It’s a better platform anyway for the type of long-form blogging that I prefer. I’ve found myself composing long emails and posts in very sparse and clean Medium post interface and then porting them over when I’m finished.
I’ve used Tumblr since high school (that is a long time!) and have tolerated what I personally see as a list of increasingly annoying attempts to monetize - least of which include advertisements flooding my carefully curated dash. I just spent about an hour on Medium this morning and am totally blown away by the quality and breadth of posts there - it strikes me as a cross between Tumblr in terms of interestingness and Svbtle in terms of post quality.
Having one of those “how did I end up here, again?” moments.
Taken by RG. Creative detox.
The theme of this week has definitely been amazing design talks, which I normally find boring but found exceptionally inspirational this week. Great hearing from Ash, Alexa, Elle, Adam, and Edward Tufte.
Amazing amazing AMAZING talk from Elle Luna tonight at Designer Fund’s beautiful new space. I’m grateful that I stayed for it; I was literally about to walk out the door because the event was running over, etc. before Darian (another designer at Dropbox) convinced me to stay. 20 or so really talented designers in the room, and it felt like a really, really safe place.
Here are my takeaways of points that she made that were especially meaningful to me:
- Ask yourself not “what can I do” but “what must I do?”
- Two things that will tear down your passions and are a constant, daily threat. One, distractions. The ever present coffee date series, the dancing monkey treats (being published, etc). Two, the “what will they think?”
- Once you are not afraid, you tend to have a lot of fun. And crushing anxiety, at first.
- It’s like when you look back at your life sometimes you can envision a crimson thread running through past events and experiences that have helped shape who you were. For me, personally, as a child I always loved creating things. I loved thinking about product experiences (“logistics,” I’d say), but didn’t know that there was an actual job that mapped to that. A lot of these passions are hidden in our childhood, she said. I so agree.
"And on the slope he say old Samuel against the sky, his white hair shining with starlight."
when I have a crappy day I just remember that at least I’m not still in college, more specifically at least I’m not a sophomore at Wharton, and curl up on the couch to read East of Eden. day instantly brightened, somewhat.
I never explicitly wrote about this here, but this month (May issue*) I was featured in Glamour Magazine as one of their top 10 college women in 2013. They flew us out to NYC twice, first for an awesome photoshoot (I literally checked in to my hotel, did my shoot, and flew home) and second for an awards ceremony / speaker series.
It was a really incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience. The most important thing that the whole experience taught me was a little something about beauty, and how I define myself by it. I thank Glamour so much for this, and our incredible editor, Katie, for everything.
Each of us was interviewed by L’Oreal, the event sponsor, for a small video that they’re putting together about Top 10, and one of the questions they asked was: “What does beauty mean to you?”
This question has special significance to me because, ironically, when I first found out that was going to be featured in a beauty / fashion magazine I immediately felt very self-conscious of the way I looked. I dieted pretty hardcore for the two months leading up to the shoot, and dropped about 15 pounds in that super short period of time (granted, a lot of that was extra weight I had gained in college). I nervously practiced smiling in the mirror, to my camera, etc. the week before because I suddenly felt very self conscious about the way that my teeth looked (I’d just gotten all four wisdom teeth out two months earlier). I was really nervous before the feature came out because I feared that they would pick a shot in which I “looked stupid.”
A lot of it was fear over what my family and friends would respectively say. My family because Asian culture is generally more direct (rude is what we would consider it by American values) about these things - “oh you look a little fat,” or like “wow you have so many pimples.” It’s what makes talking to my relatives and family friends really difficult sometimes - despite knowing that that kind of directness is just part of the culture and not necessarily a reflection of someone else’s true assessment of my character (ie. the thing that counts), it’s just really hard to adjust your frame of reference when you’re constantly being told you got fatter. And let’s face it, I was even nervous about what some of my friends - love them - would say. We just live in a really superficial society and it’s hard to decouple your identity from your appearance sometimes, particularly as a female.
It all worked out in the end - I love the shots they picked and even more so that they incorporated a small tidbit about how I played Pokemon as a kid. I do not think I look stupid in either shot and got to meet some of the most fabulous, talented, and beautiful young women who I’m so proud now to call friends.
During each visit to NYC, I spent an hour getting my hair curled (“lightly distressed”), face made up, and nails done. I don’t know if people treated me differently because I looked way more glamorous than I normally am and I still don’t know if people in my life think of me differently because I was featured in this wonderful magazine but what I do know is that it took an hour of time and a ton of makeup to get to that point. To go from “ordinary” to “beautiful.”
And that’s kind of bullshit because anyone can look “beautiful.” With the right tools and precision, it’s really not that hard. My makeup artist gave me beauty tips that I still take with me today, but I don’t think that the fact that I have highlights in my hair or fuller eyebrows should dictate the way that other people perceive me. I mean it is, undoubtedly, given that we judge others so heavily on appearances. But the hardest part of getting into that magazine wasn’t the beauty part (clearly, it just took a couple of hours and squeezing into some awesome outfits to achieve that). The hardest part was the unfolding of our stories. The hardest part was finding determination and being brave and going for it. The beauty part was easy. It’s achievable, if you really want it. Spend a couple extra minutes blow-drying your hair the right way or contouring your cheekbones. But the other stuff - the stuff we call life - is so much harder.
So ultimately I basically learned that the physical stuff can be fun and all but isn’t that important and even if you care about that stuff you can really easily manipulate your appearance and whatever. The more important stuff comes from your drive, your motivation, and your will.
That is to say (tl;dr), this entire experience first made me feel really incredibly vulnerable, and then turned around and strengthened my resolve and confidence in myself. Sadface and then yay.
This was a super long post but it makes up for my lack of substantiveness from Feb - April.
*Yeah, the May issue was released in April.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
I love this quote so much: “we accept the love we think we deserve.”
Sometimes you can’t control the exact circumstances in your life especially if you’re only beginning financial independence - we might be forced accept that slightly leaky sublet as our first apartment out of school or subsist on subpar, inexpensive junk food during college to get by - but love is something that you can choose.
On a related note, being a fairly unattached female in an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry has been an interesting experience, to say the least.
Edit: Love sucks sometimes.
designed by alice lee
