Welcome back, friends!

I’ve missed writing on here, but I’ve been insanely busy, which I will explain in a later post. Today is my 28th birthday, which is a truly horrifying sentence. At 27 you can still operate under the illusion that you’re young and hip, but being inches from 30 years old (three decades!) puts a lot of things in perspective. It’s not so much that 30 is old; it’s that I feel as though I occupy this strange space between childhood and adulthood and I don’t really understand how to navigate that? I’ll get back to you in two years with more articulate thoughts.

I’m always fascinated by the concept of memory as the foundation of identity, and how incredibly flawed it is. A while ago, my friend and I were talking and he made the argument that real life begins at the first moment of consciousness rather than conception. His reasoning was that a life without consciousness isn’t really living. To an extent I agree, but I also acknowledge that so many things can shape you unconsciously and subconsciously—we are constellations of people, places, and events, even if we aren’t aware of them (read The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom for a really fascinating perspective on this).

I was thinking about this recently because I think a lot about the parts of my life that have made me who I am. A couple of years ago, I found a two-part series called “When Life is Like a Sitcom” (part 1 and part 2) from this British blogger, and it resonated with me because I have so many of these stories that I love to tell. And I think every family does, but in my opinion ours are much better, because I have a very big, dysfunctional, legitimately (though sometimes unintentionally) hilarious family. But we all develop our little inside jokes that become the language of our loved ones—Kathryn Hymes of The Atlantic calls this a “familect”—like the time my grandma accidentally said “sharking” instead of “shocking” (English is not her first language) and now we all say it.

These stories bring me so much joy, and they’re the ones I love telling over and over. I hope you enjoy them too!

1. The Snake in Marisa’s Shoe

When you’re the oldest child in your family, it’s hard to know which of your memories are yours and which ones have been reconstructed through other people’s stories. But this is one of my earliest ones that I know was mine, because I distinctly remember freaking out about it. When my sister Marisa was maybe three or four and I was nine or ten, we were going to the park and our babysitter, Valia, was helping Marisa put on her shoes when she discovered a tiny rattlesnake sleeping in one of Marisa’s baby sandals. If you don’t know anything about rattlesnakes, you should know that the baby ones are the most dangerous because they don’t know how to control their venom yet, and their bites are more likely to be fatal. Valia took the shoe and tossed it as far as she could out onto our driveway, but the snake wouldn’t leave (looking back on it, he was probably scared—he was a baby!). My dad took it upon himself to beat it it with his cane, trying to shoo it into the grass, while Marisa and I clung to each other, terrified. A landscaper, who just happened to be walking down the street with a shovel, saw us and asked if we needed help. He scooped it up, and flung it into the canyon in our backyard. Then he said good day and continued on his way. We still tell that last part in disbelief. We joke that it was as if he were an NPC in a video game; just conveniently there when we needed him.

2. The Strawberry Rule

I’ve written about this before in a Minute Thoughts a couple of years ago, but it’s worth retelling. Every summer when I was a kid, one of our favorite family activities was going strawberry picking in the Carlsbad Strawberry Company’s U-Pick fields. I was probably 10 years old at the time of this particular incident. The way it works is that you’re given a large white paper bucket, and for a flat fee, you can pick as many strawberries as you can fit into it. Most people pile their strawberries in haphazardly and hope that they stay in the bucket, but two of my uncles had another idea. They picked strawberries with really long stems, and arranged them in a pyramid shape, stems pointing down, so they could stack them as high as possible without, and then they hung more strawberries from the sides, which allowed them to collect probably 120% of the capacity of the bucket. The owners noticed this and immediately told them off; they argued that there was no rule that you couldn’t hang strawberries. Some people say you haven’t really lived until you get a sign posted because of you, and now there is a “No Hanging” sign under the rules of conduct at the Carlsbad Strawberry Company U-Pick fields and it’s all my uncles’ fault.

3. The Holiday Ice Cream

This story requires a lot of important context. Firstly, my friend Josh. I met Josh at a Mommy & Me class when I was one and a half years old, and to this day he is the closest thing I have to a brother. So when I say I’ve known him my entire life, I actually mean it—we literally grew up together and I consider his family my family. His dad has always been a jokester, with a dry sense of humor and a completely deadpan delivery that makes it difficult to know when he’s kidding (this is important), but he always indulged us as kids, chasing me and Josh around the living room while we screamed with delight and laughed until our sides and our faces hurt.

Secondly, one thing you have to understand about Chinese families is that we call everyone “Aunty” and “Uncle” regardless of whether or not we are related to them. There has been much confusion about this in my family—I found out at a very late age that “Aunty Karen” was in fact my mom’s childhood friend and not a blood relation (in my defense, she shared my mom’s maiden name). My cousin Ashton was shocked that Josh and his brother Noah are not our real cousins because we address his parents as “Aunty Alexis” and “Uncle Steven” (we found this very funny because all four of them are blue-eyed and Jewish) and they’re at most of our big family events.

My family and Josh’s family had a tradition of going to a restaurant called Pizza Nova for dinner together, because it was just a lot of pizza and pasta, which satisfied all of the picky eaters in our families, and they had these amazing complimentary garlic knots. One day, probably when I’m around 13 years old, we decided to get ice cream at Baskin-Robbins afterward, and I ordered a Christmas-themed ice cream, which was vanilla with red and green chocolate chips.

“What makes it Christmas-themed?” Uncle Steven asked me.

I laughed because I thought he was teasing. “The red and green chocolate chips...duh,” I told him, with all of the latent attitude of a pre-teen.

“I don’t see them,” he deadpanned. I pointed. “Where?”

“They’re right there! The red and green chocolate chips.”

“I don’t see them,” he said. “I’m colorblind.”

“No, you’re not!” I said. I definitely would have known about this (I’d known him for ten years at this point).

