2026.02.13: good things will come after the pressure
As i'm resting from my surgery I have a little bit of time to reflect on things. I haven't really felt motivated to update this site with work being so busy and me being preoccupied with other stuff, like getting a rehearsal space for my band, working out live-arrangements, preparing press kits and whatnot. There's a lot of administrative work around preparing for a live gig that you get stuck with when you're a little unknown band with no financial means to hire people to do that stuff for you. Oh well, good thing I'm creative and good at organizing!
How it's been feeling recently.
Having a week off was much needed on one hand, as getting back to work from my winter holidays felt like I was back to being tied to the end of a truck speeding down the highway. But the funny thing is now that I finally have time to rest I kind of...don't want to?
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I actually had a really good week at work before my surgery and it showed me what work life can be like when I'm finally able to progress and finish projects because I'm not being held back anymore by all the structural issues at my work place, which for a long time had me going in circles against my will. I know this sounds crazy but for the first time in almost four years, it feels like my job is finally making sense. It seems like things are finally going somewhere. I have agency, I have confidence, I have a plan and I'm pulling through on it. My nervous System is starting to understand the message that things can go well at work. And so stopping in the middle of such momentum feels a little counter-productive.
But then I remember that even though it has been going well, it's still work. The stress of chasing deadlines and balancing life and work still is there. The last two weekends I constantly felt like I just didn't have enough time to fully recover from the week. And so this break is indeed much needed, even if things are going well. Not to mention that I just got a hole drilled into my jaw so I can finally have a front tooth again lol. Two out of three big surgery steps to the implant are completed. And yet it seems like it'll take forever until I can finally trade in my fancy plastic tooth for the "real" thing...ah.
Anyway, I closed out my good week at work by meeting a friend for lunch that I hadn't seen in a while. We got some burgers and fries from one of the food trucks on campus and just ate them in this random defunct cafeteria area of a building on campus and it just felt really nice to just eat and talk. Then on Saturday I finally picked up the ceramics I painted with my mom a while ago. We picked them up together and then spontanously decided to check out this new Korean Restaurant for lunch, which was really good. Monday, my last day at work before my sick leave was a little bit stressful, but I think my hard work on finishing some of those last minute tasks payed off.
Quite fittingly a song that I recently found through a playlist by the very cool Club Carter Radio, (check her out if you too are tired of the persistent ai-slop that plagues youtube music playlists these days) kind of reflects my journey at the moment. It's called Good Things Will Come After Pressure by SAULT.
As someone who has suffered from anxiety for as long as I can think, I'm usually very much the type of person that hesitates to fully immerseve myself in the good moments, cause I know how fleeting they are.
But then I remind myself of this Mary Oliver poem with the famous quote:
"Joy is not made to be a crumb."
When we make joy into crumbs, we think it might prepare as for upcoming hardships, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I think fully accepting the small joys of life is really important for thriving in this world. Which makes me think of this new Korean word I learned when I was watching a livestream by my favorite idol.
소확행, which is short for 소소하지만 확실한 행복, meaning a small but certain joy.
The things that keep me going in life are the small but certain joys, like eating delicious food with my friends or my mom, taking walks, working on little creative projects (like the cat zine i'm making rn) or excitedly unboxing a kpop album that I pre-ordered.
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Enhypen The Sin: Vanish (Afterlight Version). This pic is missing the silly little vampire keyring advertisement flyer, which already hangs proudly on my kitchen pinboard.
A very WIP peek into the cat zine I'm working on. (graphic design is my passion)
If there's one small but certain joy I'm looking forward to these days it's the return of spring. I think I'm hitting my limit on muddy snow and gray skies, even though I do enjoy the cold weather and definitely do not want summer back. But I really miss green trees and long days.
2026.01.04: finding back to myself
The first week of 2026 has been calm, cozy and comfortably productive. I've been doing my daily yoga, studying Korean, watching old cartoons or playing videogames instead of scrolling. I've been eating a looot of vegetables. Like, a lot. Thankfully I have a lot of exciting things to look forward to. Healthy challenges and new experiences.
Ever since my last relationship ended, I have spent a lot of time detangling all the weird ideas I have internalized about what makes life worth living. That breakup was not even the worst breakup I have been through, but it was truly the final of many wake up calls for me. It forced me to look at myself in earnest, to look at the life I am living, the mental state I am in. And it made me realize that I spent the last five years in a strange limbo of self-prescribed suffering, seeking a false sense of safety in romantic love that doesn't exist and on top of that, not living my life to the fullest. Like not even remotely. While I wouldn't say that I didn't grow as a person at all, I think I caused myself a lot of unnecessary damage with some of the choices that I made. I understand now that I limited and held myself back in many ways.
This year I'm beginning to practice the skill of keeping promises to myself, which I'm not particularly good at. But I want my body and mind to regain trust in myself, so practicing keeping promises to myself is extremely important to me going forward.
Besides all the things I mentioned earlier, I am steadily working on preparations for Project SGH live. I'm super grateful to have the support of a few awesome, talented friends, who are helping us bring the live band to life, but there's still so much work to do. I'm putting together our presskit as we're speaking, which is something I never thought I would have to do lol. It's crazy to me that this little music project that we started roughly a year ago is getting its time to shine.
Also since I only have one week left before 80% of my day is swallowed by work again, I'm thinking of new strategies to not lose my mind (professionally). It's one of my longterm goals to go full idgaf mode at work, especially emotionally, so I can have more energy for actually important things.
Here's to another year of living for what really matters!
2025.12.25: the season of slowing down
It's Christmas I guess. I'm not a big Christmas person, but I managed to celebrate in a fun and chill way with my friends and with my mom, so I actually feel less depressed than I thought I would be. Ever since my vacation started I can feel my life force slowly coming back to me; and I can't help but feel a little bit unnerved by the fact that work has once again had such a deathgrip on my mental health. I'm trying to make up for all the stress I experienced in the last three months by just doing whatever the fuck I want for the next two weeks.
