So Long, Freshman Year!

Hello, friend!

I just wrapped up my year of college and am getting ready to live in China in 19 days (if you wanna donate to my GoFundMe, here's the link). Also, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has donated already, I am eternally grateful. There are still a couple of odds and ends that I still need to get ready to go to China, but I feel mostly ready and very excited to travel again this summer. This blog will continue while I am in China, and I also plan on making some videos of some of my experiences.

Today was graduation at UW-Madison, and I can't believe that that will be me in three years. I feel like the rest of my college experience will go by SO quickly. Freshman year was a great year, and I learned a lot about myself and about college. For instance- I can't really handle three power lectures in a row. My lectures weren't extremely long power lectures, they were 1hr and 15 minutes long. However, putting three of them back-to-back on Tuesdays and Thursdays was a CRAZY idea. I didn't know how badly I would struggle to stay awake in those classes! 0/10, wouldn't recommend. I would find myself dozing off, even when I got a solid 8-9 hours of sleep!  Coffee saved me. But then again, I also learned that coffee makes me sort of jittery and then I can't focus. What a conundrum!

This year I also learned that you will meet a lot of people, and you don't really have to keep in touch with all of them(that will get exhausting). I just chose a few friends who I thought had great potential to become close friends with, and spent some quality time with them! ☺ I found some great gal pals in my classes and we still made time to hang out even though in the second semester we didn't have any of the same classes. Friendships go both ways, too, so if someone's not reciprocating as much, then it's totally fine to let the friendship drift away. I feel like in college, friendships are very come-and-go. There will be some friends who might stick with you even after you don't have classes with them, and others who were only there for that class only. However, as I continue along into more classes with Computer Science and Chinese, I expect that I'll be making more friends in my major who I'll see a lot of the time.

Thanks so much to everyone who made my first year so much fun!

Happy Saturday,
Joy :)

Saudade + Little Updates

Hello, friend!

I've been listening to one song on repeat for the past couple of days since I discovered it.

Saudade, by Us the Duo. 

Saudade is a Portuguese term that is hard to translate to English. However, I've done some research and this is what I've collected:

a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia

the love that remains

a deep emotional state of melancholic longing for a person or thing that is absent

Not only is this word amazing, but the song is also. If you like this kind of sappy stuff then give it a listen :). 

Here's a quick update on my life-- 

I have been trying to apply for scholarships for studying abroad this summer, which has kept me away from blogging. I'm planning on studying abroad in Tianjin, and it's so expensive! I have talked to multiple people who thoroughly enjoyed their study abroad experiences in other countries, though, so I am confident that it will be worth it.

Five days ago, I turned 19. Say whaaaat?! Even though I just turned 19, I'm like woahh that means that there is only one more year until I am 20(which sounds way older than 19?). I went out to eat with some of my friends at a dim sum restaurant, and felt so encouraged that entire day. So far, being 19 has been good, and I'm excited for the rest of this year.

That's really all I have for now! Hope you have a happy Tuesday. 

Joy :) 

My Favorite Stationery

Hello, friend!

My notes from stats class!

I love stationery.  Having cute notebooks and good pens makes studying so much better for some reason! When I was in China, I went to a store called Muji, which is a Japanese "lifestyle" store that sells everything you could ever want in a house, from clothes to lots of storage, utensils, and even toothbrush holders. Oh, and stationery. They don't sell food, though. The whole store is extremely minimalistic! I bought four 0.38 mm pens from Muji(a normal pen is size 0.7 or 1.0),  and used them in my first semester of college, and they instantly became my favorites.

First off, the pens are so small that they make my handwriting look 10000x nicer. Second, they're actual pens and don't have felt tips(those can break easily). And third, the packaging is sleek and not too heavy.
 When I was in New York, I had to go to another Muji store. They only have stores in New York, California, and Massachusetts, but you can easily buy things online.  I bought these notebooks.  They only have 30 pages in them, which is actually perfect for taking notes in college because your classes are only a semester long. Plus, if you have smaller handwriting, this allows you to finish a notebook instead of continuing to use old notebooks that are only halfway full by the end of the semester.

Only $3.50 for a pack of 5!

