day 30

October 4, 2019.

And finally the end of the week and the consumption month blog. Today is an exciting day because it’s homecoming weekend and my best friend is coming from out of town. During the day I went to lecture and then work. When I had back home, I cleaned around my apartment and did laundry. Since it’s the weekend, my roommate and I went to Chipotle for dinner and it was worth walk and splurge.

After dinner, we both were craving candy so we stopped by Target to buy some. I bought a cult favorite, Sour Patch Kids Watermelon flavor. When we walked past the splurge section at the front, I saw that they had a Rice Krispies display and couldn’t leave without getting one. When we returned I did some homework before the arrival of my friend. When she got here, we did some drinking and then headed over to a friends house. We stayed for about two hours to watch the Twins game, which I didn’t care too much for. And then finally left for a party.

Since it’s the last day of this, I want to reflect back on these past 30 days. Before this, I didn’t realize I do pretty much the same exact things everyday. I ate the same things, went to the same place, and hung out with the same people all month. The amount of caffeine I consumed this month is alarming, and because of this blog, I’ve been cutting down to one a day and two only if I really need it. A lot of money have been spent this month and I am going to work that out by differentiating between needs and wants. These records helped me figured and learned about myself a lot. No wonder people journal everyday.

collection week no. 4

The last week collection will be dedicated to my favorite fashion brand, Chanel. The show took place during Paris Fashion Week. I was interested in seeing this particular line because it’s the first one since the death of their creative director Karl Lagerfeld. I looked up to him as a designer for so long, and I was pretty affected by his death recently in February. This show showed off the classic vintage Chanel brand with the patterns and materials they used. The pearl accessories are the classic one that I’m used to seeing in their shows. I also noticed a lot of trenches and blazers throughout this whole fashion week month. One thing I wanted to discuss is the interruption they had towards the end of the show. A French influencer I believe, jumped on to the runway and tried to disguise as a model. Since she was wearing one of the collection’s look, the security didn’t notice. But model Gigi Hadid took action and pulled here off. This is disrespectful and unclassy. It bothers me because she is privileged enough to be invited to the show and decided to ruin it for humor. I don’t agree with brands inviting Instagram influencers that don’t have much knowledge on fashion to these shows instead of fashion/design students. They are the ones going to school and learning about this and care way more.

day 29

October 3, 2019.

I woke up at around 7 am this morning. Since I don’t have class until 10:40 am, I still wanted to leave early to get some work done. For breakfast, I had oatmeal and a smoothie. And then got ready to head out. When I got to St. Paul, I had 30 minutes to do some homework before heading into class. The class I went to was Career and Internship prep for Design. I enjoy this class because it helps me get along with my internship process. And the fact that it is required to make a resume, cover, etc. it gives me more motivation to do it because of the due dates.

After I went to Design and Discontents. Today we had a reading presentation and it was quite interesting to learn more about how immensely packaging can do to the product. Like the Tropicana situation when many consumers disliked the new design. Even though the product remained the same, people were upset by the packaging. Could it be because they are so used to the old one that they are not fond of the change? The University of California logo made me realize that there is a difference between designers creating things for other designers vs. the consumer/public.

After this class, I went home for lunch and headed right back out for class. In Text and Image, we started our new project where we are asked to design the next University of Minnesota Alumni t-shirt. Today, we each brought it 10 sketches/visualizations of ideas that can potentially be further improved. I was happy with three of mine and actually received good feedback during the critique.

collection week no. 3

For week three’s collection I’m showing my purchases from my recent purchases at Brandy Melville. Brandy Melville is an Italian clothing brand that started in 1970. I started shopping here because the clothing fits me well and it’s trendy. The clothing do only come in one size which makes shopping here easier for me. There clothing are more sustainable compared to most fast fashion companies I used to shop at. But, there are some controversial revolving around this brand. The fact that it is “one size fits all” have recently turned me off. This concept excludes many different body types and I feel like something needs to be done about it. I’m still learning and looking around for more sustainable clothing that also supports every size.

day 28

October 2, 2019.

