#i love the little poses on the turnarounds too they feel so fitting

[qwuilty]

THIS IS NOT A DRILL SEASONS 1 AND 2 HAVE BEEN SAVED TO INTERNET ARCHIVE AND INCLUDE FULL QUALITY TURNAROUND CHARACTER REFERENCES

https://archive.org/details/cad-animated-iso

ARCHIVE USER NAPKIN67 I OWE YOU MY LIFE AND MY AXE IS YOURS 💥💥

[echonidae]

a buncha headshot portraits! three out of five portraits, i'm finishing up the last two c: the sketches here are from way back in august/september, and i fiddled with them for some weeks on end trying to make Something out of them, then proceeded to frustratedly shelf the lot of them away. so it's nice to see at least these three all finished up now :') and they were really nice to work on too ;v;

but ohoho okay, this is a lot of announcements in one single post, so bear with me a moment :3c here's a tl;dr first: 1) headshot portraits as a new commission option maybe? :0ccc 2) commissions are opening again on monday, jan. 23rd! 3) separate commission info webpage for reading convenience (particularly for folks on mobile) 4) commission rules changes: payment in full & upfront, rather than half-and-half 5) two-slots-per-person rule will be no more and folks are free to send as many orders as they want, but any ones after the second will go into the queue instead 6) also a small change with unoccupied queue slots

the rest is under the readmore :')

so, i've been thinking about adding this sort of portrait as a commission option!! fairly simple compositions but fully rendered (because i darn love painting so much; cellshading is nice and all, but coloring it all in one layer is just... heart-eyes), on the big 2600px to 3800px canvases as well c: and i'm thinking of pricing commissions like these at 28 USD (feels like a good price but i'm accepting feedback on that — the point was to add something that's just straight up fully-rendered, but for the lower end of the pricetable, and the limitations of a headshot portrait feel fitting enough on both sides ;v; )

also portraits like these are fairly quick to draw, so the turnaround time would be fairly short! add to it that 1) these are fun, 2) i could use focusing on just the face and expressions rather than elaborate poses and all, 3) portraiture lighting my beloved, and 4) these are painted, and don't take forever to figure out or paint. :D but yeah, let me know what you think of the headshot portrait option!! would you folks be interested in something like this? :0c

and now hold on a moment, i have more things to say!! xD

commissions are reopening monday, jan. 23rd, at the usual 5pm BRT (UTC -3:00)!

6 active slots (previously known as regular slots; can't believe it's taken me years to figure out a better way of calling these orz), as well as another 24 slots on queue. these will remain open until further notice; money's tight right now, hence the lack of closing date :')

there should be plenty of slots either way tho, so no rush at all! but i apologize for the super short notice orz

also, i went and got all the commission info on a separate webpage on wix instead. here you go!

should be easier to access and read through stuff, particularly on mobile — or at least i sincerely hope it is, please leave me feedback if you can!!! let me know if you encounter Problems, i've looked and combed through every bit of these four (4) pages but i might have missed stuff still, pretty please let me know if you run into any Issues! ;-;

but yeah, the website has all the rules and info and all the different options as well, with extra examples and all. on monday, you'll also be able place orders directly through there, i made a little form and all c': technically the form is already there but pls don't send requests yet, i can't reserve slots ahead of time!

also also, and these are the last things i've got to say, i promise (and thank you if you've read this far!),

a couple commission rules are changing!

1) from this new batch onwards, i'll be charging commissions in full & upfront instead of the half-half system i'd been doing up until this point. the exception is if an order exceeds $80 USD; for those ones we'll return to the half-before-sketch + half-once-finished situation instead!

but how's that? :0c i hope this is alright, but please let me know if this would make commissions just... unaffordable ;o; i do really like the half-half system, and i'd rather keep it, but it's either this or raising prices, and i don't think i can do that yet :T either way, please let me know your thoughts on the matter!!