Finally, I have my planner, Staedtler pens, and my new washii tape that I love! I got the washii tape recently from the Line Friends store, and it has a cute bunny print on it. Staedtler is a German brand that has created wonderful felt-tip pens, which I love to use for color-coordinating reasons. However, I will mostly reach for my Muji 0.38 pens if I am taking notes. My planner is from Anthropologie, and it took me two other planners to finally find one that worked for me! I first had a planner from Barnes and Noble, but it was wonky with the layout. Then I bought a huge academic planner from Amazon that was super cute and had so much space, but since it stopped after June, I continued to search for another planner. I found this one on sale from Anthropologie, and it's perfect. It has a monthly layout, tabs, an attached string of the bookmark, and isn't weirdly formatted!

I think some people might think- why do you care so much about your stationery? My answer is- well if I am using it everyday, I want to have stationery that I really like!

It's the little things that can add up to make a big difference in your life! Do you enjoy stationery? Have any suggestions of brands to try? Leave a comment! 

Have a great weekend! 

Joy :) 

New York, New York!

Hello, friend!

I just got back yesterday from the most wonderful trip to New York. Almost everyone we met was so kind, it was so strange(New Yorkers are known for having quite the attitudes)! In December, I had the  idea one night to go to New York to watch Anastasia on Broadway with my mom and it turned into a three night trip. Luckily, we found extremely cheap plane tickets on United Airlines, and I'm 100% sure that it was God that kept us safe and made this trip flow smoothly. I'm also grateful to God and my family for the opportunity that I had to even go, I know that for some it can be a luxury to travel at all.

"Welcome to New York"

I planned our itinerary before we left and made a long list of everything that we wanted to watch and eat, and we got right into our schedule when we landed. The first night we had dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner. This diner is unlike any other because the wait staff are all Broadway star wannabes (some have even come back from Broadway and are serving), and they sing while they serve and in between! 

We walked around Times Square and took pictures, and also visited the Line Friends Store, which was super cute. I purchased a little roll of tape that had bunnies printed on it for my bullet journal. 

At the Line Friends Store!

We decided to head back to the hotel early because we were tired from traveling all day and wanted to get a bright and early start the next morning.

the view from our hotel! yay!

After quickly getting ready, we went to lower Manhattan and tried matcha tea at this cute pink-themed store called Cha Cha Matcha. If you like matcha, you'll love it! It tasted kind of like fruity pebbles.

Literally after getting drinks, we walked to a cute place called The Butcher's Daughter and had an açaí bowl as a little before-lunch snack. This place is decorated very well, and the bowl was so yummy! 

After shopping in SoHo, we walked to the Museum of Chinese in America. This museum was amazing. I didn't know that much about the history of Chinese people in America since it's not taught as well in schools, but I learned a lot. We learned about the struggles that Chinese people went through, and about the major breakthroughs that they had as significant events occurred in America.

Did you know that originally Chinatowns were made to keep Chinese people in there, and away from other people? I thought that that was so interesting.

A chair that a Chinese immigrant would sit on to answer questions about America or else they were deported.

There was a special exhibit about the Golden Venture, which was a cargo ship that smuggled illegal Chinese people into New York. Some of the illegal immigrants who went to jail made paper folded crafts, otherwise known as zhézhī  (摺紙) as thank you gifts for the people who were trying to help them attain freedom. 

We then hopped on the subway to go back up to Times Square. We ate pizza and then went to see Anastasia! It just so happened that we were seeing the show on my Spirthday(spiritual birthday), which was so cool. I felt like it was quite the gift from God! After the show, we waited outside the stage doors and got a picture with Christie Altomare, the girl who starred as Anastasia.

By then it was late, so we walked to Shake Shack across the street and got shakes and fries for a snack. 

The next day, we went to the New York Public Library. We had been to New York before, but we had never gone inside the library, gone to the Museum of Modern Art, or seen the Flat Iron Building, so those places were the goal for this day. 

My mom and I first went to Good Morning America at 7 am and were on tv!! Woo hoo!! 

When we got back, I saw myself on TV!

It's so flat!

We also went to the Museum of Modern Art. The Museum is free on Friday nights, which was a bonus! My feet were hurting from walking like 11 miles, so we didn't spend too much time there, but saw the things we really wanted to see: Monet and Van Gogh. 

