Andy is Forgetful

 Pre-trip Prep  I had started a very restrictive diet (the candida diet) for my eczema almost two months before the trip and have been seeing decent progress with my eczema. The categories of food to avoid is all sugars, simple carbs, inflammatory foods, and fungal. Basically, what I've been limiting myself to eating is brown rice, meat, veggies, and nuts. Thankfully, I'm not a very big enjoyer of food so missing out on things wasn't devastating to me at all. However, I do value convenience quite a bit, so I anticipated this aspect would be the most difficult for me on the trip. As such, I came up with a plan to minimize diet cheating: stuffing my luggage with 12 pre-cooked brown rice packages, 12 cans of sardines, 5 packets of organic vegan protein powder, 20 organic beef sticks, and a variety of nuts! This caused my check-in luggage to total to 42 lbs. The goal is to try to avoid the worst foods and supplement with the foods I brought. In the beginning, I did a good job o...

 10/12 Trip to SF for the Blue Angels The Blue Angels were coming in to town, so Sam and Jason (Renewal Church friends) and I decided to Cal Train up to seem them. We got completely scammed by Karl the Fog becuase it started rolling in during the afternoon, and the Blue Angels were unable to fly due to safety reasons. They had Fleet Week going on, so we were at least able to see some exhibits the Army put up.

Taylor Swift Concert Night with Justin L! This night marked almost 10 months of anticipation for what I thought at the time would be one of the greatest moments of my life. Having been introduced to Taylor Swift for about a year, she quickly became my favorite artist of all time with her catchy tunes and wonderfully well-written lyrics. My Spotify 2023 Wrapped revealed that I was her top 0.1% fan with 24,259 minutes listened (37.58% of my total listening time in the year). I remember at one point in time I thought to myself that I should stop being obsessed and attempt to have greater diversity in my song choices. However, I soon discovered how pointless that was because literally every song sounded so inferior to Taylor Swift (in my opinion at that point in time).

Thursday 9/26 This was the night before we flew out. The plan was for Matthew to train up from Monterey, and we would have dinner with Justin. Unfortunately, Matthew’s train was very delayed, so it was just Justin and I dining on noodles. Afterwards, Justin drove us all to my apartment to all hang out. I had told him I wanted to learn how to sing better, so he was coaching me through singing some Taylor Swift. As expected, I was wildly off key (which I could not notice), but apparently did ok on the songs that didn’t fluctuate in tone too much. When we got to my apartment, it was basically just Justin catching Matthew up on some drama and gossip, while I finished up homework. 

"Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life's true delights" - Iroh Out of the many wise things Iroh spoke of, this was the quote that resonated with me the most. For me, one of the most satisfying things in life is striking up a deeper conversation with a stranger about their experiences. Being able to hear even just a small snippet of their journey through life is incredibly rewarding. It broadens my mind to so many new perspectives, allowing me to be more empathetic and understand the world a bit better. In some cases, it is inspiring too; I find certain aspects of their lives so compelling, that I try to incorporate it into my own life. And the same feelings apply with the roles reversed. It's very rewarding to share my own perspective of life, and even more so when I am able to impart wisdom and impact their lives in a positive way. Though I may never see some of them again, it always leaves me with a nice feeling that I was able to forge a deep conne...