2) the only-two-slots-per-person rule will no longer be in effect, so go ham with multiple orders if you wish on monday — the caveat is that i'll still be working only on two orders at a time per person, so if you order three things, the third one will be placed at the end of the queue c:

looking back i could've... done this from the beginning. orz it should be more convenient to send multiple orders if you have 'em!

and finally, 3) if the queue list hits its closing date with slots still available, folks who have already ordered and would like to get in the queue again can go on and grab those empty queue slots if they want, instead of being limited to two slots per person per batch, and then having to wait for an entire new batch.

i opened this exception for the last round of commissions (thank you once again to the folks who wanted repeats ;-; ) so i thought i should just make it into a proper thing instead, since it does make sense to do it anyway — the queue list is purposefully filled with a ton of slots, then left open for weeks on end to make sure everyone interested can get their orders in, so letting folks claim those remaining slots after the deadline sounds fine ;v;

that being said, there won't be a deadline for this monday's batch, so this bit technically doesn't change anything xD but i thought i should mention the New Thing #6!

and that's it! that's all!

while i'm pretty set on most of these (specially the full-upfront-payment bit — again, money's tight orz), i'm still definitely open to feedback, and to change things if something doesn't work for you folks!! please do share your thoughts on it, or send a note if you'd rather!! and let me know if you have any questions too ;v; 

i apologize for the super short notice again (and for cramming all of this into a single post) orz i'll be sorting things out until 5pm on monday, and getting these last commissions posted as well c:

thank you again for reading all of this orz and please don't feel obligated to reply to all the points if you have thoughts on only a specific one, i'd rather hear a little feedback than none at all ;o;

all in all, hope at least these portraits look nice, they were fun to work on :') Oliver, Owen and Steffan (previously known as the Swordsman/the Warlock — yup he's got a name now!); i'll get the other two of Matthew and Coriander done and posted!

thanks again folks, have a nice friday! ;w;

[nighttimepixels]

Heyhey Night! I have a buncha questions after seeing all your animations and they're just so cool so! I hope this is ok!! Can u animate normally too, or only pixel? Not that that's bad, just wondering! What's ur preferred kinda animation? Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs? What's the hardest part of the animation process?? What's ur favorite?? Any part u don't like? What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into? Do u have a fave animation u've done? Thank u btw for all ur art!!

Oh stars, okay, yeah- I’m happy to answer all these!! I’ll break them up so it’s easier to read X) And awww geez thank you so much for your support, sweet anon! It really makes my day when people say they like anything I’ve made, and stars knows it’s all the more true with the sweet sweet time sink that is animation   (´•̥̥̥\\ヮ\\•̥̥̥` )

I’ll also put this under a cut since it gets a bit long :)

Can u animate normally too, or only pixel?

This one cracks me up a little, don’t worry about it XD I totally can! In fact I enjoy it a lot - and... gods, animation software is a nightmare and a half, to be honest. That’s the biggest hurdle.

I do just straight up love pixel art and the aesthetic I can achieve with it, but I do at times miss ‘normal’ (non pixel?) animation, heh. Especially sound-syncing! I do all my pixel art in Asesprite which imo is the best pixel art program, not to mention made by an actual pixel artist - buuuut it doesn’t have a sound file option. Which makes sense! Er, frankly, most pixel artists wouldn’t... use it to animate like I do? More for games, or for looping gifs? So I can’t complain much, it makes a lot of sense that it’s a low dev priority.

Now, when it comes to other animation programs... I’ve tried a lot. Unfortunately, the ones that are preferable for the feel I like are either way out of budget (stares at TVPaint in the distance) or... well, have too high a learning curve for my single-person workflow, really. (OpenToonz, sigh...) And a lot of the free programs are good for getting a start in animation, but once you get to a certain point you really feel the limitations (whether it’s workflow, sound import, exports, trying to make something more finished than a rough...).

Then... there’s animation programs I just don’t like, and a lot of those are angled towards bone-style animations (nothing wrong with those, they just don’t fit my style? and are too much time investment for a single artist to output more quickly...), or are, well, freakin’ Adobe Animate.

I... gods, I do not like Animate (formerly Flash). And I made a whole 2 minute+ animation in it a couple years ago! (It’s very rough and bad and doesn’t make sense, pfff, not gonna link it XD) It’s... clunky, and vector oriented, and freaking lines don’t go where I want them too, and it tries to predict too much?? It’s hard to put to words, gah. For me, my animation style would be much more... raster oriented. Flow, hand drawn inbetweens, yaddayadda. Animate’s great for... plenty of things, but not for that kind of animation. There are far better animators than I who make it work with freakin’ aplomb though! So really, it’s just my taste, haha.