We took the Ferry to Staten Island that night and visited our friends, the Schefflers, in Staten Island. We got lunch with them and then headed back to the Midwest!

This trip to New York was jam-packed, and so much fun. We had pretty decent weather, too. It warmed up on Friday and Saturday for us, and anything above zero is warm! I start classes in two days, and am feeling refreshed and motivated to take on second semester. 

Shoutout to my mom for coming on this trip with me and for making it so much fun. <3 

I hope that  you all have a fantastic week!

Joy :) 

Welcome, 2018!

Hello, friends!

IT'S THE YEAR OF THE DOG!

I hope that you are all having a wonderful start to the new year. My family and I just got back from driving home from Florida, and I have had a lot of time to think about this blog post! 2017 was a great year overall. Here are some events in no particular order:

• I visited China and my orphanage
• I graduated high school
• began college at UW Madison
• baked my first ever pie!
• went to my first-ever campus conference as a campus student
• picked up classical guitar

Last year was great, but I'm still ready for a fresh start. 

I have more of a "focus" for this year instead of a goal. I'm going to focus on NOT forcing an identity onto myself that isn't me. I watched a Youtube video last year about a guy who was also Asian American, and I found that I could relate to a lot of struggles that he went through. It basically was not fitting in with certain groups because he wasn't "Asian enough," or, "American enough," but at the end, he discovered that he didn't have to force himself to fit in with any group. He just had to wait patiently for the right people to come along that became his own friend group(I could do a whole other blog post on being Asian American, will save it for later)!

Anyways, last year I found myself doing things that weren't necessarily making me happy. It ranged from listening to music that I didn't actually like, wearing clothes I didn't like, or hanging out with people who weren't helping me spreading JOY(wink wink) to others, and I decided that I want to be more real with myself this year. 

Certainly, it is good to push myself and to try new things. Some experiences in life take more perseverance and may take more time adjusting to them. I plan on taking full advantage of the diverse environment that I'm in at UW and trying different activities. I'm going to have a different mindset and will enjoy the people I'm surrounded with and enjoy the place that I'm in right now, not waiting for the future or tomorrow, but making the most of every day.

It's going to be fantastic. Do you have any goals?

Joy :) 

Happy October 1st!

Hello, friend!

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF OCTOBER!! Today I went apple and pumpkin picking with some friends from church, crossing off two things from my fall bucket list! I will be making pies with the apples that I picked probably this Thursday, so you can expect another blog post soon about that.

It was a perfect day today to go apple picking, the sun was out, and there were still many apples left for us to pick! It was also my very first time apple picking, and I definitely enjoyed it. Apples are more rewarding to pick because you get much more fruit than when you pick cherries or raspberries, which takes hours for less fruit. We went to this place called, "Eplegaarden," which is a super cute Norwegian-themed apple garden. My mom was really excited about the Norwegian part, too.

Me, Tatum, and Abby! <3

We found this cute apple heart thing and decided to sit in it for cute pics. Also, we kept on finding the TINIEST little apples, and they were actually still very delish!

I found the most perfect pumpkin which I took home, and it is now sitting on the table as a little centerpiece! I just discovered that pumpkin stems are SO spiky, and therefore not fun to pick up by the stem. It was worth it though, to bring our pumpkins home! We also picked literally SO many apples, I am going to have to eat more than just, "an apple a day," before they go bad! I am looking forward to continuing my fall bucket list, and will be updating you guys as I continue to cross things off of it.

Right now, I'm very busy with school so I haven't had much time to write blog posts. I have so many projects that I'm doing, and I'm just praying that I can get them done and still get to bed at a reasonable time each night! This was such a fun way to kick off October though, and I'm so excited for many more fun events to come.

Have a great week!

Joy :)

My First Week of College

Hello, friend!

School is back in full force and I've had half a week of classes and a lot of fun so far at UW-Madison. Luckily, I've made it early to all of my classes so I've gotten good seats and made some new friends. It's so easy to just meet the person next to you, and it's interesting seeing how everyone really is quite friendly the first year of college.

