Hi all! As I was scrolling through my camera roll and collecting images for this little photo diary, I realized just how long this January felt; it feels like five years have passed, and we’re only in the second month of February. With that being said, here are some photos I took this January; they’re not particularly interesting because I usually don’t take that many pictures of my day-to-day life, but I think it’s nice to be able to scroll through my camera roll and have a visual representation of where I was — either literally or mentally — throughout 2023.
First of all, here’s a screenshot I took on January 11, a little after the quarter started. In terms of music, I spent most of this month going through year-end lists and getting caught up on some of 2022’s best releases, which resulted in this fascinating (and very energetic) start to my January playlist.
Here’s the only picture in the post that I’ll actually appear in; I took this at the optometrist, when I was waiting around after picking out a new pair of glasses. I’m still waiting to actually pick them up, but my new glasses are a different shape from the rectangular, boxy shape that I’ve been wearing since sixth grade, so I’m excited to see how I’ll feel about the change.
As a Vietnamese person, I do celebrate Lunar New Year or Tết, so here are some photos relating to that. I coincidentally went to the mall during the same weekend as Lunar New Year, and I took some pictures of pretty displays I saw relating to it as well as my humble red envelope haul.
(Side Note: Although Chinese tradition says that it’s the year of the rabbit, Vietnamese tradition says that it’s the year of the cat!)
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to enjoy nature — which isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do when you live in suburban California — but as a result, if I have a brief reprieve between classes, I’ve been spending it sitting around in Aldrich Park. That’s where I took this picture, and though the content of the photo is nothing remarkable, I thought the effect of the sunlight was quite pretty.
And, finally, I read Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness this month, and I wanted to share that with you all, but I wasn’t sure how to because I didn’t take any pictures while I was actually reading it. So, I decided to show a screenshot of my Storygraph reading journal instead to capture just how many thoughts I had about this book; so, I downloaded a screenshot stitcher, only to find it wouldn’t let me download the full version of the stitched image for free. But, it did let me look at a preview, and I realized that it’s probably a good thing that I couldn’t get the stitched image, as you’d all probably get carpal tunnel trying to scroll past it. Here is that preview.
And with that, I bid you adieu; I hope 2023 is treating you all kindly.