last fashion show in berlin

today i'll be modeling in a fashion show for the last time before we move away from berlin. my model bag is packed and ready to go and my stomach is slowly twisting itself into gentle anticipatory knots. my fiancé will be coming, and gets to sit in the reserved section since we each got to have one guest attend for free. 

this is somewhat of a full circle moment, tying things up in neat little bow: the cast of models (as well as the hair/makeup artists and the organizer/model coordinator) is a repeat from some previous shows i've done—the first i'd ever done in berlin. and now they'll be with me in my last. 

last night, i was reminiscing with awe about the casting process for those first shows. i had found a casting call on instagram and showed up the next day, hoping to be cast. usually casting calls occur in some room inside some building, but this was out in the open—anyone could join, and anyone could watch. 

before this, i had heard that fashion contexts in berlin would likely be mostly in english, but i quickly realized that was not the case. armed with perhaps a handful of days of my a1 german class, i ascended the stage, strode right up to the microphone, and introduced myself in simple german, switching to english only for the second half of the sentence explaining "why i'm here." then i catwalked confidently down the stage, in the blazing sun, in front of a small panel of judges and a large, mulling crowd. 

i don't know what possessed me to speak so confidently in german instead of just introducing myself in english. it felt a bit like when i was around 5 years old, at a pool with my large family, and wandered off to try the high dive on my own since no one was watching me. when i enter a context with no one expecting anything of me, i can accomplish things i haven't ever done before. when no one is around who knows me, i can be free to be someone new entirely. 

at today's show, that won't be the case—so many people around will have seen me model on the runway before. that's a good thing. i want to become more comfortable expanding my capacities around those familiar with what i have achieved before. i want to free myself from the limits that close around me when i'm afraid how i'll be compared to my past self. i want to explore the vast expanse of possibility, even when i'm nervous to be different than i was before. 

home alone for a weekend

being home alone (for more than a few hours) without my fiancé for the first time was genuinely psychoactive. i enjoyed my time and was more productive and functional than i expected, but i also felt strange emotional echoes of the me i was before i met him, and found it nearly impossible to sleep.

we've lived together for over a year now, spending almost every second of that time together. this weekend was the first time we'd be apart for several days at a time. my fiancé was traveling away to france for a friend's bachelor party—a friend whose wedding we're attending in japan in a few weeks. i'd be home alone with our dog, bianca. 

my biggest fear was that i'd revert to being basically nonfunctional. before we got together, i had difficulty motivating myself to complete tasks, from household maintenance to leisure activities. i worried that without my fiancé around as a regulating presence, i'd regress to my old ways. 

i was pleased to discover that for the most part, that didn't happen. the only exception was that i had incredible difficulty making myself go to sleep. without anyone else around, it was somehow a hundred times harder to put my phone away for the night and close my eyes to sleep. i also found that lying there in bed, i felt a loneliness i hadn't felt since moving to be with my fiancé. 

i did eventually fall asleep, after moving to another room and cuddling with bianca. and all in all i still managed to get 6 hours of sleep the first two nights, and 7.5 hours the last night. normally i get around 9. 

despite my relative lack of sleep, i did manage to be productive in a satisfying way. i've written before about how my creative process has evolved since no longer living alone, and i took this opportunity to indulge in creative endeavors i wouldn't be as comfortable doing when someone else is home, like modeling practice, trying out new tiktok styles, and making a youtube video. 

i also went shopping a few times! normally i forget shopping is even a thing, but i really should go out every once and a while. getting a cute new dress is just an absolute thrill (and i still have room to rebuild my wardrobe after moving continents). 

throughout the weekend there was a strange sense of "who am i now, in this context?" i felt a slightly disorienting return to a shade of some previous self, almost like i had teleported my past self into this new context, but without my fiancé physically there to make it sink in. 

when my fiancé returned home, it felt almost surreal. the sun shone differently, sculpting him with gorgeous shadows and illuminating him with a brilliant outline. he looked so unbelievably handsome i actually couldn't believe my eyes, tearing every time i caught sight of him. with him finally home, i slept like a rock. nine solid hours with zero wake-ups until my alarm went off. 

maybe it sounds silly, but this weekend felt like integrating my lonely previous self with the happy healthy self i am with my fiancé. i felt anew how much joy and brightness my fiancé brings into my life, and how heart-wrenchingly, earth-shatteringly i love and adore him. he's the hottest man in the world and just lives in the same home as me! i get to see him every day! i'm eternally grateful, and i can't wait to marry him.

STOP THE COUNT!!!!

last month, i wrote a post about my fascinatingly linear blog growth so far, joking that everyone should coordinate to view my blog approximately 1727 times in april—so the trend would continue—that'd be great. 

imagine my surprise when i log in today and see that the count for april so far is exactly 1727. like, am i being punked? (but no for real, is this just genuinely a coincidence? does blogger have some sort of algorithm? are they showing my posts to people? i'm baffled.)

so yeah, if everyone could do me a solid and not view my blog at all again until may...that'd rock. 

one pose at a time

so i've decided i will actively improve my modeling skills. at this point, i've been modeling for almost four years. but that's only counting calendar years in which i've had a modeling gig—it doesn't give an accurate picture of how many hours i've put into the craft. the first couple years, i only had one or two gigs the whole year, and wasn't sure if i'd even ever pursue another gig again. 

then in the last two years, things have kind of taken off. but although i've had several stretches of being completely booked and busy, there are two domains where i feel like i haven't been able to break through yet: making money and honing my skills. 

sure, i've had a paid gig here and there. never more than two-digits at a time, though, and never with any regularity, either. i've known from the start how unlikely it is to make a living being a fashion model, and for the most part i've accepted that. but recently i've started wanting it more, and started to see what it might take to get there. 

until this point, it has felt like the bottleneck to the next level of modeling (getting signed by an agency and booking paid work, especially commercial work instead of runway shows) is whether i have the right look—in other words, if someone else deems me worthy of being a model. 

strangely enough, i hadn't thought much about how much actual modeling skill matters. for me, thus far it hasn't mattered. and thus i haven't really made much improvement, because i hit a minimum viable threshold for my skills and don't spend time trying to better them. 

what that looks like in practice is me being nervous, shy, and uncertain when the time comes for me to actually strike a pose or switch up my runway walk. this then affirmed to me that at the end of the day, i don't have what it takes to be a "real" model. 

