San Diego Coffee: Dutch Chocolate

Categories Drinks, FoodLeave a Comment on San Diego Coffee: Dutch Chocolate

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My sister gifted me a Bodum French Press set for Christmas that has a coffee bean grinder and hot water boiler. Now I’m excited to explore the world of coffee beans.

My first bag was San Diego Coffee’s “Dutch Chocolate” flavour, that I ordered on Amazon. It’s a Medium Roast of 100% Arabica beans. Though I’m still working out the perfect way to use the French Press, I found this coffee very smooth and light. The chocolate came through the most when the only thing added was cream. I found sugar competed with the flavours and this coffee didn’t need to be sweetened (a plus since I’m trying to cut adding sugar to coffee).

What’s your favourite coffee bean? I’m open to suggestions!

Mini Block Pikachu

Categories Lego/BuildingLeave a Comment on Mini Block Pikachu

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I finally found a Mini Block Pikachu at Mr Pen.

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They tend to have random characters available, so I had to pick up Pikachu! This wasn’t an official Nanoblock, but close enough.

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There were tons of extra pieces and straightforward instructions. It was much easier than some of the others I had built.

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New Year New Camera!

Categories PhotographyLeave a Comment on New Year New Camera!

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I recently killed my Canon 60D showing a crazy Fucked Up show at The Silver Dollar. Luckily, during Boxing Day I ordered a new camera: The Canon 6D Mark IV. There was a bunch of extras that came with it including a tiny camera USB, CF card and bag.

I’ve been waiting years for it to come out so that I could upgrade to a full-frame camera with wifi.

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I am still getting used to it but I can’t wait for all the new photo possibilities. This will be a powerful tool in my photo arsenal.

Boxing Day Sephora Haul

Categories BeautyLeave a Comment on Boxing Day Sephora Haul

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For Boxing Day, I ordered two lip sets (Urban Decay’s Vice & Smashbox’s Light It Up) at Sephora and got a bunch of free stuff. I got a sample NARS Lip pencil, BROWFOOD and more.

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Smashbox’s set came with 5 glittery lip glosses and a container that I can use for storage (after I took out the plastic display).

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Urban Decay’s Vice palette came with beautiful bright colours, though I’m not sure when I would ever use a green lipgloss. I think it may be cool to use as a bright eyeshadow!

I’m excited to play around with more lip colours. I only recently got into lip makeup. I always thought that I couldn’t pull of bright colours or I ate too frequently and would have to reapply it often. I want to be the type of person who can be confident wearing any colour.

New Year Promises

Categories Inspiration, LifeLeave a Comment on New Year Promises

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This year instead of a list of concrete goals or resolutions, I decided to make a list of actions/promises instead. I think as a result of these, I’ll end up achieving all the things I want to be doing (art, reading, being social etc, finishing projects, taking risks).

1. Stop thinking about doing stuff and just do it. I often spend too much time wishing I was doing more drawing, writing or thinking about how I could improve so and so. I spent a lot of time thinking, time I could be spent taking action.

2. Spend more meaningful time online/offline. I want to be either fully connected or fully disconnected. That means when I’m online, I have a purpose for being there: blogging, tweeting, catching up on news, watching Netflix, not just spacing out in front of my computer for hours.

The same applies for being offline. I want to spend more time being in the moment, exploring hobbies, hanging out with friends and less time doing those things while still sitting in front of a glowing screen or on Facebook Chat/Twitter.

I want to spend less time being in limbo.

Happy 2017!

Categories LifeLeave a Comment on Happy 2017!

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Happy 2017! Best wishes to everyone 😘 #2017

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on

Happy New Year!

I’m looking forward to a new year of adventures to share with you all. May your 2017 be full of fun and excitement too.

The 53 Books I have Read This Year

Categories Books1 Comment on The 53 Books I have Read This Year

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This year, with the help of a eBook Reader and a Library Card, I’ve surpassed my goal to read 52 books (that’s one a week) in 2016.

I read everything cover to cover. Some of them weren’t so great but I always finish a book. In doing so, my mind was opened and I learned a lot about the lives of different people (I have a huge fascination with North Korea now), different ways of viewing the world, laughed and cried.

