Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to go apple picking with the Architecture department at MIT. I had never been, and the department was paying for the transportation (and I later found out, the apples too), so I jumped at the chance. There were 8 of us in total plus two adults (for supervision?).

So without further ado, here's 10 things I learned about apple picking:

1. It's really fun!
2. Apples grow in weird bunches. It was very strange to me, and now I am questioning if I have ever seen an apple tree before. Also, apple trees don't look like orange trees. I know because we had one in California. Apple trees are much wimpier.
3. There are a lot of different varieties of apples that look exactly the same.
4. There exists a weird foamy-textured apple. It was really unappealing. We didn't pick any of those.
5. Climb all the trees for all of the prettiest fruit.
6. It was also really cold, which made it slightly less fun.
7. Don't go at the same time as every person in the house. We now have more apples than we know what to do with. (But actually, I think across us all we have maybe around 100 apples?)
8. Apple cider donuts are probably the best thing I've ever tasted.
9. Scratch that, hot apple cider when you're shivering is probably better.
10. I UNDERSTAND THE HYPE NOW.

When we first got there, Frankie got very excited. There she is in the tree, munching on apples like a maniac.

I didn't know apples grew in like, clusters? It was very bizarre to me at first.

My roommate is on the prowl for the best apples!

Doh is also on the prowl but didn't forget to throw me a thumbs up for the picture.

My roommate and I both got two half-bushel bags of apples. Mine were free (Thanks, MIT Architecture!). I love free things.

Overall, definitely a fun experience and I would love to do it again!

This list has been something that I kind of always had in my mind, but finally decided to write up. I plan to continue to return to this list and update it as my life progresses. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog about most (if not all) of these things, so I can link back to everything!

• Visit all 7 continents (6/7, track my travel progress here)
• Backpack in Europe
• Visit every country in the European Union (4/28)
• See the New 7 Wonders of the World
• Pyramids of Giza (honorary)
• Colosseum
• Great Wall of China
• Taj Mahal
• Machu Picchu
• Chichen Itza
• Petra
• Christ the Redeemer
• Visit Greece and fangirl over all the mythology-related things
• See the windmills in the Netherlands
• Eat chocolate in Belgium
• Pay for an overseas vacation on my own
• Visit Tibet
• Go see the Harry Potter stuff in England
• See the Leaning Tower of Pisa
• Visit the Amazon
• Go see the Hokkaido lavender fields
• See the cherry blossoms in Japan
• Visit Korea and eat yummy food
• Eat yummy food in Japan
• Try street food in every country I visit (purple markers are places where I have eaten street food: track my progress here)
• Get paid to travel
• road trip across the US
• Explore Pompeii
• Live in another country (aka not the US, Canada, or China) for a few months

• Go out sketching at least once every two months
• Paint a painting every year
• Create a travel journal (Made one on Ecuador!)
• Send 20 hand-painted cards 
• Learn to throw on a pottery wheel
• Learn to play a song on an instrument even though I'm musically challenged
• Crochet a pixel blanket
• Sell a painting
• Open an Etsy shop
• Make a Youtube channel
• Write and illustrate a children's book 
• Design and code an app
• Redesign this blog and make it responsive
• Get my artwork published or in a gallery
• Create my own t-shirt design
• Learn calligraphy

• Do a Pay-It-Forward at a coffee shop
• Volunteer for a good cause
• Volunteer at a pet shelter
• Donate $1000+ for an important cause
• Knit for charity

• Take a self-defense class
• Learn to speak a new (fourth!) language
• Learn to drive
• Take a ballroom dancing class
• Take a martial arts class
• Graduate from MIT (without pulling any more all nighters please)
• Take a bartending class
• Learn to quilt (and then make one)
• Take a cooking class
• Take a baking class

• Dance in the rain with someone
• Adopt a pet that can snuggle (aka not a fish)
• Swim in an infinity pool
• Read a book every month (and blog about it)
• Get an elephant massage
• Go to a concert
• See a musical and pay for the ticket myself
• Go ziplining
• Get up to see the sunrise 
• See the Northern Lights, bonus if I photograph and paint it!
• Have a plant without killing it (I have now managed to kill both a cactus and a succulent)
• Grow a food that I can eat
• Enjoy a wine tasting
• Fold 1000 cranes for grandma and bring it to her grave
• Be an extra in a movie
• Go to ComicCon
• Go to BeautyCon
• Meet someone famous
• Eat a ridiculously expensive dessert (Like the 1000 dollar ice cream sundae in Vegas)
• Go apple picking (I've never been!) read about my experience here
• Build a blanket fort with someone I care about
• Ride in a hot air balloon
• Attend/be a part of a wedding of someone I care about
• Teach someone a skill
• Take my parents out for a nice dinner
• Get a penpal

On Thursday last week, I had a bit of a meltdown.