.... Er, that got long! I’ll cut off more rambling about animation software and tl;dr boil it down to “I love animating period, but turnaround is something I have to keep in mind as a freelancer, as well as budget, and my current focus is pixel animations for a number of reasons.” X)

What's ur preferred kinda animation?

I’m not exactly sure what this one means! Between pixel and non-pixel? Er, they both have their pros and cons, so I couldn’t say! But if I have to break down my current animations into categories, I’d say I have cutscenes, loop environments, and the broad game-like animations...

The first would be something like this animation feat. teasing Edge, the second would be something like this one with skesgo’s Starlan and Cinnamon, and the third is... everything else! From headsprite loops to ‘small’ characters running and so on.

Honestly, they’re all a lot of fun for different reasons! Cutscenes are generally the most challenging, but they give me the chance to push my limits and try and pull off something cool, whether I’m having to conserve frames (to keep the cost of a commission down) or whether I’m going more all out (which is a pricey commission, or a fun personal project, lol).

Loop environments are their own challenge - it may not look like it, but I put a lot of thought into how to make them look as natural as possible! From timing of talking characters, to where to place a blink, to exactly how many frames it’ll take to ‘soften’ a motion (so people aren’t just snapping between major poses) and so on - it takes... a lot of time to animate even simple scenes well, so I do a lot of mental math on how I can keep things affordable when someone approaches me for a commission. And frankly, I totally undercharge;; but I do my best!

Game-like animations are just fun. They range, they’re silly, to intense (I’ve animated fight animations before for game concepts), to indulgent, and beyond! Headsprites are always a delight, especially if I get to push the expression X) and I love tiny things (I mean... I am a pixel artist...) so getting to make lil tiny babs even just walking can be fun - and also, a lot more time consuming than you might thing, esp if you wanna make it smooth, like this lil Frisk I did last month or so:

Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs?

oTL

B... both??

Okay, lipsyncing basically is very time consuming. AND, I freakin’ love it. I love puzzles, and when it boils down to it, that’s what super fun & expressive lip syncing is (some Ghibli animations are the heckin’ best for this)...

and, I’m a pixel artist, without sound-syncing capabilities in her main art program oTL Yeah, I can export frames and line them up and check but... gods, it’s so time consuming. I’ve tried it out of desperation - but for even five seconds of sound (sayyyyy a lil Vine...) that’s hours upon hours of transferring back and forth just to check.

So even though I love lipsyncs, they’re too time-consuming (and ergo, if I’m being commissioned, often too expensive) to do often! Someday I’d like to get back to doing them more often, but for now, practically I stick to/’prefer’, in the loosest terms, to do lipflaps. For the layman, this is that ‘two frame’ (maybe three) open-closed style of animating mouths- however, I’m working on ways to keep that style, but make it more expressive! It depends on the project - and in commissions, I’ll pretty much always prioritize giving the client a little more body animation than mouth animation, unless it’d really fit what they’ve requested.

What's the hardest part of the animation process??

.... damn, this is a tough one! Sometimes I’d say it’s the initial concept work - but it depends on what I have to work with. Sometimes that parts a breeze - and honestly freeing, bc I can take the time to try and push what I’ll do with it!

Roughing is one of my favorite parts, tbh. It can be tricky, sure, but getting to go from keyframes to in-betweens & smears to adding the flairs of secondary motion (think hair swishing, or coats flaring, etc) is so exciting and satisfying.

From there it’s all refining, and tweaking...

Hm. Honestly, the hardest is probably the initial cleanup and lining. It’s cool to see it come together, but it feels so much slower, and it can drag - and then you find bits that actually don’t translate well from the rough stage, so you have to go back and rework, and oof it can just drag in this phase, heh. Plus, I’m always tempted to add more frames, but it’s not always realistic - I’m a perfectionist, to say the least, so I’m constantly having to leash myself back so I don’t turn a project into a half-a-year undertaking, pff.

What's ur favorite??

Probably gave myself away talking about the roughing stage X) It’s just loose and fun and free! But seeing it all come together is also damn satisfying too, so that’s not to say I don’t like the refining portions either...

Outside of that, I also really like the beginning of the color stage! .... Before having to translate shadows/highlights to each and every frame *shudders*. That gets tedious, but it’s so critical! Anyways, though, I heckin’ love colors. I always have a rough palette in mind at the start of the process, but I go ham and play with it as a little break and a true test when I get to actual slap together a full frame with full color, highlights/shadows included! It’s exciting, like a preview of the finished product, basically :D

Any part u don't like?

