To All The Boys 3: Always & Forever

February 17, 2021

The third and final installment, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before: Always & Forever finally came out on Feb 12. I finished reading all 3 books last month and while the movies are definitely different from the books, they still incorporate a lot of elements and cute Easter eggs throughout.

My honest review? I fell in love with the first movie, I wasn’t absolutely crazy about the second, but I loved how the last one ended. It wrapped it up rather nicely. While I am a fan of bittersweet endings, I also am a fan of really cute sappy happily ever afters. I am a Disney girl after all.

I love these movies for a few reasons, but most of all, I love that it was a unique and clean love story. Everything about it was very soft. It wasn’t overtly catty, sexual or over the top like the OG teen movies of the 90s. It was good clean fun, humor and story. I’ve been loving movies like this and Sierra Burgess Is A Loser. Being a straight edge girl for basically…all of my life, I really relate to Lara Jean’s high school experience. While everyone else is out being sexual and going to tons of parties, besides being sheltered and not allowed to go, when it comes down to it, my idea of ‘fun’ is not the same. I enjoy cooking, reading, writing, fashion, and all the ‘boring’ stuff that LJ enjoys too. I had a similar style and fashion sense growing up. I wore a lot of cutesy and kawaii style clothes but was still eclectic and very versatile with my fashion. I didn’t really like to wear what “everyone else was wearing” at the time, which was a lot of Abercrombie and Fitch and Uggs. I wore my hair in pigtails and had a box of tons of cute hair accessories that my mom had sent from Vietnam for me. While watching the second movie, I realized I had a similar dress with red bows on the shoulders and it inspired to work on a small project of my own recently in recreating 3 of her looks from the second movie, while marrying it with my own personal style. I wanted to do it since last year but I only had the one dress. Just recently I came across the Valentine’s outfits from one of my favorite brands and then serendipitously stumbled upon the mint dress as a suggestion from one of my favorite Instagrammers. It all worked out perfectly in time for the 3rd movie release. Sometimes you just get lucky like that at a certain moment in time for a reason. My hubby helped me with this small project and I really loved how it turned out.

I remember being just as dramatic and emotional as a teenage too. I find her antics hilarious. I had similar daydreams. I worried about the same things. I have a similar relationship with my sisters and family is very important to me too. I also love that the third movie incorporated elements of New York. And if you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading here because *spoiler warning* I LOVE that the conflict in the third movie is not another love interest or ex insecurity, but that she falls in love with New York City itself, and puts her in a pickle on where to go for college. I related to this too as I wanted to go away for college, but I didn’t want to go too far because I didn’t want to be far from my boyfriend. Ultimately, I wasn’t as brave as Lara Jean, but I didn’t really need to be, because I didn’t really find any out of state schools I really wanted to go to. Looking back, I don’t regret it but not because of the boyfriend aspect, but because I honestly would’ve hated moving back and forth every semester and in between semesters, lol. I hated that part a lot about college. It was always a hassle moving in and out. But I digress. I also really enjoyed the storyline between LJ and Gen. I loved that they took it a different direction than the books and it was really heartwarming to see the jung connection come full circle. Their relationship was definitely complicated but I loved the ending it got. It was a storyline that is really nice to see in this day and age, especially for female empowerment and women uplifting other women and supporting each other.

I also love that Lana Condor is Vietnamese American because representations really matters. It’s very rare to see a Vietnamese girl as the star and to see that she killed this was amazing to me. I hope that it paves the way to see more Vietnamese stars and Asians on the big screen because I would love more relatable stories to be picked up and told.

If you haven’t watched it yet and are interested in starting the series, they ‘re all available to stream on Netflix, and I honestly really recommend it if you love cute love stories and romcoms. It’s a perfect series for the Valentine’s season. I wasn’t in love with the Beginning Middle End song at first just like Peter, and then somehow later on in the day, it hit me hard and now I’m in love with it. Funny how music can be like that sometimes.

Happy Valentine’s Season!

Grief

February 6, 2021

Grief is a very complicated experience. It’s something that you don’t fully grasp until you experience it yourself firsthand, but also something you don’t wish upon anyone to have to go through.

My maternal grandfather passed away in Vietnam when I was in the 3rd grade. But I had never met him, having come to America when I was 1, after being born in a refugee camp in Thailand. I had never been to Vietnam because my family couldn’t afford to go back to visit when we were kids. It wouldn’t be until my second year of college, when I finally made my first pilgrimage to the motherland to finally meet and visit my mother’s family. My mother wanted me to go because she believed it was important for me to meet my grandmother at least once while she was still alive, as well as learn and experience the culture and land from where I came from. I went for about 3 weeks, adventuring from Saigon all the way up to Hue on a road trip to visit my grandfather’s grave to pay my respects. Since that trip, I haven't been back shamefully in over 10 years now. Life happens.