I got back a test that did not receive a grade I would've liked (don't worry, I didn't fail) which I had studied fairly hard for, and somehow became irrationally upset about it and ended up crying for most of the day. The meltdown, thinking back, must've been about more than a poor grade - I think the stress of job hunting and MIT started to get to me again, even though I purposefully chose to take a lighter semester with only 3 classes instead of my usual 4 or 5 (For reference, 4 classes is standard at MIT).

I'm not a stranger to meltdowns like the one I had this past week. I had them frequently last year, which was arguably one of the most stressful years I've ever had. However, I have learned how to deal with stress and meltdowns better. I sought help last semester, which helped greatly, but I do not feel like I'm in that poor of a state again to warrant another series of meetings with other people.

Instead, I chose to take the weekend off. I managed to get all of my immediate homework done by Friday (apart from a few last minute things on Saturday which took all of 20 minutes), so I could afford taking the weekend off. On Saturday, other than dance and work, I watched a movie and went out for brunch with a friend where we talked about everything other than classwork; Sunday, I spent baking.

So here are my top 10 ways I reduce stress, and I hope at least a few are helpful for you too!

1. Knitting and Crocheting: crafting has always been a source of stress-relief for me. My hands don't do well when they aren't used, and knitting and crocheting are easy for me to do while not really paying a lot of attention. It also helps because I make things for people for Christmas, so I also get to cross things off my Christmas To-Make list!
2. Doodling: As shown in a post here, I've recently gotten into my DIY planner. In the extra space per day, I like to draw a little picture of me and what I wore, or what I ate, etc., and I also take a few notes on what happened during the day (i.e. today was so cold, I bought food today, I had a lot of fun with my roommates today... etc). Super mundane, super simple, but it's surprisingly fun to look back on.
3. Watch a movie or a TV show: I especially like to watch kids movies and tv shows to destress. Recently I have been watching Steven Universe (Cartoon Network) and Gravity Falls (Disney), both of which I greatly recommend. They are now both on hiatus, so I will probably return to watching all the classic Disney movies on repeat.
4. Take a Youtube break: I like to do this when I don't necessarily have time for a longer break. I've been ridiculously into watching planner videos - they're really good for white noise, and I don't really have to pay attention!
5.  Cleaning: I hate mess and cleaning makes me feel like I'm being productive even though I'm really procrastinating on doing schoolwork. 
6. Put the stressors away: I am very bad at doing this, but it's so helpful to do. Put whatever it is that's stressing you out away for 20 minutes (or a full day, if you can afford it). This includes closing all related tabs on your computer! It really helps to take your mind off of it, and it makes you feel a lot more rejuvenated when you go back to it.
7. Baking, Cooking, Eating: I like to stress bake. I like to stress cook. I like to stress eat. I also like to feed other people. This all works out very well for me.
8. Take a nap: Personally it's really hard for me to fall asleep when I'm stressed out because my mind doesn't turn off. Taking the time to take a 30 minute nap without distractions helps me clear my mind. Also sleeping is great.
9. Call my sister: My sister is adorable, as exemplified about a million and a half times prior. She's really good at cheering me up! The last time I called her crying, she stuck her feet in my dad's face to make me laugh.
10. Dance: Taking breaks to practice my choreo helps me get out all the negative energy and also helps me learn choreo, which I'm sure my choreographers don't mind me doing.

For those of you who have no idea: I'm Canadian, and my Thanksgiving was yesterday. While I have many issues with the historical implications of Thanksgiving especially since this year, it coincided with the US's Columbus Day (*cough*genocide*cough*), I do think it is a good habit to take time and be thankful of what we have, especially since as a MIT college student, it is all too easy to get sucked into the black hole of anxiety (*cough*jobhunting*cough*).