but what is confidence anyway? it's just the result of doing something so many times you don't have to question whether it will work. i realized i do have one or two go-to poses that i can reproduce on command, because i've done them so many times in the mirror it's second nature now (though i talked about the failure modes of that in my previous post). and if i can do those, i can certainly add some more! 

a side note: i'm not exactly sure why my figure modeling pose practice hasn't transferred into fashion modeling. perhaps they are mentally segregated in my mind. i'd like to try and intentionally channel it next time, because i never had a mirror when modeling for figure drawing classes, and could rely on myself to come up with creative and well-shaped poses, so i'm not sure why i struggle more with fashion modeling poses. 

anyway, i've decided i can conquer one pose at a time. or even more specifically, one part of a pose at a time. for example, first up is better neck/chin placement. when i'm nervous i tend to pull my head inwards, which forces my chin down and back, creating an unflattering double chin. so when i'm anxiously hoping a photo will turn out like a cute caught-off-guard candid, it actually just looks like i have weirdly excess skin under my chin. and also that i'm not confident, which is accurate. 

i'm taking all the posing help i can get—the most recent helpful tidbit was a tiktok suggesting imagining holding an orange under your chin: first pushing your neck forward, then your chin slightly down, then holding an orange-sized space between your neck, chin, and chest. and that's exactly the motion i'd like to practice so much that i start to do it without even thinking. 

(i made this decision after i attempting doing some "modeling practice" today and realizing it's quite hard to do on my own—and also frustrating to pose so well in the mirror but then totally flop in photos. but the other part of this is that doing it on my own means i also have to do the photography, and that's a lot to learn at once! that's when i decided to focus on one thing at a time.)

a snippet from posing practice

who am i kidding, i can't give up runway!

lately i've been wondering if i'm totally over doing runway modeling. but once again, i forget all my gripes and concerns when i actually do another show and have an incredibly fun time doing it. 

today's show was one of the most well-organized i've ever been apart of. the set-up inside the venue was well-thought-out, things started generally on time, it was adequately staffed, the rehearsal was efficient and reasonably brief. 

not to mention, the designs were spectacular. it was a student show, and you might think that would mean the designs aren't as good as, say, professionals. but i usually find the opposite—student designers but their heart and soul into their projects, and many of them are unbelievably talented at doing so. 

despite the great time i had, i deflated a bit when i reviewed the footage of my walk afterward (graciously and artfully filmed by my darling fiancé) and found that it wasn't as dramatic as it had felt. watching it, i had a thought that my walk really hasn't improved much in the past couple years. 

in order to get better at something, you have to do it a lot—preferably in quick succession so you can iterate as quickly as possible. in some ways, i've done that with my runway walk, especially in the long run of shows i did late august in berlin, modeling for several designers a day for several days. but other than outlier events like that, it's usually several months between fashion shows where i get a chance to practice my walk. 

of course, i do practice at home from time to time. but i'm realizing that the practice i do at home is usually in front of a mirror. which isn't a bad thing per se, but it is definitely a very different experience than walking on a runway where i can't see myself. when walking in front of a mirror, i'm working based on visual feedback, not how it feels in my body. that means when i'm on the runway, i haven't built the skill of being able to reliably match the walk i'm imagining in my head to the one i'm actually achieving with my legs. thus, the mismatch i experienced tonight. 

the conclusion is pretty simple, i guess: do more walks without visual feedback. or at least without simultaneous visual feedback. a tight iterative loop of recording and reviewing could be in order. 

that's scary, though. the comforting thing about runway is that if you want, what happens on the runway stays on the runway. the finished product is what happens during the show, unlike a photoshoot where the finished product is a lasting image. i'm scared to record myself and be disappointed with what i see. i'm scared i'll do it and still not get any better. 

i'd like to get better, though. whether it's because i want to have the best walk in the room or because i just want to build the skill and make myself proud, i'm not quite sure. but i'd like to get better, regardless. 

modeling thoughts

i might want to transition away from runway. i have a show coming up next week (and one tomorrow) and i got a message saying not to wear heels that are too high, because part of the runway is on stone and grass. no idea how treacherous that will turn out to be. i could really do without the fear of a dangerous runway, so photoshoots sound more appealing to me at the moment. but we'll see how i feel after my show tomorrow. 

speaking of, i realized i assumed that as i did more modeling, then i'd just somehow also accumulate a portfolio, but i'm just realizing recently that a portfolio doesn't materialize unless i make it happen. especially considering the fact that i've done almost exclusively runway thus far. 

i don't want to work super hard to make a portfolio but i'd like to at least do the following: 1. more photoshoots, so i have something to even put in a portfolio (and get more practice posing) 2. think about what kind of modeling i'd like to do or aim for, so i can try to steer my portfolio shoots to capture that vibe. though as my fiancé pointed out, i could also just keep doing a bunch of different kinds of modeling, then decide which one i like the best, rather than trying to know in advance. 

i was lamenting my ignorance about how to make a super appealing (as in, gives a professional vibe as a model you'd want to hire) instagram layout, then my fiancé and i did some analysis on what exactly made the difference. one thing we identified is that almost all my photos are full-body, which looks great in the main feed, but not in the thumbnail view on your profile. other profiles seem to have a nice mix and lots of closeups as the first slide and thus as the thumbnail, then perhaps having the full version of the photo mixed in later in the carousel. another difference was. i tended to make a whole row (three posts) from the same shoot or gig, but there was more visual interest on other profiles where they were more interspersed (i'd done it that way to at least have some level of intentionality in my grid, but couldn't be arsed to plan the whole layout in advance—i already have enough friction to even post at all). it was educational and empowering to talk through the differences together. 

a passing thought i had recently is that i'd like to keep some sort of count of the acceptances and rejections i get. i don't know if i'd want to actually follow through on that, but the results would certainly be interesting. with test shoots (collaboration-based photoshoots where i've reached out to photographers on my own), i'm 2 for 2, which feels genuinely insane. the thought also crossed my mind that if i'm not receiving any rejections, then i'm definitely not shooting high enough. i do get many rejections from gigs i put my hat in the ring for though—or more often, just no response back. i did recently apply for a street photoshoot casting call and they actually did respond, saying they were looking for a different look for this shoot but to definitely reach out to future castings, and that was genuinely very nice of them to give an actual rejection rather than just not responding at all. 

