Dreaming is my whole personality
Picnic Journal Issue #7
Hi readers, I missed last week’s newsletter and it has been bugging me ever since.
Because of my new schedule and lack of work-life balance, I’ve decided to start sending my weekly newsletters out on Monday mornings (KST). That way, it gives me my Sunday evenings to type, think and feel safe in my creative space. I know that nobody really cares about my self-inflicted deadlines and missing newsletters, so this is mostly an apology for myself and a solution to help me keep on track with this project. I am really enjoying these newsletters and I hope that a busy schedule and general pandemic fatigue won’t get in my way of keeping it alive…
Here is a bonus iPad doodle I did on my lunch break last week as a way to say ‘I’m sorry but hey, let’s enjoy it while we’re here’.
Now that the rabbit is out of the hat, welcome to another installment of me pretending to be a capable adult human who also happens to draw things!
Here are three things I spent a lot of time thinking about this week:
Dreaming is my personality
Instead of using the silly words from my brain, I thought I’d pluck some from a passage of a book I glanced at last week called ‘Speculative Everything’ by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. It’s a great book about speculative design that I have definitely finished reading.
Dreams are powerful. They are repositories of our desire. They animate the entertainment industry and drive consumption. They can blind people to reality and provide cover for political errors. But they can also inspire us to imagine that things could be radically different than they are today, and then believe we can progress toward that imaginary world.
Put down the phone
Last week my screen time was down about 50%. I averaged about 2 hours of looking at my phone per day. I usually spend a LOT more time looking at my meme, I mean, screen, than that. This is a really good indicator that my life is in chaos right now. Didn’t even have time to look at my phone? What’s wrong with me? Ugh. (The reality is that while my phone screen time decreased, my computer screen time just about quadrupled).
2 things are enough, I reckon?
Yeah, let’s quit while we’re ahead.
Weekly Doodle
This is another old doodle from another time. It is strange to think that I did this over a year ago. It feels like last week. I keep this print in a frame next to my computer to remind myself of these words on a daily basis. I don’t know, it just makes me happy and I hope it makes you feel an emotion too. It always reassures me to know that I am constantly growing and changing and learning new things. Something I messed up today will be something I do with ease tomorrow. Always good to pull yourself off of your worry horse and use a flower analogy to come back down to earth.
What I watched this week
Taskmaster (2015 - Present)
I recently discovered this gem of a show on YouTube a full six years after its inception. I have never seen such a hilarious, smart and creative ‘game show’ in all of my days. I use the term game show lightly as it is so much more than that. If you haven’t heard of it, it is a show where 5 comedians are given tasks to complete and a ‘Taskmaster’ ranks their performance based on how well he thought they did. The tasks and the show itself are created by Alex Horne who I am sad I hadn’t heard of before this year. There are so many full episodes you can watch for free on YouTube, but I prefer watching highlights from across the seasons. Enjoy!
Gwarosa: Working to Death in South Korea | Foreign Correspondent (August 2021)
On a less joyful note, I watched this news report on delivery drivers in South Korea. It is really devastating and I suggest you watch it if you order things online in Korea.
This week’s video:
I posted on YouTube this week. It’s a long one so strap yourself in. It’s basically just me complaining about being tired and cleaning my skincare collection. Enjoy!
Don’t forget to give my content a like or subscribe to my channel if you enjoy my content! It always helps, but no pressure. It’s cool.
Favourite follow on IG this week:
@eggtabel
Jess is one of those people I follow on Instagram who could literally post a picture of a carrot and somehow make it look adorable. Jess makes her own stickers and other stationery and she draws cute things and has one of the most beautiful journals I have ever laid my eyeballs on.
The song I can’t stop listening to:
I genuinely had no idea that J Biebs played a role in this quintessential ~ internet song. The fact that I can’t stop listening to this song says more about my phone scrolling habits than the quality of this song. Somehow, my husband and I will both start randomly singing TikTok songs out of context even though neither of us has TikTok installed on our phones.
Goals for This Week
Goal #1 - Get through the week
Goal #2 - Rinse and repeat
Goal #3 - Publish next week’s newsletter on time and write slightly less apocalyptic things about myself.
Thank you for reading. Have a great week and don’t forget to lean into your flaws, that’s where the good human-y bits are.
Keep in Touch
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