Is Ratatouille the Best Pixar Movie Ever?
Picnic Journal Issue #5
There is finally a summer breeze in Seoul
Welcome to the fifth edition of Picnic in Your Pocket, the world’s tiniest Picnic Newsletter? I hope nobody takes that title from me. This week was a brain explosion for my brain, but also a week of breezy summer air and ice cream and sweaty walks outside. I discovered that the coffee shop in my apartment building is amazing so I went there twice in one day.
I hope that you, the person reading this, find some laughter or joy or introspect from reading my newsletter. I also hope you had a great week and that through whatever is currently making you anxious or sad or happy or angry, you can still stop to appreciate how amazing you are. I’m not kidding. I mean, these past two years have been shit. the fact that you are finding reasons to smile or cry are signs that you’re doing well. Just keep being you in all of your emotional glory.
Here are three things I spent a lot of time thinking about this week:
A mid-week hike feels like freedom
This week, I decided to take ‘hump day’ literally and climb up a literal mountain on a Wednesday evening. I almost couldn’t make it to the top, but I realised that wouldn’t be very on brand for hump day. The point is to get over the hump, and to show yourself what you can do! So that’s what I did! The summer air was cool, the events of my day dissolved and became a distant memory and I just focussed on moving my legs in a sort of hiking motion. I hope to take advantage of my close proximity to this particular mountain while I am still working remotely because it really did feel like freedom.
I’m f**king amazing
Lol. I actually didn’t do too much introspection this week, I was too tired. But, this thought did cross my mind several times when I was trying to hype myself up and out of my imposter syndrome state. Imposter syndrome is really not useful to me, so maybe I should just not feel like that anymore? Okay, done! I’m no longer a sufferer of imposter syndrome. Wow, it’s that easy? Cool.
Questions are more valuable than answers?
I’m still marinating this thought in my head, but asking questions is really valuable. I think we all know this. Are they more valuable than answers, probably? The clarification that comes from just asking or questioning or trying to understand…. I think so? Let’s get back to this one. Marination in process.
Weekly Doodle
This week’s doodle is an actual doodle. Doodling in a journal for the sake of doodling. Not thinking about what I am drawing, not worried about the end result, just letting myself doodle until the page is full. Then adding colour to bring those doodles to life and help them jump out of the page. That’s what doodling is to me. I’ll never stop doodling. I used highlighter and black fine liner in the back of my Moleskine.
What I watched this week
Ratatouille (2007)
This week I revisited a part of my childhood that I didn’t need a therapist’s help to explore: the 2007 critically acclaimed Pixar film ‘Ratatouille’. I have watched my fair share of Pixar films over the years. Surprisingly, the one that has made me cry the least in recent years might actually have turned out to be the best?
I was a total mess after watching ‘Soul’, I began to think I was a licensed psychologist after ‘Inside Out’, Coco, Up, Toy Story 4. Blah blah blah yeah I cried watching all of them, but are teary eyes the sign that a film is good?
Ratatouille somehow felt the most relevant to my life? How does that work? Also, there is no other film like Ratatouille. Show me a film where a tiny rat sits on a man’s head, controlling his cooking by tugging on his hair like a jockey riding a horse. Show me! Best Pixar movie out there. Goodbye. I won’t be taking questions at this time.
Desperate Housewives
For some reason I started watching season one of Desperate Housewives this week. It makes me really nostalgic. During my school holidays, I used to go to the library and borrow just about any DVD or CD I could find. We never had pay TV and could only really watch the movies we had at home.
It feels so weird to type this because it wasn’t that long ago that I was in high school. But how things have changed? Because of these library adventures, I was only able to get a season of a show here or a season of a show there. I never fully finished any of the shows because it was hard to borrow all of the seasons at once. I’m really grateful that I did this because this is how I discovered so much great music at a young age. I loved listening to Eva Cassidy, The Cat Empire, Sia’s old music and basically any and every film soundtrack. I loved the Moulin Rouge soundtrack long before I ever even watched the film.
Anyway, Desperate Housewives season one was one of those DVD’s that I borrowed on school holidays. I never moved onto season two but I felt super mature and fancy for watching it. Also, the story lines are hilarious and ridiculous. I didn’t realise this was a comfort to me until this week, and indulging in comforts is the best thing to do as an expat living abroad during a pandemic. Do what you have to do, people!
On the Blog
A morning at the Namdaemun flower market
Last Saturday was a perfect morning to get out of bed early and head to the Namdaemun Flower Market. We got there by 7:30 am and most of the flowers had been picked through by the florists and business owners who had come before us…
Favourite follow on IG this week:
@trudeiskrude
Natascha Baumgärtner aka trudeiskrude is a fave IG illustrator of mine. Her colours, line work, form, and other terms I learned in art class, are all beautiful. Definitely check out her page to see if you’re also a fan. The only shortcoming with her work is that she doesn’t write any captions. I’m not sure how that makes you feel, but it makes me feel dead inside. But check out her work!
The song I can’t stop listening to:
Olivia Rodrigo - favorite crime
I wrote in an IG story this week that Olivia Rodrigo is basically the person I thought I was when I was 18, but wasn’t at all. I love her music so much because it instantly teleports me into my 18 year old brain and it is so comforting. It helps me understand things about my teenage years that I never had the time or the skills to process. This is my favourite song from her album. I thought I loved listening to it until I heard her sing it live… on a roof…
Every Olivia Rodrigo song is like a teen romance coming of age film packed into a 3 minute music video. I can’t believe that we get to watch things like this for free. Definitely watch this video if you haven’t seen it or if you’re a fan or a soon-to-be fan!
Goals for This Week
You are strong enough to do hard things
This was my mentality last week and I’m going to carry it on through to next week. I have been really freakishly bold in putting my hand up for things at work. It really makes all the difference. ‘Okay, who will lead this project?’ ‘I will, why the heck not?’ ‘Hey, who wants to give a brief presentation in our meeting next week?’ ‘Yeah, I’ll go for it, I’d love to’. I mean, who am I? Actually, I have always been like this but I wasn’t expecting to be doing this kind of stuff in my second week at a new job. Take this as your own motivation to put your hand up for something that sounds scary or hard. Like this title suggests, ‘you’re strong enough to do hard things’. I actually just read that this morning on an Instagram story. (On my favourite accounts @eggtabel!!!) Have a great week, and take everything I say with a grain of salt. Also, this newsletter was super nostalgic? Let’s unpack that in next week’s newsletter, I have a plane to catch.
Thank you for reading. Have a great week and don’t forget to stop vaping, you look really stupid.
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