10 things I’ve been interested in recently

1. Vox videos

I’m not a regular reader of Vox’s website, but I subscribed two weeks ago to its Youtube channel. They publish around three videos each week and cover a wide variety of topics. I love their videos: the editing, the scoring, the colors.

2. Rom-coms

It didn’t hit me that I liked rom-coms as a genre until I watched two really close to each other. The first one was 10 Things About You and the second one was Home Sweet Alabama. I didn’t fall in love with Home Sweet Alabama as hard as I did for 10 Things, but that’s when my realization clicked. So I guess my movie preferences are generally dramas, rom-coms, and animated movies?

3. Yogurt and berries for breakfast

Ugh, the day I start this post is the day I ran out of berries, so I took a picture of yogurt with some granola instead. Usually I put strawberries and blueberries on it. Sometimes I also put in a slice of banana bread and mix it together. That might be really strange for you food purists who like to keep all their foods very separate, but I belong to whatever camp is the opposite of that.

4. Geopolitics

It all started with this book called Prisoners of Geography. I tried reading three years ago in eighth grade when my very smart volleyball coach recommended it to me, but I thought it was so boring at that point. But then I read it again at the beginning of this summer, and while I can still see how it would be extremely boring to read though, I thought it was way more interesting this time around. It makes you see and understand the world differently. I had no idea mountains, rivers, and coasts explain so much of why countries do what they do.

5. K-pop

one of my favorites at the moment–and I just remembered this is actually in Japanese, but just go with it please

K-pop stands for Korean pop, but it covers way more genres than just pop music. It seems like it’s a general term for all Korean music?? I’m not sure. I’ll get Jonathan to answer that question in a post I made him write about why he likes k-pop.

But the reason I like it is a bit different than his. I like it because listening to songs that aren’t in English broadens my music taste. For songs in English, I feel like I listen to them with a reader/writer brain, so I end up having a very narrow preference when it comes to lyrics. But with music that’s not in English, I can’t understand most of the lyrics, so I mostly decided based on the sound itself.

6. Naps

I’ve never been that much of a napper, but this summer, I’ve started napping in the early afternoon sometimes, and it’s so great. I used to only nap when I was extremely tired, and when I woke up, I would feel even more woozy. But these naps I’ve been having recently are of a totally different quality. I usually wake up after twenty or thirty minutes and not woozy at all. They’ve definitely won me over. When school starts, I might start taking naps after I come home.

7. Axios newsletters

I’ve tried several different daily news newsletters, but these are hands down my favorite. The first one I tried was The Skimm, and it is skimmable with lots of bolding and links, but there was too much information for me. Then I subscribed to the New York Times’ Morning and Evening briefings (which you can read without a subscription). I really liked these and read them for around a year and a half—until last month when I heard about Axios.

Its newsletters are actually so brief and have such a nice, large font with a good amount of white space. They offer over twenty different ones, but I’m subscribed to five: AM, PM, Future, World, and China.

8. Makeup

Last month I bought some make-up for the first time in maybe two years, but what I’ve been liking more than the makeup part is the pre-makeup part. A more accurate title for this section would be “actually washing my face with something besides water.” This might die down very soon, but I’ve actually been kind of excited to do a skincare routine in the mornings. I’m not sure how long that will last once school starts, but we’ll see.

9. Acronym tik-toks

I don’t have Tik-tok, but I love it when my friends send them to me. Some of my favorites have been the people asking their immigrant parents to guess what different acronyms stand for. For example: 1, 2, 3, 4.

10. My summer reading?

I’m pretty surprised, but I like the books I’m reading this summer for school. All the seniors have to read Life of Pi, and I was definitely not excited about that one because I read it a few years ago and was bored throughout and then so confused by the ending. But I think this is another strong example of how I changed my opinion from negative to positive on something because my brain developed more. This time around, there were parts that made me laugh out loud but also parts that made me really think too.

The other book we read is our senior thesis book, which we chose off a long list in a random, computer-generated order. I have Joy Luck Club, and so far, some of it has been extremely relatable. We have to read whatever book we choose three or my times over the course of the year, and this is one I think I’ll be okay with rereading. I feel so bad for some of my classmates though. Somebody with a really good number at the front chose Catch-22, and he clearly didn’t know what that book is like. And then there’s the people with War and Peace. Dude, imagine having to read War and Peace more than once.

Are you a food purist or food mixer?
How do you keep up with the news?
What have you been interested in recently?