My longest day of the week is here. Since I won’t be home until 7:30 pm tonight, I packed teddy grahams and a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. For breakfast, I had a lot of food to hold me over for the long day. I made eggs and toast to go along with my oatmeal. Got ready and then head out for class after. I have two classes today and work right after. During comp sci I felt extremely tired. I kept falling asleep and couldn’t focus on what the professor was saying. I think it was because I didn’t sleep well the night before. The same thing happened in Interaction Design, even though we were doing more active group work. This calls for a cup of coffee, but I didn’t have time to go get one.. So I just powered through.

When I got to work, I felt a bit better. It was a little slow so I did some readings. When we do homework at work, we are only allowed to use the computer provided. As a Graphic Design major, you can’t really work on any other computer other than your own. It’s a little inconvenient because I can’t do homework at work when we have downtime. My co-worker and I had an interesting conversation about the upcoming presidential campaign. We just talked about which candidates we thought would be a good fit and how excited we are to participate by voting. In the last election, I was 17-years-old so I wasn’t able to.

After work, I had a group meeting for the student group I just recently joined. It was for Spoon, which is a food marketing group on campus. I wanted to be more involved and thought this would be a good fit for me. I am doing more of the marketing side of the group instead of content. I volunteered to be the graphic design, so I’ll be making small logos and any advertising posters for events. During the meeting, they had Welch's fruit snacks so I had one but was still super hungry. I walked home super quick to eat dinner because I was starving. And because I was too lazy to wait for anything to cook, I had a variety of snacks instead. Like yogurt, chips, and trails mix.

collection week no. 2

For this week, I decided to show you my roommates and I’s collection of recycling throughout the week. Every Sunday we take turns bringing it down to the the recycling drop off in our apartment. It is important to recycle and I think everyone should try to. Even if it’s the smallest thing, you’re still trying.

Waste is taking over the earth and is causing alarming changes to it. The environment is slowly drifting away from all of us and if we don’t do anything to save it, then it could possibly lead to a mass extinction. It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around how the earth’s smartest specie cannot comprehend that many things they are doing are leading to climate change, species extinction, etc. The only way to move towards the right direction is for you to start doing it yourself and implement those habits into your life. Like recycle, using less plastic, eating less meat or animal products, buy more sustainable clothing, etc.

day 27

October 1, 2019.

Fall came full force today with the weather dropping to 50 degrees and RAIN. I had to pull out my winter coat for this day. Since it is colder today, I had oatmeal for break, so the same thing as yesterday. with my hot morning coffee. It was particularly hard to get the motivation to get ready today. The weather can really affect my entire mood for the day. Especially the rain makes me not want to leave the house more than I don’t want to.

I finally made it out of the apartment at 11 am to catch a bus to St. Paul for this class. Good thing we had a work day to let me catch up on my last minute unfinished assignments. I brought lunch with me today because I won’t make it back home during my gap. I brought my typical peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a pack of trail mix. There were no time to make it back to my apartment because I stopped by the Career Services to get my resume checked out. I’m trying really hard to get an internship this summer but have been struggling.

For my Text and Image class today, we had a field trip to the Printing Services located all the way in Como. I looked up the address and it was a 30 minute walk from my apartment. If it was sunny and nice out, I would’ve just walked. But it wasn’t. It was pouring rain. So I decided to look up an Uber, but it was $15 plus tip to get there and another to get back. I decided that it wouldn’t too bad to walk there so I didn’t make the splurge today. And as I started walking and wind started blowing, I immediately regretted my decision.

day 26

September 30, 2019.

It’s already the last day of September. I can already feel this semester flying by. It’s unfortunate that it is getting colder. But today, it is 80 degrees, like what? And it’s dropping down to the ’50s-’40s for the rest of the week. The weather here fluctuates so much, you can never tell what it’s going to be like. This morning I decided to make oatmeal for breakfast. I just use the instant packets from Trader Joe’s and throw some fruits and chia seeds on it. But the most essential part to making it taste good is peanut butter. I grew up hating peanut butter, but for some reason, in middle school, I became obsessed with it and have been ever since.

