I don't know where to start with this post. I keep putting off writing because I know it won't be perfect, and I always want to put my best foot forward. But I'm going to commit to writing this, making minimal edits, and publishing it in its imperfect glory. It's been a while to say the least. Or at least, it's been a while since I've blogged regularly. To be honest with you, it's been a while since I've written anything that wasn't for school, for a club, and/or for an internship. This is terrifying because I've wanted to revive parts of my online presence for so long. I think I've made some headway on my bookish Twitter, and I'd say I'm pretty active there now. I originally separated this from that by making separate accounts--also because I want this blog to eventually take a different direction--but my bookish Twitter still brings me comfort, some level of privacy (I've asked almost all people I know "in real life" to not follow me there), and some sense of community. But every time I've attempted to revive my blogging, I've failed. I mean, if you only look at this blog, I failed to ever blog consistently.
I've come so far since I started this blog, though. This was supposed to be a place for me to document my thoughts and my experiences. I do regret never being consistent with journaling exactly because I've grown so much and have experienced so much in the past four years. In many ways I'm glad that I did all of that away from a blogging community. It's hard to now try to return, but I spent time with my peers, going out and actually experiencing things and learning and failing and picking myself back up. I'm glad that I only put out small parts of myself during the toughest times because I controlled what I shared, and I also knew I had a real, strong support system. Not having such a system was originally why I became so involved on the internet, from middle school through the end of high school.
Every time I've tried to come back to blogging, to bookstagram, to my online presence, though, I've been flooded with fear. Fear that I didn't have when I first started talking to people on forums, when I first joined Tumblr, when I first started book blogging. But I'm scared now because I built a small presence. I never had a big blog or book Twitter by any means. Even now, people hardly know who I am. But I wasn't invisible either. I have my bookish and blogging community, and I love them so much and am so grateful to still know most of them, wherever we all are in life now. But I had gone through that organic trial-and-error. I had had the space to stumble around, to figure out my own style, to build an audience. And then I left and it almost all went away. And now the online community is so different. Between trends and influencers and algorithms and all that, it's harder than ever to break (back) in. And yet I'm not starting from scratch. The content I post are maybe not perfect and will still change, but they're somewhat polished and refined and thought out and planned. I didn't want to spend all the time and effort and not see any results.
But people have started to realize how contrived and convoluted it all is. What began as something organic has become anything but. And now authenticity is valued, but there's also so much fake authenticity. The kind that is still palatable. On top of that, sometimes we've been so sucked in, so ingrained with all these algorithms and trends that we genuinely think we are being authentic and only later realize we aren't. I think that's what's been hardest for me nowadays, on top of feeling discouraged when I put out content I am proud of, only for a tiny handful of people to see it (and I am SO grateful to those few--I hope I don't come off as ungrateful). Then again, what even is authentic? Can't we have different parts of ourselves for different people? How do we determine which is more or less "real" or "authentic"? Can we be authentic and play by the rules of the algorithm (or attempt to because does anyone really understand it)? And even more so, there are people who knew high school me, and while I'm still the same in many ways, I am also very different. How much of that change do I change? How much do I still conform to my "old" self?
Add to all of this that I haven't written for pleasure, for myself in 3.5 - 4 years. It makes the question of audience and authenticity even more complicated because I don't know, maybe I've lost my voice along the way. Or at least hidden it away. Of course, there are the ways that I speak and write to my friends and family, but even that is sometimes filtered. We all think about audience, even if subconsciously or in a context where "audience" isn't the right word. We inherently know that framing matters. And almost everything I've written has been for someone else's gaze. I think the last time I wrote lyrics was the February of my freshman year of college.
Writing used to predominantly be for me. It was an outlet, one that is different from dance but no less important to me. I needed it because I never spoke the things on my mind, but I needed it to get out of my body, out of my head, and I had nowhere else to turn to but dance and writing/music. Where words failed I had dance, but otherwise, I put it down on a page, predominantly through lyric writing. I think there is so much power in words and in writing. It can also be therapeutic. But for the past few years, I've put writing (for myself) on the back burner. I've put creative writing on the back burner. And now I feel out of practice, and the perfectionist in me fears the blank page. I even fear the therapeutic aspects because I think there's a lot I'm afraid I'll unveil, that I'll have to unpack and work through. I used to trust the words I could put on a page, that I could craft into a song. And now I've lost that connection. I fear not having the words. I fear being too vulnerable in my writing. I fear writing for no one but myself. I almost fear not having that outside gaze. And it terrifies me to try to get all of that back. Because I know it'll be messy. Because I know it won't fix everything but will certainly make me cry. Because I don't know if I trust myself to be real with myself on the page anymore. Because I don't know if it's still in me, even while I know that it is.
