As the world South of the border starts to look grim, I’ve been anxious to get more and more involved. A start has been using my voice more online. I’ve always avoided being political most of the time, but if everyone thought that way there would be no change.
I really appreciated a lot of celebrities using their fame to speak out and raise funds for notable causes.
Now is the time to be on the side of history that you want to be remembered for.
Happy Chinese New Year! I’m spending the day with my family and dog. Teddy somehow understands that there are goodies inside red envelopes and he gets his own too.
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.
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.
I’m presenting a show January 20th with Exclaim! as part of their 25th anniversary and Silver Dollar’s Class of 2017 series. Find out more on the Facebook event page!
Last weekend, my friends and I snuck a pug into Galleria Mall. We really wanted to go take a photo with Galleria Santa Claus and see this snake show going on. How those two things relate, or why someone decided that snakes was appropriate as a Christmas activity I will never know.
Anyways there really was snakes in the mall:
And this very unimpressed looking snapping turtle.
We saw these adorable little girls who really wanted to touch all the snakes. They are braver than we were.
We attempted a 3 person + pug photo booth but I came as darkness in the background.
A real Santa photo did happen but not in the sad Gallery castle that I wanted. He happened to be in the Reimagine Galleria centre.
Anyways, Galleria Mall is such a special place and I really hope that they keep the small businesses, and the unique qualities that make it memorable.
Self-care may seem like a millennial buzzword that has come up a lot lately but personally, I think it’s important.
I took the idea of self-care Sundays from Estée Lalonde’s book Bloom and created my own version. Essentially, it’s taking some time weekly to perform a routine you personally find relaxing. I like Sundays because it gets you into the right state of mind before starting a new week.
Here is what my Self-care Sunday looks like:
You can literally do anything you want as your set of tasks as long as it’s relaxing whether it’s make a cup of tea, watch the sunset, whatever. I like my routine because I have so many beauty products, it is fun to have a night to dedicate to actually using them. These are things I often don’t think I have time to do but there’s always time if you allow it to happen. Also, Nash knows to let me have this time to myself!
Do you have a self-care day? What do you do?
After I clocked out of work on Friday, my weekend was pretty insane. So here are some random social snapshots!
First we went to a holiday party and stayed up super late karaoking:
The next day I was on a team live tweeting the Canadian Folk Music Awards. We had some awesome feedback.
My teammate and I found some fancy chairs to sit in.
Then I went for dinner with grandma and her nursing home had these cute Christmas displays.
How was your weekend?
December can be a hard month for anxiety. I’m anxious for the year to be over. I’m anxious to finish Christmas shopping. I’m anxious to spend more time with family. I’m anxious about all the goals I set for myself, and what I did and didn’t achieve.
Pulling through the last stretch, but hanging in there. I hope you all are too!
As you can see from my previous posts, I love makeup. I’ve always been obsessed with buying and collecting make-up.
Last week for Black Friday, I bought a bunch of new cosmetics and then realized I needed to reorganize my collection so that it made more sense. I went to Muji and bought more storage units to match the ones I had. Now everything is organized and easily accessible. I have individual drawers for eyeshadows, lipsticks, bronzer/blushes, brushes, mascara and general face stuff.
I’m a feminist and I think everybody should feel great in their own skin, but if a lipstick, eye colour or whatever makes you personally feel like you can take on the world, I’m all for it. That’s what make-up is like for me. It makes me a little more confident to go about my daily life, like the ultimate placebo.
It is also a relaxing and fun routine for me in the morning. 5-10 minutes where I can myself up but also not worry too much about what the day will bring.
I also love art but often don’t have much time to sit down and draw. Makeup allows me to creatively work on the most organic canvas of all, the human face.
Tiana Feng 