In an effort to bring in a little more creating in my life this year (and also to visit and write in this blog more often than I did in the past couple years), I decided to do a regular recap, publicly documenting some of the interesting things that I’ve gotten myself into recently.
I’d initially thought about making it a monthly thing, but let’s be real here: 1) there’s honestly not a lot interesting I do in a month these days that I can talk about, and 2) in a more positive side of things, I truly have cut down on my media consumption the past couple years. (You can say it’s perhaps why I haven’t blogged much in that same period but really #1 is a bigger reason for it haha!)
And thus, a quarterly recap was deemed more appropriate – hence the 1/4 part in the title.
Life lately
I do quite like the format I had for last year’s recap and I so enjoy writing things in bullet point lists, so I’m keeping that as is until I change my mind.
The first quarter of the year almost often passes by extremely slowly while also, at times, be discombobulating. I usually spend most of January trying to recover from the holidays but it is also when the biggest festival of the city is held so… it’s still very much busy. First quarter is also the annual tax season for us here which adds that particular layer of admin anxiety for me. Some fun and interesting things happened this time, though!
- We’ve settled the purchase of our new home! My family have lived in this town for more than a decade, renting outside the downtown area. We started looking for a more permanent home during the height of the lockdown and we’re so happy that we finally found a place to settle in more permanently! It’s in a small community but it’s like a five-minute walk to so many important places: the public market, a hospital, the fire station, the town hall, a grocery, and most importantly, a Jollibee.
- More home things. Because it’s a newly constructed property we got from a property developer, the house is still very much bare bones. There were tons of home projects we wanted to do before we can move to our home and fortunately, we found a contractor who can do a lot of them. This did and will make a huge dent to my personal savings, which meant I’m cutting down on my hobby purchases in the next several months. :’) But we’re also very excited to move and settle into the new house and it will all be worth it!
- Working from a café. I work from home and rarely go outside unless needed, and while I’ve tried working from a café in the city before, the long commute time isn’t worth doing it regularly. So I was glad when my best friend invited me last year to her favorite café the next city over – at the opposite direction of the city center. It’s only a fifteen-minute commute for me. It’s spacious and have big couches you can sleep or lounge on and not just the tiny tables and chairs that seem more favored by a lot of cafés these days (which I have BIG feelings about!!) The city it’s in also have a wonderful public bay walk area. So early this month, needing to breathe in some sea breeze but not wanting to spend a lot at a resort (see: previous point), I invited a fellow work-stressed friend to do our work at the same café. It was fun and we got to rant about our stress-inducing coworkers haha!
- Birthday dinner. March is also my birth month! We were initially planning on going to our favorite hotpot and grill place but my sister begged us to try something new haha! It’s a good thing too, because we finally got to try one of the oldest local steakhouses in the city. They have these comfy upholstered chairs and a cozy ambience that was so homey to me. The steak was DELICIOUS and literally melts in the mouth!! We went the weekend before my actual birthday and then my mom cooked a simple dinner the night of. I got to eat my favorite stir-fried vermicelli noodles and my mom’s classic fried chicken which were both
Media lately
There’s not really much to talk besides films and TV shows. I finished watching one ☝️ anime, can count in one hand the manga series I read (all of which are my ongoing faves), finished reading two ✌️ books and alternated between playing Infinity Nikki and Stardew Valley throughout the quarter. So yea. We’re talking films and shows.
I’ve been in a period drama kick this past few months, specifically Jane Austen adaptations. I didn’t mention it before (having not posted anything the entire year) but I had a whole Austen movie marathon in 2024. I’m reaching for her stories yet again so early this year as they have given me comfort the older I get. Interestingly though, I did get to watch a few non-period films that have been in my to-watch list for months and didn’t expect to enjoy them as much as I did. Here are some highlights!