“I am!” he said. Another one of his jokes.

“No, you’re not!” I insist. “The red and green chocolate chips are right there!”

“I don’t see them,” he replied.

This goes on for about five full minutes and by this time, I’m having a full-blown mental breakdown because he absolutely is not colorblind and yet he will not give up on this bit, and Aunty Alexis finally comes over and confirms that he is, indeed, colorblind. I can’t wrap my mind around it (How does he get dressed? How does he tell the difference between traffic lights? How does he function as a human being in this world?!), and Aunty Alexis has to tell me several stories about his colorblindness to convince me (all of which are hilarious). This story is one that is probably a lot funnier to our families than it is to anyone else, but we all cried with laughter that day, at the ridiculousness of it all—the fact that for once, Uncle Steven was being 100% serious and not joking at all; the fact that his colorblindness had never come up in conversation; the fact that I found out after a decade of knowing him.

And that’s how I found out that Uncle Steven is colorblind.

4. The Mexican Hot Sauce

No one in my family has any recollection of this incident, but I swear it happened (“It does sound like my dad,” admitted my cousin).

In 2009, my family and I went to Mexico with my cousin Gwendolyn’s family, and one day we stopped for lunch at a restaurant. Her dad enjoys spicy food, and jovially ordered “the hottest salsa you have.” In Mexico. Very ill-advised. Mexican restaurants do not mess around with spices. So the waitress brings it out, and it’s white, watery, and has pale chunks of what looks like tomato in it. It looked harmless, which is, of course, incredibly dangerous. He started eating it. “How is it?” we asked him. He simply nodded in response. He continued eating it and slowly became redder and redder until he was practically sobbing into his entree, but he just kept eating it. He was openly weeping at the table by the time we finished our meal, and I just remember being incredulous. I have no spice tolerance so I refused to outright try it, but I did dip my fork in it and lick a tiny drop of it off the prongs, and my tongue burned for the next hour.

(While I did not find any photos of us at this particular meal, I did find some very 2009 photos of me and Gwendolyn)

5. Ni Hao Bunny

When I was in ninth grade, my family went to China with two other families, and each family had three kids, so it was so fun—just a bunch of kids running around Beijing together, looking at corny souvenirs and marveling at the gross street food (not normal street food, this was the Beijing Night Market and designed to be outrageous, like sheep penis and fried silkworms). One day we were walking through a market, and the two older boys suddenly disappeared, and when they returned, they were carrying the tiniest black-and-white baby bunny. They named him Ni Hao Bunny, like Hello Kitty, and we adored him. We figured that they had probably saved him from an unspeakable fate, but when it came time to leave, we didn’t know what to do with him, as we had just been keeping him in one of the families’ hotel rooms. We ended up leaving him with the manager of the hotel, who was very kind about it. This was almost 12 years ago, and I desperately hope he lived out his days happily in the care of the hotel manager as a beloved pet, and not as someone’s dinner.

6. celebrating the thai new year with locals

The first time I ever went to Thailand in April 2011, my family and I stayed at a hotel in the middle of Bangkok. Shortly after we checked in, my mom suggested we explore, so we walked out of our hotel expecting to go to a local market or something. But we didn’t even make it ten steps, when we noticed a group of kids outside a convenience store with a hose, brightly-colored Super Soakers, and plastic buckets that they were using to shower passersby with water. We asked them what they were doing, but most of them didn’t speak English. One of them translated, and as it turned out, it was the Thai New Year, Songkran, and they were celebrating. It is customary to pour water on Buddha statues and each other as a purification ritual. They close the major streets and highways, which are used as arenas for massive water fights, and people cart giant drums and containers full of water in the backs of their trucks and throw water on strangers; it’s believed to be cleansing and to represent the washing away of sins and bad luck. They invited us to join them and so we did—they smeared a clay mixture on our cheeks and handed us buckets, and we stood in the streets of Thailand soaked to the bone, shrieking with laughter as we tossed bucketfuls of water on cars and motorists. To this day it is one of my favorite memories. It was so incredibly pure, and a great window into other countries’ traditions.

7. The Chance Encounter

When I was interning in New York the summer after I graduated high school, I was staying with my aunt and uncle on the Upper East Side. I was walking home after work one day, when I ran into a different uncle that lived in the Bronx (for non-New Yorkers, it’s a completely different borough; about a 45-minute train ride from where I was). “Hey Jenny!” he said casually, as if we did this on a regular basis, when in reality I had not seen him in about five years. He was not at all surprised to see me either, which was strange because I did not live in New York at the time, and he did not live in Manhattan. “Want to go see a movie?”

“Um,” was my response. I was too astonished to ask specific questions, and I realized I had to be home in about an hour to relieve my cousin’s nanny. He led me into a theater, bought me a box of candy like he used to when I was a little kid, and we watched half of The Watch with Ben Stiller. I left mid-movie to go babysit my cousin, and that was that. I didn’t see him again until five years later when I moved to New York and saw him at Thanksgiving. It was extremely weird, and to this day I’m not sure why I just didn’t question it at all. It was like a weird little sidequest.

8. How I Met Ali

This is one of my favorite stories, because it’s just so college. I met one of my very first (and still to this day!) college friends, Ali, very inorganically and arbitrarily. I was nervous on my first day of classes—it felt exciting, like every other first day of school, but this was college, and I was in a new environment surrounded by people I didn’t know and I had no idea how to make friends. But I headed into my first lecture, FEM20 Introduction to Feminist Studies, determined to make the most of it and enjoy college. I’d been looking forward to this class ever since I’d visited the campus, right after I’d committed to the university. It was the class that had changed my mind about going to UCSB. I sat down, introduced myself to the girl next to me, and asked her name.

“Ali,” she replied. I asked her what section group she was in, and she told me Friday at noon.

