Archive for July, 2017

July 31st, 2017

Recap: July 2017

Unfortunately, July was not a good month for me, and if you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw a glimpse of it. Early in the month, I received some bad news that included needing a small surgery. It’s something personal and hard to talk about, so for right now, I’m leaving out the details of it. I immediately took some time off of work to come to terms with it and to recover from the surgery.

After about a week, I still had some side effects and pain from the surgery, but I was well enough to do most things normally again. I started working towards getting my life back to a “normal” state. For about 4 days after the surgery, I spent most of my time lying down and just feeling crappy about the whole situation. It definitely took a toll on my mental health, and the moment I was physically well enough, I knew I needed to do something about it.

On the bright side, I had a close friend visit me shortly after I got the bad news. It was a trip she already planned, so the timing was coincidental, but spending time with her helped me feel sane about the whole thing. I also confided in another friend who I was able to talk in-depth with, which helped a lot. (You know who you are. Thank you.)

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13 · Posted in Life, Monthly Recaps
July 17th, 2017

When hobbies are no longer fun

At some point in my life, I began making an important distinction about activities I was passionate about. Which ones are purely for myself, and which ones am I willing to be paid for? Ideally, it’d be great if they overlapped, but it’s not always the case. Money changes things. It changes your expectations; it changes your clients’ expectations; it can make you hate things you used to enjoy.

During college, I freelanced in webdesign to make some extra money. Sometimes it felt great to be able to make different designs, and some of my clients were wonderful. Some were absolutely miserable to work with, and some would ask me to make hideous designs. I was working with people I didn’t like and making designs I was not proud of. Shortly after graduating, I stopped completely because I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I had a full time job already. If I am to continue webdesign, it needed to be for myself, no one else.

I’ve also had people on multiple occasions bug me to take on baking or cosplay commissions and to open some sort of shop. I know it might seem like “easy money” since it’s something I enjoy, but people don’t realize that it’s not that simple nor is it always desirable. For one, tending to a shop and keeping up with commissions is a lot of work. Two, I already have a full time job that depletes my energy almost every weekday. And three, when do I get time for myself?

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12 · Posted in Random
July 8th, 2017

Movie Recommends: Girl Power

A hot topic lately is the lack of strong female leads in our media, especially in movies. While we still have a long ways to go on this, it does make me happy that there are some good movies out there that already display this. I wanted to highlight a few that released just this year!

The first movie I want to point out is Colossal (trailer) where Anne Hathaway plays Gloria, a woman who is at a low point in her life. She is unemployed, an alcoholic, and then gets kicked out by her boyfriend, who is tired of her behavior, from their shared apartment. She’s forced to move out of NY and back to her small hometown, where she discovers she is somehow controlling a kaiju (giant monster) that shows up in South Korea. The trailers make the movie look like a comedy, and it definitely has its funny parts, but it also has a dark side that the trailers don’t let on.

This is kind of a spoiler, but I feel it’s important to mention. I was not expecting the movie to make a point about toxic relationships. As it unraveled, it became both uncomfortable and refreshing. Uncomfortable because it’s a bad situation that happens too often in reality, and refreshing because it’s not frequently represented in media. Overall, I loved the quirky take on a kaiju movie while also displaying social issues. The ending might be far-fetched, but it leaves you with a satisfying feel.

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12 · Posted in Movies/Shows, Tips / Recommends