[tiffy trying] a social media milestone

Over the course of my online life, I feel like I've managed to leave my share of digital footprints over the world wide web. Little internet-related things that excite me (because let's face it, I am very easily amused) include:

- When friends use a picture that I took of them as profile pictures or cover photos
- When my tweet gets retweeted or favorited or replied to by someone I admire
- Finding a coupon code while online shopping and purchasing my stuff for WAY cheaper than the original price
- When I discover new articles or music or videos before it becomes mainstream

#itsthelittlethings

Anyway, this little thing popped into my inbox earlier today and I now feel like super-digital-diva-internet-trendsetter because this is the best validation a nerdy, dorky, geekmonster like me could possibly get!

#boom

<3,
Tiffy

[tiffy trying] life in NY

In the past few months, I:

(1) graduated and become a master of something (MA Communication)

[ right before my final project Prezi at my summer fellowship ]

(2) moved to the big apple

[ skyline, street lamp & silhouettes at sunset ]

(3) watched a bunch of concerts (Goldfrapp, The XX, Sara Bareilles, The Neighbourhood)

[ amazebuckets ]

(4) ate a ton of delicious, decadent things

[ one of many food collages I have made & eaten ]

[ outstanding in the field - epic epicurean feast ]

(5) got inspired and cooked a bunch of (almost) amazing things

[ baked scones for tea time & styled the table like a boss ]

[ made truffle butter pasta w/ mushrooms & chicken ]

(6) saw a bunch of cool art (Paola Pivi, James Turrell, Sheep Station, Yayoi Kusama)

[ I was a little rebel and snapped some photos ]

[ baa! ]

(7) got engaged to my wonderful man of 6 years

[ a postcard I made of us months ago ]

(8) embarked on new adventures by trying and learning new things (Kangoo class, Gelato making class, experimenting with nail art)

[ my cousin and I rocked those cutesy nails like 9 year olds ]

(9) turned another year older/awesomer(?)

[ not me, but it could totally pass for me ] 

(10) got hitched

[ our wedding garland & my new, blue wedding shoes ]

Stories and details to follow soon. :)

<3,
Tiffy

[tiffy trying] themed collages

Summer semester has wrapped up and I've finally finished my MA degree. I have to wait a few months before my diploma gets mailed over to me.

In the meantime, I've slowly been compiling snippets of my summer and organizing them into collages of different themes. My favorite ones are "Tales in Transit" and "NY City Sights and Night Lights." I'm hoping to turn those into their own independent blog projects because I like pretty pictures, and because I think I can find a way to weave some stories into those snapshots. We shall see what becomes of those. 

Til then - 

[ a summer of studying //

a collection of laptop selfies ]

[ a selection of sweet treats ]

[ ongoing project theme: tales in transit]

[ bling and other pretty things ]

[ NY city sights & night lights ]

<3, 

Tiffy

[tiffy trying] to finish a 15 page paper

One of my classes has an online discussion board where students are required to post their experiences for that work week, share insights they've gained, or pose questions to the class. In a nutshell, it's like an online forum meets blog meets official debrief meets support group. The following paragraph below is what I posted last Sunday night, regarding my progress on the 15 page paper I have to submit this coming Sunday night. It was apt then, and it still feels apt now.

T-3 weeks until I become a master of something!



My desk at my summer fellowship is a reflection of my brain at the moment.

A huge mess.

On Wednesday, I was finally able to get some detailed feedback from my mentor regarding the outline I sent her last week. This turned out to be good thing and a bad thing.

The good thing was that her feedback about ways to make the white paper better was incredibly helpful.

The bad news was that I didn't do too well on the outline. I had spent last week crafting an outline that ended up being too "nitty gritty." It wasn't necessary for me to write the steps out, field guide style. She could see that the information was in there but she wanted it reframed into something more strategic than tactical.

(Disclaimer: No babies were harmed in the production of this discussion post. 

My ego on the other hand… just kidding!)

So back to the drawing board for me. I spent the rest of the week editing the outline and writing the draft. I tried to recruit some minions so that I may outsource some of the workload to them. They weren't very helpful. 

But in all seriousness, based on my mentor's feedback, I ended up reframing it into a different, hopefully much better paper. Instead of getting into a crazy level of detail, I ended up following her suggestion of picking out a handful of challenges and then writing out the solutions that some experts have suggested. I supplemented these with examples so that there would be interesting anecdotes interspersed with the facts. It's a rough draft but I'm hoping that this is shaping up into something my sponsor company will like. 

