5 Year Blogiversary: Q&A Part 2!

In my usual late fashion…

…here is part 2 to something that happened 2 weeks ago! (This always happens, I never change, I am habitually terrible at understanding time, etc.) Despite my lateness, I hope it’s been fun reading my thoughts and thank you all for sending in questions for me to answer in this Q&A! Here’s part 1 if you haven’t read it already and want to.

(And this is the last time I’ll plug it, but you can leave any feedback you have for me and this little blog in this survey and I would very much appreciate it!!!)

Q&A

BOOKS / MEDIA

what were your favorite books outside of your comfort zone that you read in 2021?

         

Quite a few from my top books of the year—In the Dream House (memoir), Crying in H Mart (memoir), and Mornings in Jenin (historical fiction)—but also Sister Outsider (nonfiction), On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (literary), and No Longer Human (translated classic).

who’s a fictional character you relate to?

There are many, but lately I’ve been relating a lot to Jess from Black Water Sister! I connect a lot with her Asian diaspora struggles and how she represses a lot of her feelings, and lately I’ve been especially relating to things in regards to her queer identity.

  favorite song of 2021?

Spotify says I played Devil’s Advocate by The Neighbourhood the most, but had I discovered Wanderlust by The Vaccines before the Spotify Wrapped cutoff date, it would’ve been Wanderlust. It’s like 3 songs/genres in one and that’s why it’s perfect to me!!!

favorite adult fantasy books?

I’m still new-ish to the genre, but I think I’ve enjoyed almost every single adult fantasy I’ve read, which is so wild! The Poppy War, She Who Became the Sun, The Fifth Season are definitely some favorites. But since those are very popular, one I wish more people read was The Tangleroot Palace (a short story collection)!

what would your perfect fictional squad be?

I’m not sure… but I do know Percy Jackson would be included in it. :] 

what trope do you hate the most and why?

Miscommunication! A lot of people are like “how can you hate it, it’s realistic!!” but like… that is exactly why I hate it. I bottle things up and am conflict avoidant, so why would I want to read the same issues in a book I’m reading to escape real life!!! It just makes me so frustrated, and that frustration only gets worse knowing that it’s exactly what happens to me too.

fav poetry books?

I really haven’t read nearly as many as I want to, but of those few: Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Crush, and Obit!!

what are five books you would take with you on a desert island?

     

• Clear and Muddy Loss of Love: A Chinese novel I’ve been wanting to read for a while and it’s nearly 4k pages, so… I would definitely fill up a lot of time reading it!
• Babel: I know it isn’t out yet, but I figure that it’s long enough to take up a decent amount of time, and I feel like it’d have so much content that I would have fun analyzing even after I finish it 
• The Lightning Thief (or any PJO book that isn’t The Sea of Monsters): I could read it many times and never get tired of it
• The Starless Sea: I don’t know how when I’ll get around to this, even though I want to and it’s been sitting on my shelf for years now. So if being stuck on an island doesn’t push me to finally read it, I don’t know what will!
• any book written in Thai because it would take me ages to figure out what it says

BLOGGING

current favorite blogs?

I’ve mostly been reading blogs that I’ve followed for a while (I like to be an active follower and I’m still getting back into being active with the blogs I already follow), but some newer favorites have been Jayati @ The Coffee Addicted Bibliophile and Tasya @ The Literary Huntress! And Kate @ Your Tita Kate has always been a favorite, but I’ve been enjoying all her recent posts especially.

what are some new types of posts you want to try out on your blog this year?

There are lots of fun new reading-related things I’ve been doing recently, which I want to talk about! It won’t be a new “type” of post, per se, but more like new content?

And this is also not really “new,” but I’ve been sorely missing writing discussion posts and want to bring them back. I got it into my head that people wouldn’t care about my personal experiences/thoughts on things, but seeing the way people responded to what I thought was a very self-indulgent unintersting-to-others post inspired me!

unexpected favorite part of blogging?

I could be sweet and say all the good friends I made… but I’m going to be unconventional and say my reading spreadsheet. I LOVE GRAPHS!!!!!

where do you see your blog another 5 years from now?