One of the things that I especially love about our campus is that we are right by two spectacular lakes. It's so amazing how you can just stop and set up a hammock right next to the water and enjoy the view. My friend Allie and I just did that a couple of days ago, and I just ordered a compact hammock to bring with me to campus as well. It's coming tomorrow(thx too Amazon student prime), and I hope to get a lot of use out of it before it gets too cold. Maybe I'll do homework in it. I've probably spent a good five or six hours doing homework so far, which isn't that bad, considering that I have four classes and one guitar class.

love Wisco

College is so strange because you really have a different schedule from all of your friends. So even if you do have free time, you might not have time to get with the people you want to get with because they might be in classes. Also, since I'm commuting every day to school, it's a tad bit more difficult to hang out with people later because I don't want to be on the bus super late. Shoutout to my parents, though, who help drive me places because paying for parking is expensive!! Speaking of modes of transportation, at UW-Madison's campus there are bikes everywhere that are put there by the brand, "BCycle." Funny story- I used a bike ONCE for like, an hour, and was charged $54 dollars for it because the system didn't register that I put the bike back, even though the light blinked three times and the box beeped three times. Luckily, I got my $$ back!! I learned that you should receive an email approximately 30 seconds after you put the bike back confirming that it's been returned.

There are many little things here and there like that^, that you learn by just being on campus. For example, when you're wandering around a building that is unfamiliar to you and you ask a staff member if this door leads to a way out and he replies with, "Yes, but I don't know where it leads to," DON'T GO OUT THAT DOOR. You may find yourself trapped in a courtyard but then realize that there is a way out (the opposite way) after five minutes.

Another random tangent- I've discovered probably the coolest bathrooms at UW. They're located inside the Ecology building. You walk in and the dark blue ceiling is covered in twinkling lights like the stars in the sky and there are chirping noises and the bathroom stalls are decorated like phone booths from London. Say whaaaaat?? There are so many random fun and free things to do at UW too, like painting at the Terrace! It was the perfect weather for us to paint and relax the night before school started.

There was also an event called, "The W Project," where someone took a picture of us students on the field at Camp Randall making a "living W." It started to rain while we were standing in the bleachers, waiting to take the picture. About 15 minutes after the rain though, there was the most AMAZING double rainbow. It was worth standing in the rain for + the free t shirt.

Oh, and the fooootball games. They're reeeeally fun and reeeaally exhausting. You're standing for three hours straight and yelling and jumping around until your legs are stiff, but I definitely 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND getting football tickets freshman year if you're at a university with a good football team! These are pictures from the first game.

Bucky!!!

Learning all of the cheers and when to clap at the right times and yell, "rah rah," is all apart of the "freshman experience," and it's super cheesy but I think that it's best to accept it and just go with the flow.  I can literally already feel myself learning so much academic-wise, too, and I'm excited to see what the next four+ years bring.

Have a great week!
Joy :)

My Autumn Bucket List

Hello, friend!

It is ALMOST that time of year again, yup my favorite time of year! Happy September 1st!

Fall is just around the corner and I am OH SO READY. :) I have so many plans for this fall, and I can't wait to see how many things I can accomplish this season. Last year, I didn't make a bucket list but my friend Jessica did, and I decided that I want to make a bucket list this year for fun and then do a couple blog posts later about how I'm going about finishing them all.

Okay, let's get into it:

1. Go apple picking

2. Bake an apple pie from the apples that were picked

3. Go to a corn maze

4. Go hiking

5. Buy some pumpkins!! & carve them

6. Drink apple cider & eat apple cider donuts!

7. Make pumpkin bread with mom

8. Maybe go to a haunted house?

9. Watch Hocus Pocus

10. Go to the farmer's market in the Fall

11. Watch Harry Potter movies

12. Get cozy by the fire and read

13. Go to many football games!!

14. Take foggy early morning walks with Po

15. Watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and Halloween special

16. Buy fall and apple scented things and candles, etc

17. Eat a caramel apple (heart eyes) + caramel apple lollipops

18. Go to a Halloween party!

And that's my list so far!

Hope you enjoyed and got a bit inspired and excited for Fall. Text me if you want to do any of these with me!! 

Happy Friday!

Joy :)