for homework and sleep. maybe going out with friends if it was a weekend. but in college i was surprised by how much of my schedule depended on making sure i got all of my meals in. i’m pretty sure i’ll be coming out of first quarter with a gpa that’s at least 3.8 or higher. maybe not ideal considering how easy the classes were for me, but the time management part was the toughie.

i did something called danceoff. it is associated with my school’s korean american student association. and it was simultaneously difficult and beautiful. i learned that i still have a ton to learn about urban dance and expression, but i am so excited to spend the next few years exploring. danceoff had the wackest practice hours (think like overnight? so like a giant slumber party in a parking garage for 12+ hours at a time) and i did not have the best blocking at all but i think that i took advantage of being led by some incredible dancers. and i definitely think i grew as a dancer.

i can’t say that socially, danceoff and kasa was the best for me. i’m someone that is very… private with my innermost thoughts and feelings unless i feel that i’m in a judgement-free zone. but then when it comes to people i trust, i’m extremely open. so like kinda a walking contradiction? because i consider myself really open but only when i get the signal that it’s okay for me to be that open.

kasa wasn’t really that, for me. if anything it was kind of toxic and felt kinda like if i told anybody anything everybody would know. which is not ideal considering there was some serious drama/tea, the details of which i won’t reveal just because there was SO much. so i guess i’m still searching for the people that will keep me centered. i have met a couple of em that i clicked with immediately but i haven’t totally gotten to where i hope to be. but you win some you lose some and danceoff, while extremely rewarding as a dance experience, fell slightly flat socially.

i think part of the reason is because i was always on the go. a lot of people got breakfast and would hang out outside of danceoff, but as someone that worked on-campus, went to nearly every lecture (unlike the grand majority of people), and is on scholarship, my academics kinda went first. which feels like i’m falling back into old early high-school habits, when i would pretty much neglect my social life because of grades. but that’s only this last quarter. i have more time next quarter so i’m excited to see how things shake out.

also dating is hard. or at least trying to date is hard LOL. i had/have/am trying to end a crush that i had and woah i don’t know how people fall into relationships so fast because it is so hard. i think part of it is because i am straight trash at texting and don’t really enjoy texting. but that seems to be a really big part of modern relationships so as someone that would much rather talk over a phone or in-person it’s been a struggle. although who knows maybe that’s because the person i liked also was really bad at that aha. this was a real whirlwind of a crush that i’m tryna put an end to because it seems extremely unreciprocated and there’s just not really a point in trying so hard if it’s like that. and if there is no opportunity for it to happen. i mean we are on winter break rn and crush is in cali and i’m back home on the other side of the country so three weeks? seems like plenty of time for him to lose interest (if there was any in the first place) and for me to get over it.

i think the biggest overlying theme of this whole quarter tho is that i feel like i don’t have a lot of control over anything and that to me, is something that i’ve always really valued. being in control of my life and able to go on adventures and experiences knowing that because i have a foundation, that it’ll be okay no matter what happens. but that foundation is kinda shaky rn and i don’t love the feeling. BUT i guess that’s life and what a transition period is supposed to feel like. but i’m home now so i’m gonna focus on my family and friends here while i can because i won’t be able to when i go back to school.

❤ kelly

 

the future draws near & guilt

hello all

tomorrow is may 1st, a date that seems almost innocuous to everybody besides seniors. it’s college decision day.

i have already committed to a college (i’m gonna be a bruin!) but as may 1st draws nearer and i hear more and more about my friends and where they are going, college is starting to feel so much like a privilege that i feel like i don’t deserve.

i mean, hear me out.

this year was the first time that i really learned about my family’s financial standing. and well, contrary to what my mom jokes about, i don’t come from a poor family. honestly, it would be even a stretch to say that i come from a middle-class family. but we have always lived fairly humbly. it’s not like i wear designer clothes or drive fancy sports cars or spend excessively. but it’s nothing that my family has ever really worried about. it’s not even something that my parents seem to worry about in paying my college tuition these next four years.

so i guess, what makes me feel so guilty is that i come from a family with such standing. i have friends whose families make much less and i hear them stress about saving personal spending money for college and choosing a school for its financial aid package over other qualities. of course, i did the same and was really concerned with the financial aspects of attending a school with a really big price tag. but it felt disingenuous when i did so, even if i WAS concerned with draining my family’s entire savings accounts. it wasn’t fake but it felt fake to worry about it when my situation wasn’t as severe. like i’m saying that affording the school of my choice wasn’t really a huge issue. it even ended up being the school that gave me the worst financial aid package.

and that made me feel guilty. guilty that i was accepting my family’s support and that i wasn’t trying to be more self-sufficient. it feels almost like the easy way out to say “yeah my parents paid my way through college” even though the majority of students are like that. but to ask the parentals to pay so much more for it… well it feels selfish even if they seem to mind paying for it.

because what have i done to deserve it? it might not even be an issue of if i deserve to go to such a pricey college or not. i think i’m just terrified that i’m going to out to la in the fall and totally blow it, wasting all of the effort my parents put into putting me through school.

i want to have a good time in college and join a ton of dance teams and everything but at the same time i feel like if i’m having too much fun, then i’m not focusing enough on my education. and that’s what the green pays for, not for me to go party it up in la.

but i guess that’s something to consider in five months, not now.

kelly ❤

A Blast From the Past / A Review of Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier

The thing that kills me the most about this post is that i wrote this three years ago and… never posted it? I still think it’s a pretty solid review minus any grammatical errors that I’m just not gonna fix. In the spirit of nostalgia (because I’m about to be a high school graduate yippee), I figured posting this relic of a review would be fun. Have fun with 15-year-old Kelly!

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Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
Series: Born Confused #1
Publication: July 1st, 2003 by Scholastic Paperbacks
Number of Pages: 512
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Source: Public library
Rating: ★★★1/2

Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

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Summary

Tanuja Desai Hidier’s fantastically acclaimed cross-cultural debut comes to PUSH!

Dimple Lala doesn’t know what to think. Her parents are from India, and she’s spent her whole life resisting their traditions. Then suddenly she gets to high school and everything Indian is trendy. To make matters worse, her parents arrange for her to meet a “suitable boy.” Of course it doesn’t go well — until Dimple goes to a club and finds him spinning a magical web . Suddenly the suitable boy is suitable because of his sheer unsuitability. Complications ensue. This is a funny, thoughtful story about finding your heart, finding your culture, and finding your place in America.

a coming out post, to thank diverse books

I have always questioned my own sexuality and yeah I know, I’m not special because everybody does that. But hey I thought I was straight for like all of high school until now. I figured I’d graduate without anything really changing all that much. That seems to be a trend though, thinking that I have it all figured out and then whoopdeedoo I learn and change again.

In retrospect, it’s probably more accurate to say that I had been questioning, even if I didn’t realize it. I’ve had crushes on both guys and girls, although I always excused the latter as being a “girl crush” or that I “really, really wanted to be her friend.” I admired girls in a totally “platonic” way.

Cue the eyeroll, please.

[Review] Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

Autoboyography by Christina Lauren
Publication:  September 12th, 2017 by Simon & Schuster  
Number of Pages: 407
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Source: Public Library
Rating: ★★★★★

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Summary

Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.

But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.