feeling fired up about modeling makes me feel quite nice. though on the other hand, i also feel like it has an expiration date. not that it will for sure, but i'm preparing for the potentiality of my body looking completely different due to eventual pregnancy. who knows if i'll be in any shape to model then. 

until then, i'll keep having fun with it! wish me luck for my show tomorrow. 

breaking nails and being brave

as i look around our apartment, i see more and more empty space—evidence of my success packing things into moving boxes. 

i'm writing this with an annoying bandaid on one of my fingertips—evidence of my failure packing things without breaking any fingernails. 

i hit it hard on a random surface while i finally hit a groove with packing. worst time to break a nail, i thought, until i realized of course i'd break a nail while using my hands so much. and yeah, it still is the worst time to break a nail, but also the most likely. 

breaking a nail sounds like a frivolous problem, but i had a set of gel nails done, and the nail had cracked underneath the gel extension. this would suck any time, but at this particular moment it was beyond what i could handle. i have several fashion shows coming up that i want to have nice nails for, and yet here i was with a nail potentially so broken maybe it would fall off and look horribly mangled for the shows. 

that was just the emotion coloring my view, however. after i calmed down, i saw that it likely wouldn't be that bad, though it was definitely broken past the point it should be—a few millimeters down into the nail bed itself, not just breaking off at the free edge. 

i honestly don't even want to talk about getting the gel nails removed. i did, and it was as annoying as i expected, and they didn't do what i wanted, as i expected. it hurt, but not as much as i expected! 

so now my nails are bare and a bit ragged. i'll let them breathe for at least a few days. i don't think they'll matter too much for my show this week, but i'd like to have them looking decent by next week. 

i had another swedish lesson today. i'm trying out some next tutors—turns out sometimes you need to try a few in order to find the best fit. it feels bad to give up on the first couple, but i'm quite sensitive to morale hits and with both i was struggling to keep morale high (after an initial major upswing with both). i'm cautiously optimistic about the new tutor i saw today, but i don't want to get my hopes up. 

at the end of the lesson, her evaluation was that my speaking level is still around A-level (using CEFR levels), but also that it's not as bad as i think (i opened the lesson by saying i can't speak very much). this felt great at the time, but it quickly soured as the achievement-obsessed part of me spiraled about still only being A-level. the previous tutor had assigned me homework at B2 and even C1 levels, and seems to believe i can operate at a high enough level to discuss deep questions based on documentaries, and now this tutor is saying i'm saying A2ish? that felt like a step back. 

but i was also frustrated with myself for being upset in the first place. the reason i am trying a new tutor at all is because the previous tutor's approach is way too hard  and she seems to have severely overestimated my level. does it feel good that someone thinks i'm operating at a high level? of course! but it does not feel good to actually not be able to operate at that level because i'm genuinely not at that level yet and that's totally fine and i'd actually much rather have a teacher that recognizes that then for morale to take a hit every week as i try and fail and form way-too-hard sentences! 

so i was feeling bad about all of this, but i hadn't pinpointed it yet—i was just feeling vaguely bad about myself. then i went on a walk with my fiancé, and talking to him helped me untangle all my feelings and set myself right again. it helps so much to take a birds-eye view of myself with him. in that space it's easy to be curious and nonjudgmental, because we both love and care about me and want to figure out what i'm feeling and how we can move forward. i started the walk feeling abstractly bad, and ended feeling like i knew exactly what and why i was feeling that way, and also like i could accomplish anything (by the end of the walk we were literally foraying into mathematical concepts, because it was stuff i've been wanting to learn but didn't feel up to the challenge—but with him i can do anything). 

and when we got home, i remained inspired, and ended up reaching out to another photographer to see if i can squeeze in one more photoshoot here in berlin before we move away. and to my delight it was a fast and affirmative response. i can't believe all it took was being brave enough to try, and now i can model basically as much as i want, i just have to reach out to people and set something up! 

pretty sights on our refreshing spring walk

playing around with compass + straightedge problems with my darling

everything felt hard today and then i realized why

feeding myself felt hard today. getting up from the couch felt hard today. learning swedish felt hard today. everything felt hard, which felt bad. i beat myself up until i realized i'm probably just sad. 

a family friend passed away yesterday unexpectedly. her health was poor, but it wasn't like anyone was prepared for this outcome any time soon. 

death is already an incomprehensible thing, but being an ocean and several hours' time difference away made it especially hard for this news to sink in. it slowly did, and i became scared for my family, not knowing how grief will affect them and unable to provide much solace or support from all the way over here. 

i will be trying, though. i will at least try and set up recurring video calls with family members—nothing overly planned, but regular enough to keep us all in more frequent communication. we have a family group chat, but that's not the same as seeing each others' faces on a regular basis, even if virtually. 

i lost my own friend a year and a half ago. most of the time that's somewhere in the background of my mind, but now it's come to the forefront again. 

grief feels like a second-level emotion for me. by that i mean, there's a class of emotions that feels easy and likely to arise on a day-to-day basis, like frustration or annoyance or even delight and affection. but one level below that, there's another class of emotions resting below the surface, like grief or despair or love-so-big-it-hurts, that only arise themselves if i've already entered into the first level. once i'm in that first level, the emotion can morph without warning into any other that waits in the second level. 

today, this looked like me crying in frustration about learning swedish, then gradually crying harder and harder until i finally sobbed that i simply miss my friend. and now i miss both, and i hope my family can hold each other as they grieve, too. 

finished reading project hail mary

it took me a month and half to read being wrong, a non-fiction book about error. it was very good but i felt like my brain had to be On in order to read it. 

on the other hand, i started reading project hail mary, a fiction book about a last-ditch outer space mission, four days ago and finished it today. with fiction, i can relax into the story more and use my brain less; though if i really wanted to understand the mechanics of project hail mary, i also would have had to use my brain a ton (it had a lot of math and science central to the story). 

we watched the project hail mary film a few days ago, and it was riveting and hilarious and heartwarming, so i was excited to read the book, too. i enjoyed it more as a movie, though—seeing science is a lot more entertaining for me than reading about the specific procedures. 

i also found that the movie had a lot of changes compared to the book. i'd have to watch it again to know for sure, but it felt like there were a few major changes, but maybe they're more surface-level than it seemed—it does seem like a common book-to-movie strategy to leave out or consolidate a few characters. 