Heh, by the time I get to shadows/highlights, I tend to be getting impatient, I suppose. It’s not that I don’t like it - I definitely highly value it, and if it was the only thing I was working on in an animation that’d be different, but as a one-woman team I’m just raring to be done at that point; it’s very nearly the last thing I do, after all, so it’s a struggle to focus. X)

I suppose one that always gets me is more complicated backgrounds. It’s a work in progress, as I’m getting better and finding the fun in them for sure! But I’m still not where I want to be in translating ‘background concept’ to ‘finished background’ - it feels more stiff than my animations, I guess. So it’s a frustrating part... but hey, it’s part of it! And learning to embrace the challenge is a big help.

... I just always have to make sure I have a big cup of coffee and a good jam playlist going when I sit down to do ‘em, in the meantime.(=▿= ||||)

What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into?

Definitely the coloring. This goes for both backgrounds and the animated characters themselves. It’s... never as simple as it looks? It’s time consuming, and while some parts of frames can be copy-pasted, I also put subtle work into the animations that mean that some pixels are off so it ends up being marginally faster to just recolor, but then there’s shadows, and working in pixels means that if I miss one then there’s a flickering pixel mid-animation, and sometimes there’s an unconnected line and then you bucket fill the whole damn thing, and gods know I’ve got colored lines so I have to be exacting with keeping the same ratios highlighted vs darker in shifting frames...

*deep breath*

... Yeah, basically the coloring is super time consuming. And balancing bg coloring with animated elements in the image itself is a whole extra challenge on top of that. For 99% of my animations, I can damn near guarantee I’ve spent at least twice as much time coloring it as I have animating it.

Do u have a fave animation u've done?

*looks at my goblin hoard of animations in horror like I’ve been asked to choose a favorite child*

... Stars above, I can’t choose! I love them all, and at this point a good portion of them are commissions- it wouldn’t feel right to choose!

*...carefully covers the hoard’s metaphorical ears*

... also, that said, I can admit a soft spot for any of them that involve humor. I tend to get to do extremely expressive faces and action there, even if I have to ration the frames, so it turns out really fun X)

And though rough and I’ve definitely done stuff I’m more proud of, I still crack up at this one I did a while back of the nonsense ‘ass’ joke between Red & Stretch... their faces were too much fun XD I’ve gotten waybetter since then though, Big Oof, I see so many things I can fix; might go back and redo it someday.

Honestly, though, I just freakin’ love animating! They all have their ups and downs andI always put a lot of love into them and find a way to have fun with it and try to push any emotion/theme (when applicable). I like to think it shows, but idk, that’s something I have to leave up to you guys X)

[shadowofthelamp]

SU Movie Liveblog

I had this open in one tab and the movie in another and wrote down my thoughts, let’s go! so sorry to people on mobile.

DIAMOND SONG, DIAMOND SONG

Yeah, makes sense that two years still isn’t really enough to sway them from thinking he’s still pink in some way- especially considering even the crystal gems had that problem after thirteen years.

ICE COLD, STEVEN

his big grin when connie kisses his cheek.... SO good

FAMILIAR DID NOT PREPARE ME FOR OLDER STEVEN’S SINGING VOICE

steven getting a song about being proud of himself and knowing he’s grown into a good person is also SO GOOD

and pearl! pearl’s part! also so great!

oooh, they’re all getting a piece!

garnet referring to her first fusion with terms like parents talk about a baby is PRECIOUS

AAAAA FIRST GLIMPSE AT BBY AMETHYST.... and she comes out with weird limbs like one of those drawing pose dolls, what a nice touch!

DON’T THINK I DON’T SEE THE BETAS THERE.... but no jasper, hmm....

RECREATING THE THEME SONG, I SEE YOU...

maybe it’s because I know what’s coming but making a song called ‘happily ever after’ is just asking for disaster, honey...

Steven Regrets Tempting Fate

steven looks younger when spinel asks who he is and that HAS to be by design.

hmm... is the gem drill connected to her form somehow, with how she formed her hand and it came out?

oooh boy, I’m gonna guess.... spurned member of pink’s court?

SPINEL GETS A SONG RIGHT AWAY, AND HER ANIMATION IS SO FUN

I LOVE IT

and ‘other friends’? yeah, definitely part of pink’s former court.

