Hello 2026 ✶⋆.˚

 

Hello angels!! It's been such a long time since I've blogged. I hope that you've had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I got so busy in the tail end of 2025 I barely had time to do anything outside of work. I thought it would be nice to start the year off with a little personal update before I return to backlog posting. This ended up being a lot longer than I thought but I hope you enjoy catching up with me (◡ ‿ ◡ .)

I'm sure I will post detailed updates for some of this stuff when I get around to it in the backlog timeline, but in general these were the highlights from November 2025 until now.

New Tattoo

I started a new tattoo! I previously had a hannya mask on my left arm but decided to turn it into a full sleeve. I had always planned to do this but my artist was so booked up it took like 6 years for me to finally get my appointment in (╥﹏╥)

I still have a few more sessions until it's done but I can't wait until it's finished!! I don't think I will get any more tattoos after this... I know I say that every time but this one really tested my patience lol

DIY Lash Extensions

I've tried lash extensions before and I've also tried doing them myself but I never quite liked the way they looked on me. After my double eyelid surgery I thought I would give them a try again so I bought a bunch of lash clusters and bond/seal from Amazon to experiment.

These are much easier to do than individual lashes and I can make these last almost a week if I'm careful with them. This has been a huge time saver for me during the work week because I don't really need to do too much with my makeup to feel presentable.

I bought a few styles to try but I think I like the second one the most!

This is my current work make and I really like that I can get my whole face done in about 10-15 minutes because I don't wear foundation to work anymore. 

Celebrated Milestones

I was completely booked up with birthdays and weddings the last 3 months. I had so much fun catching up with my friends and eating tons of delicious meals!! Koji turned 12 and we spent a whole day spoiling him with treats and pets.

I also made a lot of new friends and reconnected with a few old ones last year. I've been really enjoying the process of getting to know (and re-know) people. It's a reminder that there is still so much love and kindness out there to be found. My heart is so full and I'm eternally grateful that I spent so much time working on myself and curating my company for the last 2 years. I wouldn't have been able to have so many wonderful experiences and form so many new memories and friendships if I kept hanging on to the narcissistic parasites of my past (｡•̀ ⤙ •́ ｡ꐦ) !!!

Hobbies

I got really into optimizing my space so I started replacing some of my furniture and making a more concerted effort into creating a cozy vibe. So far I've mostly focused on my living room and kitchen but I'm really liking how things are coming together! Here's a little peek at the corner next to my WFH office setup.

I also picked up a sewing machine so I've been doing my own alterations and upcycling clothes that I don't like or wear very much. I bought this maxi dress a few years ago when I visited Kohi and Ray in Seattle and basically never wore it after that day.

I decided to turn it into a top and like it a lot better. I haven't had a chance to go to the craft store for an elastic waistband to turn the excess fabric into a skirt so I only have the top part done for now but I love it.

Wardrobe Audit

Speaking of clothes, I've been coming to terms with the fact that I hate a majority of my closet because it doesn't fit my current lifestyle and that I've grown out of a lot of items that I once felt were cute. I still like a lot of my clothes but I don't think they are for me anymore so I'm saddled with a surplus of items that I don't have any desire to wear but can't bear to just throw in the donation bin.

As you know I'm not the best at documenting my outfits so I've been tracking them and digitizing my wardrobe on an app called Indyx (not sponsored). 

I tried to be really diligent in using this for at least a month so I could see a trend in what I was reaching for the most. I've been going back to the office more regularly so I've been focusing on building out my corporate wardrobe, especially in the latter half of 2025. I found that I gravitated towards a few of the same silhouettes and since I don't subscribe to the notion of following substyles or set aesthetics, I decided to explore fashion with a more formulaic approach using silhouettes as my baseline. 

Maybe I'll do a more in-depth post about this sometime but essentially I just applied the same concept of outfit building to different articles of clothing. I would take some gal outfits that I liked and broke them down to their core theme or elements, then I would try recreating it with pieces from my corporate wardrobe. 