I had planned to go back again either this year or the next, before the pandemic happened, because I wanted to experience the Vietnamese New Year/Tet in its full glory. I wanted to see the celebrations, the color, the clothing, the family traditions, the decorations, everything. I don’t know when I’ll make it back next with the world in it’s current state and our original plans and lives now on hold. But unfortunately, not everything can be put on pause, as life still does go on, or in this case this past week, we learned the hard way that death stops for no one. We learned Sunday night that my maternal grandmother had just passed away. She has finally reunited with my grandfather in heaven.

Having only met my grandmother once and not having much of a relationship or attachment to her, I don’t really know how to feel about her passing. Of course, I’m sad but I don’t have as much grief over it as my mom. She, on the other hand, is having a hard time with it because last year my parents were supposed to go on a trip to visit my grandmother, but of course it was cancelled due to covid. This has caused her to feel guilty on top of not being able to currently fly back to attend the funeral, nor does she know when she’ll be able to go back to make a pilgrimage to visit the grave site, which is a big deal in Vietnam regarding your ancestors. For me, it doesn’t affect me as emotionally since I didn’t have as much of a relationship as my mother deeply did, but it does affect me in a different way because I feel absolutely helpless in not being able to help her cope or comfort her. While I consider my relationship with my mother to be close and a healthy one, our Asian nature is not very…touchy-feely for lack of a better word. We’re not the type to talk about our feelings or experiences to each other. Even a lot of my parents history, I had to learn through other family members as my parents don’t like to talk about themselves. It’s like they lived this secret life before me I don’t know much about and I’m too scared to ask in fear of being pushed off as nosy/disrespectful in Asian culture. We’re not very open or talkative.

So how do you comfort a grieving parent?

I wish I could just raise my hands up and take away other people's suffering. Their worries. Their sorrows. Their anxieties. Their illnesses. Take in all the poison and swallow their bitterness. And at the same time, right now I'm feeling overwhelmed. I can't help but feel my family's stress of all the shit that's hitting the fan right now and it's a wall of different but exponentially building overwhelming emotions. Grief, loss, anger, depression, anxiety, nervousness, financial stress, uncertainty, guilt, sadness, helplessness.

A lot of it is uncharted waters for me so it's frustrating not knowing how to help. And it all snowballed together so quickly. I don't know how to be there. It's a really unsettling feeling when you're used to being reliable as the eldest child for immigrant parents. Especially when you can't offer solutions. I wish I could take it away. I wish I knew how to help them cope. I'm still dealing with my own grief despite it being 5 years now so I don't know the words to say to comfort any of the challenges being hurled right now. All I know is with time, it will pass. I am better than I was when I first experienced my first loss of someone very important and close to me a few years ago, but some days it creeps up on me like a surprise and I find myself in tears out of the blue. Grief is a hard thing. Once it’s in your life, it never really goes away. It will slowly grow to be less of a dark cloud over your head over time, but it never truly disappears. It only goes dormant and awakens to visit you periodically when you don’t expect it. So with this being my own personal experience with grief, how can I really offer any solace to my mom?

It's been a highly uncomfortable week learning how to navigate these uncharted waters. I used to think I was done learning but there's still a lot to do. I'm learning how to take care of my parents, both their physical and mental health. I used to think they were emotionless. That nothing could break them and that's why they were so strict on me when I was younger. That they wouldn't let me have friends or fun because they were hell bent on ruining my life. Now I know it was the opposite; they were protecting me. But I also know now they were just REALLY good at poker facing adulthood. They break and cry and feel sadness and helpless just like I do. They just try really hard at never letting me see them sweat. Which is probably where I get it from as well, trying always to keep it together and numb myself from reality of the gravity of things. Just because someone carries it well, doesn't mean it isn't heavy. This week has been a hard one. This Chinese New Year is going to be hard. But it's the year of the ox. We have to be strong.

This too, shall pass. Another quote I've always lived by and found to ring true.

Thank you to those who have reached out and offered their kindness. I appreciate the patience, the time taken to listen, and the graciousness.

#21DayTone Blogilates Challenge

January 24, 2021

I stumbled upon Blogilates sometime in the past year on Instagram through their algorithm suggesting me more fitness accounts as I strayed away from cosplay and more towards health and fitness. I clicked on follow cause her pages were cute but didn’t know much about her brand. I learned more when she came out with 90 day challenge/365 day post about all the harsh criticism and controversial hate she received when first started the challenge.