speaking of books-to-movies, others i've seen and read this year are gone girl and pride and prejudice, both the keira knightley version and the bbc series. i found the gone girl movie to be quite faithful to the book. both were good, but i preferred the latter. as for pride and prejudice, i enjoyed the book much more having already seen the keira knightley film version—i think i enjoyed them equally. the bbc series i didn't like as much. 

today as i was reading the last few pages of project hail mary and marveling at how fast i read it, i said to my fiancé, "remember when i couldn't read?" because when i met him, my attention span was not in the condition to be finishing a book at all, let alone in four days. and now i'm reading and writing, nearly every single day! something in me feels repaired, restored, reinvigorated. 

and the more i read, the more i enjoy future books—for example, being wrong had a little section about pride and prejudice, and it felt great to understand the commentary because i was familiar with the source material. i'd like to continue reading classics and other major works, even and especially ones i've read before (like in high school) and didn't really get. 

you only need one good photo from a photoshoot

not every photo from a photoshoot has to be fantastic, even and especially if the photoshoot is just to add to your modeling portfolio. you really only need one. 

i really enjoy modeling. as such, i haven't really made a significant effort to establish a portfolio or Do Modeling well, because i just do it for the love of the game and accept whatever opportunities i happen to get without putting much effort in. and thus far, that has worked! but i've also had dry spells where i've felt stuck and helpless because it felt like i could only model when someone else provided an opportunity to do so. 

recently i've been wanting to actually try—to really take a shot at developing my skills. not necessarily to try to build a successful career doing modeling, but at least to have skills i am proud of and can rely on, rather than being nervous and hoping i do well, without putting in the hours to actually get there. 

this means i've been thinking a lot about what successful modeling actually entails: what differentiates a successful photo from a non-successful photo? i'm not sure exactly what i even mean by "successful." it's different depending on the context, but i have a tentative sense of what images work and which don't, and what makes something like professional rather than amateur. in other words, what makes an image actually feel like something other than just "one person aimed a camera at another person," or "a person looking pretty in a pretty spot." there's more to it than that, and i'm on the hunt for identifying exactly what that is. 

to accomplish this, i've been observing and analyzing other images—bookmarking posts that have that "it" factor, as well as ones that seem to fall short, in order to identify patterns. i've also enjoyed seeing more experienced people online sharing thoughts about what makes an editorial image look "editorial," and what makes a successful portfolio image. 

one such thought was that you only add one image per photoshoot to your portfolio. adding more sends a negative signal as well as redundancy: it shows that you don't have enough work to fill a portfolio, or don't have the taste and sense to cull and cultivate your portfolio to a few strong images. 

this is kind of a new concept for me, and a helpful thing to learn before embarking on my first self-arranged photoshoot (other names for this sort of photoshoot are "TFP" or "time for prints," "collab," or "test shoot." each of these implies neither the model nor the photographer are being paid, and are working on the basis of the shoot being mutually beneficial to the portfolio of both or all involved). 

though part of me felt a lot of pressure to do well—as if my prospects as a model hinged on every single photo turning out well—keeping in mind that actually only one would ever be useful as a portfolio image helped to relieve some of that pressure. 

and really, i didn't need any of them to turn out well. before the shoot, i worried about the possibility that all the images would turn out poorly, and everyone would see that i'm a horrible model—until i realized that bad shoots don't even have to see the light of day if i don't want them to. the photographer can share them all they want, but i don't have to put anything on my page (or portfolio) if i don't like how it came out. if the whole shoot was a bust, oh well, i can do another. 

the only thing that well and truly mattered was morale. i had an inkling that if the shoot went poorly, my morale would take a big hit. i would question if i could ever be good enough, and would be at risk of giving up for good. 

as i primped and prepped for the shoot, however, i got a welcome wakeup call from my fiancé, who encouraged me to remember teenage me: how it felt to have creative little photoshoots just for fun, and how no one remembers the ones i didn't like, and sometimes i even created ones so successful they still hang on my parents fridge. his message was clear: it doesn't matter if this specific shoot is successfully "professional" or not, what matters is that i have fun and remember how much i enjoy the process in the first place. 

and i did! i had a lot of fun, and even wondered why it took me so long to do something like this in the first place. and i even got several very nice images out of it as well! the whole thing ended up being a major boon to morale, and i'm proud of myself for being brave. 

i finally ripped the bandaid off and had a photoshoot just for fun

i'm trying to learn from first principles what exactly makes a successful photo—specifically fashion, both editorial and lifestyle/commercial. unsurprisingly, actually doing the thing gave me much more information than simply pondering the thing without actually doing it. 

a few days ago, i messaged a hobbyist photographer on instagram—we'd connected previously at a public fashion show i was modeling in and he happened to wander past and take some photos of—and asked if he'd liked to do a photoshoot this weekend, just for fun. 

i've been meaning to do something like this for quite some time, but i always felt too scared. the prospect of both being amateurs, bumbling around trying to figure out what "modeling" and "photoshoot" even entails, felt intimidating and off-putting. but i finally got over myself and decided to just try it out and have a little fun. 

as we arrived at our first location, i immediately realized the crux of what makes a good photo: some sort of story. of course, that seems quite obvious, doesn't it? but it didn't really hit me, like really hit me, until i was standing in a beautiful subway station, artfully composed in the shot, only having practiced basic, can't-go-wrong poses in the mirror—the kind you'd see if you scroll any website showing posed models selling clothing items. 

this immediately struck me as silly, to pose like an e-comm model completely not interacting with the context i was placed in. but what should i do instead? what emotion would i be feeling in this setting? what's the angle? 

i had an urge to suggest a brief brainstorm, desperate for the photographer (or anyone) to just tell me what to do, and i'd do it. i resisted the urge. i decided instead to do it on my own, and be okay with feeling like i'm doing it poorly. to really wallow in the uncertainty, and see what came out. 

the result was positively not bad! i didn't aim to create any spectacular images, but i did have a few big things riding on the outcome of this shoot, namely: am i ugly and do i have what it takes? and i'd say the answers are a resounding no and yes, respectively. 

am i a once-in-lifetime, general talent with a natural knack for modeling that's so clear everyone and their uncle could see it? no. but do i have a small but steady inclination towards flattering poses and emotive expressions, that could definitely be nurtured into something reliable? absolutely! 

