Katherine Conaway

my first meeting weekend as a member of the Executive Committee of the Society of Alumni 💜💛

It was such an honor & privilege to join this incredible group of people who comprise the current Executive Committee and the Vice Chairs, along with all the amazing alums who have served in the past.

We had a wonderful weekend spent enjoying our beautiful campus, learning more about the current projects & initiatives, giving our input & feedback, celebrating the alumni bicentennial medalists & current students, and bonding with fellow alums & friends.

Pics:
1. With two fellow ‘09 friends at Thursday welcome

2. My memorable inaugural library session during a big storm & the mansion lost power

3. One of many sessions we had with staff

4. Beautiful dinner celebrating the bicentennial medalists — in a magical tent while it poured outside

5. Unique ghostly painting of Mount Hope (where most of our EC events where & our housing for the weekend)

6. Misty morning views of the Berkshire mountains from inside Mount Hope

7. Williamstown on a sunny Saturday afternoon

8. Bicentennial medalists (and my newest inspiration for creative work & life) .and.matthew and their spectacular Busload of Books

9. Sunset views from the roof of Mount Hope

10. Sharing memories & honoring Brooks during our last night in the library together

Big thank you to Brooks, the Director of Alumni Engagement, for seeing the best in each student at Williams, for your incredible timing in reaching out to us individually, for making each of us feel special & seen & appreciated, and for bringing us together. A personal thank you for making me feel like I have something worthwhile to contribute to the school & my impressive peers. You truly lift us up.

Williams is not a perfect place, but the people are amazing, and the purple valley is so deeply special to us. I’m eternally grateful I was lucky enough to be an Eph, to have an incredible education & join the community of all these wonderful alumni, and to be invited to serve on the EC. Every time I come back to campus or spend time with other alums, I learn & grow as a person and feel inspired. 💜💛

third (last?) set of 10 photos from April - August, 2023

1. Soba noodles at a famous, old soba noodle shop in Kyoto — they’re served cold, with a dipping sauce & a variety of toppings. I like them a lot but I don’t find it terribly filling 😬

2. Bookmaking class in Kyoto. I love making things with my hands, as it turns out. But esp with instruction & also achievable within one sitting 😅

3. Hakone aka egg mountain, one of the funniest side quests of the family vacation in Japan 🤣💕🥳 love my giggle box family & esp little sis

4. James Turrell sky space in an Ando museum on Naoshima art island. I like the way Turrell uses light & architecture to change our perception of space & perspective. This manages to make the sky feel like a flat box, right? Trippy.

5. The gardens in Japan & Korea are absolutely some of my favorite highlights of the trip. This inset koi pond was at the Okayama Korakuen gars see during a travel day across the country & I’m so glad I did.

6. Haenyeo women divers on Jeju Island at Seongsan Ilchulbong. “The island of sea women” book (historical fiction) was so intense & heartbreaking but very informative about Korean history. 💔❤️‍🩹❤️

7. Carving my own stone seal in Seoul

8. Overlooking Seoul on a morning hike. Seoul was originally surrounded on 4 sides by mountains (it has now expanded beyond them).

I learned so much about Japan & Korea during my months there — and this is why I love travel (anywhere). I learn so so much about people & culture & history. And it’s always a mix of awe inspiring & heartbreaking. Oh, humans.

9. At the Meowwolf opening party of “the real unreal” in Grapevine, Texas

10. View of the Hudson River while climbing up Breakneck Ridge last week. I’m in Beacon for a total of 5 weeks for work, which has given me a chance to go to a lot of work events & see more of the local area & take a day trip to NYC, and it’s been great. Plus the weather has been a true delight of manageable summer after spending July sweating in miserably too hot Texas summer (and they’re definitely worse now than they used to be 🥵🫠).

Anyway, for now, that’s a good bit of the past year: some new adventures, learning, and life. 💕

two postcards from my mom (age 35) to me (age 3) while she was in Houston taking care of / saying goodbye to her brother as he was sick & dying of AIDS.