I got ready for class after breakfast and had sometime after to hang around before class. During that time, I just finished up some readings I had for Comp Sci. I walked to class in this gross humid weather and hated every second of it. For today’s lecture, we learned more about loops and nested loops. Essentially, it’s a code technique that helps you run through lists or “strings” to generate answers. It’s hard for me to explain exactly what it is.

When I got home, I decided to browse the Brandy Melville website once again. They had just released new items as my sister informed me. Well, I ended up buying more clothes and not only that, I got Next Day shipping. Lately, I can feel myself becoming more and more impatient with everything in my life. It’s quite alarming that I can’t even wait a week for an order to come and paid $25 for shipping. I know it’s stupid and I’ve heard about it many times before from my friends and family. Everything nowadays is so instant and quick that I slowly am starting to adapt to it. Like with oatmeal from earlier, I used to buy the ones that you can cook on the stove. But now I switched to the instant packets because they are quicker. And yes, they are more expensive. I don’t know the root of where it came from, but I need to take a step back and reevaluate this problem.

day 25

September 29, 2019.

Today is exciting because my parents and sister are coming to visit! I’ve been looking forward to this all week because I wanted to see my sister. But unfortunately, later on, I received a text from her saying she can’t make it because she is sick. She’s a senior in high school and their homecoming dance was the night before. Let’s just say she did or consume something to make her throw up for four hours. When my parents showed up, I came downstairs to find my mom with a ton of fruits and groceries. She is obsessed with buying me fruits and I honestly don’t know why. Plus she brought her homemade spring rolls for me and roommates, which I haven’t had in a while. I requested her to bring some, and being her, she brought an excessive amount.

They had to leave early because my grandpa is in the hospital and they wanted to visit him. Before they left, they dropped me and my roommate off at the mall. We just wanted to walk around, because it was raining out and we didn’t want to be cooped up in our apartment. Of course, I didn’t leave without buying anything. We went into Pacsun and I left with a $70 purchase of random stuff I didn’t need. After I went to go get food and all I was craving were sweets. So I got a peanut butter chocolate cookie from Nestle Tollhouse and a ton of candy at the candy store. I had an interesting dinner, to say the least.

Since it was still raining, we took an Uber to Trader Joe’s. On this trip, I got a lot of different foods, because I’ve been wanting to eat more kinds of foods. I typically eat the same things every day and don’t leave my comfort zone. So, I bought more vegetables that I don’t usually eat like tomatoes, Brussel sprouts, and basil. Plus I bought a lot of snacks because typically I don’t have a lot of time to make elaborate meals. And snacks like crackers and trail mixes are easier to bring to class. And then we called another Uber home. Usually, we would take the light rail but since the weather was so crappy, we wanted to splurge and it was worth it. Uber is a luxury since it’s about $7-$15 every time plus tip.

day 24

September 28, 2019.

For the first time in a awhile, I slept pretty well. My body naturally woke up at around 9am. I didn’t feel that annoying linger of tiredness and felt revived. I laid in bed for about an hour watching Youtube videos and then impulsively order clothes on Brandy Melville. Something I’ve been working on lately is to buy more sustainable clothing rather than fast fashion. I know that Brandy is in no way more sustainable compared to more expensive brands, but it’s better quality than Forever 21 or H&M. As a college student, I can’t spend money on a Chanel or Fendi sweater that would last me a lifetime, but I am trying to buy better quality clothing that I think I will wear for more than 2 years at least.

Then I got up to go work out. I did my cardio on the treadmill (walking on an incline) for about 45 minutes and then lifted weights. I immediately ate breakfast after stretching, because you’re recommended to eat protein within 30 minutes of working out. It supposes to help fuel your muscles and maintain your metabolism. I read this in an article a while back and it has stuck with me since then.