It resonated with me because I received similar discouragement when I first decided to lose weight, get healthy and start running. I was told a lot of negative things, which I thought were really ridiculous. While some may have been well-intentioned like the whole “you don’t need to lose weight, you look fine!” and the “running is bad for your toes, they’ll fall off!” , ultimately the decision is up to me on what I choose to do with my body and how I want it to look, whether it be out of vanity, aesthetics or simply overall physical and mental heath. People trying to give you unsolicited input on what they think you should do with YOUR life and body, especially when you’re trying to better yourself, is a lot of horse shit. If you want to try something new, do it. Don’t get discouraged by someone telling you you shouldn’t or that you can’t. Do it twice and take pictures. It doesn’t matter how someone else thinks and feels about YOUR body. It matters that YOU yourself are comfortable in your own skin. (And just a disclaimer here, I’m talking about healthy, sustainable habits, not eating disorders or unhealthy toxic things people doe in the fitness world. For these issues, please seek professional help.)

Back to the point though. Her original post was about how she wanted to change her own eating habits to something more sustainable and tone her body even further than what it already was. She was already thin to begin with and that’s where all the hate came flooding in, accusing her of not being body positive and causing harmful body image. I hate this because I also am considered thin by the general population but in my own skin, I always feel like there’s room for improvement. I’m not looking to lose a lot of weight but I do prefer to be leaner. I just want to eat without looking like I had 3 thanksgivings, okay?!!? And her before and after photos of that challenge were amazing! They weren’t a dramatic change like you see in the heavier weight loss photos but it’s what I deal with on the yo-yo-ing of my own weight. I struggle with trying to maintain my weight at a constant number because it’s very prone to bloat with what I eat. Luckily the holidays are over and I can get back to a regular routine.

Which brings me to my next point. I took her #21daytone challenge she promoted for the new year. I did this for a few reasons. First, I was getting bored with the gym. Despite finally being able to go back to the gym in September because they reopened, I’ve been finding it rather monotonous and not as exciting as it used to be. I needed to switch things up. I needed a change of pace. Secondly, she was promoting her new Target line and this #21daytone was a really freaking smart way of getting people to try new things for free and then ultimately buy her line because she makes them look so fun and cute in her videos. I got suckered into it. Her marketing worked on me. As a person who’s usually skeptical of a lot of fitness subscription things and spending more money, to me, this was a risk-free and cost-free way to try out her workouts. And it was 21 days! I always feel like a 7 day trial is too short to figure out if you like anything so 21 days was perfect. And she sells it so perfectly. 21 minutes for 21 days. Come on!

The app ended up being free to download and the #21daytone challenge was free to access and do. And even if you didn’t want to download the app, the calendar is free to print off her blog and all the videos are available on Youtube, you just have to search them. The app just makes it easier to access with it being all in one place and it tracks your progress and tells how percentage completion and everything. She talks about check marks in every video and something about it, man, those check marks DO feel really freaking good when you finish a workout. I was really able to get behind all this as I was looking for something new and fun to try. And I did say for the new year I wanted to explore new areas of fitness.

And I ended up really freaking loving this challenge. The funny thing is when her Target line first came out, I didn’t plan on buying much because I didn’t feel like the colors fit my aesthetic that much as I’m usually a strictly bright pink girl. But as the workouts went on, every video with her using her equipment sold me more and more. So I ended up picking up quite a few pieces. And I’ve loved them so far. The only thing I didn’t pick up was weights because I thought my 5 pound ones at home would do and hers are honestly quite pricey. But god those gold weights are beautiful. When I finally decided okay, let’s do it, the joke was on me because her marketing strategy worked on everyone doing the challenge. Her entire collection was selling out of stores all over America.

But enough of how I got suckered into her genius marketing ploys.

Today marks the completion of the challenge! Spoilers, I made it through all 21 days! The physical changes in me were minimal, the before pic was due to holiday eating bloat. But the weight on the scale has remained the same. I started at 122 pounds and I’m honestly still at 122, but the photos look different. I got rid of my water weight from eating all the processed, high sugar, high sodium foods during the holiday season and got back to my regular sustainable diet of high protein, complex carbs and lots and lots of water.