“That’s my section, too!” I said excitedly. “Wanna exchange numbers so we can study together?” So we did, and that Friday, when section was over, she asked me if I wanted to get lunch. And from then on, she was one of my best friends. She’d come all the way out to FT to get ready to go out with me and some of her other friends that lived in the dorm, and we’d walk together down El Colegio into IV wearing our bandage skirts and crop tops. She’d let me borrow her fun clothes and cowboy boots for parties and events, and I’d sometimes sleep in her bed after long nights if I was studying late or out partying and I didn’t want to walk a mile back to FT (this was before the adoption of Uber and Lyft on college campuses—the only way back was walking or biking). We would hang out at the beach in between classes, and she introduced me to Japanese curry and taught me how to blend my eyeshadow correctly.

Years later, she told me that she’d thought I was super forward that first day, because I’d asked for her number right after meeting her. I told her that I’d thought she was super forward because she’d asked me out to lunch right after our first section. I still love this story because it reminds me that often times most people are just as intimidated as you are in new situations, but you can make friends in the most serendipitous ways.

She lives in Hawaii now, so I haven’t seen her in a really long time (I think the last time was when I visited LA in 2017, and she took me on a tour of her favorite bars in the city), but I miss her a lot, and I love that we’ve stayed friends on the foundation of what was essentially play-acting confidence on the first day of college.

9. The Naked MAn

This story has two semi-related parts, both of which can be explained by Isla Vista housing. Isla Vista housing is terrible—it’s run by literal slumlords who hold a monopoly on housing in the community, and so they hold an incredible amount of power. All of the properties are small, dirty, and run-down—there have been multiple lawsuits by the Isla Vista Tenants Union against baseless evictions, deteriorating properties, and other unethical practices, and demand is high but supply is very limited (the university’s solution to which is to allow a billionaire amateur architect to build a massive, windowless dorm on campus that people have likened to the Squid Game dorms). Which leads to balconies literally collapsing into the ocean and people paying an insane amount of money to live in really crummy apartments. People I’ve talked to at other schools didn’t share rooms past freshman year of college, but UCSB kids did, and that’s why there’s an important distinction between “roommate” and “housemate.” My senior year, I shared a master bedroom with two other girls, and we each paid around $660, which sounded like a good deal at the time, but when you consider that that one room (in a three-bedroom apartment, the other two of which were also shared) was $1800 a month, you realize just how profitable those terrible apartments are. I live in New York and to this day I have still never paid that much per square foot for living space.

Anyway. Because of the difficulty of finding housing and how expensive it is (the university gives you zero help), there’s a lot of pressure to find subletters for the summer, because otherwise you’re on the hook for paying rent for an apartment you’re not living in, and leases are standard one-year contracts. This is normally fine, because a lot of people come to Isla Vista for the summer to take classes at UCSB or work in the coffeeshops and restaurants in Isla Vista when the kids vacate the town—a lot of SBCC kids would go to party and (weirdly) a lot of Irish kids would come from Ireland just for the summer. But because everyone’s subletting, it culminates in a massive game of musical apartments, and you have to find a solution for your stuff, because you don’t want subletters using it and/or the people subletting from you will also have stuff.

The first part of this story concerns my family visiting at the end of my sophomore year. At the time, my sister was using Victor (our family’s 2001 Nissan Maxima) to drive herself to high school every day, so I didn’t have a car in college; my family had planned to drive up to Santa Barbara to help me take some of my stuff home, and store the rest at friends’ houses before the start of my next lease (storage lockers were also run by a monopoly and were so expensive that it was often cheaper to throw your old furniture away and buy new, cheap furniture, which is why an Isla Vista tradition was couch-burning on the streets of Del Playa)(the more I write this and the more I talk to other people, the more I realize that Isla Vista was a hellscape of a college town and it was not normal). My family had driven up to Santa Barbara to help me pack up some of my things and bring them home. On the last night before we drove home, my mom allowed me to take Marisa out, on the condition that she would not drink. I said of course (and was lying) but in an effort to be responsible, I supervised by going shot for shot with her. This was not a good plan, as we took seven shots together and were in a good place, but I did not anticipate that she would go off and take shots with my friends without me, putting her at 10 shots (at 17 years old). She ended up getting completely wasted, passing out, losing a shoe, and locking herself in my friend’s bathroom, and my friend had to help me carry her home.

Now for the second part. When my roommates and I moved out of our apartment, we had agreed to let the boys in the neighboring apartment sublet from us. The deal was that once we moved out, they could move their stuff in, and we would give them the keys. But there was some confusion, mostly because these particular boys were very stupid, which led to one of them climbing in through a window while drunk (before we had moved out!) because he thought that he’d lost his key (that we hadn’t given him yet), and another somehow ending up naked with a girl in my bed, and that is what I came back to when I was taking my passed-out sister home. I don’t think I’ve ever yelled louder in my life; I’m extremely OCD about my bed, but more than that, I was absolutely furious that not only had they taken it upon themselves to move into our apartment, they had done so while our things were still there. Again, these boys were very, very dumb and somehow thought that I’d just left a full set of sheets and a husband (the pillow thing with arms) for them. They were apologetic, but I was so mad and demanded that they leave immediately, but not before throwing the boy’s clothes in the pool and doing a load of laundry at 2 am because I was so disgusted. Most disappointingly, I had to throw away the husband, because he had fallen asleep spooning it and it was beyond salvaging at that point.

10. The 13-Inch Line

My first night back in Isla Vista my junior year was in Winter Quarter, because I’d taken the quarter prior off to stay home and finish my GEs in community college after my study abroad plans fell through. I went to a party at Ali’s new apartment complex, because her downstairs neighbors were celebrating someone’s birthday. I had no idea whose birthday it was; I couldn’t find the birthday person anywhere. And then someone poured a 13-inch line of cocaine and the birthday boy emerged from nowhere and did the entire thing. I know it was 13 inches long because it was slightly shorter than the diagonal of a large Macbook. It was around the time that YikYak was hot, because I distinctly remember the person having a YikYak sticker on their Macbook, if that’s any indication of what life was like at the time. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite the same since. He somehow survived, by the way—truly a miracle.

