Aysia A.: Inspiration

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12 Days of Christmas: 11 All Time Christmas FAVES

The holidays are my favorite time of the year. Family, presents, nothing but love and laughter. Here 11 things that I consider my favorite holiday things to do:

Wrapping Gifts

A lot of people that I know don't like to wrap presents, I personally love doing that because I'm able to try out new styles and I honestly find it relaxing to do. If you have presents you need to wrap, let me know!

ABC - 25 days of Christmas films

Christmas movies have that nostalgic feeling of my childhood hanging out with my little brother and binge watching all of the movies!

Christmas Music

Singing at the top of your lungs all versions of Silent Night is a great time!

Hot Cocoa and Socks

My mom makes the BEST Hot Cocoa ever, and she puts them in the cutest Christmas cups which makes the seasons even greater. As soon as we wake up on Christmas the hot cocoa is ready for us!

Christmas Decorations

If I had the time and gas I would drive and walk around all of the neighborhoods and embrace all of the colorful lights and different styles that everyone has created.

Giving Back

Although gifts are the best to receive, I love giving back to those in need. Last year I donated to Ronald McDonald House and asked everyone to drop off things that they didn't use anymore so I can give it to those in need. It warms my heart to know that I can help out in some small way that may make a great impact.

Christmas colors

Dark color are always my favorite, I always lean towards maroon colors for the fall. But this year I'm in love with mauve colors. <3

BAKING

Baking is such an essential thing to do during the holidays. This year I've been branching out and trying to bake new things. For my job I will be trying to make a Peppermint Ice Box Pie!! YUUUMMM.

Santa Claus!!

Y'all know he is real, right?

Opening Gifts

I love opening gifts but what I love even more is see others open gifts and the look on their faces on receiving things they ALWAYS wanted.

Spending times with ones you love.

#1 thing to do is make sure you're celebrating with the ones you love. Even if it's for a day or on a phone call, always remember and embrace those moments.

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adventures

yay, girls are awesome!!! This next girl with adventurous goals is none other than my cousin, Rachel! I can go on and on about her. She graduated from UCSD, which kind of pushed me to see what college was all about. She pursued her degree and moved allllll the way to Korea to teach English to high schoolers and now at COLLEGE!! She is a creative writer who writes with such imagination, she is also another reason why I love to blog I wish I was as a creative writer like her; PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. She has accomplished so much and still has so much more to go! She is the epitome of strength, and kindness. I love everything about her and just take a look at her interview:

1. Tell us a little about yourself!

Hmm.. a little about myself? Well, I'm originally from San Francisco but am currently living in Seoul, South Korea. I am working as an English professor, diligently trying to incorporate more travel and adventure into my life constantly, and working on and off at my main life dream of being a published writer.

2. What did you major in and where?

In undergraduate studies, I majored in English Writing & Literature at University of California San Diego (UCSD) and my graduate studies were at California College of the Arts (CCA), getting a MFA in Creative Writing with a focus in fiction.

3. I know that you're currently in Korea, what made you want to work there?

After finishing my master's degree, I felt like I was at a unique point in my life. I wasn't married and didn't have any career yet to keep my in the states so it was a really great time to live abroad. Living abroad was something that I had wanted to do for such a long time but didn't have the guts to do until that time. On top of that, I knew that in addition to being a writer, I had a real heart for teaching. So I thought that teaching high school English abroad would be a great way to a) gain experience, b) challenge myself, and c) help pave the way to what I eventually wanted which was professordom. I was educated, energized, ready for a new challenge, and really wanting to start what I felt would be one of the first real main chapters of my adult life. Why Korea specifically? I had some interest in Korean culture and my Pacific Asian family background and upbringing made me feel like I would be able to really adjust more while probably figuring out a lot more of who I am as an individual in Asia. 

4. What were some challenges being in a whole new world?

Oh geez, what wasn't a challenge?? Haha. No but seriously, there were a lot of difficulties when I first came to Korea. When I first moved to Korea, I moved to a rural area that didn't have the conveniences and rampant use of English that Seoul has. At that time, I couldn't speak a word of Korean and I was awkward, missing my family, flustered, lonely, and had arrived in Korea fresh off of an emergency surgery only the week prior. Ordering food at places without pictures, figuring out directions in a country where Google maps isn't allowed access to accurate coordinates, adjusting to being stared at so much in a country that is known as being the most homogenous country in the world.... there were so many difficulties at first. But, as I learned, they were also a lot of brand new opportunities to learn, conquer, and push myself in ways that I didn't know I would be able to, not only withstand, but succeed in.

5. What were some goals you accomplished in your 4 years being in Korea?

I feel like part of what makes my life interesting, hectic, and ever adventurous for me is that I am never satisfied. This can come across as seemingly negative but that isn't what I mean. I am so humbled and grateful for the strength to have climbed so many steps and to find new opportunities and new doors opening constantly but I rarely think about what I've accomplished because I am more often considering the list of things I have yet to do (or, in more truth, adding to that evergrowing list!). If I take step back, I'd say in the past four years that I have been in Korea, there have been a few accomplishments, both personally and professionally. Professionally: I worked hard at several high schools with students from many different backgrounds and honed skills that allowed me the opportunity to finally move into being a full-time faculty professor at an accomplished and respected university in Seoul. I've worked on different collaborations with other teachers or other writers on several projects in the past few years. I've joined writing groups that help encourage and critique my writing in order to help make publishing more possible. In hopes of research journal publication, I've started the small beginnings of a research project about the use of creative arts in the academic settlings of learning language. Personally: I've added a bunch more stamps to my passport. I've learned a new language with quite conversational proficiency. I've been taught how to be far more relaxed and how to decipher what needs to be attempted and what is useless to try in terms of controlling life's many varying journeys. I've met so many amazing and terrible and brilliant and hilarious and disgusting and life-changing people from all over the world. I learned to allow myself to love. I feel like the list, in terms of personally, could go on endlessly. 

