Week Note #35: May 1 to May 7

2025-05-08

🎓 It's been a quiet and lazy week. I've been slowly trudging along with my philosophy course. Unlike my previous courses thus far, it is a self paced course, but there is a deadline that I have to finish the course by. As such, there's no regular cadence of when things are due, and there is much less busy work. That being said, I'm trying to spend around a week to ten days per unit so that I don't fall behind. Next month, I'll be starting two more courses: Introduction to Prose, and Global History until the 1700s.

💃 My cousin is getting married next week. I'm part of the wedding party and my cousin told us that we have to do a dance in pairs. My partner is my other cousin, who is a little bit younger than I am. We're both K-pop fans and we chose to dance to Crazy by LE SSERAFIM. I've been practicing the dance for the chorus throughout the week and uh... It's only like 15 to 30 seconds and it's really hard! And I've been practicing in heels! There are many reasons why I could not be a K-pop idol, and my lack of ability to dance is one of them.

💿 I fiiiiinally checked out Japanese Breakfast's new album, "For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). I liked it quite a lot! There are probably only have a few songs that I could pick out to listen on their own. I think this album is one of those that are stronger as a cohesive unit. Anyhow, I liked this album so much that I was like, I need more of these vibes. I asked on Fedi for some recommendations and got some very good albums thrown my way!

🎵 Top albums from the last week:

  1. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
  2. For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Woman) by Japanese Breakfast
  3. Lush by Snail Mail
  4. Perverts by Ethel Cain
  5. HOT by LE SSERAFIM
  6. Nothing, I know by 7 Birches
  7. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by My Chemical Romance
  8. A Strange and Beautiful Trip by Laura Brino

2025-05-07

15 Years

2025-05-05

I haven't seen him in 15 years—exactly half of my life. Maybe I thought of him about just as many times since then. This time he came to me sneakily, in the form of a book. Just like in all of my favourite stories, I found myself staring at myself in the pages. But he was there, too, clear as day and infused with ink. It's pathetic to say that I'm still holding feelings in my heart. I really thought they were gone, or at least buried. No, I think they've always been buried, but I've gone and resurfaced them again. Just to look at. To relive the feelings of my first true love.

With age on my side, I can see clearly now that it was just a childish infatuation, but the most bittersweet thing about it was that it was nearly reciprocal.

In the first incident, I was younger than 15. It was a rare moment where I was alone. It was him, I swear it was him, who found me. Sitting alone spooning out the flesh of a mango, the TV was playing softly in the background, he came to me. He sat beside me, quietly. He didn't say anything at first. After some time he looked at me and said, "You know you're beautiful, right?" I stayed silent and looked down at the mango cradled in my had. What could a nine year old say in that scenario? He left me as quickly as he came, but from then on, my eyes would instantly be glued to him any moment we were breathing the same air.

When I turned 15, I knew better. I knew how to act. I stuck to him like glue. I can laugh at myself now for being so transparent in my intentions. Under the unpolluted night sky, I boldly held his hand and traced the creases of his palm. The first hand of a boy that I ever held. It was a rather innocent gesture. I didn't hold it for long, and we went back to chatting amongst our friends.

One day I dolled myself up. I wore a pretty green dress, and got a friend to do my hair and bring me somewhere to get my face made up with lipstick and strange powder. When he saw me, he pretended not to see me. He looked away, tried to act cool. But then he looked back and his jaw dropped in recognition. His hands instinctively went up to cradle his head in surprise, and he ducked out of sight. Later, when we met up with the rest of the boys for real, he asked to take a picture of me on his phone. "You're beautiful," he said. I blushed, and assented. A few days passed and we saw each other again he idly passed his phone to me. His background was the picture of me in the dress. 15 year old me didn't know what to say. I hastily passed it back to him. "Is that me?" Startled, words spilled out of his mouth as he struggled to change it to something less incriminating. But it was too late, the image was imprinted in my mind.

Nothing came out of it. He moved to another city shortly after. Last I heard he has two kids and a very pretty wife. Whenever our friend group from that time has little reunions, he never comes. I never saw him again.

And here I am, 15 years later still thinking about him. They're small precious memories that I revisit from time to time. But I have no desire to hunt him down. The moment has long passed.

