Nothin shakin’ on Shakedown Street
Used to be the heart of town
Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart
When I can hear it beat out loud

Already dreaming of summer, even though thinking of summer is like peering into an infinite regression. I don’t know what’s going to happen after graduation – yes, I’m a walking cliché of an over-privileged, professional white person that had the opportunity to go to college but isn’t doing anything related to my degree – and this both scares and comforts me. Knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life at this age seems wrong, doesn’t it?

World Bank, United Nations, whatever – hire me already. My IQ is higher than my credit score and I’m humble enough to be a serf?

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Oh, Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

This concept will either set you free, scare you shitless into an existential crisis, or – better? worse? I don’t know – you won’t get it. Whatever happens, have fun!

Moral of the story: nothing matters. We’re nothing more than microscopic specks of dirt in the entirety of our human history, which is mostly negligible considering human existence in the grand scheme of time.

My first set of mock ups for The Caravan, a collection curated by Olivia Lopez of Lust for Life.

I was a part of a fellowship about a year ago, which sent me and another fellow to Vietnam and the Philippines to do field research. Like El Salvador, I still find it difficult to write about my experiences.

If I tried, however, I’d say: in a nutshell, Viet Nam was a weird place for me to come back to as a Vietnamese American. If it weren’t for an impromptu trip up to Ha Noi, where Nate (the other fellow) and I stayed at a really fun hostel and did an overnight stay in Ha Long Bay, we would’ve probably killed each other. We met some awesome people, whom then all got to see me cuss out a taxi driver. Woo hoo, new friends! Then, we trotted off to the Philippines, where I felt right at home. In the Philippines, we stayed at the beautiful Ateneo de Manila University, which was only a short cab drive away from Sitio Payong (the community in the last picture). The community opened up their loving arms and made me feel like I was a part of their family, which was fantastic after feeling homesick like I had never been before. My friend Martin also took care of me for a couple of days while we were in the country and opened up his home, where I got to take my first hot shower in what felt like forever. I might’ve spent 3 hrs just sitting in the shower, crying with complete and utter elation. It was very socially irresponsible of me, I know. We also spent some time with Reese and Mark (social enterprise power couple of Rags2Riches and Hapinoy, respectively), and it was nice to see familiar faces in a foreign land.

Sitio Payong and Manila has a special place in my heart, and I wish I could live there for a couple of years.

And why Francoise Hardy? Hats off to French imperialism in Viet Nam.

If you’d like, you can read my thoughts from my trip here.

“(Don’t) do it for the sake of greatness. Do it for the sake of happiness. If the distinction is a little hazy, that’s because your ego is doing its best to get in the way. Your ego wants to put you on a pedestal at the center of the universe. It wants to convince you of silly things like jealous gods and life after death. Your ego would never allow you to believe that you are anything other than a special snowflake, which is why you have to kill it.”

- The Coquette

I guess we could talk how the influx of slick costumes have become the premise of any party we have and will ever have, but we could, like, talk about what’s really important here: the tunes. Who would’ve guessed that the slickest, sickest, funkiest songs make the perfect background music for a night of hairpieces, which is like, every night, any chance we can get? Maybe it’s because I have a soft spot for disco and all things heavy bassline, but I can tell it’s gonna be a good night when the entire party is singing Heatwave’s Boogie Nights. Stay alive, y’all.

Nothing like getting lost in Joshua Tree to make you appreciate civilization. Sho Higuchi, the human action figure, took us on a climbing field trip to a whole new world only three hours away from home sweet Los Angeles. Everything was going pretty well until Sho took a pretty nasty 20-ft tall (this number will change, depending on how exciting I want to make this story, but I think it was 20 feet) at the end. Luckily for him, a joshua tree actually broke his fall, saving him from defeated limbs and a broken heart.

If you have a highly active imagination or on acid or dehydrated (pick your poison, pick wisely), Joshua Tree can look and feel like you’re on a different planet. For us climbers, it was like nature made us a playground.

Whatever. Nobody cares.

Hayley and I go see Tycho at the Independent in San Francisco