Tonight I went out with my friends. And I can say that I’ve had one of the best times in a long time. I went to dinner with my roommate and her boyfriend (it’s okay, I third wheel all the time and now they accepted me into the relationship). We went to Punch Pizza, which is located in Stadium Village. It’s about a 25 minutes walk from our apartment but it was worth it. It was especially cold that night, so I was excited to eat some hot pizza. Something I notice is the transition from Summer to Fall is harder compared to Winter to Spring. My body is not used to the cold weather yet, so this just put it in shock. After dinner, we went home to pre-game with the rest of our friends. We left pretty late and didn’t make it to the party until midnight. We stayed at the party for an hour and then decided to go to the bars. The bar was very busy but we made the best out of it. Then ended the night at Qdoba. I don’t even want to talk about how much money I spent that night.

day 23

September 27, 2019.

The end of the week is finally here. But it also means may programming project is due. I have one lecture and work right after. During my comp sci lecture, the professor told us some last-minute things we need to include in our project. I thought it was last minute and abrupt of him to tell us all of this the day it is due. Some people had already turned in their project and had to resubmit because they didn’t know about all of this information. He also didn’t include any of this on the assignment sheet or rubric. I wished some professors that are here for research would care more about the courses they teach. Definitely not saying all professors are like this, but I’ve taken two classes with this particular one before and he seems to always be forgetful and not as involved with the class.

During work, one of my co-worker that is a senior studying comp sci was there. I decided to express my problems with the project to him and he helped me out. He informed me that there is a feature called “\n” that would fix my program. I was so relieved to learn about this and it solved my problem. I still wanted to stop at the office hours after work to ask some last-minute questions. When I showed up to office hours in Keller Hall for my project, I wasn’t surprised by the number of people lining up at the table the TA was at. Off of my observations, most of the people there didn’t start their project until recently and didn’t realize how much work it takes to write it. After talking to him, I stayed and turned in the project. A whole weight had been lifted off my chest and I am finally sane again.

When I walked home, I decided to treat myself to a salad at Crisp and Green. I get the same thing every time I go. That night I decided to stay in and rest. This past week had been a lot and I’ve been totally overwhelmed. Plus, I went out last night and will probably be doing that tomorrow night. After hanging out with my roommates before they went out, I turned on Bohemian Rhapsody and fell asleep to it.

day 22

September 26, 2019.

Finally, the second half of the week. This week had been rough for me and my mood has been down. Only three classes today in St. Paul, with a quick lunch gap. It’s crazy how that lunch gap can make a difference in my day and improve my mood just by a little. Today, we had a critique in Text and Image for our business cards. I don’t know why and I’m trying not to sound like a victim or anything like that, but whenever my project is projected on the screen to be critiqued, nobody says anything. It would bother me less if they did the same for others but I feel like it’s just for me. So is it because it’s good and I should leave it the way it is or they just simply don’t care to help me improve. I am someone who likes it when people tear my project apart, so I can learn from it. Maybe I’m too in my head about this.

After class, I went back to my apartment to try to fix my program or write down any questions or issues so I can bring it to office hours. But first I try to fix it myself. The issue I was having is when the program runs and prints the answer, it would print on different lines. So if I type in 342 to print out the roman numeral translation, it would print as CCC

XL

II

Instead CCCXLII, how I want it to. But when I change it to print on the same line, it wouldn’t make a new line for the new input.

That night, I decided to go out with my friends downtown. We went to a bar called Wild Gregs. I didn’t drink much at all because I have class the next day. The whole night was fine, but I felt tired. It was one of those things where I should’ve stayed home and rest, but already agreed to go out and then absolutely regretting it. Not going to lie I was peer pressured, because I felt bad. I should start saying no more and realize that I have a lot on my plate.

day 21

September 25, 2019.

Wednesdays mean I have work today after class. I dread these days all week. But I shouldn’t be complaining, because I work only 6 hours a week. Honestly, I just need enough for groceries. I don’t necessarily need this job plus my parents want me to focus on school and not overwork myself. Even though I complain about it from time to time, I’m glad I’m working and doing something different. I really hate using my parent's money for luxury items like clothes, shoes, etc. I’ve come to this point in my life where I want to slowly become more and more independent and take care of myself.

