Contrails: Feb '26, Week 3

Considering that I was planning to chill out and enjoy the festive season, it turned out to be a rather tiring week. 🤔 All good though! Did a lot of things, so much so that taking photos/ screenshots often slipped my mind. 🙃 The good kind of busy, I guess! 🥹

✨ IRL -- Lunar New Year festivities!

My OOTD on New Year's Day! Was quite happy with my eye makeup. 💖

Met up with my parents on the eve of the Lunar New Year (Monday) for "reunion" dinner. 💜 As far as I know, the tradition of reunion comes from the idea that the family members, who might have left their hometown for work/ life, return to start the new year with their family/ parents. I don't know how other cultures celebrate the Lunar New Year, but I think some recurring themes of the Chinese New Year are:

1. Abundance

2. Good fortune

3. Prosperity

4. Patriarchy

No one really talks about the 4th point because it's kind of implicit in traditional Chinese culture. Women are married off, and traditional Chinese wedding ceremonies still highlight this with practices like dowry giving, fetching the bride to "cross the door" into the groom's family home (not THEIR home), etc. Having grown up in a rather traditional (or should I say, conservative) family, I was taught these concepts from a young age. So when I started dating (Chinese) men, my parents never expected me to "return home". Sure, I wasn't married yet, but they knew that I was showing respect to my partner's family, just in case they had such expectations of women.

So why the quotation marks for "reunion"? Because both my partner and I have elder brothers who do not "bring their families home" before the turn of the new year. 🙃 As a result, my parents have not had reunion dinner for years because I always spent the eve paying respects elsewhere. My mother would always decorate the home beautifully with much enthusiasm, fill the kitchen with lots of New Year snacks and goodies... only for no one to come home. It's sad, no? So my partner and I agreed a few years ago that we will always spend New Years Eve with our respective parents, so that everyone gets to take part in the New Year festivities. My father would always ask, "Are you sure your partner's parents don't expect you to be with them instead? They might not say it, but they might resent you for not showing face." But despite the critique, it is clear as day that he's happy to get to have a nice meal with my mother and me.

I believe that the good intent behind traditions don't require archaic practices to honor. Also, the blind-spots of the dictators of the past should be rectified by the young of today. Once upon a time, things like prejudice, inequality, and discrimination were right and just, so I prefer to think of them as blind-spots of the people who couldn't fathom a better way to live. I imagined a better way, and so I take action.

Anyway! Back to the festivities! I sorely underestimated how tiring it would be to wake up at 6:30AM on New Year's Day to doll up, rush to spend at least 30 minutes at 2 different houses within the morning (each house was about 45 minutes away from each other), rush back home to dress down and prepare dishes for dinner, and to head back out with the food at 6:30PM to have dinner with my partner's family... and then to make my way back home at 10PM. I crashed the moment I got back home! 💀

But the rest of the week was peaceful, so I'm well rested now! 🌙

Koi and hippo checking out my clay diffuser that I had added mandarin essential oil to. 🍊

✨ Projects -- Worked on the next cover!

Initially wanted to take this week easy, but realized that I don't have a full week (this week) to work on my cover. So I've been working on it whenever I had the time and energy to. In fact, I almost forgot to write today's post because I rushed to continue working on it! 🤣 I'm still hoping that I can push this out before the end of February, so please look forward to it! 💜🎵

I might not be able to release a new cover in March because I have other things to work on... or who knows -- maybe with sheer determination I can still make it happen?! We'll see! 🤔

✨ Gaming -- (Finally) Got the last rare cat in NekoAtsume, got 1 more Steam achievement in Sonic Racing (1 more left!!!), didn't manage to reclear FFXIV Savage Raid (well... I didn't expect us to...), started a new game of Don't Starve Together to check out the Year of the Clockwork Knight (Horse) update, and did some housekeeping in Nightingale!

Wow, that's a long title. 🤔

I don't have much to say about each game though... But I had a good time! That's what's important, right? 💖

Here's the celebratory screenshot I took when I got the extremely elusive cat in NekoAtsume:

Now I'm back to playing the game just for vibes, and to stop myself from scrolling social media. :P

Hope my FFXIV Raid static manages to clear M12S today before the weekly reset. 🥺

~💜~

Hopes for this week

♪ Release a new cover!

☆ Week 8 of 7.4 Savage Raids: May we reclear in just 1 session this week :prayge:

☆ Vroom vroom Sonic Racing! I'm at 15/39 for the last achievement!!!

☆ I'm meeting a high school friend for dinner with my partner this Friday!

☆ Board game sessions return this Saturday!

☆ Start planning the itinerary for the trip to Penang 👀👀👀

Thank you for reading! 🌙🐰