Writing, whether for oneself or for others, is like a muscle. And mine has been out of commission for so long. But I miss it too. I long for it. So I'm trying to write now despite my fear of the blank page. I hope I'll be able to start writing creatively again, whether for myself or for others. I hope I find my way back to the magic of writing and songwriting. I hope that it's authentic to me in whatever I may think it means in that moment. I hope I find that part of myself that's gone away for a bit. I hope that it inspires me again, that I find that spark that first brought me online, that first brought me to blogging, again (although I'll need to write for my eyes only as well). I hope that once I start writing for myself again, some of the fear will start to dissipate.
I hope that this next phase will allow me to re-introduce myself. I hope I'll inspire myself and others again. And I also hope you'll see that this has maybe been me all along.
Let's see where these words will take me next.
How have you all been? I hope you've been well. It's been an interesting few months. I've been busy with school and dance and have been working hard and doing lots of self-care actions. I've been talking to people about world issues and politics and the like, and then I promptly require some time away from all the craziness. I can't even begin to comprehend what is happening in the world. Most of it just makes me angry and sad and fearful, but I'm trying my best, and I try to keep up with happy things too.
Of note, a club that I'm a part of at school recently organized a protest that I would deem successful for the moment. We're fighting against actions our college is taking against the Asian American Studies Program, which is vital now more than ever. It's a bit of a long story, but I'll direct you to our petition. Please spread the word! This is really crucial to me, to CRAASH, to our school, to NYC, to higher education, to all ethnic studies, to Asian Americans, and beyond. The whole experience has been so rewarding.
As part of my self-care, I've been watching some TV shows but mostly have tried to return to reading. As of when I'm writing this, I'm more than half-way done with The Shadow of the Wind, which is BRILLIANT. It's long but so enthralling. The writing is beautiful, and I look forward to reading it in its original Spanish one day. I can tell this will already be a favorite.
For some time, I was also getting back to creative writing. I participated in my 5th year of February Album Writing Month (FAWM) this year, but for the first time, I "lost," aka didn't write 14 songs in the month of February. But I wasn't too disappointed. I tried my best and still put out a few great song lyrics. I might post some here. I've just now started writing lyrics again. I still have some poetry I wrote post-election that I might still share, but most of what I write is really personal, so I'm deciding what to post...On a similar but different note, I am contemplating taking up novel-writing again. Or maybe just personal essays, if I feel I have something worthwhile to say and the means to say it. It's all a bit up in the air right now, but I'm feeling creative. (I'm also going to do a playlist post soon because February's playlist is one of my favs.)
Speaking of creating and writing...I have a grand new direction I want to take this blog in. It'll take a lot of time and effort, so it still won't be fully implemented for a while (and I think I'll write a separate blog post to talk about this more fully), but the gist of it is that I want to infuse my blog and social media with a bit more politics. It won't be all politics, all the time, and it will be as non-partisan as possible. I want to inform people about things that are happening in the world--things that matter to me but are sometimes overlooked or deemed too complicated to read about. I want to make politics accessible. I want to spread the word about issues you don't hear about on the news every day, but I want to present it in a way that's still appealing to millennials and "lifestyle" bloggers. This community can be far too removed from every day politics--dare I say, too white to need to care. But these are topics that I find important. And for people who are becoming interested in politics because of the current climate, I want to make it easier and more accessible, less of an upward hill. And I want to show-case wins and advocates and activists who are doing amazing work, locally, nationally, and internationally!
If there's an issue or topic you'd like to learn more about/care about--or people you'd like to showcase--please comment. Additionally, if you'd like to contribute and write an informative post, please email me at infinitegoldenfloors(at)gmail.com.