HER WEAPON IS A FUCKING SCYTHE HOLY SHIT

oh fuck oh fuck oh fuuuuuuck

‘holy s-he really got everybody!’ the boy is 16 greg, he can hear A Swear

oh shit, THIS THING TAKES YOU BACK TO ‘RESTART’ MODE, THAT’S WHY STEVEN’S POWERS DON’T WORK- THEY DIDN’T UNTIL HE WAS AROUND 13

well, THIS is uncomfortable, but it is always nice to hear pearl sing

the expressions seem... idk, extra cartoony here? pearl’s face is so round and everyone’s eyes look extra big. idk if it fits, but it’s probably meant to be a bit unsettling.

huh. someone smarter than me at analysis will have to talk about amethyst’s mimicking.

damn, they really did try to pacify pink with gifts of gems, didn’t they? I can already see so clearly what happened.

‘it took me MONTHS to stop trying to kill steven!’ peridot is so good

and then bismuth and lapis just build on it, NICE

that pose, with him having a hand on his face and looking back at the injector.... I swear either him or greg have had that EXACT pose in some other episode.

okay, pink was hyper and childish, but even she would have gotten bored and annoyed with spinel. I bet spinel was commissioned specifically by blue, but the pink that blue thought she knew, not the one that actually existed.

wow, about fourteen minutes. pretty short turnaround time for a ‘well shit that went bad fast’ reprise.

spinel’s little squeaky shoes during the reprise is... wow

BISMUTH GETS PART OF A SONG....

‘hijinks will ensue’

ANIME-ASS GARNET REFUSION....

if I was new!garnet I’d be scared and confused too... cmon, steven. she clearly looks really disjointed rn.

the first time I actually said ‘oh my GOD’ out loud in this movie was pearl rolling out the stairs and the red carpet

I OWN A CAR WASH

oh geez. boy do I think I know exactly why pink ditched her.

okay, we are.... about halfway through the movie. I do admit I didn’t think this would take this long.

also sandals as tap shoes?

the comic timing of amethyst opening her eyes and look over made me wheeze with laughter.

‘I’m back, you dip.’

also having amethyst be the first to come back was probably a good call.

holy shit is that ACTUAL BLOOD

‘you’re going to die ANYWAY’ gee thanks peridot

oh hey, rebecca as an extra, I think!

I love seeing how sadie’s letting her hair grow out the dye- it makes such a cool effect. and yeah that was how service jobs felt.

steven is just ‘what did I do to deserve this...’

geez, even years after he’s accepted things, steven’s still got a bit of a tight spot regarding rose. not surprised, though.

GARNET, THEY’RE MISSING GARNET, OOOOH

YES YES YES YES YESSSSSS I’VE WANTED THIS FOR /YEARS/, NOT UNDER THIS CIRCUMSTANCE BUT I’LL TAKE IT

I love how easy it is, same as it was for smoky the first time. steven fuses easiest with his family.

okay who the hell is that voice, I checked on imdb and it’s probably either chance the rapper or gallant since those are the unlisted named ones

WHY IS HE BUFF, THIS IS A RIPOFF, BOTH STEVEN AND GREG ARE SOFT BOYS...

yeah.... I don’t like his design. this is the first fusion I really didn’t like that of. ugh.

d’awww, garnet’s wearing steven’s jacket

they threw in the pilot design again!

OPAL SINGING, and admittedly, I do like the steven and greg fusion’s voice

ooooh boy heading for that ocean of poison ain’t gonna do him any favors

pink.... she recreated that garden, made it her sanctuary on earth. she didn’t have only bad memories of it- she must not have realized how much she mattered to spinel like she didn’t realize she mattered to the other diamonds.

the distorted almost circus-like music....

A SONG FROM PINK HOLY COW. wait... that voice sounds really different. is that the same voice actress?

yiiiiiiiiiiiikes. geez I see the reasoning here, holy COW.

‘actually, I can totally believe it’ yeah, as much as I like pink, boy did she fuck up a few times

okay, we got 24 minutes left, this can’t work, right? although spinel only cracked somewhat recently, it sounds like. so really, she’s not that far gone- and considering what we know, probably didn’t fully understand the consequences of her actions.

greg. greg. gross.