In that time I've had three partners. When I think hard about it, none of them have ever called me beautiful.

I'll bury these memories again.

Week Note #34: April 24 to April 30

2025-05-01

📚 In my last week note (from four weeks ago), I mentioned how I started reading Three Lives by Gertrude Stein. I am pleased to announce that I finished reading it last week. My opinions have remained largely unchanged since I began the novel. However, it has left me wondering more about Stein's influences, namely art. One thing that was repeated many times in my poetry course was that Stein was influenced by cubism. One of the stories in Three Lives was inspired by Paul Cezanne's "Mrs. Cezanne" painting. I just want to know what the connection is there!

🎓 The semester is over!! I submitted my final paper and finished a final exam for two of my courses. I am relieved. But the work is never over. This is my last semester at an American university. I am strangely sad about it. I had a lot of professors and TAs that I really connected with, and I'm sad that there are no opportunities for me to take more courses with them. But, I ultimately decided to transfer to a Canadian university. Firstly, it is quite cheaper. USD to CAD exchange rates really do a number on my bank account. Secondly, the future of American education seems to be tenuous at best. I didn't feel comfortable staying at that institution, and decided to jump ship.

🎙️ Ever since Couchella, I've been listening to music instead of podcasts while I journal. However, I did manage to sneak in a coupe of podcast episodes here and there. Mainly, I've been listening to old Get Real podcast episodes, which is a podcast hosted by K-pop idols, where they literally just talk about anything under the sun. Honestly, it's really "turn your brain off" stuff, but sometimes you need that.

🥳 Over the weekend it was my parent's anniversary so we celebrated with a party. We also celebrated someone's birthday, and the anniversary of one of my aunts and uncles! It was a lot of fun. My cousins, my brother, and I just sat around talking the whole time. The main thing I remembered was that we talked a lot about K-pop, hah. And we also talked about how one of my cousins is doing his master's at my alma matter, and how he might see our other cousin (who is a freshman) on campus. My brother and I, just kept asking questions about the university, and what things have changed since we attended. I miss going to university in person!

💿 On the music front, there's not much to report. I'm still going pretty hard on CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso at the moment. I'm exhausting two of their latest albums before moving onto their older stuff. Honestly, I'm still recovering from Couchella, hah.

🎵 Top albums from the last week:

  1. BAÑO MARÍA (En Vivo - Buenos Aires) by CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso
  2. HOT by LE SSERAFIM
  3. KINEMA by DPR ARTIC
  4. BAÑO MARÍA by CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso
  5. jams by Luna Li
  6. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
  7. フェイクワールドワンダーランド by きのこ帝国
  8. Preacher's Daughter by Ethel Cain

2025-04-30

Code of values

2025-04-29

Fosstodon, a Mastodon instance on the Fediverse known for its focus on FOSS, recently came under fire for having a moderator with fascist and Nazi views. When confronted with this fact, one of the admins reacted quite poorly. They did not condemn the moderator's views, but only emphasized that they were happy with the work the moderator did. This was a grave misstep.

However, what the admin did was completely in line with Fosstodon's Code of Conduct at the time, particularly this line: "There are many important, controversial and political issues; and advocating for what you believe is important. However, Fosstodon is not the place for that advocacy. Even correct views can violate our CoC." This leaves room for interpreting that this is true for wrong views, as well: that even "wrong" (whatever you may believe "wrong" means) views can be well within the CoC. In better words, it points to Fosstodon taking a neutral stance on politics, by simply not tolerating it's presence at all. As long as you behave or do good work, your politics doesn't matter.

A lot of what I just said is just my interpretation. It is not clear why Fosstodon put this in their CoC. You could argue that they just don't want to moderate politics (just like how, for a very long time, Fosstodon did not want to moderate non-English posts). But I think that explanation reeks of privilege. There are people whose lives are greatly impacted by politics, and simply avoiding the topic is a non-negotiable. Of course, people who object to this CoC are well within their rights to not join Fosstodon in the first place. Just like how other Fediverse admins are also free to de-federate from Fosstodon because of their CoC.