I had two classes before work, the one on West Bank and the other in St. Paul. As the week been progressing, I’m getting more stress about my programming project. It’s due on Friday and I have a good chunk done, but it’s still not printing out as I wanted. So many different elements go into in and if they aren’t arranged properly or spelled correctly, no doubt an error will appear. When I try to fix the problem, another one would be caused by what I just did. Just to admit, I should go into office hours and ask for help. I always tend to try to figure things out myself instead of asking for help. But maybe this time, I will break out of my shell and go into office hours.

After work, I spent about an hour relaxing before I make dinner and finish up on my homework. For dinner, I wasn’t hungry so I just had cashew milk yogurt with almonds. I’m allergic to dairy and so that’s why I had to have an alternative. Plus, cutting down dairy and meat intake can help out the planet. Since climate change has become more and more serious each year, I believe that everyone should do something to help prevent it from getting any worse. Recycling, reusing, a day without meat or dairy, etc. It may seem small and you could think that it won’t make a difference, but it does.

day 20

September 24, 2019.

On this Tuesday, I don’t have class until 11:45 am. Which means my morning is a little bit longer. I had planned to work out, but instead, I decided to consume more sleep and slept in a little due to how tired I was. I got up at around 8am to get ready. I washed my face and moisturize, then made breakfast. I decided to have a smoothie and eggs. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with trail mix and have been eating them with every single meal. So let's see how long this phase lasts for me. When I finished, I did my makeup. I was excited to do that today because I recently decided to invest in the Laura Mercier Loose Powder($48). If you don’t know what that is, it’s a setting powder for my face. This particular item is on the pricier side compared to the drugstore. I grew up watching makeup videos on Youtube and have heard about how good this powder is for years, and I finally bought it. I hate to admit it but I was influenced by a Youtuber.

Then I went to a class in St. Paul, which would be this one. I have a love-hate relationship with this commute. I like it because it just good downtime to sit on a bus for 30-40 minutes and listen to music, but also it takes so long to get there. Usually, I leave 45 minutes before class to ensure I would make it on time. Sometimes I don’t even make it on time due to the number of people overpopulating it. But when I complain about stuff like this, I get guilty due to the fact that I should be grateful. Not to get too deep but the fact that I am able to go to college at a great school with transportation provided and I still feel this way make it seems like I’m ungrateful. Now I just try to leave a little bit earlier to make it easier. In the end, it’s my fault for not leaving earlier enough knowing how hectic the Campus Connector could get.

After class, I went home to grab a quick lunch before heading back out for my second class. I was feeling quite hungry so I had leftover pasta my roommates had and so many snacks following it. I have this habit where I just eat a lot at once when I’m hungry. When I’m done with a meal, I would continue to snack and snack after. Even when I’m full, I just keep eating for no reason. This makes me want to reevaluate this habit and fix it. Because when I’m eating I feel good but after I get the worst stomachache because of the amount of food I keep shoving down. This habit has led to bad digestion and discomfort. To fix this, I read in an article I Googled that you should always wait 20 minutes after eating before deciding you should eat something else. It takes about 20 minutes to digest your food and if you’re still hungry, then you should eat.

day 19

September 23, 2019.

This morning I woke up at around 7 am to get ready for class. I washed my face, moisturized, and then head down stairs for breakfast. I felt quite hungry this morning, so I made eggs, toasts, and a smoothie. Recently, I’ve been freezing my bananas beforehand and adding it to my smoothie. And it’s been changing my life. If you know me, when I like something, I get obsessive and will eat it or keep on continuing to do it until I get completely sick of it. Last year, I went through a phase where I ate oatmeal every single morning for 4 months straight. And it was followed by a toast and jam phase. I know that I get addicted to things quite easily so that’s why I will never be trying drugs just for the “experience”.