Lastly, I just want to talk about some lifestyle changes I've made...not because they're important for you to know about but because they're big steps for me. (1) I'm mostly sleeping earlier and waking up earlier. Okay, partially a result of having an 8AM class, but nevertheless. (2) I've mostly been eating vegetarian 3-4x a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. I'll talk about my reason why in a different post. (3) I've been trying to exercise more. Then midterms hit and it's been a rough patch, but I'd like to get back to it. (4) I'm trying to create more. (5) I'm trying to assert my opinions more. I'm trying to be more political, or I should say, not let things get to me and stop me from talking about controversial issues. (6) Trying to get out more and not get stuck with just schoolwork. (7) Save more money. Buy fewer books. See fewer shows. Limit travel. (8) More nature!
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| Me in my latest travels (Pantheon, Rome, Italy) |
Anyway, I pass the mic to you now. What have you been up to? What have you been enjoying lately? What have I missed?
Please share, comment, follow, etc, and stay tuned for more! <3
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| Sunrise on HeHuan Shan, Taiwan. |
Welcome Back!
Hey everyone! This post has been a long time coming, but it's finally here, and while I'm a little nervous, this is also me getting a lot of stuff off my back.
It's not hard to see that I've fallen off the tracks with this blog. I meant to blog extensively over the summer but being at a summer language program with strict time/scheduling restrictions made it difficult to really do anything more than go to class, eat, study, go to required activities, do homework, and go out for the little bit of free time available. And during the weekends, I just wanted a break, a chance to go out and explore Taiwan, where both of my parents were born but where neither truly grew up.
Coming back, I jumped almost straight into my sophomore year, adding two internships to my 15 credit course load. It's safe to assume that I've been buried and been seriously hit by a case of the sophomore slump. And while I'm still trying to figure out how to make time for everything that I love and want to do, getting back to this blog is one of them. But after thinking long and hard about it, I've decided to shake things up on this blog for a bit.
Change
I love reading travel blogs, and I enjoy being part of the college blogging community. Each is unique and has so much to offer. I haven't been interacting with many people yet, but I want to be better about that, especially on social media and by commenting on blogs. However, upon reflection, I realized that my blog post ideas have started to lean more towards what I think an audience would want. What to do in x country, Top tips for x, How to survive this or get through that, How to stay organized, How to pack, etc etc. And while those are great and I love them as much as the next person, I don't see myself having anything substantially new to add to that. It's being said and done.
I want to turn this blog back into what it was meant to be--a place, a platform for me to talk about the things I want to talk about. So that means there will still be the occasional audience-oriented post, simply because that's what I feel like writing about or feel like I can contribute to. I want to create a series around my experiences in Taiwan. But I realized I love learning about the history and culture of a place, and I don't think many of the "popular" posts really go into that. I want to do more photo journalism and blog-journaling.
And most of all, I want to talk about the hard issues, the current events, which matter to me. I want to write about things I think about on a daily or constant basis. I want to talk about inequality, about feeling hopeless in this crazy world, about development, about all that. That's just on top of the usual topics--school/college, travel, adventures, coffee shops, music, books, movies, TV shows. So there will still be a lot of the same, just presented in a different framework.
I want this to be about both me and my readers, not just about my readers. I want to reach people, but I also want this to be my platform to talk about issues which aren't necessarily discussed in either community I've been dipping into but which are huge and important. If I lose the few followers I have or make it hard to get people to read my blog, that's okay. Because I want to be doing this for myself too. I don't want the expectation of pleasing people weighing down on me because that means I'll just keep putting it off--because you can't please everyone.
I want to post just once a week or even every other week. I will still post much of the same content on Instagram as I have been, and I want to be better at tweeting for this blog, but I want it to be authentic to me, and me isn't just about travels and college, though that's also a huge part of me. I want it to be like talking to my friends, and my friends and I talk about the uncertainty of the future, about politics, about the world, etc.
Come Along for the Journey
I'll take it slowly because I'm still overwhelmed by sophomore year on a daily basis, but I do hope you'll come along with me. I know I've set myself on a tough and possibly disappointing road with this because I don't see my blog fitting into the mainstream of any community, but I hope you'll find it insightful, informative, and enjoyable. I hope it'll make you think, allow you to learn, and give us both the opportunity to figure out our opinions and the things we have to say. The sophomore slump and the blogging slump are so, so real, but hopefully this will help.
Come along for the journey. This is a big change, but life is a series of infinite golden floors, and I do sure hope this one is a golden one. Thank you for supporting me in this new adventure.