So here goes:

1. I'm thankful for my family, but especially my sister, who is adorable. They have always been supportive of me in my endeavors, even though sometimes the way they show love is somewhat questionable. Thank you to Hera, who as a six year old little girl, is already capable of noticing when I'm sad and knows how to cheer me up and make me laugh. I strive every day to be a good sister (I even don't swear in front of her!) and a good example for her. Also, I'm thankful for mom and dad for always buying me fancy food.

I strive to be a better person every day for this adorable little one right here

2. I'm thankful for my roommates. Even though we're not all completely sane, we do try to keep each other grounded and we are always here for each other. Thanks Emma for being resident baking mom, and thanks Caitlin for always being there to remind me to slow down, calm down, and also for giving me all the meds.

Say hello to Emma, our resident baking mom. Caitlin, it's your fault for not coming to Maine with us and me not having any pictures of you from this summer :(

3. I'm thankful for Julie and Stephen, my best friends (apart from my roommates, who are now basically family). Thank you (especially Julie) for providing me with a safe haven to go to on campus, and being there to watch ridiculous episodes of Steven Universe with (since she's the one who got me into it in the first place). Thanks both of you for being there for me during my worst times last year, and remembering to check up on me when others forgot about me. Also, thanks for Arlong because he's an addition to our family and somehow all three of us in the apartment have gotten attached to him (it?). I hope you're both proud he's still alive.

I hope you know that you are adorbs

4. I'm thankful for my dance group, ADT, and the relationships I've forged there. I joined ADT late, but I have been forever thankful that I did. I forgot how much I used to enjoy dancing as a child, and ADT helped me regain that passion. My rehearsals have been an amazing outlet for my anxiety and stress, and I love every single one of my choreographers - even the ones I didn't know long. Thank you to everyone who offered a hug and didn't question or pry when I burst out crying before and after rehearsals. I have become friends with some of the most amazing, quirky, ridiculous, and adorable people at MIT through this dance group, and I couldn't be happier about it.

ADT has hands down been one of the best experiences in my life so far and has kept me from sinking at MIT

5. Finally, I'm thankful for the people who have managed to stick with me. After I moved out of my dorm last year, I realized that people I once thought were friends had never actually truly cared about me. I made a bigger effort to stay friends with them than they did, and when I disappeared from their lives, not one sought to contact me, ask me if I was okay, especially during the time when I needed that reassurance the most. So thank you to the friends from Pomfret who have stayed with me (Alyssa and Lydia!) and the friends at MIT who have always been there to offer a hand or a listening ear even when I was too scared to ask for it (apart from the ones mentioned, Rosa especially, for letting me cry on your shoulder too many times to count).

Thank you Rosa for letting me cry at you literally all the time last year

Now that I've finished being all sappy - now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time to look towards Halloween.... and Christmas! Christmas is my favorite holiday, so don't mind me as I start watching Christmas movies a few months too early. The argument that "Thanksgiving isn't even over yet!" doesn't apply to me.

What are you thankful for?

So, confession time: I'm an organization freak. I am the kind of person that likes to block out times on my gcal for everything in my day when I start getting really busy, to the point where my roommate mentioned that looking at my calendar gave her anxiety. I like to make to-do lists for everything and I like checking them off and feeling ridiculously accomplished. When I had a paper planner in high school (because they gave us planners), I would run out of space to write all the things I wanted to do (apparently I was a very busy high-schooler).

I also am a hoarder when it comes to pens and notebooks. I'm pretty sure my grandparent's home in China houses the majority of my notebook collection - all these cheap, pretty, Chinese notebooks in which I wrote maybe two or three pages and then promptly abandoned for another pretty notebook. I used these notebooks for everything: writing stories, journaling, making lists, doodling...

Over the summer I became ridiculously addicted to these "plan with me" videos on youtube. These are girls who have these ridiculously expensive planners and who decorate them with stickers to the extent that the planners are really actually scrapbooks. While things like that are not my cup of tea - the main aim of having a planner for me remains being organized - the videos themselves were somehow really entertaining to me.

