✧welcome to the jungle✧

DIY: Regular Tee turned Cropped Muscle Tee

      So lately I've been getting back into my DIY kick, and now that Spring is finally here, I've been really feeling muscle tees. They're just so comfy yet the silhouette and cut still keeps it looking stylish! This is a pretty basic DIY, and only requires three things: a shirt, a pair of scissors, and a steady hand. It just makes for an easy casual everyday shirt or workout/lazing around shirt which is probably what i'll use this one for. I'm just a sucker for the pink tie-dye and bold lettering so I just couldn't not play around with this shirt!

                            

^^Ignore my lovely polka dot PJ shorts!

Afternoon Dream

Jhené Aiko - "My Afternoon Dream"

Happy birthday to the lovely Jhene Aiko!! She released a new song/video today called "Afternoon Dream" <3 Love it. Perfect chillout music to get me through finals week.

Gravity

Without discussing any of the details surrounding who is performing, where they are performing, etc., I'd just like to take a moment to truly appreciate the spectacular art that is this dance piece. I honestly get chills every time I watch this video and cannot get enough of it. I love when you can truly feel the raw emotions central to a piece of choreography. My favorite part is at about 1:10 where she reaches up for the stars but is stopped by her partner and advocates through her dance her emotions and frustration of feeling held down by gravity. An absolutely incredible work of visual art that makes me miss dancing so so much and really inspires me to get back into dancing on the regular again <3

Let it go

“If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.” 

~Ajahn Chah

As do most college students my age, I am currently feeling tugged in all different directions with no one to tell me exactly what to do. And, granted, it's as it should be since I am an adult now. But lately, all the stress and problems have been piling up, and I've been bottling it up and feeling overworked and worried over it all. For some reason, when my anxiety is at its peak, I tend to google search my problems hoping internet people will have all the answers. Usually it's just a bunch of other people freaking out about the same thing too, but, luckily, I stumbled upon this very interesting article that got me thinking. 40 ways to let go and feel less pain 

I realized that for the most part all my "big" problems that seem to raise my anxiety and make me feel suffocated with issues are all things I simply have no control over or that I actually do have control over them but I just never came to terms with the fact because I was stressing out about it in the first place. So, in short, I've learned to just box all of those issues up and just throw them away in the "Doesn't Matter" box. For some reason it always takes just a comforting blurb from a friend or a random inspirational self-help article to really kickstart your mind into realizing that the answer lay within you the whole time, and that everything is never as bad as you make it out to be. Positive thinking will always lead the way into a brighter future. 

So next time an issue comes up and starts to bring you down, ask yourself these questions:

• Does it really have any drastic negative affect on your life today?
• Has it helped me become who I am today for better or for worse?
• Are you just worrying about a possible negative outcome for things that haven't even occurred yet?
• Is there something you can do to move past it? If you don't have any control over it, there is nothing to worry about. It is what it is. Let go of the issue and go out there and live your life!

Oh! And if you need to cry it out. By all means, go ahead. Studies show that crying it out actually can help release negative chemicals from your body. 

Stay positive! No matter how much darkness may cloud your mind, just remember, the sun will always shine again. :)

The Dumplings That Changed My Life Forever

Now, as an Asian girl, it goes without saying that I really, and I mean really love Asian food. But with that being said, I grew up always feeling hyperconscious about the things that I consumed because I was just born with an unlucky amount of commonly found allergies such as nuts, fish, bananas, you name it. Because of that, I just got used to sticking to the same dishes that I knew I wasn't allergic to. One of those dishes that I grew up eating was dumplings. Oh yes. Sweet, juicy dumplings. But if you grow up only getting to eat those while you're out at some fancy Asian Dim Sum place while all your relatives devour all these more complex and exotic dishes that are probably filled with things you can't eat, it starts to get a little, well, repetitive. Not to mention boring. But that notion has been forever changed as of about a week ago when my boyfriend took me to a certain place called Din Tai Fung. Now, this place originates from China and expanded to Los Angeles which is such a hub of great food so you already know this place is good. There's currently two in the Seattle area--one in Bellevue and one in the University District, which is the one I went to. It's newly opened and sometimes chain restaurants can be a hit or miss, but wow this was more like a hit and a half. 

Behold! The juicy pork dumplings.......It almost brings tears to my eyes remembering how succulent they were. First of all, when you walk into the restaurant, you can literally see the chefs in the back hand-making each and every dumpling, and it truly exemplifies how much of a wondrous art dumpling-making is. The dough is just the perfect combination of chewy and moist, and the meat is always bursting with flavor. But here's the hook---Now i'm no expert chef, but through some sort of beautiful, mystical cooking process, the DTF chefs have somehow found a way to fill these delicious dumplings with some sort of broth that you can't really describe. It just tastes so right. It's not too salty, not too bland, not too overpowering to where the ratio of flavors doesn't balance out throughout the dumpling. It's simply perfection.

Here's also the chicken fried noodles that we ordered. The portion was a little small in my opinion, but, then again, maybe we were just really, really hungry. It was still a great dish though, so you know this place isn't just a one-hit dish wonder. 

So in light of my recent newfound love and obsession for dumplings, I suggest if you have a DTF near you and have yet to try it to get up out of that uncomfortable chair you're sitting in, close your laptop, and go try their juicy, succulent dumplings now!!

Pink Slips

Burgundy maxi dress (H&M) / Rose button-up (Thrifted) / Michael Kors Gilmore Cross-body (Macy's) / Diba buckled shoes (Nordstrom Rack)

Lately my mood style has been girly and comfortable while still keeping it looking classy and sophisticated. This burgundy tank maxi dress layered under this rose-colored button-up gives off just the right girly color scheme without being super bubblegum pink pink pink if you get what I mean! I also added some leggings underneath my maxi for extra warmth.

I wore this outfit to grab some breakfast with my parents and my boyfriend. On the way back to the car, we came across a huge family of squirrels. They kept running around so it was hard to catch some footage of them but it was pretty epic to say the least.