Uncle Steve’s death has always lingered in the periphery of my life. I’d briefly met him before he died. And although there was a sadness to my association with him because of his death, there was also so much love — he was the initial bond between my parents. Even after my parents divorced, my dad always spoke fondly of him & how much he too wished Steve had lived.

Later, in my 20s, I started to realize just what it meant for my mom to lose her brother — that this semi distance “uncle” had been to her what my little sister was to me. I imagined how heartbreaking it would be for us to lose the other — especially to such a painful illness, and even more so to something so stigmatized & politicized.

Now, I am older than she was when he died, when she had two young daughters at home, from whom she was separated for weeks at a time, missing milestones with us to be with him at the end of his life.

It breaks my heart — for her & her siblings & parents; for everyone who has lost someone to AIDS; for the LGTBQ+ community who lost an entire generation; for all the hate that still exists, and the harassment & discrimination that result from it.

It’s bad enough for all the people who directly suffer — like my uncle — but it’s also tragic for the impact on the people who love them & the communities they’re part of.

Choosing love isn’t really about s*x or s*xuality. It’s about choosing to love others instead of fear or hate. It’s choosing to make yourself a safe person & safe space for others, and to help spread that into the world.

I love you, uncle Steve, and mom. I’m sorry you missed us, but I’m so glad you were with him. 💙 thank you for teaching me how important it is to love people, to show up for them, and to embrace our own paths. I am so grateful & I know I owe so much of my own freedom to him 💕

Texas summer is abysmally hot but also beautiful

I often think to myself, “wow! another technicolor day!”

because somehow the colors are just so bright & pure, like — hey the grass is GREEN and the sky is BLUE and the clouds are WHITE and the flowers are PINK!

each color seems to be the loudest, strongest, brightest version of itself, and it truly awes me (or I like to let it awe me) as I drive around (because walking is 🥵) or hang out in the backyard in mom’s garden.

unless or until, of course, the heat totally kills it, and then everything is BROWN 🤣🫠☀️🟫

Photos:
No filter or editing! Just the colors as they are.

1. The bright sky & clouds, nearing golden hour & sunset

2. A planter of pink flowers in mom’s garden (petunias and …?)

3. Yellow cannas and a metal yard sculpture of white doves along our back fence

4. Grass in the front yard (I was in the sun for 20 seconds and it was way too long!)

5. Looking up through our tree canopy — seeing the layered underside of leaves is always one of my favorite views

6. One of our rosebushes, brick wall, neighbor’s house, and a big blue sky with fluffy meringue clouds

selfies I took in Korea

Honestly I was just thinking, “I really should post more of my trip pics” and then I saw one of these selfies and thought, maybe I’ll post a bunch of selfies I took — SPECIFICALLY because I tend to avoid taking & sharing photos of myself due to insecurity / vanity; meaning that because I don’t look “perfect” or meet whatever beauty standards / trends, I forego it altogether.

Also, one thing I love about traveling abroad is that as a (usually obviously) foreign tourist, I feel free from most of those standards. People are either ignoring me, trying to deal with me for transactional purposes, or probably noting the myriad ways I stand out / am different.

My interpretation of this is that I’m free from needing to blend in or look attractive. I can just be — esp in Japan & Korea — the giant American woman in athleisure. That’s all.

I’m neither threatening nor vulnerable nor appealing. I just exist as myself and can focus on what I want, which is observing & learning & enjoying whatever I’m doing, hopefully.

On top of all of that, in Korea especially, appearance is a big deal. I was surrounded by mostly petite, impossibly thin women with glowing white skin & chic clothes. It’s the country with the most plastic surgery in the world, and the ads feature surreally perfect people.

Of course I felt insecure sometimes, eating a whole pastry alone whole 4 women nibbled on one, or wishing I were a younger, thinner version of myself again.

But, truly, the effect mostly was that I became more comfortable with myself as I am.

It taught me to appreciate & use good sunscreen daily; I walked more by virtue of public transit; and I increasingly looked at the billboards with a sense of unease & sadness at the almost inhuman faces that were so airbrushed, makeupped, and refigured.