6.  Being that you accomplished so much already, do you have any future goals in mind?

Like I said before, I am an overflowing cup in terms of future goals. Far too many to ever accomplish but it will be quite a ride trying. If I were to force myself to name just a few of the big ones, I'd say: publishing at least one novel, having a novel that makes it onto one of the big international bestseller or awards lists, traveling to every continent, living in at least one more country, learning at least four languages (hopefully more like seven or eight) conversationally fluently, eventually being able to be a creative writing professor working in both an undergraduate and graduate program, opening up a thriving and active center specifically for children in domestic violence situations,..... andddd having a huge ranch full of rescue dogs who needed homes! 

7. What is a quote that you live by?

Because I think it is both speaking to all the different forms of relationships we have with one another and the relationships we have with ourselves, I have long been captured by this one quote of Rilke's from Letters to a Young Poet: “It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.”

Thank you for taking the time to interview, and thank you to those who have read it!! #girlswithgoals have so much to offer!!

Best,

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Inspiration

#girlswithgoals: Valerie Schmidt

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Inspiration

NEW SEGMENT! #girlswithgoals

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Inspiration

#QOTD - four

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Inspiration

#QOTD - three

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Inspiration

July Goals.

Hello There Blogger World.

It's been awhile since I have posted, I'm having a writer's block/procrastination mood. There is so much things that I want to write about that it is overwhelming, so I end up not writing at all (pathetic!).

So I figure that I will start again, and showing this month's goals! It's crazy how we are already into the second week of July! This month is pretty hectic for me: My brother's graduation party is this weekend and I still have to finalize some things and practice a song for him. My friend's and I are planning a surprise baby shower (exciting!), and I just started a new job so I am trying to get use to it (which I am loving btw!). Anywhos, here are my goals.

Start to save money, now that I am a working woman once again! I can start saving my money for my post graduation life!
Continue to eat healthy, I continue to tell myself this everyday! I'm very good when it comes to eating healthy but there are times when I binge on all possible junk food. On the weekends it's my "cheat days" but I try not to go overboard.
Continue to work out, this goal I need to remind myself again and again. I have been working out for the past month and a half and I may have become more "toned" but weight wise it stays the same. It is quite discouraging but I will continue it till I am content with where I am!
Start blogging more. As I mentioned earlier, I have been struggling to blog simple posts. I was doing so good in the beginning and this is the time where I tend to slow down or stop all at once. I've done that so many times that I don't want to give up at all!
Plan a SURPRISE Baby Shower. I mentioned earlier my friend's and I are throwing a surprise baby shower and we have a month to get everyone to come and buy supplies and all that. It is going to be stressful but I LOOOOVE planning things.
Read at least 5 books this month. So far I have read one and half books, that I plan to review soon. I was in the middle of one book but I put it down because it wasn't my attention anymore but I need to finish what I start! (Any interesting books out there at the moment?)

These are my simple, yet challenging at the same time goals. We are halfway into 2016!! What are your goals for the month?

Best,

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, by Unknown

Inspiration

Those Anxious Moments.

Since my freshman year in college, now and then I would have this tightening in my chest where I just want to SCREAM! It feels like I was caffeinated x100 but I never had coffee. I’m not officially diagnose with an Anxiety disorder, but I would just feel really anxious needing to walk around or drink water. I thought that it was from the stress of college, and balancing extra curricular things. But now that I am out of school I still get them (for example right now, hence I’m writing this blog). It would come out of the blue, when I’m sitting down, relaxing. So I found ways to cope with it:

BREATHE - I think this is the #1 priority when you ever have these moments. Sometimes we are thinking “go, go, go!” when we forget to relax and just have deep breaths. Meditation helps soon much for those who have anxiety, it decreases stress and future sicknesses.
MUSIC - Since I was little, music has been my getaway whether it be to just listen, dance, cry, laugh, etc. Music has been the best creation on Earth!
WRITE/BLOG - I love journaling, it helps me focus on how I feel that day, and why I’m feeling this way. I also capture inspiring things that I would like to remember in the future. Not only do I write in my journals, but I also love to doodle or practice my makeup on face charts.
EXERCISE - Now, you don’t have to go hard core, but something simple like talking a walk and getting some fresh air would be a type of exercise. Yoga, is always great too it helps you center yourself and not have to think about a million and one things that you might have on your plate.
CAT NAPS - Sometimes, when I have anxious moments it tires me out and so I take 15-30 minute naps to reboot myself and energizing myself.

If these aren’t things that you find comforting, figure out what are your hobbies or what do you enjoy the most. Those things would help you out tremendously when you’re having a moment. Once again, a reminder would be to not rush life and take it easy from time to time. You’re body will thank you in the long run!

How do you cope with anxious moments?

Best,