When I encountered the pervasiveness of names with an Anglo first name and a Chinese last name in the Anglosphere for the first time, I was baffled. It seemed unlikely that there had been so many international marriages considering that China and English-speaking countries are geographically distant and the obvious language barrier. After a while, I learned that there was a significant amount of Chinese immigrants in those places. Still, it is interesting that there have been so many instances of inter-cultural marriages, especially with the aforementioned language barrier, since you have to learn a language first.

Asking a Korean, "Do you eat kimchi every day?" might sound rude.

It is like asking Mexican people if they eat tacos every day, or asking Japanese people if they eat sushi every day.

But I actually eat it every day.

In fact, I often eat four different types of kimchi in a single meal. 😂

My childhood friends are visiting the city where I live now. Since it’s been a long time since we took a trip like this, I’m so excited and thrilled to show them around my favorite spots in the city.

Yesterday I had my usual Networking class, which I lingered for a while only to ask about the study content and the strategies that we could use to study it effectively because it is a lot to study and practice.

For context, my college provided us access to a platform called Netacad, where you can take some well-known courses and get certificates like the CCNA. This is the course we are taking and it spans 17 modules.

Our teacher expects us to finish these 17 modules before Christmas. Isn't that insane? As for the question I asked related to how to study the whole thing, considering the time constraints, the teacher replied "You only have to read"; "You can do one module every day". That's when I sighed because it is impossible to finish one module in one day unless you only skim through the whole thing, skip videos and labs, and ultimately end up learning nothing at all.

The loophole that I found to have French lessons for free it’s great. I don’t think it’s gonna be fixed anytime soon. So far I’ve taken 10 lessons. I can use it to practice my German but now I don’t have time sadly.

After almost 2 weeks, I'm glad my sleeping schedule is far better compared to a couple weeks ago. This is because early this year I accepted a new job that offered a mixed night shift. And after a few months in, I realized it's relatively easy to fall into bad sleep habits if I am not careful enough.

One of the main reasons I wanted to fix my sleeping schedule was because I was sleeping too much during the day, and didn't have time to do anything else. Besides, I wanted to take some courses in the mornings without being so sleep deprived.

Considering this is a fixed term job, I guess my circadian rhythm will return back to normal once my contract finishes next March.

Oh no, I almost forgot to journal.
Last night, after work, I rode a bike to a new restaurant. I ordered a meal and a large bubble tea, which was the restaurant’s signature combo. They served me the drink first, for some reason, I had to wait so long for my meal, and it just never came. Eventually, I couldn’t wait any longer, I asked the waiter about it. The waiter then gave me the bad news: they had forgotten to put in my food order.

Article: I Tried Limiting Social Media for 1 Week to See if it Improves My Sleep

I no longer use X because I realized it was taking up too much of my time. I also uninstalled Instagram from my phone, but I can still use it on my laptop. I'm sure using Instagram affects how long I sleep. Even when I tell myself I'll use it for just a few minutes, I often ended up scrolling for more than five minutes — sometimes more than 10 minutes.

Setting a social media curfew sounds like a great idea. Starting today, I've decided to set mine for 8 p.m.

There are great artists out there. If there's something about the internet I praise is that many masterworks and not so known new artist can be found. This made art way more accesible to the new generations and everyone with an internet connection.

There are many cool resources to explore arts, such as WikiArt, Google Arts & Culture and Museo Del Prado (this one has 1:1 high quality images to download for free). So, I invite you to get lost in "The Garden of Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch for today.

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Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

Actually it's more than cloudy: the sky is just uniformly grey. It's also so low that the tops of the tallest buildings could disappear.

Nothing happens or moves.

I don't like this kind of still weather. It's not my thing.

I prefer it when it rains, from a light drizzle to a heavy downpour. I like it when the wind blows the raindrops against my windows. I prefer it when it's windy and I can see leaves flying and clouds of different shapes moving. I love it when my sheer curtains fly.

The sun is supposed to come back tomorrow and stay until the end of the week.

Well, I don't like still sunshine either. I'm Grouchy Smurf's sister.

I've been thinking of adjusting my job searching approach, which only amounts to applying for jobs I believe I meet the bare minimum requirements, but nowadays applying for jobs only might not be enough to get the change of having an interview in the most hopeless scenario.

That's how bad it is for me. I can't speak of others because years of experience is a metric factored in when looking for jobs, among other things such as certifications, degrees, industry and whatnot.