I'm not sure if these themes or elements will make sense to anyone else but I grabbed a few examples to hopefully better demonstrate the point I'm trying to make (ᵕ—ᴗ—)

bootcut/flare denim + long sleeve tops

This one is relatively simple. I really like the look of bootcut jeans and a platform shoe. I think that the most complimentary top is one with long sleeves or a knit.

"big pant or big jakt" 

Basically I applied this on a silhouette level and not with the actual clothing items (though I do use this concept literally sometimes).

For this I mostly wore oversized or more covered tops and had my legs exposed to recreate the "big jakt" silhouette.

big pant (+ usually a blouse)

She's giving art teacher vibes but these are my favorite "effortless functioning adult" cosplay outfits. These are super easy for me to put together and I tend to go with this as a foolproof option for days where I need to give a presentation.

Anyways that's pretty much all I've gotten up to on the fashion side of things. I've been watching a lot of fashion youtubers and got radicalized in the last few months to do multiple purges and donate everything that I honestly won't wear anymore. I had a huge pile of items set aside for sale but I can't be bothered to go through that hassle so I'll offload what I can to friends who are interested and throw the rest into the donation bin, regardless of its brand or perceived value. I'm just so tired of being surrounded by unusable clutter, I can't take it anymore!! (๑•̀ᗝ•́)૭

Gyaru

I think I've mentioned this a few times on my blog in the past and most of my close friends know that over the years I've developed a love/hate relationship with gyaru. I absolutely abhor being related to the concept of it as it is perceived and understood now, but I still love it for what it was when I discovered it.

I could go off about this forever but I don't want this post to be a giant rant so I'll try to boil it down to a few key points:

1. The comm fucking sucks (for me) because of:
• The huge influx and constant flow of misinformation and literal children from Tiktok.
• No one is gyaru??? There's just an endless stream of questions about how to do literally anything and it feels like everyone wants to skip the process of self discovery and experimentation so they can just be the viral gyaru icon on pinterest.
2. The fashion itself has become pink, leopard print, legwarmers on everything, "agejo" or "tsuyome", and that's it.
• I don't know why there's a whole thing about "gal is supposed to be ugly" or that we should just let other people live and that "gal is mind" but every time I see or hear this sentiment it's always from a faceless or chopped account. This legit makes me feel like a crazy person because I will always believe that gyaru is cute, trendy and fashionable at its core ᕙ( ᗒᗣᗕ )ᕗ
3. I'm literally too old for this shit. I want to do my makeup and dress up because it feels authentically "me". I really don't care for the endless need to argue/debate/discuss what is or isn't gal, how to be gal or do anything gal related, blah blah blah. I'm just tired of it all. I want to be gal with other gals, not fixate on being the most performative caricature of one possible.

With all these points in mind I finally came to the conclusion that the community had turned into a place I no longer wanted to actively participate in or engage with. 

I just wanted to exist with other gals. I don't want to constantly answer questions or validate anyone that doesn't have the confidence to commit to it fully. There are just too few people out there who see gyaru the same way that I do and for that I've decided to just hold the gal pals I already have close and be content with them.

I'm going to keep living my best gal life the way I want to and not engage with anyone who clearly doesn't know ball. I've de-listed my YouTube videos and removed a lot of images/tutorials from my social media. I think I'll still keep them up here on the blog but otherwise I'm not interested in making gal specific content for the sole purpose of trying to help other "gals". I'll still do it if I want to and enjoy it in the moment, but I'm tired of trying to connect with anyone outside of my circle because we clearly have a very different understanding of gyaru.

Having said all that I have no plans to "leave" gyaru. I think it's forever going to be a part of me but I will find new ways to evolve and become my best gal self. Currently I'm working on re-learning how to do my make so it suits my new eye shape. I don't need to exaggerate my liner and lashes as much as before so it's been challenging but fun to go on this journey again. 

Anyways I think I've yapped long enough so that's all for this post. If you're still here, thank you so much for reading! I'll see you in the next one (๑•᎑•๑)