I wonder: What did the original person look like? Were they happy with their face now? And how they have to spend their days to maintain all this?

It actually parallels the trans “issue” that’s become the popular hot button these days for no good reason except to rally people together against a common “enemy” for political gain. (Continued in the comments.)

photos from my DMZ tour today — I also posted a reel with videos & that caption has different info than this one

Photos:

1. Imjingang Railway Bridge; built by South Korea in the hopes of being able to connect through North Korea to the rest of Asia & Europe, someday

2. Statues of 2 Korean girls, representing the teenagers & women who were sent away to be “comfort women” aka s*x slaves to Japanese during their colonial rule over Korea

3. Silly cartoon solider statue (literally across from the bronze girls)

4. Memorial of gratitude from South Korea to US for troops & support in the war, and for the lives lost

5. Top of Dora Observatory in the fog & rain

6. Exhibit recreation of North Koreans digging the third tunnel

7. Exhibit representing (I think) the plants & animals who thrive along the DMZ

8. Me in a painfully American tourist pose but I was instructed by a South Korean girl taking my photo so I just did it

9. Photo op with fake soldiers at the third tunnel

10. Screenshot of my google maps while at the DMZ, showing where the dividing line is relative to the peninsula, the two countries, and their capitals

yesterday in Seoul: I went to the & saw a special Edward Hopper exhibition (with a section from the that I saw in NYC in January), then I lucked into a really nice omakase sushi meal, and then went to a great modern Korean dance performance at Sejong center (see my last reel for videos!).

It was a good way to spend my day (well, 4-9 pm), even though I’ve been having vertigo & headaches & nausea lately. Who knows! And then I worked until 2 am even though I need to sleep more. Oops. Less than a week left though!

1. Funny smushed bronze statues near the palace — zoom in & you’ll see a normal bird who posed for my pic on their head

2. Abalone 🐚🦪

3. Tuna 🍣

4. I want to say herring?

5. Urchin

6. Miso soup in a tiny lacquer bowl that was designed to look like an old wooden tub

7. Mini bowl of cooked eel (in a kind of teriyaki sauce) with rice

8. The restaurant signage

9. Inside

10. People taking photos with the Ilmu posters in the lobby

carved my own stone seal today — so I can stamp my artwork, paintings, calligraphy, cards, etc

I chose to do an artistic interpretation of the Korean / Hangeul word for “cat” 🐈‍⬛ 고양이

The instructor (I booked the class via ) taught me how to carve in the stone, practicing my doing a row of trees with snow on the side.

Then she helped me workshop variations of my name and then how to fit it on the square block. I liked this geometric angled version — looks a bit like music or something to me somehow.

“Whether made of ivory, metal, stone or wood, a Korean seal or “injang” (인장) has a long history dating as far back to 4000 B.C.” (Source: The National Museum of Korea)

The carving was generally pretty easy to do but still requires control to carve hard enough to make good straight lines but also not make accidental marks. (I did make one right at the end — I know better! Always stop earlier than you want to… but luckily she sanded it off because it wasn’t a deep scratch. Phew.)

Even though I like to go by Katherine, because I love cats & it’s a shorter name that translates into other languages, I have been being cat as my name — especially when I learned to sign my calligraphy in Kyoto as neko or ねこ (cat in Japanese hiragana).

So I thought making my seal as cat or 고양이 (ko-yang-i) was nice consistency. And I love how they’re all written. Cute like cats! 😻

So I’m continuing to accumulate my art supplies and skills around the world and I love it 🥰👩🏼‍🎨

Jeju tour day — a few highlights

On Saturday, I took a tour of several spots on the east side of Jeju with Yeha tours booked via — I didn’t rent a car on Jeju because I didn’t have an international license with me, so I just used taxis (maybe similar price as renting & gas, plus no worries for me about parking or directions).

