Sorry About That Hiatus: I'm Back

Hi everyone!

Let me start off by saying I’m sorry for the impromptu hiatus I didn’t mean to take. After mid-terms, I got so caught up in school and working that I sort of forgot about personal writing and connecting with my blog viewers so...my bad! Fortunately, I’M BACK! I’m back to writing and recording my experiences and I’m ready to share them with you. Let me start off with a few highlights since I last posted.

In March, I gave my first TedTalk! I had been writing my speech for 3 months. Then, I had to go through the editing and rewrite process in addition to the countless meetings with my curator and the dubious stares I would get as I walked down populated halls reciting my speech to myself. The day of the talk was nerve-wracking! I had practiced it one million times and invited all my friends to watch. More importantly, amongst the audience sat my high school debate teacher and my boss! While waiting for the audience to sign-in and be seated, I officially met the other speakers. All of them women, amazing, diverse with stories to tell and full of energy. I sat through 3 talks until it was finally my turn. My palms were sweaty and I was so excited-nervous-anxious, but I saw my friends sitting in the audience smiling at me so I knew I couldn’t go wrong. I said the first word and like water, the rest of the words just flowed. I became the story full of animation and excitement. I utilized every pause to emphasize my points and even filled potentially awkward moments with some laughs. Before I knew it, I was done smiling before a room of applause and proud head nods.  What a rush! What an icon ^_^

Link here: https://youtu.be/12sBoz6ylbU

April was the last month of school and full of tension. I had finals, more demand for my tutoring services, and sudden expansion in my caregiving business. With so many priorities, so little time, and too much stress, I spent whatever free time I had running, going to the masseuse, and watching Scandal. I also had to move all of my stuff into storage and pick a few things to live off of in the upcoming month. April was extremely overwhelming and I’m glad that was the end of the semester because I truly started to become burned out. Fortunately, my university is very conscientious about that and the leaders of my college made us baked goods, hosted an evening making pottery, and had late night snacks every night of finals. We also had pet therapy dogs and pop-up petting zoos to help reduce general stress. My school >>>>

The month of May was lined with a personal expectation that was absolutely crazy. My goal was to save money at all costs. I bought $34 worth of food and lived off of that for the month. I also stopped taking Ubers and started walking everywhere I went. Once I realized that walking 12 miles a day in the blazing sun was absolutely exhausting, I taught myself how to use the bus. The bus became my saving grace. Its air conditioned, in-expensive, and takes me where I need to go. Bless up! I took on more random jobs like working for Minecraft for two days or selling textbooks when I could. Fortunately, May wasn't all work. I received free tickets to JMBLYA, an outdoor music festival, and spent free time bonding with my friends. May was an amazing month. May made me a conqueror. 

All the hard work in May prepared me for rest in June. I traveled to Oakland, California to visit my friend that I met in China. I had an amazing time! We hiked mountains, went thrift shopping, cooked food, and took lots of pictures. I also got to, literally, run through University of California Berkeley and eat soup dumplings that I miss so much from Shanghai. We went to San Francisco together to meet up with another friend! San Francisco was also so much fun! I got to tour Google with my friends and try restaurants featured on Insider Foods, and we all got to walk the Golden Gate Bridge together! It was so amazing. It was like I was living a dream. After California, I flew to Seattle to visit another one of my amazing friends from college! He took me to see the Space Needle and the famous Pike's Market Place that'd I'd only seen on Instagram. I got to eat lots of amazing food and meet even more amazing people. I had a great time traveling up the West Coast.

And now its July and I'm back!
I'm back with several new projects in the works including building a strong YouTube channel and being on the ground floor of an amazing new app that will be released soon called Croozen. Can't wait to see what the school year has for me :D