To the rest of the class, I'd like to say... 

You can do it! :) 

<3,

Tiffy

[tiffy trying] summer semester: of me & memes

My spring semester ended a few days after my last blog entry. I had two short, blissful weeks of summer before the new semester and my work fellowship began. It's funny for me to be typing this now because in one month, my summer semester and life as a full-time grad student will come to an end. I'm having mixed feelings about this.

[on one hand, I'm thrilled that homework is coming to an end.

on the other hand, I'm sad to be re-entering the "real world" when academia's been so nice.

on the other hand, I'm excited to do something w/ everything I've learned AND earn an income!]

And what happened to blogging my grad school adventures?

[ image credit: Gemma Correll] 

Well, that kind of fell by the wayside... sort of.

I ended up replacing Blogger (temporarily, because I'm back! I think...) with a mixture of Instagram and Twitter. Instagram was a way for me to document some of the activities I've gotten into over the course of the summer, while Twitter was a way to keep tabs of my cutting edge (if I do say so myself) research project (for my fellowship) on the utilization of Social Media in Emergency Preparedness and Response. I'm still in the process of finishing this up but so far it's been such a wonderful adventure. I love doing research. I love social media. I love writing. And I love thinking about how communication can actually make things better. This research project allowed me to combine all of those cool things. I read a lot of news bits and post mortem analyses on events, reached out to key folks in the industry and got to pick their brains, checked out the DigiDocs center at the American Red Cross HQ, and got to use a mix of traditional research and social media to get all of this underway. I feel like I'm making great progress on the topic but I'm also enjoying the entire process that's going along with it. So, I already feel happy and rewarded (and exhausted).

Aside from that research project, I am immersed in two other projects for my other classes. One project is on rebranding a city to make it even more of a tourist destination. The other project is an environmental campaign to get DC grad students (like myself) to embrace reusable water bottles instead of purchasing disposable plastic ones repeatedly.

So far, I'm pulling A's in my classes. #HumbleBrag

[ Angry Expectations Asian Father would be pleased. 

I'm proud too because of all the hard work I've been putting in]

Moving on...

The non-academic parts of the summer have been wonderful. I oscillate between NY and DC during weekends exploring new parts of these two cities that I haven't gotten to see yet. I've gotten to spend a lot of time with K's family and my own family as my parents made a quick detour to NY to visit. K and I have gone on a lot of date nights to make up for all that time apart doing long distance. Together, we've managed to hit up a lot of the food events in NY, double dated with a bunch of other couples, attended two weddings, hung out with different groups of friends, squeezed in some time for fitness activities, and caught up on a bunch of TV shows (although admittedly my taste in TV seems to skew heavily towards embarrassing reality TV). On a more serious note, I feel incredibly happy that I've been able to balance all of these fun things with my schoolwork and still feel okay.

[ how I look like at the end of every week day]

Well, maybe not TOTALLY okay. I'm definitely exhausted as heck, but I'm utterly grateful for everything and extremely excited for what's to come, whatever that turns out to be. :)

[ I actually, for real, dance like that]

<3,
Tiffy 

[tiffy trying] touristy DC things

Two weekends ago, my friend, Mela invited some friends to check out the National Arboretum in DC as part of her farewell-to-DC bucket list. She's off to grad school in the fall but leaving DC this week to travel around the world before school starts.

[ national arboretum, DC ]

[ 400yr old bonsai tree ]

[ pretty bonsai tree with red & gold leaves ]

[ magnolias in full bloom ]

I also got to check out another picturesque DC spot this past weekend. Mela held her despedida picnic at the Georgetown waterfront. It actually took me and K a little longer than expected to get there because we ended up on the wrong bus. Oops. But that was our little side adventure for the day. Georgetown waterfront is a wonderful place that's ideal for both sports and just, plain laying around the sun. We went on a particularly nippy day so there weren't hordes of people in the area. 

[ georgetown waterfront 1 ]

[ georgetown waterfront 2 ]

In case you think that all I do is just traipse around DC and enjoy the sites and the pretty weather, I've actually spent a lot of late nights doing homework and stress snacking like mad. 