and yes, i somehow did have a whisper in the back of my mind that if i did a photoshoot, i would discover that my face, captured by a professional camera, is actually a horrid, wretched sight to behold—or maybe something less dramatic than that, that i'd discover i just don't have the face for modeling, even if it's a perfectly fine face otherwise. 

but i was quite frankly delighted with the resulting images. and i can see very clearly that some just didn't turn out flattering, but that that does not at all take away from the fact that i can produce successful images. 

other things i did well, that i previously agonized over: 

styling—i bought three new dresses yesterday (might write a whole post on that endeavor) and chose one for this shoot, adding a belt, heels, and gold hoops to make the hardware on the belt. the result was a great silhouette and enough accessories to not look bare. 

makeup—i swear i used to be good at makeup, but somewhere around 2016 when contouring first appeared, i slowly fell out of practice and stopped picking up new techniques. i don't know how to choose the right foundation color or lip color. but it ended up looking not too bad, and my face wasn't horribly mismatched with my body. 

nerves—i didn't mind too much that lots of people were around and watching. it perhaps hindered my creative risk-tolerance, landing me in the same few poses over and over again, but hey, at least i didn't feel cripplingly shy or have trouble doing those few poses well. 

(oh, and if you've been following along with my last couple posts where i talked about having a vision for this photoshoot: we did not end up doing that. i went with what the photographer was feeling, and styled my outfit accordingly, and i was happy with the results! i only wanted to follow through with my vision if i could really commit to it properly, which was not the vibe this time around, and that's totally fine.)

so i'd say this was a success. and not only that, it was quite fun and i would very much like to continue experimenting, and reach out to other photographers. 

a cropped portion of one of the images from today. i picked this one because i think i look pretty!

our going-away party

we're moving away in a couple weeks, so last night we had lots of friends over to celebrate our farewell. it was exactly as wonderful as we wanted: friends from multiple different contexts mingling together until the wee hours of the morn. 

most of our friends in berlin are twitter- or twitter-adjacent friends, but we also have friends from church and friends from my modeling escapades. until now, they've never really mixed. it was an absolute delight to introduce them to each other and later observe how they continued on independent conversations, finding new connections and enjoying the night. 

this was the second "house party" we've thrown, the first being our halloween party last year, which was also a raging success. one hit from the halloween party was showing movie clips of people's costumes on our projector, so if someone dressed as an obscure character, they could point at the relevant clip and explain their costume. 

we decided to modify that for this party too, and i put together a folder of photos of our memories in berlin, attempting to include one with every person who planned to attend, and played them as a slideshow on the projector throughout the party. it worked as intended, sparking conversation about the various memories, which helped us reconnect as we reminisced, and connect anew as new friends told stories of the memories to each other. 

i had intended to include another hit from the halloween party, our photobooth, but ran out of time and didn't feel like asking early guests to help set it up. this was fine from a vibe-perspective (it was nice having every in the same half of the apartment, scattered through the living room, balcony, hallway, and kitchen), but my only regret is that without the photobooth to remind us, we forgot to take photos with the friends who came! i took exactly one photo and one video during the party, which is certainly better than nothing, but it would have been great to have better photos of everyone too. we didn't even get a photo of my fiancé and i, looking quite lovely i might add! 

friends who hadn't seen our apartment before questioned, with mouths agape, why we would ever leave it. indeed, if we could pack it up in a giant box and move it to sweden with us, we would in a heartbeat! i'll miss the bright, towering windows, the impossibly spacious ceilings, and the cozy layout we put our hearts into. we hope we can pass it on the friends, if the giant landlord accepts our pleas. 

it was hard to see everyone together finally, knowing the very purpose of the gathering was to say goodbye. i couldn't believe how many kind, curious friends we had brought into our lives and our home in just one year of living here together. 

setting up for the party

the time for cowardice is yesterday

i have decided to stop being a coward about proactively modeling. by that i mean, i have set up a photoshoot this weekend, just for fun! i recently modeled in a photoshoot for a student designer, and i realized it was actually the first photoshoot i had done since 2022, which was when i first started modeling for real at all. and i have acknowledged that the only way to get better as a model is to do it more, including photoshoots, not just runway, but i knew that thus far, my cowardice has hindered me doing so. 

but i have a bit of momentum going right now, so i figured why not take advantage of it and set up a shoot while i feel like i can. the recent photoshoot was about three weeks ago, and around that time i decided i'd try and accomplish one modeling event per calendar month—while also acknowledging that that might now be frequent enough to keep the momentum going. the photoshoot was pretty inspiring, though, after i got over the initial feeling of "oh no, i'm bad at this." i am definitely an amateur, but who wouldn't be, after only one other photoshoot?! i could definitely see the potential in many of the photos, and also admit that the whole team was students, so our amateurishness all compounded together. 

i have a fashion show at the end of the month that's been scheduled for a while, and actually just today i booked one for next week, too. it's for another student fashion show, and i'd seen a couple student designers already looking for models, but they hadn't responded when i put my hat in the ring. however, just today i saw that the designer i did the photoshoot for was also looking for models for that show! i sent her a message and she ecstatically replied that that would be great, as i'd already know my outfit (though actually now that i think about it, she had put me in two different outfits, so i'm not sure which of those two it'll be, but i'm familiar with them both). 

so then i decided, what the heck, why not add another photoshoot while i'm at it? i sent a message to a photographer i'd met at a fashion show last year, who has previously offered to photograph any event of mine if i just let him know. he couldn't make it to my last show, and at the time i had proposed we do a photoshoot sometime for fun. i hadn't followed up though, until today. i realized i'm free this weekend and the weather will be nice, so i asked if he wanted to do a photoshoot with me. he said yes! then immediately asked if i knew any locations. 

i thought this might happen—i finally reach out to a photographer to do a photoshoot, and they have zero ideas and i have to do it all. the thing is, once i accepted this, i was actually quite excited about the prospect! i realized i do have locations i've been wanting to shoot in. i immediately started researching and putting together a pinterest board for my vision. i sent it to him within an hour. he then suggested another, very different location as well, which...didn't really fit my vision. but in that moment i realized that if it doesn't go well this weekend, i can actually be the one the organize and direct another photoshoot specifically tailored to my vision—i even have an idea of which model friends i'd ask to model for it. that's when i got really excited. so many people love to model (and i have so many friends who are great at it), it feels like a wide-open lane to actually come up with shoot ideas and provide opportunities for models, rather than wait around until one opens for myself. 

