No Mud No Lotus

 The title essentially says it all, but the slightly more expanded version is below:

The book stays pretty practical on the topic of suffering, ie. being light on the religious ideology. Actually the entire second half of the book is how to put mindfulness in practice, which I very much appreciate but am not super motivated to adopt. One idea I wasn't clear on is the distinction between joy and happiness, it was quickly explained as:

A mindfulness practitioner is able to generate joy or happiness. It is not hard. There’s a little difference between joy and happiness. Joy still has some of the element of excitement or anticipation in it. In happiness, there is ease and freedom.

I did notice, after reading de Botton's Religion for Atheists, that there was a lot of repetition. It was indeed helpful to learn new concepts. 

2021 clothes

There was a thread a while back on FFA about a user planning their aesthetic goals for the next year in September as their own September issue. I think it's a great idea and takes some pressure off January as the general goal setting time (not that I've kept that up).

I think for the couple of years in undergrad, my focus was to build a solid foundation of clothes, which I more or less achieved. The recent few years have been shifted towards picking out pieces with more design elements that I both like and flatter me (and sadly looking at the pieces that I like but aren't flattering cause I still wanna look good 😭). This process definitely still isn't complete, and the goldilock direction I want to focus on the upcoming 12 months are:

• Pleated skirts: a midi-length in faux leather or metallic colors. I've held off getting more pleated skirts despite loving this design as I'm worried that the pleats can easily be crushed or loosen. However I've been reassured that the pleats are very durable. I'm still trying to find the perfect midi length for me, and I theoretically think that it should be right under the calves. But overall I still like above the knee skirts the best, but alas it's less work appropriate and less dramatic of a silhouette.
• Wrap dresses: it seems like this is not a currently trending silhouette as I can't find many options :( why is an inherently adjustable piece of clothing not constantly popular!
• Pleated pants: I've been haunted by images on Pinterest of fluidly draped pleated pants and have not even seen product images that live up to my expectations. There also seem to be a conflict in me wanting 100% wool pants and the drape that seem to be only achievable in artificial fibres. Pants are already hard to shop for online, drape-y pants even more so. I've set my target on cream pleated pants in flannel, but am not placing too much hope on finding it. 
• Colour schemes of pink / grey for winter, lavender for summer: a big benefit of wearing a lot of black & white is not dealing with color inaccuracies when shopping online. Lavender is especially difficult, I've already returned 2/2 lavender items I've ordered online :(
• Hair accessories and hair styles: my hair is definitely the part of my appearance that I'm most clueless about and consequently most conscious about. Actually, it's more accurate to say that I don't want to heat style my hair at any regular frequency, and find my natural texture to not be the easiest to work with otherwise. Except I just discovered that it's a good fit for traditional Chinese hair styles, especially the half-up ones. I'm also super into elaborate hair sticks with lots of dangling bits, and so am slowly upping my comfort around wearing hair accessories. 
• Wear more accessories and jewelry in general: chiefly the whole bunch of small & medium square scarves 
• Not be tempted to buy more outerwear or shoes, but maybe another bag if I have leftover money 

The Sorrows of Young Werther

I'm surprised that I liked the flowery language of this book as I usually get very bogged down in those. It does match the main character's passionate tendencies and is well written / translated that it read very smoothly. In contrast, Dickens (okay not the greatest comparison but bear with me) was super laborious to read. Also surprising is that I don't feel very empathetic or sympathetic to Werther. 

green

 I'm no longer hung up over a forest green coat because I realized I must rather wear the color in a bag:

It's doubtful that I would purchase any of these, but imaging a shelf with these lined up is very satisfying.

navy

 I finally don't want a forest green coat anymore. More on that in the next post. But what better time to lust after coats than the passing of the autumn equinox? 

The reigning champion of my coat obsession has been Simon's Cifonelli coat ever since I saw them in his hat review. I'm pretty sure Cifonelli doesn't offer bespoke for women, and that I probably can't afford it for many years to come even if they do. But there's now at least two bespoke makers for women in London so I can fulfill my dream eventually. The other two images are RTW options, but honestly I wouldn't settle for either even if they are currently being sold. 

The next, also old, obsession is the pairing of grey and pink. I haven't come across a perfect pink coat yet, but I'm less exacting on the requirements for this so I should be able to find a RTW version. So far it needs to have peak collars and have a fairly slim but straight cut in the body, ideally knee length. 

bobble

I've been considering my sweaters for a long time now, probably since this time last year. It's at the awkward stage where I have more than enough items to wear, and I do like the items. Yet I've also found items that I like more, are better quality, and are chosen collectively to form a more cohesive wardrobe. But it's hard to justify getting rid of some of my current perfectly fine sweaters, since it's wasteful. Perhaps I'll finally do the deed this winter, or maybe next winter. 

Likely incoming pieces:

• IOAN undyed alpaca crewneck 
• Navygrey grey merino funnel neck 
• &Daughter navy cashmere rollneck

...

As of this month, I've also exceed the number of clothing pieces that I limited myself to purchasing for this year. None of the items are what I originally planned for.

The Course on Love

This is my favourite de Botton book, probably because I am the most familiar with the subject haha. 