I love reading and I’ll continue to do so in 2017 (with probably the same goal because it is a realistic gauge of books). Follow my reading adventure on Goodreads @tianafeng

Here is a list of all the books I read starting from the most recent.

  1. This is Happy by Camilla Gibb.
  2. I’m Just A Person by Tig Notaro
  3. Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson
  4. The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis
  5. The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee
  6. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield
  7. China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan
  8. Porcelain: A Memoir by Moby
  9. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
  10. Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Hidden Child Survivors of the Holocaust by R.D. Rosen
  11. Bloom: navigating life and style by Estée Lalonde
  12. Now I Know More: The Revealing Stories Behind Even More of the World’s Most Interesting Facts by Dan Lewis
  13. Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay
  14. Something to food about: Exploring Creativity with Innovative Chefs by Questlove
  15. Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow
  16. A Kim Jong Il Production by Paul Fischer
  17. The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper
  18. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
  19. On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz
  20. Oh Myyy! by George Takei
  21. Open City by Teju Cole
  22. Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad
  23. The Illegal by Lawrence Hill
  24. QR Codes Kill Kittens by Scott Stratten
  25. The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah
  26. The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety by Alan W Watts
  27. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan
  28. The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook
  29. The Dogs I Have Kissed by Trista Mateer
  30. Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect by Matthew D Lieberman
  31. The Good Girl by Mary Kubica
  32. I Know How She Does It by Laura Vanderkam
  33. Nowhere With You: The East Coast Anthems of Joel Plaskett, The Emergency and Thrush Hermit by Josh O’Kane
  34. The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight
  35. Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling by H. Edgar Schein
  36. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
  37. The Crossing by Michael Connelly
  38. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nicholas Nassim Taleb
  39. This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
  40. Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
  41. Mo’ Meta Blues by Questlove
  42. Between the World and Me by Ta-neshi Coates
  43. Thinking in Numbers: On Life, Love Meaning and Math by Daniel Tammet
  44. The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan
  45. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
  46. The Ravenous Brain by Daniel Bor
  47. Don’t Go Back to School: A Handbook for Learning Anything by Kio Stark
  48. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  49. Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
  50. The Door by Magda Szabo
  51. Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemakers by Nick Offerman
  52. People I Want to Punch in the Throat by Jenn Mann
  53. Do Cool Sh*t by Miki Agrawal

Let me know what books I should check out in 2017. I’m up for anything!

Belkin Apple Watch and Phone Dock

Categories iOS, TechnologyLeave a Comment on Belkin Apple Watch and Phone Dock

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My life is full of charging cables for all sorts of devices: my e-reader, my laptop, my phone, my watch. In my bachelor apartment, it is really hard to walk anywhere without tripping over some kind of chord.

So it was perfect that my dad got me a Belkin charging dock that can do both my Apple Watch and iPhone and have one less cable on the ground!
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2016 Wasn’t So Bad

Categories LifeLeave a Comment on 2016 Wasn’t So Bad

This year has been full of horrible public events: beloved celebrity deaths (David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Carrie Fisher etc.), Brexit, Donald Trump being voted as the next President of the USA.

People blame the year. I know I have tweeted a fair amount of “Fuck 2016″s.

Why is that?

I think it’s because we hope and believe that 2017 will be better.

The thing is we can’t change things we can’t control (celebrity lifespans).

If we look into our own individual lives, this year wasn’t so bad. I had many new adventures, got to see my best friend and her newborn baby, eat delicious food, and achieve a few of my personal goals of the year.

It’s up to us to make 2017 better. We can decide what things we can control and how we can achieve them.

Carrie Fisher Was A Strong Princess

Categories Health, Inspiration, LifeLeave a Comment on Carrie Fisher Was A Strong Princess

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Carrie Fisher died yesterday from a heart attack at the age of 60. She was most known to the entire world as Princess Leia from Star Wars.

To boys, she was an object of their fantasy, but to women, she was a feisty but powerful person both in the films and in real life.

“You don’t have to always be comfortable. You don’t have to like everything you do,” Fisher said in one of her last interviews with Rolling Stone. She was an outspoken hero of mental health, an early figure who helped decrease the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

She was also against sexist standards and body shaming. “Stop debating whether I aged well,” she said in the Guardian.

She taught me to be open and brave. She taught thousands of girls that we can be both the beautiful princess and a fearless leader.