11. Last Brugos Family Hurrah at Disneyland

Right before I left for Singapore, my fraternity family (Chianna, Franklin, Michael, and Annie) all came down to San Diego to say goodbye. We had planned to go to Disneyland together, but Annie said she didn’t have a ride to Anaheim from LA and didn’t have a Disney pass. A couple of days later, Chianna, Franklin, and I met up near Disneyland because we were meeting Michael to carpool to the park together (because we are cheap and refused to pay $30 for parking multiple times), and both he and Annie were there! Michael had picked her up and she’d slept overnight at his house to surprise me. We got Mickey-shaped beignets and rode all the rides, including Splash Mountain, for which we made Franklin go in front and he got absolutely soaked, especially on the seat of his pants. He was waddling around like the Gingerbread Man for like an hour afterward. It was such a great surprise, especially before I left the country for six months.

12. The Time I Moved to Singapore

As college graduation approached, I was frustrated, because finding a job (in strategy, in advertising) had proved very difficult for someone with no experience in either, and I kept getting recommended for internships instead (junior strategist roles are notoriously rare). Then, a recruiter from our fraternity’s sponsor told me about working holiday visas, and it truly felt like cosmic realignment—the perfect opportunity to work and also do something a little out of the ordinary. It was a little scary, because I wasn’t following the traditional path of going straight into the workforce and settling into a city, but it also felt like a chance I couldn’t pass up (I’d always regretted not taking a gap year prior to college). And so I moved! And it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It’s one of those things that truly altered the course of my life, and changed my entire worldview. I experienced so much richness, ate so many things, met so many friends, learned so much. Too much to fit into a single post, so for those interested, here are my travel blogs:

part I: east meets west

part II: the local tourist

part III: i wasn’t dressed for this

part IV: a love letter to the lion city

13. The Time I Accidentally Crashed a Wedding in Malaysia

I went to Malaysia over Diwali weekend back in 2016, just for a quick weekend trip, and went to the Batu Caves, one of Kuala Lumpur’s most famed attractions. It’s a series of temples built inside massive limestone caves, dating back to over 400 million years ago. It’s incredible that things like that still exist in the modern world and you can casually just walk right in.

I walked up what felt like a thousand stairs (only 272, in fact) and peeked into the nearest Hindi temple at the base of one of the first caves. There were people dressed in brightly-colored saris and dhotis and wearing gold jewelry...and I realized I’d actually stumbled into a wedding ceremony. The couple was absolutely glowing, adorned with flowers and gold jewelry and dressed in intricately-stitched garments.

They and their entourage were so kind; they invited me to their wedding buffet, which I turned down (something that remains one of my greatest regrets), and allowed the general public to watch as they did a quick photoshoot, then walked around the temple performing several marriage rituals.

From hinduwedding:

Think of the actual wedding ceremony as if it were a romantic story, where the bride and the groom come to the Mandap, separately, as if unknown to each other. Then they fall in love and ask the parents' permission to get married. We explain them what the Hindu marriage means and they accept the obligations that go with it. During the various rituals, the couple commits to remain faithful to each other and repeat the pledge in front of the Fire God, the Agni and all the witnesses. Then, they walk seven steps together committing to seven marriage vows to each other, about their future life together. We all bless them and wish them a very happy life and they leave the Mandap as a newly married couple!

One of the men offered me some sort of yellow sugar dessert thing, and I was on my way. One of the most serendipitous experiences I’ve ever had while traveling.

14. The Spartan Race on Bintan Island

At one of our company happy hours at POSSIBLE, our CEO had gotten happy-drunk and had the idea to do a Spartan Race together. He told the strategy team that if we did it with him, he would pay our entry fees, so we all agreed, half-joking. But he was not joking. My team and I trained together, doing sit-ups and burpees outside of our office after work and running on the weekends. It killed me, because I’m a terrible runner, and I was worried that I’d hold the team back during the actual race. I didn’t even bring running shoes to Singapore, and ended up having to buy a cheap $15 pair (which ended up being a great move, because they were ruined in the mud and water, and I tossed them the minute I got off the course).

But when we got to the actual race, it was a lot easier than I expected, because it was all obstacles and very little running, so I ended up being one of the better players on the team. I was good at the climbing ones and the heavy lifting ones, and only failed on a couple of the obstacles (I will never forgive the Spartan Race designers for putting the monkey bars and floating rings right after a 60-pound deadlift + carry, and I honestly didn’t stand a chance with the rope climb). The one thing they don’t tell you is that you will be wet the whole race, which is a whole other level of discomfort to deal with. Some of the obstacles were on the beach where we’d run through wet sand, and others you had to wade through waist-deep water.

We all finished exhausted but completely exhilarated, with medals around our necks and our legs like jelly, with the profile pictures to prove it. I was particularly proud because I’ve always felt I was unathletic, but it proved that my body was capable of much more than I’d thought. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it’s still a fun piece of party trivia (and surprising to people who know me), and a reminder that I can do athletic things if I try.

15. The Failed Titanic Shot

I still smile every time I think about this one. When Sam, Conrad, and I were in Taiwan for Christmas in 2016, we took a boat ride around Sun Moon Lake. While we were cruising along, we had the brilliant idea for Sam and Conrad to recreate the “Jack, I’m flying!” scene at the front of the boat. There was a flag at the front of it, and as they were leaning over the railing, they accidentally stumbled into it and snapped it right off. We felt so terrible but we still got the photo despite practically crying of laughter. Luckily, Sam spoke a little Mandarin and apologized to the captain, but I could only imagine what they were thinking—stupid Americans. But I can’t look at this picture without finding it funny all over again.