[ all nighter - research paper writer - deadline fighter ]

The above picture was taken after a particularly crazy night of researching, writing, and heavy duty snacking. Hard work, I assure you. 

I also managed to find time to experiment in the kitchen but that's another story for another time. 

<3,

Tiffy 

[tiffy trying] to do homework but updating blog instead

   4 Final Papers
+ 3 Oral Presentations
+ 2 More Weeks Left in the Spring Semester
----------------------------------------------------------
1 Stressed Out Grad Student

To illustrate:

welp!

And now, back to homework. 

<3,

Tiffy  

[tiffy trying] domesticity

Friday is usually the day I get to catch up on housechores. Mondays through Thursdays I'm usually buried in my school books and weekends are typically spent enjoying couple time with Karl or catching up on more school work (or TV shows that I don't get to see during the school nights).

As a result, I like to spend my Fridays doing housechores. This usually consists of paying various bills that tend to add up exponentially behind my back:

[ makes me dizzy ] 

Playing floor hockey against Team Feral-Dust-Bunnies: 

[ I won! I think...]

And cooking a healthy dinner for date night: 

[ stove top multi-tasking ] 

I still have a long way to go before achieving the kind of domesticity that my cousin, Ginger has manager to pull off. Easter Sunday brunch a few weeks ago was a well decorated affair and a delicious feast of carbs, more carbs, pork, and all manner of desserts. 

[ rabbit infestation for easter ]

One thing I'm incredibly grateful for is the appearance of spring! She took her sweet time getting here but she's pretty much here in full force. Actually, she came late and left the party way early because it feels more like summer weather than spring weather. Last Wednesday, class got cancelled (due to my professor being out of town) so my friend Viv and I decided to check out the famous Cherry Blossom Festival. 

[ pretty cherry blossoms ]

K & I actually tried to check out the festival last weekend but the blossoms were still hiding inside their little buds. We decided to make the most of the gorgeous weather and walk around some of the famous DC sites- we saw the US Capitol, Washington Monument, Reflecting Pool, World War II Memorial, a garden with modern art sculptures, and walked around Chinatown after picking up apartment supplies from Bed, Bath & Beyond. 

The housework never seems to end. 

<3,

Tiffy

[tiffy trying] a vacation out of my comfort zone

I'm a city girl through and through. My typical vacations oscillate between two extremes- a jam packed schedule spent walking through famous sites or a zero-plans day spent lying down and reading a book or catching up on much needed sleep.

This vacation was something completely out of comfort zone. And I loved it.

K and I spent 5 days in Dominica, a country that's different from but always mistaken for the Dominican Republic. It is a beautiful island with delicious food, incredibly wonderful people, and utterly gorgeous scenery. But what made this vacation special?

[ dominica scenery ]

1. We stayed at a lovely resort (Jungle Bay) that had unparalleled customer service- welcome emails when we booked, reminder emails about what to pack, airport pick up and drop off service with snacks,  and friendly staff who always made us feel welcome.

[ beautiful jungle bay resort ]

2. Food was fresh and organic. For city folks used to processed meat and fast food this was a huge, much-needed, and delicious shift. The dishes were well prepared and so flavorful we couldn't even believe that these were healthy.

[ fresh food prepared by the resort + fruit plucked from a tree ]

3. K and I are no strangers to working out. But being active on vacation wasn't something either of us had ever done. We had hikes everyday that ranged from moderate to strenuous along with yoga classes at 7am each day. And we had an amazing time.

[ tricky hikes ]

[ one of the streams we crossed on the first day's hike (3 hrs) ]

[ crater pool by the ocean at the end of glasse trail. 2 hour hike ]

[ en route to the valley of desolation and boiling lake ]

[ morne trois pitons national park looks like an enchanted forest ] 

[ finally arriving at the valley of desolation ] 

[ strenuous hike towards boiling lake ]

[ boiling lake w/ some spooky fog ] 

[ swimming in this sulfur pond to cool off in the middle

of the long 7(!!!) hour hike was so refreshing ] 

4. 2 hour flight delay followed by a 15 hour flight delay. And no matter how stressed out and disappointed we were about it, we still managed to keep our cool and and our sense of humor intact.


It was a wonderful vacation. K & I joked that it was like a teambuilding trip for us because we went through so much. We can't wait to go back to Dominica and check out all the other gorgeous sites we missed.

<3,
Tiffy