reading my old posts

after hitting 100 blogposts (and honestly after receiving an un-processably nice comment about my blog), i've been going back and reading my past posts. 

three things stood out to me. first, that none of the posts were as bad as i thought they were at the time. it's even kind of funny, because in several of them i talk about how bad previous posts felt and how down i got about how hard writing is and how impossible it is to ever make any sense. but for the most part i was perfectly sensible. at least, sensible enough! 

the second was that not only were none of them awful, some parts struck me as genuinely pretty good! i was shocked i had written them, to be quite frank. my perception of my writing as i write is that i overuse conjunctions, lean too much on passivity, and generally lack any real spark. but reading past posts, plucky verbs and unique turns-of-phrase abounded. i was very pleasantly surprised. 

the third thing that stuck out to me was all the little things i almost left out. i distinctly remember hemming and hawing about throwing in a passing description of something that happened—not because i wasn't sure it was worth saying, but specifically because i felt it was worth saying more about, and that i would be doing it injustice by just tossing it in and walking away. but some of those drive-bys reminded me of things i genuinely would have forgotten otherwise—especially little things about my fiancé, which also made my heart sing, that i had been able to capture here and there a glimpse of what makes him special. 

overall, i'm very proud of myself for what i have accomplished. i still get scared, i still feel hopeless, i still worry it's all for naught, but despite it all, i wrote and wrote and wrote. i'd like to keep going, as long as i can. i've been slacking a bit the past couple weeks, letting myself skip some days here and there, and i think that was the right call, but i think it's time to hunker down again and be strict about posting something daily. in the beginning i didn't want that to become a rule, but honestly as rules go it's a pretty good one. it keeps me in the habit at just the right frequency. 

one thing i'd like to keep in mind is to just get in there and start writing, and not pre-worry so much about knowing what to say. i'm always pleasantly surprised at how the way forward shows itself one stepping stone at a time, if only i can find the courage to start. 

a hodge podge of updates

i'm so tired today, and this weekend i didn't write many blogposts because we had friends visiting. things i want to write blogposts on are quickly outpacing the energy i have to write them, so i thought i'd jot down some of them briefly in case this is the only form they'll ever exist in. 

we just watched drive. it was the first time i'd seen it and i had no idea what to expect. much more intense than i expected, but a well-done movie with interesting characters. i liked one shot in particular that showed a character leaving, not by actually showing the character, but via a closeup of the main character's eyes following the leaving character back to his seat. watching the movie made me feel a particular kind of anxiety that has been creeping up recently, where watching intense things makes me worried we'll get mixed up in similar things in real life. i don't think this happened much before, but now that i have a fiancé, sometimes the stakes feel higher; i have more to lose, so things can be scarier. 

a few days ago we watched another ryan gosling movie: the most recent one, project hail mary. that was truly a knockout. expertly done, incredibly funny throughout, and with appropriately religious undertones for an easter release. watching it in english in a german theatre meant sometimes i was the only one laughing at minor quips, but thankfully i love to be a giving and easy-to-laugh audience. i'd definitely go see it again, and in fact the book version just came in the mail today and i will be reading it immediately. 

perfect timing, because i just finally finished reading "being wrong." it was very good, but i guess nonfiction just doesn't pull me in as much as fiction can, so it took me what felt like an eternity to finish. some nights i'd only read a single page, and then feel bad about that, until my fiancé would say something like, "you gotta read them eventually, and now you already have!" or something more inspiring, and i've probably butchered it, but it sticks with me now whenever i feel bad about how little progress i'm making on something. 

i got a uti for the first time in a few years and gosh, i forgot how awful they can be. the process of getting anti-biotics was a trip, but thankfully after two courses (the first wasn't enough), it seemed to be resolving. and just in time for my period to start! i shuddered at the thought of having to wear pads for a week after the irritation and pain the uti inflicted upon me, so i thought hey, why not try a menstrual disc (i've used disposable ones before, but this was my first time trying a reusable one). i also figured that i'm finally functional enough to try using a menstrual product that requires sterilizing in boiling water every cycle. for some reason, however, the one i got was a size medium, which was apparently the wrong choice. i inserted it, then immediately attempted removal just so i knew i could—and quickly realized i could not. discs, unlike menstrual cups, are to my knowledge not supposed to form a vacuum seal in the vaginal canal, they're just supposed to sit behind the pubic bone and be super easy to remove. but this one definitely seemed vacuum sealed inside of me. i could touch it, but any attempt to actually grab it was proving impossible. i would have immediately started panicking if my fiancé weren't right there with me. after several of my failed attempts, he offered to give it a go, and thankfully, gripped and removed it on the first try. it was one of those moments that made me thankful i found a partner who doesn't flinch at humanness, and would gladly remove foreign objects from my body, no matter how bloody. 

i'm gonna sandwich this in here and maybe no one will read it. what if i'd be much better at being behind the camera instead of in front of it? at the end of the day i really don't think i have what it takes to be a "successful," model, but i do just enjoy the process so much, it would be cool if i could find some other role i'd be better at. i often joke that the only time i get bossy is when i'm behind a camera; in those situations it's easy to have a vision and direct people accordingly. and it seems fun to work with model friends and be able to put them in creatively interesting shoots, rather than waiting around and hoping someone could do that for me. the thought of honing the skill is intimidating, though, particular being seen trying. 

my fiancé's friends visited this weekend and we had a lot of great food and good wine. i was elated at how healthy i felt the whole weekend, namely in two aspects: i felt barely hungover at all, despite drinking a decent amount each night, when previously any amount of alcohol at all would leave me sick; and i felt almost completely zero amount of difficulty with any of the food we ate, when previously i was incredibly sensitive to tastes and textures. i was proud of myself for making so much progress that i was able to fully enjoy all the pleasures of the weekend. i also conquered at least two specific fears: eating raw fish, and eating fish with bones in it. we also had a cool bone marrow dish served in a halved bone, little tiny fancy delicate tacos, and a dozen other very delicious and strange foods. 