16. The Sleepless Night and Cambodian tEmple Run

Cambodia in 2017 was one of the most impactful trips I’ve ever taken. Learning about the Cambodian Genocide (and the U.S.’ involvement in it) was truly eye-opening. I visited both the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields, both sites of incredibly gruesome murders, being immersed in a terrible history. But it’s so important. Feeling sad is important—it anchors us to our humanity. Perhaps the most shocking part was how recent it was—only 45 years ago. Several of the perpetrators are still alive today, and two were convicted in 2017. It was officially declared a genocide in 2018. And yet, many of the killers don’t believe they did anything wrong. And yet, 1.7 million people died in the short three-year reign of the Khmer Rouge, and tens of thousands more will never know true peace.

And yet...there are so many awe-inspiring things about the country. I only spent five days in Cambodia, but I was determined to make the most of them. I arrived at 6 am and called a tuk-tuk straight to Angkor Wat right as the sun was rising.

I’m a huge temple nerd, and Angkor Wat is the holy grail—an amazing network of them that was built in the 12th century, the largest religious structure in the world.

I explored the temple in the early hours of the morning, headed back to the hostel for a nap, and then set back out for another temple, Ta Prohm, at dusk, my favorite of the three. Known as “the Tomb Raider Temple,” Ta Prohm is known for single-handedly driving tourism to Siem Reap after the Angelina Jolie film premiered in the States. Unlike the other temples, it has been allowed to be consumed by wilderness; the trees have grown through and around it, and it gives the impression of a place lost to nature. There’s a beautiful poetic quality about it.

Leaving Ta Prohm turned out to be quite the adventure as well. The tuk-tuk driver that had taken me had promised to meet me at the entrance, and I, in a rookie mistake, had not taken his phone number or contact information. The security guards were ushering us out of the exit of the temple because it was closing for the night, and there was no way of getting back to the entrance. A nearby tuk-tuk driver offered to take me to the front, but it was going to cost quite a bit and I decided I would just walk instead. Then, one of the temple security guards pulled up on a motorcycle and offered me a ride. I said no thanks, because that’s literally the thing my parents warned me about, and that I didn’t have any money, but he waved it away, telling me he was going that way anyway. “It’s around 2 km (1.2 miles) around the whole thing,” he told me after I said I could walk. It was getting dark and I was running out of options, and my tuk-tuk driver was waiting for me at the entrance, so I reluctantly agreed to let him give me a ride.

“Hold on,” he instructed, but I refused, and instead held on tightly to the back of the seat and I prayed that I wouldn’t fall off. Looking back on it, I was putting an enormous amount of trust in a complete stranger. But he was very kind, and took me safely back to the entrance. It was actually very exhilarating, flying past the jungle, racing against the sunset, feeling the cool, sweet evening air wash over us.

And that was the first time I ever rode a motorcycle.

17. The Hallmark Photo

I used to model as a kid, like five or six years old, and we always had funny stories about finding random photos of me in strange places (I think my aunt once found me in a catalogue, and I still have a life-sized poster of myself at my parents’ house from a KMart back-to-school campaign I did). But there was one photoshoot that I did at the beach with a fake family—mom, dad, brother—and I don’t think any of us knew what it was actually for. My mom was shopping at Hallmark a couple of years ago and she found a picture frame with that exact photo in it. Mind you, this was probably ten years after the photo was taken (I guess they don’t change stock photos very often). She still keeps it framed on her dresser, a Hallmark Stories stock photo of me with three strangers.

18. the time we won trivia

Rekha and I love this story so much, and we will tell it to anyone who listens. When I first returned to California from Singapore, I was living at home and job-hunting and Rekha was applying for med school and studying for her MCATs. So we were both a bit aimless and we spent a lot of time doing bar trivia and day-drinking.

Our friend Lianne invited us downtown to see NGHTMRE, but neither of us are really clubbing kind of people, so we agreed, but with the caveat that we would stop by a bar in Pacific Beach to “pregame” (read: play trivia). We showed up in full makeup and heels and short skirts and ordered three cocktails each, and everyone in the bar was judging us, hard. We were the two youngest people in the bar and the smallest team—we guessed we were the only ones in our 20s and there was only one other team of two, these guys that were also judging us. We had a lot to prove. If you’ve ever played trivia, you know that being the youngest puts you at a significant disadvantage.

But we led the entire game, and then in the last question you could bet up to half your points. The question was, “What comedy series has been nominated for a primetime Emmy award every year since 2010?” and we were so confident in our answer (Modern Family) that we bet half of our 60 points, and we won. We received a $20 gift card to the bar as a prize, but the most gratifying thing was proving everyone else in the bar wrong. We went to the club afterward, but we were still on a high from our win and the club was loud and hectic, so we ended up leaving before NGHTMRE even came on. Instead, we got pizza, took a car home, and watched Tucker and Dale vs. Evil together. It was such a great night.

19. How I Moved to New York

My first day in New York was a whirlwind, a perfect storm of luck and chance and resourcefulness. I was still having trouble finding a job, but didn't quite have a reason to pick up and move, and so I was stuck in an endless cycle of fruitless applications. Then, at almost the exact same time, I was accepted to two different strategy programs: Griffin Farley’s Beautiful Minds at BBH and a scholarship to Creative Strategy Bootcamp. I accepted both and just three weeks later, I moved with just one suitcase.

The morning I arrived in the city, sleep-deprived and exhausted, I took a taxi to my friend’s apartment and immediately fell asleep on her couch. I woke up, went to the apartment I was subleasing from her in Bushwick, unpacked my suitcase, and cleaned. I went to the dollar store around the corner and bought as many supplies as I could, including an umbrella that lasted me a year and a half and a wobbly pan that I still cook with to this day. I napped again, grabbed a slice of pizza from a nearby pizza joint, put on some makeup using a cardboard box as a nightstand/vanity, and walked around the corner to my final interview with Madwell. This was all in the span of 12 hours—I arrived at 6 am and had my interview at 6 pm. I got the internship and loved it. And I’ve been here ever since.