I... dunno really how to feel about the su movie being.... basically what everyone who misinterprets su says it is. spinel was made to be redeemed in twenty minutes. her backstory makes it almost shockingly easy. she’s technically the only villain to actually fall like that- like it’s been pointed out, peridot took months, bismuth was already sympathetic, and the diamonds took multiple episodes and still aren’t fully there yet.

I did kinda call that it wasn’t going to be that easy, but whoof. I don’t blame steven though, kid’s under a lot of pressure and is possibly literally dying.

OH, HERE’S THE THEME SONG FOR THE MOVIE

wait.... we haven’t seen alexandrite yet, wasn’t she in the trailer....? and they’re all hugging...

the little crack in his voice between ‘please’ and ‘hurry’...

I love how spinny and magic fusions and gem reformations are in the movie....

wow, BOY did the song sound different when it was released out of context

HE’S GOT CONTROL OF PINK!STEVEN’S SHIELDS AND CRYSTAL PROJECTION SHIELDS....

he sounds so.... adult. I know it’s just that zach is 21 years old now and his voice has changed, but steven really has grown up.

‘well, I changed white diamond’s mind with a single absolutely raw insult so you can’t blame a guy for trying’

yeah I’D KINDA WORRY ABOUT THE POISON.... LIKE RIGHT NOW....

WHY ARE THEY PLAYING THE HAPPY TUNE THE POISON IS STILL A VERY PRESSING ISSUE

if this is how they fix it I’m gonna be a little annoyed, not gonna lie

I just realized spinel reacted to steg so much because it jumpstarted part of her memories- her friend left to become a ‘fusion’.

white being passive-aggressive, I see. 15000 year old habits die hard.

steven: thanks for insulting my home five minutes after getting here, grandma. bitch.

haha, diamond ex machina

[nowgoforth]

2017: Drowning, treading, making waves

It’s enlightening to read all of the drafts that I never published on this blog; some were too personal, some too rambling. Apparently, one of them was my replay of last year. Pretty sure I ran out of time last year and felt it was too late to share. But I’m going to post one this year, in spite of my worsening memory, and highlight some of my learnings and experiences.

This year…

...I lost my team and gained a new one.

Over the course of a month, both of my peers quit. They had different reasons, but it was still a blow. Although one stayed on for an extra month and worked remotely, he was moving back home and didn’t take on too much of the load. I spent March in a daze, doing my best to answer ALL the tickets alone. Everyone who works in support has some hellish moment that they can point to — I think of my year as “before March” and “after March”.

Luckily, my boss at the time quickly brought in two candidates she had sourced, and they changed the game when they started. They took Product Ops to the next level, as my boss planned, and quickly blended into the seams of Lever’s culture. They gave me hope that we could still hire A players.

...I struggled a lot with supporting our support team.

At the same time that I lost my team, we were *finally* hiring for our Tier 1 Support team. The timing couldn’t have been worse. There was no one to build materials, documentation, structure, and a feedback loop. Product Ops spent the year answering the Support team’s questions every day, and still answering the many tickets that were escalated to our queue. It was frustrating and unsustainable. My biggest regret this year is not planning for the day when we’d hire support reps, and then not sounding the alarm immediately after the first cohort was hired.

We eventually hired a Support Manager who just couldn’t be better. He listened to me and my team from day one, built a feedback process, and relieved some of the stress we were experiencing. We still have a long way to go in terms of documenting tribal knowledge, but it WILL happen and our teams will continue to evolve!

...I moved back to SF and into our own studio.

Yes, I just moved to Berkeley last August…our roommates decided to move to Oakland, and I just didn’t love the place they picked. Plus, if you’re going to move, you might as well move closer to work ;) Our space may be small and overpriced, but we haven’t killed each other and yeah, I’m 10x happier being a city girl a bus ride away from anywhere I wanna go.

...I traveled to Joshua Tree and Paris.

My family and my brother’s friend road tripped to Palm Springs, so my dad could use the National Parks pass we bought for him last Christmas. I wasn’t that amazed by the trees, but loved the rock structures and it was a fun little trip. I genuinely like hanging out with my family.

Paris…oh, Paris…I was not physically prepared for how much walking we’d do. Paris was the first international trip for my boyfriend and I, and we realized how different we were in our traveling styles. I love packing in popular sights, whereas he wants to relax and do nothing. It was a trial, but we got through it. I didn’t fall in love with Paris, but I do think I’d like to give it another try someday.