She’d be TEN by then wow… It’s kind of wild to imagine that I’d keep up with this for that long (and I’m honestly not even sure I could/would want to?). So I’ll just say: hopefully still up and running!

what tips do you recommend to make a blog grow?

• Interact with others! The key to blog growth! If you only post and don’t respond to comments, comment on other blogs, etc. you’re simply staying in a bubble. And interacting often ends up being the best part of blogging—it’s just a win-win that it can also help you grow your blog! (Though, of course, you want your interactions to be genuine and staying within boundaries.)
• Be consistent. Social media punishes you if you aren’t active for a while (less people see your posts when you are active), and although blogging doesn’t have that exact algorithm, it’s the same idea. So staying as consistent as you can is important! But don’t be afraid to take breaks either. We’re not content-producing machines!
• Promote on social media. I don’t think social media is necessarily essential to blog growth, but it definitely helps! Social media tend to have larger audiences than blogs do, anyway, so even if you can’t change that, you can at least direct them to your blog.
• Post engaging and varied content. With content, there’s a delicate balance of catering to what your audience is interested in vs what you are interested in—the former would be better for blog growth in the short-term, I think, but the latter would prevent you from burning out. But whatever you post, switch it up and make it interesting to read, for both the enjoyment of you writing it and the person reading it!

LIFE / MISCELLANEOUS

photo & discussion of food

do you visit Thailand often?

Yes! I used to visit every other summer for about a month, but I haven’t gone back since 2018 because of COVID. I usually visit only Bangkok because that’s where my family lives, though I’ve gone to Pattaya, Phuket, and Pak Chong before!

On the left is a picture from my last trip in 2018, at the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

favorite non-bookish hobbies?

Dance! It’s always been a huge part of my life, and probably my favorite hobby, up there with reading. It’s so freeing and healing in a way I’ll never recreate with anything else.

I also like watching TV shows with my sister! And though I haven’t touched the piano or drums in a while, I really love(d) playing instruments too.

hot take that is not related to reading

Being a miserable hater is boring and tiresome and annoying, but if you’re a FUN hater……. you get a pass!

(Sorry. This is not a good hot take. I think I wasted all my good hot takes responding to bad reading-related hot takes because they seem to be endless in this community… so you are unfortunately left with this uninteresting one.)

what is your opinion on house plants?

I don’t have any, because I’d kill them out of accidental neglect, but I think they’re cool! I wish I could have some without resulting in their death.

what is your dream uni and what do you want to study?

I don’t really have a dream uni, because 1) I am an overthinker and any dream uni I could have I would find a way to make it less dream-worthy, and 2) I don’t want to have one so I wouldn’t feel that bad getting (possibly) rejected…

I’ll be studying English! Very boring and predictable I know! But hopefully I’ll minor in something else too—I love learning all kinds of stuff in the humanities, especially languages and history.

favorite beverage?

Ooh, I think it depends… I’d say hot chocolate for warm drinks, and nam thang mo (watermelon juice, basically? more the consistency of a slush?) and cold Milo for cold drinks! I also really like most smoothies and fruit juices, to be honest.

(I can say that the one beverage I will never love, though, is coffee.)

do you have any resolutions for non-reading hobbies this year?

I shared my 2022 goals in this post, but I really want to get back into writing this year! I miss it sorely, so I’m hoping to start working on a novel (whether it’s just planning or beginning to draft it) and write a few short pieces throughout the year (short stories, prose poems, etc).

what subjects are you taking for the IB and how hellish are they?

HL English, HL history, HL French, and SL math applications & analysis, SL environmental systems & societies, SL Spanish! I would’ve preferred not to take a language HL since I heard it was difficult (and it has indeed been difficult), but my school is small and has a very limited selection of courses!

The hardest has been my math class—I’m not good at math so I don’t know why I decided to take the harder math subject! TOK (Theory of Knowledge, a philosophy-esque course for non-IB people) was also hellish, but I think I actually ended up somehow good at it and I feel like it has helped me with my thinking skills.

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what are your favorite beverages?  what was your favorite song of 2021? and what are your current favorite blogs to read from??