TV series
- Dimension 20: Burrow’s End. My first non-Intrepid Heroes campaign and I had SO much fun watching this! I love Aabria’s storytelling and seeing how everyone played their characters was so refreshing. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Intrepid Heroes and their knack for finding the quickest way into chaos and stressing Brennan out but the Stupendous Stoats’ family dynamic was also really fun to watch.
- Pride and Prejudice (1995). I LOVE this series so much. I was on a Tubi stint watching the other Persuasion adaptations (more below) and this kept being recommended afterwards. I had no choice but to rewatch. It was the only appropriate response, really.
- The Residence. I love Knives Out and Glass Onion and have been patiently waiting for Rian Johnson to announce the third film. This series delightfully fills that comedy mystery void, in the meantime. It’s so witty and funny, it kept a lot of the character archetype you’d often find in the genre without necessarily being demeaning to any of the characters. I LOVE Cordelia Cupp. One small nitpick I’d have would be the execution of the ending and the way it tied the themes together, which for me felt too… surface-level, considering what it established early on. Still, it was a fun binge-watch and I’ll definitely watch it again.
Movies
- Mad Max: Fury Road. Seeing this leaving soon in Netflix was the exact push I needed to finally watch this film. I knew going in that I was going to see a lot of desert aesthetic, and yet somehow I did not expect it would be because it’s set in Australia. I heard that narration at the beginning and immediately went, “Oh. Ohh of course it’s set in Australia! That makes so much more sense!” This film made motor vehicles appealing to me in a way that the Fast series just… never can. (I say this, because I’m watching Never Stop Blowing Up and car-centric action movies are just at the forefront of my mind right now.) The overarching themes on class, environment, and gender was so succinctly executed. I really wish Netflix brings this back in their catalog in the future; I’d love to watch it again.
- Arrival. I’ll be honest: that scene where Amy Adams figured out to use the whiteboard to communicate was the sole reason I wanted to watch this film. It took me months after watching that scene out of context on Tiktok but I finally did and I’m so glad I did. It has a more hopeful ending than most films with similar premise and had me thinking about choice and fate and where our personal agency lies.
- Persuasion (2007). When I learned that Sally Hawkins, who I knew from Guillermo’s The Shape of Water, portrayed Anne Elliot in this adaptation, it immediately moved to the top of my Austen to-watch list. I also watched the 1995 version immediately after (shoutout to Tubi) and while I love the more satisfying ending of that version, I still more thoroughly enjoyed the tension between Anne and Captain Wentworth in this version.
Creating lately
I didn’t do much art this quarter, and while it’s constantly on my mind, I’m doing my best not to panic and feel depressed about this fact. The thing is, I’ve always had a quiet start to every new year when it comes to art. Maybe it’s to do with being so busy during the holidays and just wanting to spend most of January and February to slow things down. I still did a few interesting things I’d love to share, though!
- Infinity Nikki style challenges. If you were unaware of it, Infinity Nikki is an open world action-adventure dress-up game and is part of the larger Nikki dress-up franchise. I got into it last December and have been putting in at least an hour or so everyday since. The community on Tiktok sometimes put out styling challenges and sometimes I try to challenge myself with creating a fun outfit and even a photoshoot for Nikki. It’s really fun and keeps me creatively challenged!
- Commonplace (sketch)books. I’ve done some doodles here and there in my sketchbook (still trying to finish one or more sketchbook before I can allow myself to buy a new one haha!), but ever since I learned about commonplace books I became a little less precious with them. The idea that I can just jot down anything I want in my sketchbook really made it a less sacred place for me – in a good way!
- Digital underpainting. I’ve become more interested in doing painterly style for digital art lately. Something I’ve been noodling around is to do looser sketches while also practicing color cohesiveness. Doing an “underpainting” layer really helps with the latter! I think it also establishes early on the kind of mood or atmosphere I want and it’s just so fun!!
I hope your first quarter of 2025 has gone by with wonderful memories. Share some of them with me below too! I’ll see you next time. ♡