Three weeks later, I moved to a new apartment, and I had ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon including a bed frame and mattress, the latter which arrived almost a week after the former, and so I slept on a pile of sheets and blankets that I arranged into a kind of sleeping pad. I love this story because it’s such a New York experience—I think everyone has a similar story when they move to the city right out of college, broke and bright-eyed and ready to take on the challenge that is this city. But we all love it so fiercely, and I think it’s the hard-fought nature of moving here that’s part of its charm.

20. The Madwell Birthday Party

My first week of my internship, Madwell had its 7th birthday party, the 7th anniversary of its founding. It was a great night (from what I remember). I mostly hung out with the Insights x Experience team, which was so much fun! It was a great group. It was also very amusing to see the two agency founders drunk out of their minds. I had a brief conversation with both of them that they only vaguely remembered for the rest of the time I interned there, which was very funny. This was pre-pandemic, when office parties were still a thing, and this was the most Brooklyn advertising agency-esque party ever. There was an all-you-can-eat candy bar and pogs decorated with the faces of the agency. The pièce de résistance, the vintage car that sat in the middle of the office, became a hub for private conversations. And liquor. Oh my god there was so much liquor. I think it was shortly after that party that I stopped drinking entirely. Thank goodness I lived so close and only had to walk a block and a half home, because I was absolutely gone. But it was a great night. A nice introduction to agency life, and Madwell parties in general. Even after I left, I was always invited to their holiday parties, and today I still keep in touch with some of the people from my old team, even though most of us have moved on. Find you coworkers like that.

21. How I Got Mia

I wasn’t around for most of this story, but I still love to tell it based on what Mia’s foster mom and dad told me. Brooklyn Animal Action, the shelter I adopted Mia from in 2018, caught Mia when she was a kitten, around a year/a year-and-a-half old. Her foster dad told me she was very difficult to catch, because she was so smart that she would just go into the traps and take the food out without touching the pedals (they eventually caught her by manually shutting her inside, after weeks of gaining her trust). She was terribly fussy and semi-feral when they caught her—the vet told her foster dad that she would “never become domesticated enough to be a good pet.”

I saw her on the website and asked her foster mom if I could visit her. She asked me what kind of cat I was looking for, and I said a black one, ideally a very cuddly one. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed,” she told me. “She doesn’t really let people touch her.” She told me that she’d had Mia for a little over two years, and that she had almost been adopted twice, but both had fallen through.

Originally, she’d been part of the TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) program—they’d only planned on keeping her long enough to spay her and cut part of her ear (to indicate she had been TNR’d), but she had a bit of a cold and so they kept her a little longer. Her foster dad thought she’d make a good pet, and that’s how my foster mom got her.

I went and visited her anyway, and she was clearly nervous, but she let me pet her, and that was it. I’ve had her for a little over three years now (she’s a big girl—six years old now!) and she’s extremely cuddly. I used to think she was a little aloof, but when I was home over COVID she followed me everywhere around my parents’ house, which made me realize she just liked being able to see me at all times and had never lived in a space bigger than a one-bedroom apartment. I love when I can answer, “What happened to her ear?” because to me it’s a success story—a failed TNR, because all she really wanted was someone to love her.

22. The Time I Won a Trip to Paris

I will never stop talking about this because it’s one of the coolest and most serendipitous things that has ever happened to me. My coworker at Madwell told me about an Airbnb x VICE contest which sent 100 people to Tokyo, Cape Town, New York, and Paris to learn about different subcultures, and on a whim, I entered. I chose Lust in Translation, to “reimagine what the City of Love is all about.” It focused on sex and sexuality, which fascinates me; I think it’s such an important part of our identity and the way we interact with other people. So Airbnb and VICE sent me to Paris for six days—they gave me something like $1000 in Airbnb credit (and a per diem!) and told me I could spend it any way I wanted. So I chose a really nice Airbnb in the Le Marais district, with a “Superhost” named Yves who was incredibly warm and welcoming. Just the feeling of walking around the cobblestone streets of Paris was amazing; the architecture was beautiful and historic and everything felt distinctly European. I still aspire to the Parisian lifestyle and café culture.

Our group had a set itinerary—we went to France’s premier “gay bakery” famous for its “magic wands” (AKA dick-shaped bread); the first “love shop” to open only around a decade ago, which changed the conversation around sex and gender roles in France; Hotel Amour in the Pigalle district (famous for its cabarets and burlesque theaters), a love-hotel-turned-regular-hotel; and a private burlesque show + lesson at Le Carmen, a famed bar located in Georges Bizet’s former residence.

And then we were let loose into the city! I spent five extra days wandering around mostly by myself, but I also made a friend named Killian (who coincidentally lived in Bushwick for four years) who introduced me to his friends and showed me around the city as well—they took me to a wine bar in Montmatre that one of their friends owned, and we sipped wine and ate charcuterie, which felt extremely surreal.

It was such a dream. I went to the Louvre, Versailles and the Queen’s Hamlet, Musée Maillol, Pont de Arts (the “love lock bridge”), and Île Saint-Louis, all in five days, and loved every minute of it. Today, it’s still one of my most memorable trips and one of the places that I still desperately want to return to. For all of its hype, it’s one place that was never oversold to me—I felt it lived up to all of my expectations, and sometimes I think I could live there. For now, I look forward to my future trips there, but my first Paris experience was pretty damn memorable.

