This post is a slight departure from the usual blog content. I wanted to share some thoughts I have on some of the changes that have happened in my life in the past year or so, and I don’t have anywhere else to put it. So I guess the blog will do haha. I don’t know how long this will get, but here is a TLDR for you if you really don’t feel like reading my ramblings:

• I took an extended and indeterminate leave of absence from my PhD program for mental health reasons
• Over time I realized that my thesis/PhD work was making me unhappy, and decided I didn’t want to continue
• Had a major crisis about this because like wow that’s a big change for me
• Started applying to jobs, and now I’m an esports data analyst

I guess this post also serves as my “general announcement” to everyone that I will no longer be finishing my PhD. Some people know already. But I didn’t really talk about it publicly too much until I could discuss it with my advisor.

When I put it like that, in bullet points, it all seems so straightforward. But of course in the moment and going through it, it was definitely not that simple.

Happy Lunar New year!! It is now the year of the tiger! I hope all of you celebrating have a lovely time, however you are able to celebrate.

I don’t talk too much about my mixed race identity on here (I am mixed Chinese American), but a couple years ago (in 2020) I had the opportunity to do so. CW of The Quiet Pond invited me to be a guest on her blog for Asian Heritage Month. I even got to have my own pondsona – a phoenix!! CW always slays with her artwork, this is no exception. I mean look!! So cute right?

I wrote a discussion post about The Girl From Everywhere, which is a book by a mixed Chinese American author, about a main character who is also mixed Chinese. You can find that original post here! For this Lunar New Year, I decided I wanted to re-post that discussion here. It’s a post that I’m really proud of, and I hope you take the time to read it, it would mean a lot to me.

I know a lot of my friends on Instagram didn’t discover their love for books until later in their life. I feel very lucky that I’ve been reading for basically my entire life, so I wanted to share how my love for books has grown since I was a litttttle baby. So where do we start?

New Year, new blogger! Say whaaat?

That’s right, friends! This year, I have the pleasure of sharing this platform with one of my dearest friends. She’s a lover of SFF fiction and a fellow Switch gamer with a big heart for astrophysics.

Our mutual friends can probably guess who she is by now, but if you still have no idea, please give a warm welcome to…