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Hello and welcome back to my April Reflection. I swear once it reaches March, it feels like every month in between from March to June just goes by in a blink of an eye. I truly feel like April went by so quickly yet I was able to do so much that I’m excited to share. So, let’s go ahead and see how my life went this past month.
Lifestyle: A Peek Into My Life
Friends
This month I was able to see a couple friends that I have not seen in over a year! It always feels surreal when you reunite with your friends and know that so much has changed in between. However, I love that all of my reunions were never awkward and we just picked up our relationship right where we left it last. I love listening to my friends’ lives, especially hearing that they’re doing well. I feel like before when I used to hear that other people (even if they were my friends) were doing well, I would sort of push myself down for not being at their level. However, I realized that everyone’s success and happiness looks different. Also, that there is no limited space capacity to “success” or “happiness” and that everyone can join in. I genuinely get so happy when I know that my friends are at a good place and I only want relationships that can encourage one another instead of bringing each other down.
I also got to go on a small getaway with my friends. Although I saw them a month before, it has been a long time since we were able to do a small trip. The trip was short indeed but it was a lot of fun and another memory I can hang onto. I’ve been really wanting to go to Malibu and we were able to do brunch (my recent obsession) by the pier. I hope that there will be more trips together!
Turning 23
This month, I turned 23! Before, 23 seemed like a scary number…. honestly any age after 21 just seemed scary to me. However, this month I have come to become content with my age and the place where I am at. Although I say that my heart still feels like I’m 18, I definitely am not the same person as I was back then - in a good way. I think that I’ve learned a lot and did some maturing. I won’t say that I have fully learned ALL my lessons and matured ALL the way. I’m sure there’s still A LOT that I need to work on, but I just know that I am on the right track. Anyways, I’ll keep this part relatively short because I made a podcast episode featuring 23 things I learned before I turned 23.
Celebrating wise, I kept it pretty casual and spent it with my family. During the actual day, there wasn’t much celebrating except at night because it was a work day. I had seaweed soup (a Korean tradition on birthdays), had Korean sweet potato cake (my fave), and spent time with my family. I even went to Corepower Yoga for the first time in over a year because they gave me a free class for my birthday and man did it kick my butt. Over the weekend, I walked around Crystal Cove and got brunch at Laguna Beach. I also baked myself a mini cake and had so much decorating it. Though it was not a crazy celebration, I felt like it was still a perfect way to celebrate turning 23.
Vaccine
Another thing I’m super thankful for this month was getting fully vaccinated (where my Pfizer gang at?!!). Getting fully vaccinated and seeing my friends getting vaccinated was like seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I know that we still need to be careful and should be wearing masks outside (please) but I know that it’s one step closer to the right direction. I really encourage everyone to get vaccinated and although I joked about being a part of the Pfizer gang, the best vaccine is the one that you can get first.
Capturing Memories
This month, I really fell in love with my film camera - well, my dad’s film camera to be exact. I was able to find my dad’s old camera from back when he was a lot younger and I started to use it to capture memories. Film just has a way of capturing the moment that feels so different than when you take a picture with your phone camera. I still love taking pictures on my phone and getting that high quality picture, but the film camera is also a nice switch at times. I love that I can capture the picture and I won’t know how it’ll turn out until I get it scanned. I’m so excited to use my film camera to capture more memories to come.
Speaking of capturing memories, I tried to vlog more throughout this month. Vlogging has been one of my favorite things to do ever since high school. Recently, I’ve been forgetting about vlogging and capturing the moment but I started to do it more - when I remember. I love seeing little clips of my life throughout different stages in my life and I hope that I have more to look back on.
Lows: Being Content
Luckily, I did not have that many lows in my life this month. I am a big fan of planners and love using my passion planner. At the end of each month, there is a monthly reflection and the last question is “From 1-10, how do you feel overall about this past month?” and I rated April a 7/10. The score I gave was relatively low compared to my previous months. However, like I mentioned previously, I did not have any specific low that I can think of. I think this month, I was able to be content with my life and be happy with the content. I think I have had better months but I have also had worse months. Sometimes being in the middle can feel boring or dissatisfying, however, I’m learning that you can find happiness in the middle. Although I am content with my life, I think I know that there are some areas of improvement that can happen.
Lessons: Improvements
The improvements include: sustainable morning routines, self-confidence, and creating more time for hobbies. For a sustainable morning - although I was sticking with my productive morning routines 80% of the time, I still had 20% where I did not follow through with it this month. I think I saw on Tiktok that you should create 3 different morning routines for your different moods so that 1) you can switch it up and 2) you don’t feel like you didn’t follow through with one of them. I definitely will be creating more versions of my morning routines for May and see how that works out. For self-confidence - I think I’ve been doing a lot of self-confidence inwardly but I need to do more outwardly. I know that the pandemic made a lot of people - including myself - gain a bit of weight and get some maskne (mask acne - which I definitely think I have) and more. I want to learn to love myself for surviving the pandemic thus far and work on myself to get more fit, better skin, and etc. This is not to fit society’s “beauty standard” but to be fully confident and feel good/ healthy within myself. For hobbies - I don’t think I spaced out enough time at the end of the night for me to do things or had the motivation to do so this month. However, I noticed that the few times I did create time to do things such as painting or scrapbooking, I felt so much happier. Therefore, I want to look into more hobbies as well as create more time to do them throughout the week. Overall this content month showed me the areas of improvement that I can have for the month of May.
Before I close off on lessons, I want to leave with a quote I enjoyed this month about being grateful for everything you have:
"Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Songs on Repeat:
deja vu - Olivia RodrigoGhost - Justin BieberDon't Forget - Demi Lovato My Pick of the Month: Film Camera
Like I previously mentioned, I have been using my film camera a lot. Therefore, I had to make film cameras my pick of the month! Perhaps it inspires you to pick up a disposable camera, buy a film camera on eBay, or ask your parents for their old film camera?
I’m so thankful for all the experiences and memories April brought to me. I hope that everyone has had a good April as well. I’m honestly super excited for it to be May and cannot wait for more memories to come. I hope you enjoyed seeing a bit of my life and I hope you come back to see how my May went.
Talk to you next month,
-- Jin