yesterday i really didn't feel like going to the gym, but went anyway, and i felt really good about how i did. the weight i'm lifting is still increasing, and this time even though i'd been away from the gym due to my uti, i didn't have to start much lower like i do when coming back from something like a cold. i keep realizing that my impression of how much weight i'm lifting is totally off, because i'm lifting in kilograms when i'm used to thinking in pounds. so unbeknownst to me at the time, my 45kg romanian deadlifts were actually me moving 100 pounds. that sounds insane! i'm feeling much more confident in my form, and continue to see visual changes in my body. recently i noticed my arms actually do change in appearance when i flex them, even though i haven't even been targeting biceps at all. it's simply very very cool to see. it feels like cracking open a deep part of me that was convinced i couldn't effect any change in my life: this is a clear cut case of my body changing in response to the work i am putting in. i still can't quite believe it! 

the region beta paradox of enjoying your beloved's company

my fiancé and i realized lately that we can accidentally go weeks without doing any big fun thing, or even something smaller like going out to a restaurant or going to the movie theatre. part of this, we agreed, was that we have so much fun just living our boring, everyday lives together, that we forget to want anything more. 

the funny thing, though, is sometimes this means a bit of sadness or insecurity or anxiety sneaks in undetected, and we're likely to attribute it to something bigger than just "we haven't seen our friends in a while." (i noticed a version of this when i was single, though i, uncharacteristically i might add, cannot seem to locate the tweet in which i described the phenomenon, where i noticed that whenever i was feeling insecure, i tried to mentally replace it with "i am in need of connection/community," and it seemed to work quite well). 

thus the region beta paradox of enjoying your beloved's company: if we were less happy at home, we'd perhaps be more likely to seek out bigger fun stuff outside of the home; but we're so happy at home, we can forget to do bigger fun things, and then end up experiencing negative feelings almost unbeknownst to us. 

at the end of the day, it's not a huge deal, and i'd much rather totally forget that other fun things exist than to need them at all costs in order to escape an unhappy home. but it's an interesting thing to ponder, and a reminder that things can be a complex mix of positives and negatives. and that  even when you meet your soulmate, you still might have to put in some effort in order to ensure you're both living as happily and healthily as you can—which includes remembering that friends and restaurants and concerts and movies exist. 

swedish ups and downs

i tried out a new swedish tutor and it went really well. it felt like i could speak better than i have before, and she seemed to really believe in me, which helped me believe in myself. i liked her style better than the previous tutor, who used a texbook and went very by-the-book, even though i didn't need help understanding low-level stuff, just help speaking it. the new tutor felt much more able to deal with my asymmetric levels. i felt confident and motivated after our lesson. 

however, it feels like when it comes to real-life situations, i still panic and no swedish comes out. we video called my fiancé's family for easter, and it was almost entirely in swedish, with me keeping up most of the time in terms of comprehension, but still answering in english. and today we had a video call with our wedding officiant, entirely and swedish, and i felt pretty dumb being so silent, because no swedish would come out of my mouth. though that also felt like the conversation was difficult enough that it made sense that i would struggle (though i could still mostly follow along). 

then we watched a short "documentary" as my homework from my new tutor so we could discuss it next session (the assignment was to watch it, write down three questions and write down 20 new words, so i would remember them when it was time to discuss what i'd seen). i sat down with my notebook and pencil, eager to jot down notes as we watched. we've watched challenging material before, most recently the lawyer drama hundarna, with many pauses so my fiancé could explain vocabulary or phrases, but this one felt like it was entirely new, challenging words. i put down my notebook and decided to just watch, resolving to watch it again later in a more studious mode, looking up words as i went. morale took a hit. i was confident about my level during my lesson, but now the homework was way too hard. but who knows, we'll see how it goes. i'll do my best, and also be honest with my tutor that it was overwhelmingly hard. 

it feels like my brain is constantly searching for a binary answer of "can i handle swedish," when the reality is that it depends on the context, the level, my emotional state, and so many other things. it feels like no matter how much or how fast i improve, i'm chastising myself for all the things i don't know or can't do still. i'll just keep going, though, and trust that the process will work itself out (i know it will).

big day!

a few weeks ago i joined a therapist directory as a "life coach," and today i got my first client inquiry and had an intro call. it's been a little over a year since i did anything this close to therapy, and though i was a little unfamiliar with how to structure a brief intro call (i'm used to full-length first sessions as a therapist), it felt amazing to be doing work like this again, with the changes i wish i could have made as a therapist (like not diagnosing). it made me more excited to flesh out more marketing materials and really go for it, so that i can get more client inquiries and make this a real thing! i've wanted to have my own practice for probably four or five years at this point. i tried to set up a therapy private practice once before, but it was too much to juggle at the time, and i still didn't like diagnosing, so even going out on my own didn't fix that fundamental disconnect. i'm very excited to pursue this direction more!

i also started the day with a swedish tutoring lesson, which taught me some interesting new things, but i also want to try out some different tutors as well, so i can better evaluate fit. i like the tutor i'm seeing, but i'm wondering if there might be someone better suited to handle my particular level. so i ended up booking a tutor whose profile i had seen before and liked. the only problem is she lives in australia, so her available times are not quite convenient for me. the trial lesson i booked with her is tonight...at midnight! she does have some more reasonable times, but i wanted to strike while the iron is hot (before today it had been a whole week since my last swedish lesson, and that was enough time for my nerves to build back up—i'd like to minimize the chances of that happening again!). 

all this talking today, and my throat is already a bit sore from all the singing i did over easter weekend. after some quick mental math, i estimated that my fiancé and i spent over 8 hours in church over the long easter weekend. it was especially nice because of a few things: 1. it was my fiancé's first time spending easter in a church, let alone a catholic one. 2. he played guitar (and sang!!!) at easter vigil mass and sounded and looked so lovely. 3. it was my own first time in several years to attend more than just easter sunday mass. and my first time in germany too! there were lots of differences that surprised me, but also a lot of comforting similarities. 4. i felt connected to the meaning of easter for the first time in a very long time. to the point where i actually got confused why there were bunnies everywhere, lol. it felt good to appreciate the sacrifice and the love behind the holiday. 5. i finally felt comfortable to sing at normal volume during mass! often there aren't a ton of people at the mass we normally attend, so it feels quite vulnerable to sing aloud, and i either just read or whisper along. but we recently attended a cool adoration event with more contemporary songs (including english ones that i know and love!) and i got out of my comfort zone and sang louder than usual there, and since then i've felt much more comfortable to finally sing out! it also helps that my fiancé says how much he likes to hear my singing voice. 