I just finished a demanding assignment. Actually, AI basically did it for me, and I just put its analysis together. I did this because the class isn’t interesting to me, yet I don’t feel pleased at all, as I feel like I just wasted my time on a pointless activity.

Since I can’t afford anyone to practice speaking English with, I tried to practice it with AI. However, my pronunciation skills weren’t good enough for voice input. I still haven’t figured out how to improve them to the level where they’re good enough for that. It doesn’t seem to be a common problem surprisingly.

It explained that their upcoming game, developed over years, was completely replicated by AI right before launch.

It is really sad to see someone's creative work stolen like that

It's been 4 months already since I started learning French more seriously because I always dreamed of speaking it fluently after having enjoyed the few classes I had during high school.

I couldn't allocate much time to it in the past because I had other priorities such as graduating from university or improving my English. So, I started using Duolingo to keep in contact with the language as a bare minimum.

Since July, I started listening to hundreds of hours of comprehensive input to get used to the sounds and rhythm of the language. Then, I enrolled into French classes to get some structure in my learning and practice my rusty speaking skills.

Soon enough, I realized my group classes were not going to be sufficient to improve my speaking, so now I take weekly 1-on-1 lessons with a private tutor to get personalized feedback.

My goal is to move from A2 to B1 level in the next couple of months before my trip to France next year.

The final days of October are here and the pumpkins are being carved. It has to be great to just sit and carve your own pumpkin. Then, buy some candy and enjoy the kids messing around in costumes.

So, again, I'm recommending you guys to watch a horror classic: The Blair Witch Project. It's an interesting film and it was a big deal when it was released. This film proved that the best scares are the ones you aren't showing right away.

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Thanks for reading and take care!

Article: How to Ease Nighttime Axiety

In the past, there were times when anxiety or stress affected my sleep. I often woke up one or two hours before my alarm went off and didn't feel well-rested.

If it happens again, I'll try deep breathing. I hope it doesn't happen again.

This weekend we got an extra hour. I felt like I did much more than usual, even though that's not really true. I slept more than usual, stayed in bed longer than usual, got back to decluttering, did some paperwork, watched some replays and worked on my English more than usual. Yet I was ready for bed earlier than usual.

My daughter and I are staying at my mom’s house because I’m pregnant and the maternity hospital is near her house.
There is one problem about her house.
A lot of dust is swirling around the house. My mom loves to sun-dry everything even if it’s needed to dry in the shade. I think she deteriorates her polyester furniture because of the sunlight and scatters the dust with her vacuum. Her vacuum has a rough mesh filter…
Now I have a sore throat and an itchy nose. My daughter often coughs.
Today I decided to try renting an air purifier from an appliance rental shop. I hope that will improve this situation.

I went bouldering with the Malaysian girl today. It had been almost 2 years since I last went bouldering. I still remember that the last time I tried it, I could barely move both my arms the next day. But this time I felt much better than I did the first time. Maybe it’s because I have been lifting weights, so I am stronger right now.
I feel like bouldering is a sport where you can’t rely on brute strength. You also have to use your brain to figure out how to complete each route.

It’s been a while since I stopped wearing a watch. I stopped it because I didn’t like the feeling of my wrist being compressed. However, there are some inconveniences that arose from it. For instance, when I change trains, I sometimes have to know the time down to the second. After all, there's a world of difference between 20:54:00 and 20:54:59 when the train that I am trying to catch is leaving at 20:57 or something. However, it takes some time and effort to pull out my phone and check the time, and it's sometimes simply impossible on a crowded train. I haven’t sold my watches yet, so I suppose I should try wearing one again.

Since the day I got unemployed, I have been sticking to a different routine every day, adding new activities I did not have time to spend on before. Either way, I am still figuring things out, wondering if I can do some tweaks to the same activities or change the order I do each. There are some activities that tire me more than others, so it is key to decide whether I commit to them in the morning or the evening.

My attention span and energy are higher in the morning than in the evening. It might have to do with the fact that after lunch, I feel a bit sleepy. Another thing I have to work on is rest. I am hardly resting and that could have an impact on my evening activities.

PCs make my workflow more efficient, and sometimes they are absolutely necessary. At the same time, because of their wonderful variety of functions, they distract me and don’t allow me to pause and think deeply. For example, when I can’t come up with an idea, I tend to open Google or Gemini and ask them, rather than trying to think it through myself. Some say this is an extension of the human brain, while others say it is a decline in intellect.