8/2/2025 Hello Journal. You have lasted very very short, compared to the life spans of my other journal. Handwriting in my journal has been an arduous task for me, I have never seemed to get the hang of it, and my hand cramps and I have just too many things to write down at 11 pm when I'm too tired to do so. I had a written journal but that is filled with bullshit when I tried to hard to make it look nice. And the other one is just functionally not very good, it's stiff and hard to want to write in. It's also filled with stuff I'd rather not remember. Naturally, I have accustomed myself to typing out my thoughts, so I have a pretty extensive journal on Notion. But impermanence scares me, especially on Notion as the app continues to get more and more monetarily incentivized and thus restrictive. I'm worried at some point I'm going to become inactive on Notion and my account will be deactivated and all those years of LIFE will be deleted with a simple click. But like some part of me also recognizes that as an irrational fear... um yeah. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I will be reverting back to a journal, and this time it is a nice pocket notebook that I can easily write in. Hopefully I can keep this up because it's nice to have physical things in this digital world yk, something real. Goodbye!
7/16/2025 I'm almost out of Taiwan, I'm in Hualien right now and it's very different from Taipei, much more countryside and I get the feeling people live life here on a slower pace. The scenery is also extremely breathtaking; the mountains are tall and steep and there's a lot of deep valleys from where the glaciers tread before. My dad said it reminded him of Jamaica, and the mountains reminded me of Switzerland. Recently, I have been obsessed with a Tuareg band called the Tinariwen. I recommend their song Toumast Tincha if you want to give them a listen. The lead guitar part is filled with grief, sorrow, and longing to return home, to be at peace. Their story also opens your heart to their struggles, here's their website: https://www.tinariwen.com/About, and a documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al-TPvewZys&t=1651s. Their band moves through generations, going all the way back to the 1970s, yet they have always sung the same message. What really strikes me about them is that their way of life is ancient--herding camels, walking through the desert--living a truly nomadic way of life. But then they gather around a fire with electric guitars and just start jamming and its friggin amazing. They understand music and its power, singing of revolution to give hope to the younger generation. It's almost like they make music out of necessity. I love them so much.
7/9/2025
So lately I've been really delving into my interests and I'm talking like everything like one thing I'm remotely interested in I go all in. As such, I have been learning how to crip walk, beatbox, freestyle rap, as well as listening to techno music and especially emo techno music. I also really want to learn kashaka shakers, I think they're vibes and I also was really interested in this indian percussion tamborine type situation called the Kanjira but it didn't really speak to me. I feel like Mark Zuckerburg right now typing this blog. What else.. I got two new books! One detective thriller called In the Woods by Tana French and it's hilarious because the author's name is in all caps in a bigger font than the title, and comes before the title. Absolutely ridiculous, but it's working because I've already read 200 pages... The other new book I got was "The Art of Thinking Clearly" by this business finance dude Rolf Dobelli. Despite his proffession, it's actually super interesting, it talks about human biases and what we subconsciously lean towards, sort of like outlining how we are influenced in our day to day world. Crazy shit man. Omg and I've also been getting really into Zaisus, which are Japanese floor chairs. They're pretty lit. Yeah that's it for now BYEEEEEE
7/4/2025
Today was the last day of my camp and while it was bittersweet I was way too old for it and I feel relief now that I'm back in a place where I can choose my own structure. I'm tired and I'm probably going to sleep soon but recently I've lost my drive to create and I'd like to go back to that flow state ykwim.. I ALSO finally finished the book "The Body Keeps the Score" and fricking holy flying hot shit suck my dick that was probably one of the most eye opening books I've read. It really pushes me to be conscious of my unconscious, as well as other people's which I think is pretty cool.
6/29/2025
So yesterday night I was suddenly radicalized into deleting every social media I owned and turning my phone into essentially an old Nokia, only texting and basic functions and what not. And as a result, I was actually forced to live out my day (amazing!). So I planned meticulously and that lead me to my first stop: Longshan temple. I was just called to it, and I really wanted to do the jiaobei to get my fortune told so I went there, observed for a bit, then did the jiaobei in fron tof the marriage god. I don't know if lao yue is bilingual or not but I did it three times and got no twice, and then a laughing answer in the last one. Welp... It was time for my second stop. For my second stop, I went to the Taipei Zoo, which was an hour or so transit, and then I spent a good chunk of my day there. It was only $100 ntd for the ticket (about $3.44) and I went to every exhibit. It was 90+ degrees and bro. I almost had a freaking heat stroke. I was sweating from places I didn't even know was possible man. My clothes were still damp at the end of the day, and I walked about 24k steps today. The animals were cool, I loved the elephants and alpacas but most of them I couldn't find, or were just sleeping and I'll admit there was a point towards the end where I was just bored cuz I had not spoken a word in four hours. Anyways! I ended up going to my next and final stop an hour early: Raohe night market. I met my roomate there and we walked a bit, I got buldak wrapped in egg noodles, this thai coconut milk which was yummy, a hot dog wrapped in rice wrapped in pig intestine, and then finally strawberry tanghulu to top it off. I watched this small opera that was happening on the literal sidewalk as I ate, and then right next to it was Falun Dafa freaking meditating creepily, sitting on cardboard and holding this weird ass pose Idk i was freaked tf out. Then we took the MRT back and I showered immediately then played homescapes and stretched and wrote this. I have class tmrw so I'll see if my day is as packed as todays! I also did take pictures, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to make it work on this. Until next time!
6/28/2025
So this is day 1 of journal, happy birthday I guess... Anyways I'm in Taiwan right now doing a language camp in Taipei and it's really fun! It's really frigging hot, and I'm the oldest one in my camp but it's not bad I get to just do whatever and learn chinese! Plus I don't know what else I'd be doing right now, anything's better than being bored. I really want to start buildling something meaningful, I feel like I've been wasting my time alive, and i mean I HAVE you know but this realization has not magically created passion. I've realized my dream, I want to create music for a living, and I guess that's one step closer to realizing it. I've also been reading "The Body Keeps the Score" and that has been really eye opening, it has changed my perspective in regards to my health, and has opened my mind to the complexities of other people.