year in review: happy 17th birthday to me!

in the spirit of xan & madeline’s posts, happy birthday to me! and anyone else who was born on one of the best days of the year, march 26!! 

nooow i’m sure some of you can relate — that feeling of dread when your impending birthday nears, the feeling of complete and utter disappointment in yourself because you feel like you didn’t accomplish enough — but today, i will be having none of that. nope. it’s a product of the somewhat toxic culture that places pressure on youth to “make it big” while we’re young but today, there is no space for negativity!

so, in honor of that, here’s a list of seventeen things i’ve done this year:

1. i discovered a love for shawarmas. oh my god. if you’ve never tried it before, GO! it’s become routine for me to stop by my local shawarma place after ap psych and it alwaaays brightens my day. 

2. i became co-chair of the interact club at my school. interact is basically the high school version of rotary international, an organization that focuses on humanitarian service. i really want to work in global human rights one day and this experience has just confirmed that yes, this is where i belong. 

3. i learned how to drive!! scary for both me and other people on the road, but i’m so excited to be able to drive by myself (which all depends on if i pass my test in a few days ha ha ha . . . we’ll see). 

4. it’s been an awesome year for asians in literature. not something i’ve done, but still! crazy rich asians & to all the boys i’ve loved before are becoming movies, we’re starting to see more asian main characters in novels like emergency contact, when dimple met rishi, and american panda . . . i LOVE IT. 

5. i started a skincare routine and WOW not only is it incredibly therapeutic, but i basically never break out anymore! i could write a post about it if anyone cares but ya it’s just super fun!!

 

6. concert and shows!! i watched hamilton last week and hoooly it was straight-up amazing i kept tearing up because of how astounded i was by the sheer talent as well as the geniusness of lin-manuel miranda??? and i also saw a really cool canadian musical called Onegin, and got to see Lorde (a QUEEN) in person. i bought tickets for hayley kiyoko too but that’s coming up in a few months. 🙂

7. hung out with my friends a lott. some cool things we did include a cat cafe, a lush pop-up shop for their new line of perfumes, and just A LOT OF EATING. 

8. wrote a few new short stories, including one that placed second in a vancouver writers’ festival youth competition! i wasn’t super productive with fiction writing this year, so i’m glad i got at least a few stories done. 

9. played with my cat for daysss because i love her a lot. shameless plug her instagram is @avignonlechat if anyone wants to see some adorable pics. 

10. and in general, took the time to relax more. being overly stressed isn’t really going to help me in the long-run, after all. 

11. learned german?? or at least, i started taking german courses at online school. there’s just something i love so much when listening to that language. 

12. printed a magazine at school!!!!! i’m the co editor-in-chief of the literary magazine club & this was incredibly exciting to me b/c i go to a stem-oriented school that doesn’t really value the arts. we started selling just last week and are almost sold out it just makes my heart soo happy. :’) 

13. face masks & k-beauty. i guess this kinda connects to the skincare thing above but this deserves its separate point because WOW. my korean shampoo works wonders in defrizzing and face masks are just pure fun. 

14. i learned to value myself more. everyone’s going to have different opinions about what you do no matter what you do, so why not just do things the way you want to? 

15. i tried to listen to more chinese music. emphasis on TRY. the only thing in my playlist is sally yeh so if anyone has any recs PLEASE COME MY WAY. 

16. travellllll! the list includes random places in canada like cultus lake, ottawa, and victoria, as well as iowa, new york, and puerto rico! more to come about PR in another post. 😉 aaaaaand last but not least . . .

17. i became a twirling pages co-blogger! <3  i applied just out of boredom, in all honesty, and was really surprised but excited when i saw the email. it’s been an incredible ride and it’s only reminded me of just how much i love blogging. aaand best of all, it’s made me read so many more books!

soo that was my really random list about my year as a sixteen-year-old! here’s to more memories to come, especially with you & twirling pages involved. <3