Today I have my Programming Java lab, and every time I go to it, I get completely stressed out. I’m afraid I won’t finish within the given time and have to do it at home. And today, was that kind of day. We’re diving deeper into codes and for lab we had to start writing them from scratch. Well, it started off pretty easy but towards the middle, it got more difficult and I was stuck on number 3 for an hour. But finished that question right when class ended. I hate how much of a perfectionist I am, and my anxiety was quite high during that time. As people were getting up to leave because they finished on time or even an hour before, I felt defeated. I realized that I shouldn’t feel that way and everyone goes at their own pace, so it calmed me down a little. I ended up finishing the last two questions in 30 minutes, so it made me feel better.

When I got home, I spent two hours laying in my bed because I was so burnt out from the lab. It may sound dramatic, which it is, but I felt super stressed out for no reason. I decided to let myself unwind for a bit before doing homework because I might’ve gone crazy if I kept working after that. In the two hour break, I read a little of Michelle Obama’s book and watched some random beauty videos on Youtube. Then, I decided to treat myself that day and bought myself a salad from Crisp and Green. I still need to try to make it myself one day, so I don’t keep spending $13 on a bowl of salad. I’ll keep you posted.

day 18

September 22, 2019.

I always keep my Sunday pretty chill. It’s the day that I like to get my life together. In the morning, I did my laundry and cleaned my apartment. Throughout the week, I’m too busy with work and school so I don’t have time to think about that kind of stuff. After that, my aunt and uncle came to visit and took me and cousins out for lunch. We got Vietnamese food, which you don’t know, I am Vietnamese. I got pho and it is a beef noodle soup. I grew up eating it because my mom made it quite often and it’s my dad’s favorite too so I think that’s why she made it a lot. Obviously, it’s not as good as my mom’s but it did that job.

Of course, since they drove here, I asked them to take me to Trader Joe’s. I love that place. I wanted to pick up some groceries because it’s a little far out of the way for me to go there myself. I just got some fruits and vegetables, and frozen food. Their frozen section is actually quite healthy and doesn’t have that much sodium in them. So when I’m in a hurry, I can have something to eat.

When I got back, I met up with a friend to start my Java project. Even though we’re not allowed to share codes, we still wanted a support system to help each other out. It took us about four hours to start and well my code is still not running properly. I still have until Friday to figure it out but it has been stressing me out. I know it’s just a minor but I’m a perfectionist and would still like to have a good grade in the class. After the study session, I was quite burnt out from staring at a screen for that long, so I just decided to go to bed.

day 17

September 21, 2019.

On Saturday, I wasn’t too hung over from drinking the night before. Just a little dehydrated so I went to Target to get some Pedialyte. It has a lot of electrolytes so that’s why I like to have some after drinking. Since I didn’t feel too sick, I went to work out. Just some light cardio and lifting. Then, I ate breakfast and took a shower/got ready. On this day I planned on doing some homework. I had a project to start and some to finish. So, my roommate and I decided to go to Caribou Coffee in Stadium Village because I had a gift card. It was a nice day so I didn’t mind walking there. I got a medium Black Cold Press, because I really needed a pick me up.

After three hours there, we walked home which is Dinkytown. On my way home, I decided to buy dinner instead of making some. I went to Crisp and Green to get a salad. I got a half spinach half romaine salad with chicken, roasted tomatoes, apples, carrots, and pesto dressing. I can already feel an addiction to this place happening. It is so convenient and healthy, plus no hassle. And it is a one minute walk from where I live. The salad was $13, and if I keep going here three times a week and spending this much on a salad, I might ave to get another job. I’m gonna try to make this at home and the ingredients will probably cost me as much as the salad.

At night, I hung out with the same group of friends I did the night before. We basically did the exact same thing. Just hung out and talked about random things. Then we decided to watch Friends on Netflix. I’ve seen this show from start to finish so many times that I can directly quote every episode. I learned that they will be taking it off of Netflix at the end of the year that night, and it definitely bummed me out. The reason behind it was that it was too expensive to keep it.