Sunday afternoon.

Currently sitting at a very lovely outdoor cafe in the Mid-Levels. Everyone in here right now is French. It’s a whole vibe.

I got dressed up in my “work attire” (long skirt and a sweater) to come here and write today. Apparently I missed the memo that Sundays are Casual Sundays for Westerners. Everyone I’ve seen out today is dressed in athleisure or t-shirts/jeans/baseball caps.

Somehow I can just never get it quite right, no matter how hard I try.

I literally look like I just came from church compared to everyone else. Ugh. Somehow the French always get me. Always.

Sorted out my apartment situation, so I’m good to stay in one spot until my visa expires. What’s the plan in the meantime? Busy myself as much as I can, as always. Sending out job applications feels like tossing my CV into a paper-shredder and watching it turn to spaghetti live in real time. It is what it is. I finally stopped taking it so personally.

I’m still working on editing my latest manuscript. It’s a monster, as I’ve said. Very frustrating. There’s also my new blog, which has taken approximately 5 years longer to manifest than I initially guessed. At least it’s finally happening. It’s just taken me so long to get there, ugh. I feel like I’ve completely missed the boat on this project. It should have been done 10 years ago.

Oh well. I know I will feel better once it’s finally online. As I’ve said before, it’s an achievement thing. I don’t care how it takes to get there as long as I finally get there.

I decided to use this opportunity to finish a Coding Bootcamp I started during the pandemic but never finished. It’s very easy to go to the Central Library and spend the day grinding out whatever I need to be working on. I find I really absorb that next-level ridiculous level of discipline and productivity that only Chinese people have. I feel pretty confident I can finish the course on a shorter deadline if I make a proper habit out of it.

I guess if the world ends tomorrow, I should like to think I spent the last of it very productively, living in one of the most exciting cities in the world, always working towards bettering myself even when there is no hope on the horizon. I mean, really, can you think of anything better than spending the Apocalypse in one of the most beautiful libraries in the entire world? I can’t, honestly.

Sometimes I want to give up, but now that I’ve been researching my Irish ancestors, I can only think of how sad and poor and desperate they were as they boarded that ship to America with hopes and dreams, only to find themselves discriminated against and struggling harder than ever while they slaved away at the factories and the docks. And they did all of that for me, their legacy, so that I could live in a bright, beautiful, vibrant city like Hong Kong and have access to the best education in the world and make something respectable of myself.

And I am actively failing all of them by wasting away in bed feeling like I have no purpose or reason to live. Ridiculous. Shame. Shame on me. I must use this opportunity as best I can, even if I have to go broke doing it. This isn’t just about me. It’s about bringing honor to my family who abandoned the destitute, dying potato fields for something better.

Wow, I have no idea where that just came from, but damn. Dat Ye Olde immigrant guilt trip game strong. What other choice to do I have now?

That sounds like it came from my dad, actually. And my grandmother. My grandmother always used to say she wished she could have gone to university and studied literature and poetry and traveled the world, and not have to have gotten married or have a million kids, but she couldn’t because her family was Irish and poor, so she had to learn a trade and go to nursing school, and she did all of it for me so I could become a writer, and not get married, or have a million kids, and how dare I waste away an opportunity like this?

I accept this spiritual guilt trip for exactly what it is.

It’s fine. It is what it is.

It is what it is.