...I gave yoga a chance.

On our trip to Palm Springs, I found out that my brother’s friend was a yoga fanatic. He talked soooo much about yoga that I felt moved to try out a class. I had never liked yoga for various reasons, but I finally understood why so many people practice it. I attribute this turnaround to finding Jenna, a beautifully in-touch and soulful instructor at Wheel House, which was already one of my favorite studios in the city. The first few times I went, she played just the best song during the end of the class when you lay on your mat, and it spoke directly to my heart. I felt open, receptive, like everyone could see everything in me.

I then discovered two amazing instructors on YouTube, and I haven’t found anyone better than them: Yoga with Kassandra and Allie at The Journey Junkie. I became totally dedicated to Allie in particular and joined her online Facebook group and her 21-day program. (Yeah, was I the last one to find out that there are veritable communities in online Facebook groups?? It’s an entire selling point of online wellness businesses!)

For many months, I had a love affair with yoga. At the time that it started in May, I had been feeling stifled, adrift, without purpose. Regularly practicing yoga gave me a sense of peace, allowed me to tune into my body and mind in different ways, and gradually gave me the kick in the pants to get on with my life.

...I flirted with becoming a health coach and yoga teacher.

In October, I volunteered at the soft opening of a women’s clubhouse called The Assembly. There is so much potential in this fitness/coworking/hangout space, and women so need a way to find our community in this city. I’m excited to keep volunteering and supporting their growth when they officially launch in January!

After checking out The Assembly, I came across the concept of a “health coach”. I thought it might be a stepping stone to opening my own wellness space in the future, and I enrolled in an online institute to become one. During the first month, I realized that I had just been searching for a way to progress towards *something*, anything. The program wasn’t for me. I was a bit ashamed of “quitting”, but my boyfriend reminded me that the act of enrolling in and leaving the program was a learning experience that I could fold into my plans for my future. (And I became good friends with my lab partner, who lives across the country!)

Of course, I fluttered onto the next thing and without much direction, I put a deposit into a yoga teacher training program. I loved yoga, so why wouldn’t I want to deepen my practice? I was also really interested in learning more than the physical poses — the philosophy and anatomy aspects are often overlooked.

A couple weeks after, I stumbled upon the Instagram accounts of teachers who proclaimed that the yoga profession needed to adapt, there were more ways to do the poses everyone teaches. Smarter ways to move our bodies. I started to question what I had been practicing. I knew I hadn’t been hurting my body, but was I doing everything that I could to support its future? 

Annnnnd then I did hurt myself, trying to better my chatarunga pose at home. Now, that isn’t all yoga’s fault, it was also my ego thinking that I didn’t need modifications. But I didn’t feel the pain until afterwards, which scared me into realizing I wasn’t very strong at all. I’ve been doing strength training and “boring” but so-needed mobility workouts ever since. I’ve been feeling powerful and happy, and yes, now yoga feels too slow to me again. I’m sure I’ll find the balance someday.

GEEZ, this is one hell of a long post. I’m exhausted! There’s actually more I could write, which shows that I should probably blog more often. If I missed anything important, well…I’m sure they were documented in some way somewhere else. I guess a lot happened this year after all. Funny how the memory works.

Now, for next year…

My word for the year is “movement”. It could also be “progress”, but I am not married to any particular goal, I just don’t wanna sit around on my ass all year again.

I want new challenges and new responsibilities in my career. I want to feel like I’m experimenting, growing, and learning more about what satisfies me. I legit considered leaving tech this year, but all of the changes I’d been seeking? Well, turns out they just didn’t want to be rushed. They’re coming together right now, and some cool things are in the works. More to come next month ;)

I want to keep moving my body in different ways and progressively getting stronger and more mobile. I need to put more care into my health because hello, I’m getting older. In the same vein, I’d like to cook a little more often and try new ways to make my gut happier. I don’t talk about my IBS a lot, but for the first time in years, I’ve had a breakthrough, thanks to a probiotic. So fingers crossed I stay less bloated and more regular!

I want to seriously practice meditation and let go of a lotttttt of shit. I think I’d be a lot happier and more pleasant to work with, if my emotions didn’t control my reactions.

Goals will change and evolve, but my general intention for 2018 is to actively pursue life. I think that’s enough for one year :P