I finally 'get' Harry Potter + self portrait doodle
Picnic Journal Issue #20
Hi! Hello! It has been a while! I was busy… watching Harry Potter? Here are three things I spent a lot of time thinking about recently even though you didn’t ask:
1. Harry Potter makes so much sense now!
I spent 26 years telling people that I disliked Harry Potter. Even though the first book was published a year after I was born, I knew from day 0 that it wasn’t going to be the universe for me. People would talk about it at lunchtime, have Harry Potter themed birthday parties, play with Harry Potter Lego sets and ask each other which house they belonged to.
For 26 years, I had no idea what people were talking about. Every attempt I made to read the books resulted in me getting frustrated. I was a notoriously terrible reader as a child and to this day I am still self-conscious about my slow reading pace. Years went by, people brushed off my dislike for Potter and film releases came and went.
This week felt like the perfect time to watch the franchise from the beginning and try to understand what on earth a Horcrux is. My husband’s enthusiasm for spells and Harry Potter lore kept me motivated. I get it now. I get the wands and the things and the spells and the Voldemort stuff. I even found myself dreaming about Harry Potter. I am pleased to be writing my first issue of Picnic Journal as a Harry Potter fan.
2. Fresh air should be sold in bottles
Cute, little glass bottles with pipettes for dropping a splash of freshness into your nostrils every 30 minutes. It’s something you don’t know you need until you escape from the city for a weekend and realise how much clearer your thoughts are and how deep your breaths can be. We spent the weekend at Sangha Farm along the west coast of the Korean Peninsula. It was a magical experience and something I would recommend to everyone living in Korea. You can go for a day or stay in their gorgeous hotel. The food is fresh, you can feed cows and sheep and goats, there is something for everyone to enjoy. The farm is owned by Maeil Dairies.
3. Am I the only person who didn’t know what WWE was until this week?
I was this week old when I realised that The Rock and John Cena didn’t become Hollywood stars out of evaporated sports drinks. They had a life before Moana and whatever movies John Cena was in. I also didn’t know about the world of WWE and the role-playing and storytelling and characters? It’s really insane? I’m so confused? Is it supposed to make sense? Trying to understand Harry Potter is all my brain can handle this week.
Recent Doodles
I drew a self-portrait of myself. It’s highly accurate because it’s a self-portrait.
I had a bit of an emo week this week but at least I channelled my emotions into getting lots of doodles done. I feel like my style has evolved so much in this sketchbook and I am itching to fill it up and start a fresh one. I just placed an order for a Nina Cosford Sketchbook and I can’t wait for it to arrive. I want to try and support more of the artists I love and follow on Instagram. I feel like my money is better spent when I feel an attachment to the artist selling the item.
What I’ve been watching
Harry Potter
I think I covered this part already. I think my favourite one was definitely Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Is that a controversial opinion? I don’t know and I don’t care because I am new to Harry Potter and I’ll do what I want.
What I’m reading
Crying in H Mart
by Michelle Zauner
I finally finished reading this book on the bullet train from Yeosu back to Seoul on the weekend. I cried on the train, I cried yesterday on the bus and I cried a few other times before that. I haven’t read a book like this before, I usually try to avoid books and conversations and thoughts about death and grief but Michelle’s writing made it so much more compelling than I could have ever imagined. Everything from her relationship with Korea, her mother’s battle with cancer, her relationship with her father, I don’t know it was all so comforting and heartbreaking at the same time. I found small bursts of connection to her story but then other things felt so foreign. Such a beautiful gift to the world.
Recent YouTube Videos
Want to see what I get up to as a foreigner living in Seoul, South Korea? Check out my YouTube channel. I post videos every so often on there!
Doodle with me / My study and career path toward UX Design / Why I studied Industrial Design
I was so nervous to post this video but now I’m not so nervous and I’m ready to make another one! #growth
Goals for this week
My goal this week is to clean up my digital footprint a little bit
I find social media very overwhelming (don’t we all?) I can’t live very soundly with it, but living without it would not be fun (um, hello #fomo!?). I love posting on Instagram and YouTube and of course here on my newsletter, but every so often I just lose hope in myself and wonder why I am spending time trying to post things and share things that never really mean anything or amount to anything.
It’s a conflicting thing but maybe if I thought less about it, posted what I wanted, reduced the amount of doom scrolling I do and clean up the footprint I want to leave online... well then maybe I can reduce the number of social media-related existential crises that I have. It’s hard to say whether or not social media gave me mental health issues because I have spent half my life with a social media account. I don’t really know what my brain feels like without it.
Thank you for reading. Have a great week and don’t forget to write things down.
Not for anyone else, just for you. Get it all out of your brain and onto paper. You don’t need to keep it, just get it out and free up some brain space for life’s big questions like ‘why did those poor kids keep going back to Hogwarts, year after year?’ It’s the biggest mystery to me. Glad I have the brain space to ponder over this for the next few weeks thanks to my journaling habit.