23. the time mia caught a mouse

I love this story because cats chasing mice is such a cliché, but it’s still funny. I was back in California for Christmas and my roommate was feeding Mia for the day until my catsitter could take over, and I got a frantic text: “MIA CAUGHT A MOUSE!! AHHHHHH!!” I panicked, because I was not aware we had mice in our house, and we had a very manic conversation back and forth to understand what was happening. Apparently, my roommate had heard a noise, and saw that Mia had caught a mouse, but hadn’t eaten it; she was just playing with it under my bed, batting the poor terrified thing around like a toy. I calmed down enough to instruct my roommate to grab a Tupperware from the pantry, trap the mouse, and bring it outside. She brought a Tupperware and crouched down to capture it, but before she could, Mia made direct eye contact with her and quickly gulped it down. I was dying from 3,000 miles away because it was so ridiculous and absolutely something Mia would do, and after a hurried exchange with her foster mom (who is a vet tech), she assured me that Mia was fine and I should be grateful that she was such a useful cat. What a good girl.

24. Costa Rica

I say “Costa Rica” instead of one specific memory, because we have so many stories from that trip. So much went wrong, from an accidental car rental in San Jose (California) to a perilous drive up a mountain in the dead of night in Monteverde to navigating scammers in Manuel Antonio. Rekha and I still talk about it as one of the most empowering trips we’ve ever taken; we were always resourceful people, but this was a true test of how well we could keep our cool while dealing with a lot of different problems, and how well we’d travel together. And we dealt with a lot. But it’s one of my favorite trips—Rekha and I are such good travel partners and Costa Rica was a beautiful place; we had an amazing time and I’m now convinced that you could drop me anywhere in the world and I could find my way out of it.

25. March on Washington (The Commitment March)

In August, the day before I left New York for San Diego, I took a 4 am bus from Bryant Park to Washington D.C. for the 2020 March on Washington. That year was particularly significant—months after the murder of George Floyd changed the nation, 57 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and 150 years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. A group of us had waited since 3 am in a socially-distanced perimeter around the park. Many of them carried signs: Black Lives Matter. Get your knees off our necks. Silence is violence. My favorite: “If you’ve ever wondered what you would have done during the Civil Rights Movement, this is it.” It was exhilarating, but also felt a little insane—I had an 8 am flight back to San Diego to catch the next morning. I had asked a couple of friends days before if I should go, and had gotten various reactions from “you’re crazy” to “you should definitely go.” My friend Angeline gave me the most practical advice: “Only go if you have three backup plans to get back to New York.” My three backup plans were, in order, Megabus, Amtrak, and Lyft.

I met two people from my bus, Anderson and Sam, and we made our way to the National Mall together. We had our temperatures checked and received wristbands, and settled on the lawn next to the memorial pool. We listened to so many inspiring speakers—Representative Ayanna Pressley, Charles Booker, Martin Luther King III, the granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Al Sharpton, the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Jacob Blake. The lines that stuck with me are “People over profits, joy over fear” (Ayanna Pressley), and “Demonstration without legislation will not lead to change” (Reverend Al Sharpton). It was nothing short of incredible, watching history in the making. It felt incredibly powerful, listening to their sonorous voices echo across the water, hearing the response from the crowd. It’s so interesting to study good public speakers, because not only are they good writers, but their charisma and presence is always so forward in their delivery.

We marched around the perimeter of the National Mall, past the gated White House and down Pennsylvania Avenue. It felt good to know we were part of a movement, on the right side of history, to be able to support the Black community however we could. It’s always stunning to see all of these BIPOC people marching, in masks and face shields, holding protest signs, juxtaposed with these monuments built to white (often terrible) men hailed as the bedrock of our nation. It’s inspiring to see them take up space, reclaiming the country their ancestors built. It was a good day in the midst of a terrible year.

And yes, I made my flight back home.

26. My Mom’s Surprise 60th Birthday Party

Ten years ago, for my mom's 50th birthday, we wanted to throw her a surprise party. But I was 17, Marisa was 14, and Kate was 10, so we had very few resources and even less money. It took a lot of elaborate planning because I didn’t yet have my own apartment. We had to have it in the park near our house, because we couldn't afford a venue, and because it was a public park there was very little room to hide. We told our mom that we were having a birthday lunch with just our family, and then begged Aunty Alexis and Uncle Steven to let us sleep over the night before, and we spent the night baking her cakes and prepping party decorations. We invited all of our friends and family, and people drove from all parts of California just to be there. She was totally surprised, which is why we were doubtful we could pull it off a second time.

For her 60th, it was a bit trickier, since it was on Zoom, and we were all still in quarantine. Kate and I were home and Marisa and Jackie were driving down for the weekend to celebrate. We had ordered party supplies to our house, but there were only so many places to keep them, so we had to order things to our relatives’ houses as well. Gwendolyn and I had a weekly baking date, and a couple of days before, I went over to her house to make lamingtons for dessert that she kept at her house until the day of the party. We ordered her favorite mango tart from a local bakery and some bagels for brunch.

We had Aunty Alexis take her out for a socially-distanced “birthday walk,” while Marisa, Kate, and I prepped spring rolls, cocktails, and decorations at the house. We had nearly 50 people log onto the Zoom, and then we surprised her when she walked into the house, and enjoyed a birthday with just our family. It was the perfect day and the perfect surprise.

