Stockholm sketching time-lapse video

Wow, I could so imagine getting into a conversation with this person! Just a few things in my head (I have many more, but I need to head to bed).

My sketches, in terms of working with lines/edges, tend to be more rough, filled with many lines at once, whereas the person here took her time with the drawing and drew the edge slowly, avoiding what I do and ending up with crisp, straight, yet simple lines. In terms of my craft, this is something I want to work on, since when I do sketches, I often give myself time-crunches and rush my sketches with those many lines. Is it even possible to sketch quickly while maintaining those crisp, single lines.

Look at the outline of the trees! For people who do not have as much practice with drawing, like I once did, I was used to drawing either a large circle and a tree branch, or drew a bunch of squiggly lines to symbolize the tree leaves. I like how she drew the outline of the tree leaves very carefully with one stroke such that the top of each tree really shows how the leaves sort-of stick out in different ways at the ends and top of the tree.

For advanced sketchers, I know I’m just over-analyzing this, but for me, a person who does not come from a design background (and coming from the group of people who say, “I suck at drawing”), being able to break this sort of thing down into simple terms and elements really help build the foundations for honing the craft in sketching.

On Taking Initiative in Socializing

Note: I’ve attempted to make 粥 (jook) before when I was sick during finals week!

Video of the day: Learning how to make jook (rice porridge, congee), chicken with wantanmien. Great source of inspiration for those who want to learn how to make Cantonese food.

When I was in elementary, and partially in middle school, I did not have any friends. If anything, I was afraid of meeting new people. I had no idea how to say anything to somebody, and I avoided working in groups. I was afraid of people thinking I was crazy.

I was really fortunate in the later part of my middle school years, and my high school years, I met friends that I eventually got along with, and through hanging out with them, we became pretty close (side note: I still talk to them from time to time today). I think definitely, if it wasn’t for them, I would still be afraid of socializing today.

However, something I’m still bad at (and I think sometimes a lot of people are) is making a lot of initiative to initiate social events, or initiate social interactions. I think it’s because after I started making friends, I grew up and was surrounded by people already are naturally good (or have practice at) doing that; because of that, I’m quite lazy at this, especially around my closest friends (although we don’t really mind since we’re so close that we don’t really judge each other for that).

Because of this, even if I meet new people, I still struggle that this portion. In other words, I expect others to start a conversation; this is my introverted flaw of me, despite the extroverted facade I carry, I still struggle with people who are pretty different from me.

The Concept of Flow and What Things To Prioritize

I was reading ZenHabits’s 9 Steps to Achieving Flow in Your Life, and also simultaneously reading Steve Palvina’s article How To Prioritize, since one thing I always struggle with is how to prioritize the things you truly enjoy in life.

What I know for sure is that I enjoy sketching & drawing, language learning. Those things really give me a sense of flow, as I lose myself in a state of consciousness, I lose track of time, and I wish I could do more of it if I had more time. I always tell myself that there are more important things to do in life, so I have to restrain myself from spending too much time on these things. (i.e. school, career-related things)

I think what I struggle with is how do I find ways to apply these things into my future career. My ideal lifestyle would have all these elements that I actively improve on.

I spent today sketching and drawing a series of cars in my neighborhood today; since this was winter break for me, I had little time restriction on my part and decided to stay longer.   What was supposed to be 15 minutes of sketching turned into an hour of drawing several types of cars, trying to master the car’s form, shape, the details that every car had so that people could easily see that, yes, this is a car, and these are the details that it carried. This car does have this scale, etc.

Similarly, I remember spending last night catching up on some Chinese learning; I carried this strong eagerness to learn about the next section of grammar, vocabulary that I knew I commonly see everyday. I didn’t even realize that an hour had just passed; it’s quite similar with Korean too, although sometimes I feel pressure to stop and do other things; external pressure because I should be doing other “important things.

Songs of the week

Ryuchi Sakamoto – Say That You Love me (Gayageum version by Luna).

When I listen to the above song, I feel like a Korean Drama should be made called, “Crush on a Gayageum Player”.

부용화(Buyonghwa) – Dong Yi OST