My favourite quotation is below:

Some others:

He will continue to trust in the possibility of rapid, wholehearted understanding and empathy between two human beings and in the chance of a definitive end of loneliness.

That it is ‘unnecessary’ in the practical sense to marry only serves to render the ideal more compelling emotionally

But fantasies are often the best thing we can make of our multiple and contradictory wishes; they allow us to inhibit one reality with destroying the other.

Melancholy [...] is a species of intellectual grief which arises when we come face to face with the certainty that disappointment is written into the script from the start.

fortune

 A belated birthday cake for Jeff and I:

It's the peach cake from Daango, which is definitely my favourite cake shop in Toronto. Very tasty Asian flavours, and super cute too. We also got a bonus slice of durian cake:

I've yet to convert Jeff into a durian lover :( 

neighbour

 A couple of photos from time at mom's house that escaped:

I really enjoy shots of home interiors with a defined light source but otherwise very low light. Jasper, one of Edward's friends, take a lot of photos in this type of lighting and they are superb.

...

Somwhat abstract food photo two, this time featuring a strawberry & blueberry square (via Woks of Life). Insanely easy recipe, taste great (even better with softly whipped cream on top). Tho I do prefer lighter cake textures, chiffon and sponge cakes are my fav.

...

Sunsets are always nice. If only the house was one storey higher, the trees always block the best part.

Consolations of Philosophy

 Another Alain de Botton book, they hit a good balance of friendly, self-help tone and bigger ideas. 

Some quotations to remember:

But reassurance can be the cruelest antidote to anxiety. Our rosiest predictions both leave the anxious unprepared for the worst, and unwittingly imply that it would be disastrous if the worst comes to pass.

Wisdom lies in correctly discerning where we are free to mould reality according to our wishes and where we must accept the unalterable with tranquility. 

Friendship a minor conspiracy against what other people think as normal.

 

What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.

^this is definitely my favourite 😂

The art of living lies in finding uses for our adversities

^a commonly repeated idea but I like how this is worded the best

The last chapter features Nietzsche on the topic of difficulties and it being essential to success. I was very surprised that there was no mention of the existential theme. Then I realized the whole book is written in the way that you don't need to know anything prior about each philosopher to appreciate each chapter's message. Easily digestible philosophy is my favourite kind. 

sub specie aeternitatus

Another full revolution around the sun and I have mixed feelings about how much wiser I've gotten. The truth is I feel I've made a lot of progress and yet I could have known years ago. Why is this true, because I feel like the big ideas that I've sorted out in the past 1.5 years is all contained in the first 5 chapters of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I first read back in middle school. Granted that was perhaps a little early for the same ideas to really lodge in my head, but I did also find evidence that I was anxious about the same things from this doodle from early high school featuring one of my stuffed animals:

To summarize the lessons learned: gain perspective and make decisions.

wave

 A few weeks ago, I found the almost perfect painting that I would like to hang in my living space. Almost for 2 reasons: one is I'd prefer the scene to be the ocean at night, and two is I want a giant painting, like at least 4'x4'. Considering that this is 1 square foot and likely over $400 after shipping and duties, and that price and size is likely an exponential correlation rather than a linear, I was very motivated to pick up painting again. 

As much as I'd like to go straight to oil paints, it was hard to go to an art supply store in person and I wasn't ready to drop so much money on supplies. But I did find my old oil pastels and watercolours (tho I swear I should have another unopened set of watercolours) and ran with those. At this point I must admit that drawing and by extensive accurate depiction of form is my biggest weakness and I have little desire to improve my abilities. Light and color are the aspects of painting that I enjoy. 

I originally intended to do side-by-side oil pastel & watercolour for each reference photo, but alas my oil pastels are too difficult to blend. It was so much faster to just do watercolor. Also do forgive the wrinkly paper as I was too lazy to stretch my paper properly (and to buy heavier weight paper. 

near Durdle Door

near Durdle Door

Philosopher's Walk

西来古镇 (opps just realized I missed a lot of details in this one now that I'm looking at a larger size eference photo)

I do think I got progressively better?

the void is loud

 Another song, another week x2

Autumn In June · Autumn In June - Wandering Around (feat. MOONZz)

This is very easily stuck in your head

spire

I have two cookbooks dedicated to bread gathering dust on the shelves (I flipped through the pages of one of the cookbooks once, the other is unopened), but I am making some recipes that I've made before. Repetition is highly underrated for cooking. 

Made Honey&Co's bukhari bread (first time was part of a H&C feast). I didn't recall the bread being so dense the first time, it tasted much better toasted the following days.

I thought that it would taste great with a whipped and honey'd ricotta. Having read numerous warnings on the internet about the general poor quality of store bought ricotta (though I never verified this claim), I set to make my own after doing so a couple of times in Bath. Unfortunately the texture wasn't as great this time, a little too rubbery. I'm gonna blame the quality of milk here, even though it's the fancy in-a-glass-bottle organic milk. Makes me nostalgic for the super creamy jersey cow milk that Sainsbury sold for half the price of the organic milk ;o;

Also made pizza again (and will for the third time to use up the tomato sauce and cheese), can you tell the chorizo apart from the cherry tomato? The dough didn't crisp up as much on the bottom this time :( Will try to bake it for a minute more next time, or to lower the position of the rack.