There are two "mantras" that I have been repeating to myself lately to feel more grounded: a) allow yourself to be in the process of things and b) let yourself arrive in the moment. I've noticed that I have so much trouble with just letting myself be as I go and do things. Probably the worst possible default setting for a brain to have when you want to learn and create new things.
I think a lot of my defeatist, perfectionist mindset comes from constantly being in settings where I never got the chance to learn at my own pace and without judgement of failure. School, University, even work, there was rarely ever a point in time where I felt I could just go about stuff comfortably, learn and experiment without worrying too much how it turns out or how fast it's done. So i'm trying to actively peel back this counterproductive mindset and readjust it to teach myself to be gentler to myself in that regard. Because honestly, if I won't then who else will?
This change in mindset is hopefully gonna help me in the pursuit of some upcoming creative projects; Preparations have begun to bring my friend and I's music project to a live stage. I'm thrilled but also scared because we are still at the very beginning of planning things and there is just so much to do. It's definitely going to be an experience. Hopefully a good one lol.
2025.12.07
I don't have a title because I've been in a slump. Dare I say even depressed. Work has really done me in and I'm just waiting for the winter holidays at this point. I've kind of been in freeze mode since last week. Just so overwhelmed by the stress. I tried socializing again after basically not leaving the house except for groceries and quick walks but I felt super overwhelmed. I met some friends and we went to the Photoism, which is directly inside of this huge mall. Since everyone is shopping for christmas presents the mall was chock full and it was way too warm and too loud and what not. It took a while until we were done with the photos since the line was quite long. I tried the most recent Enhypen Idol frame but honestly found the some of the poses quite hard to match. Generally I think the idol frames are really not that easy to get a good result out of (or maybe I'm a perfectionist lol). The 4-cut selfie is always fun though.
We then went to this Korean cultural christmas party event, but I couldn't stay for long because I a) felt overwhelmed since it was quite a big event and b) had to catch the bus which is currently operating in replacement of the subway line that I usually take, because of construction. I'm honestly starting to get quite frustrated with the lack of flexibility I have without a driver's license. The main reasons why I never got a driver's license is because they are super expensive here and because I have a lot of anxiety around the concept of driving. But recently I'm seriously considering getting one for the first time ever, that's how bad the public transport has gotten where I'm from.
Slightly but not entirely unrelated to this, one of my favorite songs to listen to these days is Joyride by CORTIS, because it just kind of reflects the weird happy-sad melancholic vibe I'm in these days. A lot of times when I know I have to make the next step out of my comfort zone to achieve what I want, life kind of feels like that song. Like I'm in the middle of things, and I'm doing things and it's scary but exciting. It's happy but it's sad. It's tiring but also invigorating. That's basically what life has been feeling like most of this year.
2025.11.16: sunday again
I know it sounds mundane but I'm proud of myself for managing to bring a home-cooked lunch for every day I was at the office this week lol. Not so surprisingly, it's much easier to keep your work-induced migraines at bay when you eat enough, who would've thought. And the microwave isn't as hard to use as I thought. (I know I sound really silly right now).
Anyway work is still crazy. I'm working on a whole new concept for my area at work, which includes design, communication, event-planing strategy and other things that I definitely love doing but at the same time having to do all those things by myself (with a little bit of guidance by my co-workers) is kind of a lot.
Besides that I ended this week by going out to eat with some of my friends at one of the few Korean restaurants in our city that I haven't tried yet. I had Tteokbokki and Kimbap, which were alright but not mindblowing. The funny thing is, one of my friends ordered Bibimbap and Bibimbap is one of those dishes that I rarely order at restaurants but when I tried some of my friends' I was surpised by how good it was. We then went to my friends' apartment and played some games, and I also finally got to meet the cat that the cat distribution system had granted them last year, which was so so cute!
I've been having a lot of luck with meeting cats these days. One of the farmers near the fields where I like to take walks just got cats and I always make sure to stop by and chill with them a bit.
When I first met them a few weeks ago they were still babies, but now they are almost grown up!
Since last weekend was a lot, I spent most of this weekend just decompressing, taking long walks with mom, playing video games and working on some music. I finally tried Dave The Diver and it's such a fun game.
The dreary weather is kind of soothing right now. I reflected on the summer as I walked in the rainy fields and I felt melancholic but content at the same time.
I tried my best this year to give myself a lot of good experiences and I'm proud of that.
I have a packed work schedule next week and also some events coming up that I'm excited about, but I'll tell y'all more about that later!
2025.11.05: It's been a while
While my real life journal for this year has around 15 pages left (a lot has happened), I haven't really had the motivation to write online, or generally write on a computer for that matter. Recently I caved on my minimalistic mindset and bought a bunch of different notebooks for different purposes (work, creative writing, and one for brainstorming and organizing my life) and I wonder why I didn't do it earlier.
The year is wrapping up and so most of the exciting things (aka concerts, travelling, etc.) are past me. It makes me a little bit sad that it's over, but also happy at the same time, to be able to look back on the year fondly, despite so many of the struggles I encountered. But I'll leave more of that for the actual year-end wrap up. Work has been so busy since a lot of structural changes happened in September. On one hand it feels liberating to finally be able to get things moving, but at the same time the sudden uptick in workload is a bit daunting.
Apart from work there is so much other stuff that demands my time, like making music, korean class, socializing and also trying to stay on top of my workout routine (and failing miserably lol). I've been trying to simplify my life as much as possible, but I still just want to do soo many things.
But amidst all this I can finally confidently say one thing: I'm finally living for myself now.