Now mind you, ever since I began MIT I switched to digital planning. I have a huge reliance on Google calendar, but I never really liked how Google Tasks was set up (basically, it's ugly). I remembered how obsessed with my paper planner I was back in high school, and I became a little bit obsessed with trying to find a paper planner for the coming school year.

During my search for a cheap, pretty planner, I came across the concept of a "Bullet Journal" on Tumblr. It's a system designed by this guy named Ryder Carroll, and essentially it's a giant running to do list that you make every day. It's very customizable, because it's basically all DIY - you can use any notebook you have on hand and make it a system that works for you. And, since it's in an unstructured notebook, you can insert anything you want other than to do lists - journaling, doodles - and you will never run out of space.

I mean, until you use up the notebook.

Have I mentioned I have a thing for to do lists? And journaling? And doodling?

It was a match made in heaven.

The one issue that came up with the original bullet journaling system is that there isn't really any space for future planning. If you're making to-do lists every day for the day, it's kind of hard to see what you're going to do in a few week's time. Ryder Carroll has a way to combat that, but it's in a list format (of course) and it's only for the month.

To fix that issue, I decided to make weekly spreads instead of daily spreads - that way, I could at least plan out an entire week at once. For spans over a week, I continue to utilize my Google Calendar. I preferred it anyway, for writing out my class schedule, so I wouldn't have to write the repetitive events in my bullet journal / DIY planner every week.

Without further ado, here are the spreads I have since I started this whole bullet journaling adventure:

The notebook I used is actually a sketchbook I bought eons ago (remember I mentioned I hoard stationary?) and I drew a couple sketches of my family (mostly Hera) just so it can make me happy when I open the book

I started trying out this bullet journal thing over the summer and ended up doing more doodling/journaling which I really liked!

This was when I was still trying out future planning with only a paper planner

again, future planning with a DIY paper planner. this got abandoned fairly quickly.

I drew in a calendar for the month and with things I wanted to do but I never went back to reference it, which is how I realized this particular part of the system wasn't going to work for me

and the listing commences! This is my first spread, the week before school started

School starts! I had a couple stickers that I added in and also some washi tape. This was when I started also fake-scrapbooking and adding in ticket stubs and things like that

This is an example of me being able to use parts of the planner for, well, not planning. I took notes for my Designing Interactions class and also decided to start (late) the Lister's Gotta List challenge that I found!

My first Lister's Gotta List spread - I doodled out all the lists but I gave up doing this as I got busier

Still trying out this spread layout, but I became curious to try out a few different ones. The most exciting part of this week was going to the Boston Museum of Science's Pixar Exhibit for a class project!

More notes and Lister's Gotta List

I tried out a different type of weekly layout spread! I liked how the horizontal layout gave me more space to doodle, even though technically area-wise its the same amount of space

Moooore Lister's gotta List. You can tell I got really lazy.

I did another horizontal spread layout! This was the week where I really started adding in more doodles and writing in how I felt during the day, etc.

I emailed a bunch of places where I dropped my resume at during the MIT Career Fair and then was like, what do I do with all my pamphlets? Obviously, cut them up and tape them artfully in my bullet journal. I also added notes about the companies and their contact information.

This is this week's layout! I'm trying out a new layout where I have more space for the weekend so I can add in more memorabilia and stuff - I'm going to DC this weekend so I'm probably going to tape in my plane tickets, among other things. The notepad paper has all the specific homework I have for French.

I also decided to start trying out this habit tracker thing, mostly so I could stop writing "Feed Arlong" on every day of the week. It was getting kind of tedious.

So far, this whole bullet journal venture has been really fun! It doesn't take a lot of time to set up weekly, and drawing in or writing in how I feel or things that happened during the day really helps me wind down at night. It's been really good for destressing, and I get to fuel my hoarding into something kind of productive. I don't know if it's making me particularly more organized, but I do know it's already really fun to look back on and see what happened in the past month! Eventually, I'm hoping this will become a really cool log of my senior year.

Well, part of my senior year. I've already used up around 1/3 of my sketchbook and we're not even 1/3 of the way through the semester. I already have plans for what I'm getting to replace this, when it's used up!

How do you feel about paper planning versus digital planning? Do you journal, or doodle? How do you like to keep memories? Let me know!