Blog Entry: February 20th, 2026

Babes, the summit is surmountable. I repeat, the summit is surmountable.

Optional but you could put on this playlist while reading this, japanese pianists when reflecting about life in the sunset by tardiobscurus on youtube. It's also just a beautiful playlist in general.

Life truly changes when you're only taking 13 units, working a part-time job and have finally, finally gotten an opportunity to volunteer and earn shadowing hours for the career you're aiming for. Like, truly, truly duly, take the shots that you think you'll miss. But before I go into how I'm currently doing, I'll do a quick recap of my winter break.

So last semester? Truly horrible. I really don't know how I did it. I know I keep telling myself this but I'll say this for you as well: rest more. Coming off such a horrible semester (horrible for my social life and feeling like a person, but I got all A's in those 5 classes so... brightside?), I sadly don't feel like I was able to enjoy the Christmas season to the fullest. I tagged along caroling with my cousins' church. It was cool, the people there are real speedsters on the road and then we had small afterparty where we played Secret Hitler. Lil bit of side drama for you, it was originally meant to be hosted at someone's house but then it was called off. By the time, my cousins and I made it back to the new party location (the church), around 3/4ths of the caroling group disappeared. Ahaha, guess who didn't get the invite :,) It's cool, there was one round of Secret Hitler where I was a fascist on a team of four (where the other three didn't realize who was also in the party! My cousins guys, I was seriously dropping them the strongest hints) and the liberals were arguing so hard against me and quite frankly, winning. Due to sheer chance and a lot of impromptu lying, I made a play that literally confused everyone at the table and let the fascists win! Otherwise, I hate fascists winning, in game and especially in real life!

Anyways, no one spoke up about hosting New Years in the family groupchat so my Dad decided to host last minute. It was lowkey fun, just putting what you had on the table and letting people come with what they had. I'd say maybe like half my extended family came? Not all of them, but enough for us cousins to have a fun few rounds of pool, ping-pong and darts. We easily stayed up until 4 am whereas, when I was like 13-14, our families used to have New Years parties straight up until the sun rose again. A lot of things have changed though from that time, especially concerning family dynamics.

I did also join a community center for a month for the pool. Pricey... ($90 for 1 month and its a 30 min drive) but I love the pool! I was so happy those first few sessions before the muscle soreness hit me. I let the pass expire because I can't make their lapswim hours with my schedule.

Hm, otherwise, very very chill winter break? I worked 3 days a week, other than that one time where I accidentally took 2 days off because I didn't understand how jury duty works. ^^' I kinda just lazed around? I went for a lot of runs around my local trail and got a little bit more into birding. Anything notable? I saw a barn owl! Got a nice video of the white-tailed kites. Oh, I also watched The Martian (movie). Looking back, pretty chill though I'm sure I was stressed at some point or other in that month. Oh! I also volunteered at a local hopsital to help disabled kids with getting their own specialized bike fitting (these bikes would be provided for free and they can cost literally thousands of dollars!). Just that one day of volunteering really reaffirmed why I'm choosing the current pathway I'm on right now and made me want to pursue it more.

Okay so the new semester came around and I'm signed up for 3 classes: one really hard advanced anatomy class where we study cadavers (so cool!!), an intro bio class because some grad programs I'm looking into require it and an online pharmacology class. Side note: I hate online classes and I really, really struggle remembering that I need to be studying/working on them. Case in point, I should be reading the chapter for the anti-infective drugs quiz I have tomorrow. Anyways, with those 3 classes, I was literally 1 credit short of being full time. Fun fact, I would be paying full time tuition past anything 9 credits but financial aid will only pay full time tuition at 12 credits. So I really needed a class! I was looking into a seminar class but at the second lab of my anatomy class, this one guy told me about this internship class I could take that would a) give me credits and b) give me volunteering hours. Guys, I needed those volunteering hours so bad. I didn't even care about that.

It was the first week of the semester. These internships are already set up weeks beforehand and spots are limited. Still, I took a shot. Multiple shots in fact. And... I got a call back. Now, I'm volunteering and getting credits for it! It's not always fun, but I am learning and I think it's been good for me.

I recently hung out with some high school friends and am trying to convince them that we should go to Monterey or Carmel for a day (or an overnight trip!) for our spring break. I live within driving distance of Monterey/Carmel btw. I also made some lemon cookies, they were kinda trash tho :/

Idk, life has been kinda good lately? Like, obviously I am still struggling with things and the world is on fire (especially if you're in the US. Fuck ICE and Fuck Trump) but I'm feeling more like myself again. I have a pinterest aesthetic board called "spring came and I was alive again" and this literally feels like it. I mean I still definitely have things I need to improve on. To name a few: email professors, clean out my closet, buy some things I've been putting off, get a steady gym routine. We're all works in progress! XD

(I am totally procrastinating on my GAR Romance Bingo right now. I haven't written anything for it and there's only 6 days left in the event!!! Ah!!!)

Site-wise: I really need to put up a review of All the Horses of Iceland, a novella I read back in November. And of course, put all 120k worth of my words on here... such a pain to format it all. Btw, I made an ao3 looking template for my fics (Demo Template. I'm seriously rethinking about how I store all the stuff used to run this site, especially images. I love using paintings from Unsplash to show how I'm feeling for these blogs, but it takes up a good bit of storage. I also so want to redesign this site again, because it feels too clunky to me. At least how I've made the borders of my boxes, they're just so ugly >.> Lots of things planned, and yet not that much time once again :P

Wow... I yapped for so long. Anyways, please go ahead and shoot me a message on my guestbook or chat with me more personally through my email at annnonymous07@gmail.com ! Also I'm starting my monthly bingo's back up again, and here's March's even though it's a tad bit early! Toodles!