That's why, when choosing instance, I think it is best not to just simply look at the conduct that an instance enforces. Values are important too. Sometimes you can suss out an instance's values from the CoC, but it's better if the values are made explicit. Some people may complain that such a list could end up looking like "DNI (do not interact) lists," but I think it's better to make things up front and clear. It also acts as a contract for the instance itself. That the instance will uphold those values and be held accountable for them.

I'm thinking of writing my own code of values for myself, as a person that people interact with, and rewrite the code of conduct of one of the Fediverse instances that I run. I currently don't make it clear what I stand for and what I don't tolerate, and I think that should change.

Couchella

2025-04-28

The first time I watched Coachella from the comfort of my own home was in 2022. I think they have been streaming before then, but Coachella hadn't really entered my consciousness yet.

I chose to watch mainly for one reason: CL, one of my favourite K-pop artists was performing. I have been a K-pop fan since 2009, and I never would have thought K-pop would make it to North America. It was a historic moment, I had to watch! And it certainly was a historic moment. CL is a solo artist but was part of the group 2NE1, which had been disbanded for a few years. In the middle of her set, she brought out the rest of the group. I literally screamed at my computer, I was so excited. It was totally worth it.

But even before that set, I looked at the lineup and I realized that were other acts that I wanted to see, too. I'm a big fan of Japanese Breakfast, and she had just released Jubilee, which I was obsessed with at the time. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu performed that year, and, while I haven't followed her in a while, I that also felt like a historic moment. Also, The Weeknd was one of the headliners, and I'm a biiiiig Weeknd fan.

So, I spent a lot of that weekend on Discord, in a streaming party with friends. I watched Doja, and I think Megan Thee Stallion while we waited for The Weeknd. We also watched a random DJ se,t and would laugh whenever the DJ randomly yelled, "Coachellaaaaa" in the middle of a song.

I also listened to a few acts that I never would have heard otherwise. One of my favourite discoveries was Chicano Batman, a psychedelic indie band. It was a lot of fun!

Coachella in 2023 slipped by me. Even though Björk, one of my ults, was there. I caught wind of Coachella too late in 2024. I really only managed to watch No Doubt, a little bit of Grimes's catastrophic set, and some of Justice's set.

This year, I was late, again. I found out about the streaming on the Sunday of weekend #1 of Coachella. I watched the Green Day replay. While randomly flipping through the stages, I made a new discovery: Rawayana, a funky reggae group from Venezuela. I also watched The Beaches, an all-female queer Canadian rock band. I managed to catch Amyl and the Sniffers, a very punk Aussie pub rock band with a lot of energy. There were more but it would be too exhaustive to list here.

I was really impressed by what I saw and vowed to sit through some more streams for Weekend 2, and watch I did.

Let me tell ya, I'm a Couchella convert. I don't think I'm the type of person to attend Coachella (although I really like attending music festivals in general). But I really like how Coachella lineups are actually pretty diverse. From pop rock to punk to K-pop to pop to EDM to country (shout out to Shaboozey). Coachella has a lot. It's also a cool place to find new music that is up and coming, or, even legacy acts. So, I'm grateful for streaming allowing me to experience some of this music festival.

And I will end this chaotic blog post with a list of acts I watched at Couchella, for posterity and maybe even as a conversation starter:

2022

  • CL (joined by 2NE1)
  • Japanese Breakfast
  • The Weeknd
  • Doja Cat
  • Megan Thee Stallion
  • Emo Nite
  • Chicano Batman (new discovery)
  • Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
  • NIKI
  • Rich Brian
  • Utada Hikaru
  • Warren Hue (new discovery)
  • Stromae
  • Joji

2024

  • No Doubt
  • Grimes
  • Justice

2025

  • Green Day
  • Japanese Breakfast
  • Marina
  • XG
  • Mau P (new discovery)
  • The Beaches
  • Megan Thee Stallion
  • Clairo
  • Amyl and the Sniffers
  • Viagra Boys
  • The Marías
  • CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso (new discovery)
  • Rawayana (new discovery)
  • Sammy Virji (new discovery)
  • Djo
  • Lola Young
  • Shaboozey
  • Jimmy Eat World
  • Missy Elliot
  • Lady Gaga
  • Post Malone
  • beabadoobee
  • Ginger Root
  • Glass Beams
  • Arca (with appearance from Utada Hikaru)
  • Boris Brejcha (new discovery)
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