So my review:

This was an easy program to follow and understand but is also by no means too easy. It’s user-friendly but the workouts are still definitely challenging. But not enough to intimidate you so if you’re worried about not making it all the way through, don’t. It’s not that terrible. I found it a lot of fun to do and actually surprised myself week to week, as the exercises I used to hate and dread became more doable and more tolerable and actually fun as my endurance, stamina and strength progressed. I learned that I prefer compound exercises to isolation ones. I loved cardio ones and the “all-in-one” workouts. It’s funny because a lot of these reminded me of the Insanity program but not as intense and grueling. It ended up making me actually enjoy home workouts more. I really wish this had been around during the initial lockdown last year. It would have helped me a lot when I was struggling to find my footing with home workouts when gyms were closed. A lot of the moves I was doing then were similar to these workouts too, but I enjoyed that the videos had a timer and you had to push through and not allowed a lot of breaks. It forces you to finish the workout. On my own, I take a lot of breaks and get distracted. Through the #21daytone challenge, I spent my entire time doing the workout and no time scrolling through my phone on rest breaks. That’s probably another thing I need to learn to do. To put my phone down and just do the damn workout. I find it easier to do when I IG live my workouts too because it hold me accountable to finishing the workout, as well as prevent me from scrolling cause well, it’s recording, lol. I physically can’t use my phone. I also loves that she talks to you throughout the workout so it doesn’t feel like you’re just counting down the seconds til it’s over. I feel engaged and immersed in the workout.

I also realized I look forward to my workouts more when I have everything down planned. Instead of going to the gym and just picking a random muscle group to work out and go through the motions for that day, I find it really helpful for me when I pick out my outfit the night before, go over the next day’s workout plan before bed, make a list of goals and check them off throughout the day as I go. Oh yeah, and a really cute outfit really goes a long way. It sounds stupid but it’s really motivational when you look and feel on point. During this challenge, I ended up buying two cute new outfits to match with her Target line aesthetics because I have issues. But it made me really look forward to working out because I really wanted to wear that outfit! Seriously something as little as that will change your whole mood. I also realized I have a lot more workout clothes than I realized, hahaha. When I started in 2018, I was rotating through only a few outfits and doing laundry often. Now I have enough to go through a 21 day program without repeating outfits. Someone please help.

Another pro of this program, although accidental, was that it forced me to give myself rest in between my gym lifting sessions. This was simply because since I am a late riser, I can’t always fit a Blogilates workout, my running and my gym session all-in-one before I have to get to work. And in doing so, it’s actually been improving my lifting, it seems. Maybe because my muscles were finally get a break in between soul crushing sessions, lol. I finally went up in weights on both the leg press and my deadlifts and crushed it! This was really exciting the other day because I was feeling stuck in a plateau for a little bit. The cross training seemed to have really helped. I’m excited to see progress already showing this early in 2021.

And one last thing I learned from this program! It really helps working out with others, even if virtually! I had a group of girls do this challenge with me and I really absolutely LOVED seeing everyone tag me daily as they checked off their workouts. It’s crazy. Watching someone else win really motivates you to do it too and it really has a ripple effect in wanting to encourage other people to win too. I had my morning workout people tag me before I did mine and it pushed me to get up and get it done. And then after that, I would check in throughout the day with my other girls who worked out later. And at the end of the day, I would try to check in with any one last minute to make sure they made time to get their workout in or made a plan to get back on track the next day. I really loved this team of support and accountability. I hope to continue growing and building my community of workout buddies because I really enjoyed engaging with everyone who participated in this challenge with me.

I hope Cassey from Blogilates does more challenges like this throughout the year. For now, I’m going to finish out her January calendar and continue on with her workouts as I’m loving them so far. She even has a 30 days to splits routine! That’s on my goals list so that challenge will definitely help if I can conquer it.

These past 3 weeks taught me a lot. I learned there is so much little things you can do that add up to make a BIG difference in your day. I’m going to start journaling again because Cassey is definitely onto something about those damn checkmarks. And new workout gear! It really motivates you to work out when you’re feeling your outfit and you’re excited to try out a new yoga mat, bands, straps, socks, masssage ball, whatever! Sometimes trying new things is scary because change is scary but sometimes it can also be eye-opening and a lot of fun. I found that workouts that I hated in the first week, I ended up enjoying later on when I saw progress in between weeks! And social media! Sometimes social media can be harmful and toxic to making you feel inadequate and insecure when you compare yourself against other beauty and fitness standards. But sometimes it can also be an extremely powerful tool if you let go of that and use it instead to build a community of like-minded people working towards common goals of health and sharing experiences. I just can not stress enough how much I enjoyed checking in with other girls, tagging each other, resharing stories. It’s really uplifting, empowering and motivating. That domino effect, y’all.

This year, I really want to focus on other fitness goals instead of being fixated on a number on the scale. I want to get more flexible, further my running endurance/stamina and distance beyond 13.1 miles, finally do an unassisted pull-up, possibly take a ballet/dance class and most of all, continue building upon this community of workout buddies.

I need to remind myself that my body does A LOT for me and I need to start valuing it for what it can do, and that it is NOT just a number on a scale. My body’s worth is not and should not be based on a single statistic of body weight. It is incredibly capable of a lot more.