27. Brass Monkey

There are two stories I like to tell about Brass Monkey, and they’re related. Brass Monkey is one of my favorite bars in New York—it’s in Chelsea and at first blush it looks like a regular grimy pub, but go up four stories and there’s a charming little rooftop that overlooks The High Line. They serve excellent Moscow Mules (I have no idea what makes them so good) and the vibe is just really nice for a night out. I also always have a really good time, every time I go. The first time I ever went, back in 2017, I’d just moved to the city and my cousin Jarrett was in town. We decided to go out drinking together and tried The Standard Biergarten; we had a couple of beers and a pretzel but it was loud and crowded and the bouncer was really obnoxious, so we went to Brass Monkey instead. I was in the bathroom, and a girl complimented my tattoo (the coordinates on my shoulder that I got while in Singapore). We talked a little bit, she and her friend told me that they were students at SVA, and the two of them joined me and Jarrett at our table. We hung out for most of the night, and I talked to the first girl, Jenna, while her friend talked to Jarrett, because I was lowkey trying to wingman him. But she was really cool! She told me about her aspirations to be an animator at Pixar, and we friended each other on Facebook, and we’re still Facebook friends to this day. She now works as a sets technical artist at Pixar, and even though we haven’t talked in years, it’s just nice to have that connection and that memory, and I still see her career updates on Facebook which is very endearing.

Fast forward to earlier this year, and my little Franklin was in town. The two of us, my grandlittle Annie (his little), and my boyfriend decided to go to Brass Monkey, and I told them the story of how I met Jenna. It was pretty crowded on the rooftop; everyone had been vaxxed and COVID cases were down, so bars were open, but we were still a little nervous. We spoke to the bouncer who was so incredibly nice, and cleared a table just for us by telling the occupants it was “reserved” (it was not), and we gratefully sat down and ordered drinks. Halfway through, I went to the bathroom, and was washing my hands when overheard two girls talking loudly in the stalls to each other. I can’t remember what they were talking about, but it was intensely personal.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry you had to hear that,” one of the girls said. I told her it was no problem. “Where are you from?” she asked. I told her California, but I’d lived in New York for four years. At that moment, another voice came from the stall.

“I’m from California, too!”

“Where from?” I asked.

“Palm Springs!” the voice answered.

“I’m from San Diego!” The four of us laughed, because it’s such a wonderfully girly thing, to make friends with the girls in bar bathrooms.

“That’s amazing,” the first girl said. She gestured to her friend. “We just moved here from Canada.” I told her welcome, and both girls beamed. “We’ve had such a crazy first week,” she gushed. She recounted the hell that is New York apartment hunting, all of the mishaps of public transportation. “We went to the U.S. Open today, and we got upgraded! We were sitting right next to the court!” she told me.

“Oh my god, I played in the U.S. Open today!” said the voice from the stall excitedly, and we all shrieked with laughter. She came out and introduced herself as Desirae. As it turned out, she’d not only played in the U.S. Open but won it—she was Desirae Krawczyk and she’d won the mixed doubles with her partner, an English player named Joe Salisbury. They were only in New York for a day, and then she was flying back to California the next day, but they were celebrating their win with their teammates at Brass Monkey. “Do you guys want to meet my partner?” she asked. The first two girls I’d met said an enthusiastic yes, and I agreed too, because how often do you get to meet professional tennis players fresh off the high of winning the U.S. Open? I had a very polite exchange with Joe, and then went back to our table.

I love these stories so much because to me they perfectly encapsulate the impeccable vibes of Brass Monkey and the kind of energy that you can only find in New York City, and have cemented it in my mind as one of my favorite places to go out in the city—good drinks, good dancing, good company.

I always have the best time there.

28. VIP treatment at a Laker’s game

My boyfriend and I recently spent some time in LA, and we stayed with my sister Marisa and her boyfriend, Jackie. We had no plans one night and Jackie asked us if we wanted to go to a Lakers game, and we said yes.

“Okay, but how much are you willing to spend?” he asked me.

“Uhh...I don’t know. Like max $70?” (I do not know how much sports games cost)

“How about a hundred?” he pressed, and I agreed. He was scrolling around on Ticketmaster for a while, and then said, “Okay, how about $200?”

“$200?!” I said incredulously. That’s like...floor seats at a Broadway musical. Maybe even orchestra.

“Okay, wait,” he said. “There’s free food included.” Interesting. “And unlimited alcohol.” Even more interesting. We agreed. It was my boyfriend’s first time in LA and he’s a big sports person, and for all the years my sister had lived in LA, she’d never been to a Lakers game, so why not go all out? I’d seen these kinds of VIP-adjacent seating before...usually one big glass box suspended high above the game, with buffet tables and seating scattered throughout. We get to the venue and the usher led us to an upstairs level—there was a small buffet with a salad bar, carving stations, charcuterie, the works, and a bunch of tables next to a railing. I wondered how we would eat and watch the game at the same time, as the tables were situated so that you’d be about eye level with the railing; you’d have to stand up to really see the action down below. But the usher led us past that, down further into a small, private booth with a menu on the table, real place settings, and a TV in front of a glass wall. The four of us were absolutely awestruck.

“This is...for us?!” we kept asking. The place cards on the table said “Reserved for Mr. XXX,” and it finally clicked: these were private season ticket holder booths. You can’t just waltz into Ticketmaster and buy these normally—this was someone’s private booth that was reserved for them year-round. For some reason, he’d decided not to attend tonights game and had listed his seats on Ticketmaster at a discount. It was insane. It was where I imagine the president would sit should he ever decide to attend an NBA game. It was better than floor seats, because we got a comfy booth and we weren’t in a glass box. We got our own private waiter, Colin, who was an absolute sweetheart, and kept offering us more beer and wine. I think Jackie and I ate two full plates of food and Marisa and my boyfriend ate about four apiece. And the Lakers won! What a game.

“I don’t think I can ever go to a normal Lakers game,” Marisa mused at the end of the night. We all agreed it was an experience that none of us would ever have again. Lucky us.

And that’s it! 28 stories for 28 years. I loved all of these so much, and it was so nice revisiting all of the memories from my childhood and this blog (which I’ve now been writing for seven years!).

Cheers to many more.

21. things i’ve learned by 21

22. thoughts on 22

23. bits of gratitude in 23

24. moments from 24

25. goals for 25

26. my favorite things

27. acts of kindness

Read “A Short Oral History of Us” for more family stories and how we got here

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