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| Me, contemplating the meaning of life and the fragility of our dependence on the planet, on HeHuan Shan in Taiwan. |
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(PS. I apologize for the suck-y picture above! I don't have Photoshop on my laptop right now, so I was trying to use GIMP. Unfortunately, I have a hard time figuring out GIMP, so there you have it. The name signature at the bottom is likely temporary as well. Once I have PS, my pictures should look better. ;))
About Me
My name is Jessica, and as it says in the side bar, I'm an 18 year old female about to start college. I'll be going to school and living in New York City, and this is my personal/lifestyle blog. Some of you may already know me from my other blog(s). For those of you that don't know about my other blogs, I write reviews (mostly books but sometimes other things) on my own blog, Fly to Fiction, as well as write reviews on Mondays on Feminists Talk Books, and contribute to Lit Up Review, a book blog for teens by teens. But at the time when this blog first became an inkling of an idea, I had been in a huge reading and blogging slump, and I wanted a space where I could post more personal posts. At around the same time, the school year was winding down, and I started thinking a lot more about college life. I decided that I wanted to somehow document that time of my life. At first I thought of vlogging, then I started thinking about journaling, but I sort of knew that those wouldn't likely work out in the long term. I already blog and have an idea of all that it takes. Even though I know it'll be difficult to balance so many blogs and though running and expanding this type of blog seems much more difficult than book blogging, I like that this is really different and is a bit of a different outlet while having similar features to what I'm already used to. And if this really does prove to be too difficult to juggle so much, I think I'd prefer to start posting a few book reviews here and sort of combine the two blogs. But we'll see. ;)Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm a reader, writer, dancer, fangirl, music lover, TV addict and binge watcher, a Potterhead, a wanderlust traveler, a tea enthusiast, a coffee shop finder, and more. I'm hoping to major in political science and public policy and minor in International Relations. I love learning about different peoples and cultures. I'm multiethnic but was born and have grown up in the States.
About the Blog
The name of this blog comes from one of my favorite poems. The particular phrase comes from the line "They who dance find infinite golden floors beneath their feet." This line first stuck out to me as a dancer but has grown to mean a lot more to me. I see it as meaning there are endless possibilities in life. There's often more than you believe there to be. This has become a big part of my life lately, and even though I've begun to use this three word phrase often and for everything I can, as I was brainstorming possible blog names, this one continued to stick out to me. For a personal blog, this seems like the perfect name, at least for me.In terms of what you'll see on this blog, I'm still trying to figure it out, and these first few months will likely be me just figuring it out. But for now, I'm thinking that my posts will be a heathly variety of life updates/journal-esque posts, posts about my college life, sharing my favorite coffee shops and hopefully some tea shops (there are fewer of those), travel posts whenever I get to travel, posts and pictures of NYC, some posts about books/dance/movies/music, opinion/discussion posts, and whatever else I feel like posting on a whim. As I mentioned, this is personally much more of a means to keep myself accountable in documenting my college years than anything else, so I'll figure stuff out as I go. I'll try to include a "now playing" song at the end of each post; some I'll explain, some I won't, some will be more like mood stuff, others will just be what I'm listening to as I write/schedule/post that particular post, some will be a song I've been obsessed with, and some will just be a song I wish to share. They'll be in the format: Now Playing: song // artist (And if anyone wants, I can create a list of all the songs I use for future reference.)
Instagram/Twitter
Lastly, I have an Instagram account, which I've already been using for a few months, as well as a Twitter account I'm still deciding if I'll use. My Instagram account is infinitegoldenfloors and features pictures that may give you a feel for the look/aesthetic I'm aiming for. As for my Twitter, it's infinitegold. I currently already have/have access to four (five but one I rarely use) accounts, so I don't know if I'll be able to handle another one. I don't want to combine it with my book blog's Twitter, so we shall see.Thanks!
My first thanks/shoutout goes out to the lovely Kaitlin at Next Page Please! for not only all the love and support but also for creating the amazing header I have. Even though she had lots of school work to do, she put up with my complaints and lack of ideas and came up with something amazing. She did it from the kindness of her heart, knowing it was something I needed to do but didn't necessarily have a lot of time to dedicate to. So thank you, Kaitlin!And thank you for reading this long post, and thanks for checking out my blog and hopefully giving me a chance. I hope you'll come back and read some of my posts. Thanks for stopping by!
Keep finding your golden floors!
Now Playing: the cave // mumford and sons