oh yeah, and i got back on twitter yesterday! it felt a bit strange. i think the break really severed something, in a positive way. it feels like when my phone broke in college and i subsequently fasted from social media for months, then when i returned to instagram, i never felt the same draw to it afterwards. i'm not sure what my relationship to twitter will be moving forward, but i'm thankful for everything it brought into my life. 

this is my 100th blogpost!!! 🎉

somehow i have written and published 100 blogposts! feels like the time it took to get here was simultaneously quite short and quite long. it kinda feels like not that big of a deal because it's not exactly 100 *effortful* blogposts, but i guess 100 of what-i-could-muster-at-the-time is better than 0. this one too, i'd like to put more effort in, but oh well. it's easter! happy easter!

i made kimchi fried rice!

to my surprise and delight, sometimes my mood greatly improves when i cook an elaborate meal. this was never true before, as cooking anything seemed to only deplete me rather than the opposite. but now if i'm feeling a bit down about my self or my abilities in general, cooking a meal is an almost surefire way to lift my spirits. 

the other day i decided to attempt kimchi fried rice. i made this a handful of times on my own a few years ago, but the results were inconsistent. once or twice it was great, and the rest it was varying degrees of awful. so trying it now was a gamble. 

i cooked it with bacon, which i had never done in the past. the result was fantastic! the fat from the bacon really added to the taste. i was worried it might be too salty or bad some other way, but my fiancé loved it, and requested i make it again sometime. 

friday rolled around, and since we're trying to not eat meat on fridays, it was the perfect time to attempt the dish again sans bacon. this time it turned out a bit more like my previous attempts: the flavor wasn't quite as deep. though still pretty good! 

next time i make the meatless version, i make make some other changes to improve it. but overall i'm very satisfied with the results, and it feels great to finally have a use for the lonely, untouched kimchi in our fridge.

 

green thursday adoration

i'm not sure why, but in germany they call today (the thursday before easter) "green thursday." as far as i know, in america there's no special word for the thursday, i guess just "easter thursday," then "good friday," "holy saturday," and "easter sunday." but i could very well be wrong about that. (i just googled it and yes i was wrong about that. it's holy thursday, not easter thursday, which now i'm like ohh of course)

i guess it's been several years since i've attended anything at church on a holy thursday, but what i remember from the u.s. was a semi-regular mass, but with people from the parish chosen to get their feet washed like the apostles. i'm very fuzzy on the details, but i remember wondering who would be chosen each year. 

i expectantly hoped for something similar here in germany, but perhaps it's just an american thing (and maybe even parish specific? not sure...catholic churches have sneakily more differences than you might expect). 

to be fair, i also can't read german very well at all, and also didn't look very hard at the names of the events today, so i was free to imagine my own thing. but when we arrived, i found out it was adoration of some kind, with some readings and songs interspersed with long stretches of silent adoration. 

initially i was disappointed that it wasn't going to be a holy thursday like i imagined. it was also at a different church than the one we normally attend, and the pews and kneelers were much more uncomfortable than i was used to, despite the fact that these kneelers were actually padded. 

the pew seats were narrow and the kneeler was fixed in position, so finding a comfortable position for my legs was quite an acrobatic endeavor. i sat internally grumbling, trying and failing to not move very much. i was sleepy from a hard day at the gym and the unexpected bouts of silence (of indeterminate length) threatened to lull me into a slumber. 

then i remembered that my fiancé had just mentioned how the apostles were in a very similar position, being asked to wait up and watch over jesus while he prayed...and despite how hard they tried, they fell asleep. it felt like we were in good company. even really great role models are still just human at the end of the day, and even when you care about something, sometimes it's just hard to overcome tiredness.

i also realized that there i was, complaining about a bit of discomfort, when we're literally in contemplative silence for someone who suffered and died on the cross. i recentered and tried to sit with my discomfort, rather than wish for it to go away. 

it also helped to shift away from complaining and nitpicking and focus on the positives instead: how thankful i was to be there, how thankful i am to live the life i live, and thankful i am for all the love i get to experience. and i'm thankful to experience easter with my fiancé, and see it with new eyes. 

fascinatingly linear blog growth

it's now my fourth calendar month of blogging. so far, the amount of monthly views my blog has gotten has been almost perfectly linear, to my surprise and delight. feast your eyes: 

click to enlarge!

january 2026 views: 421

february 2026 views: 880

march 2026 views: 1294

so if you could all coordinate to view my blog approximately 1727 times (no more, no less) in april, that would be fantastic. 

(as a side note, who are you people????? i am aware of like a handful of people who regularly check my blog, and other than that i have no idea who all these views are. please say hi!!!) 

no offense, but i am pretty!

a few years ago i realized that it hurts no one if i think i'm pretty. as in, a part of me felt like i could only think i was pretty if other people agreed. but then i realized i could independently decide to find myself beautiful and there's nothing anyone could do about it. 

though i still occasionally find myself acquiescing to a hypothetical objector, i often have moments of clarity where my insecurities fall away and i see myself as others might see me: i see someone who is pretty. 

the nuances of this experience endlessly fascinate me, specifically because my feelings about whether or not i am pretty seem to have very little correlation with whether others actually agree or not. for example, i've noticed a pattern where feeling ugly functions as a defense mechanism against the potentially vulnerable situation of others paying attention to me. 

it helps to ponder from this birds-eye view. it doesn't feel good to waffle over my own beauty, but being patient and open and as objective as i can about it helps me untangle what's beneath it and works towards the ultimate goal: not really caring very much regardless, or at least not basing my worth on it, while also reliably being able to pull a few levers (like doing my hair and makeup) when i want to turn on the beautiful switch. 

or maybe that's not exactly it. oh right, my ultimate goal is right there at the top: being able to see my own beauty regardless of others' opinions on the matter. 

eh, that's not exactly it either. i'm not sure. but i would at least like to have less moments of questioning my beauty (and thus my worth). kinda hard when i'm also actively pursuing (and getting rejected from many) modeling opportunities. but hey, a girl can dream. 

i'd really like to have a solid sense of appreciating my beauty, though, and for good reason. you know how some people (often older women, at least in my life) can't stand any photos of themselves? it breaks my heart that they can't see the beauty that's so obvious in my eyes. so i'd like to be able to appreciate photos of myself throughout my life, especially so that i don't deprive loved ones of capturing my image. 

and really i'd just love to free up the mental space "am i pretty" apparently continues to occupy in my brain. some things have made a significant dent, but it still comes up from time to time.