So I realized that a tour would be the easiest way for me to see some top sites on the island. Our guide, Elin (her English name), was wonderful — energetic, organized, and attentive.

It was a tiring day but I’m glad I did it! And we got lucky with minimal rain ☔️ after days of downpour & even got a bit of sun ☀️

1 & 2. Jeolmul Natural Recreation Forest — we did a brief 1.1 km walk which was nice. It’s a very atmospheric cedar forest with some good walking trails & this nice pond.

3. Seongeup Folk Village — we walked around this town, semi preserved but also people still live here. There was also a trail running event going on at the time, which was cool to see (Day 2 of a 100 km run!).

We had stir fry black pork for lunch, which was good. The pork is way less fatty & chewy than elsewhere, which I much prefer.

4. Seongsan Ilchulbong viewed from the beach — it’s a “archetypal tuff cone formed by hydrovolcanic eruptions upon a shallow seabed about 5 thousand years ago.” - wiki

5 & 6. “[UNESCO Intangible cultural asset] Haenyeo refers to female divers who dive into the ocean water to gather various shellfish, seaweed, etc, without using any underwater diving equipment.” - Yeha tour

7 & 8. Climbing & summit of [UNESCO World Heritage]

9 & 10. “Manjang Cave [UNESCO World Heritage]: one of the finest lava tunnels in the world, and is a designated natural monument. A lava tunnel is formed when the lava that was deep in the ground spouts from the peak and flows to the surface. Manjanggul Cave has a variety of interesting structures inside including 70cm lava stalagmites and the lava tube tunnels.” - Yeha tour

some signs I’ve seen recently in Japan

1. No cats on bikes in this park! (Osaka)

2. Adorable plastic medical men upholding construction barriers (Tokyo)

3. Work materials for a construction site (Tokyo)

4. Crying panda getting their hand stuck in a subway door (Tokyo?)

5. Long! Longer! Longest! Potato spiral ad in Harajuku (Tokyo)

6. Questionable google translate of a map (Osaka)

7. Disturbing example of some kind of masculine ideal (??) in comic / anime form (Tokyo)

8. “Hot lips” sign & plant at the botanic gardens (Kyoto)

9. Tickets for the Kyoto botanic gardens, which started off hilarious with hot lips and ended strange with “souvenir of Anne Frank”… wtf kind of plant name??

10. On a serious note, a sign at Meiji shrine about having to fence off the shrine because visitors (sadly prob foreign tourists) defaced it too much. Y’all. Learn to act right & respect things… (Tokyo)

Dōtonbori, Osaka — aka the iconic area of town where tourists flock for street food

I went Monday night before my work calls for a quick dinner, and I ended up running into 2 women from my bookmaking class in Kyoto! I said hello 👋🏻 and ate treats with them, which was super fun 🥰 yay for new friends

Photos:
1 & 3. Dōtonbori
“Historically a theater district, it is now a popular nightlife and entertainment area characterized by its eccentric atmosphere and large illuminated signboards.” - Wiki

2. Iconic canal photo from the bridge — with the signature Glico running man ad (mid-right)

4. Don Quijote — crazy everything shop I haven’t ventured into yet

5. Takoyaki sampler — fried dough with octopus inside

6 & 7. Waffle with cheese inside, yum! Not mad at the savory sweet mix

8 & 9. Famous Kinryu Ramen with the dragon figure on the sign (a lot of the restaurants in Dōtonbori have giant animals / figures)

10. Ferris wheel on the canal

I haven’t done anything else in Osaka essentially except work and sleep strange hours, but this was a fun excursion & nice meet cute with new friends & yummy treats.

I took an hour-ish break from my taxes to enjoy some sunshine & some blooms at the Shosei-en Garden.

I’d walked by the walled exterior a few days ago & was nearby again at a cafe working today. I realized it was a nice, sunny day and so I figured I needed a break to see if I could find some cherry blossoms & thought this garden might be a good opportunity — and I was luckily right!

I think it was first built in 1650 after the land was gifted to the 12th abbot by the sh**un in 1602.

The garden is (according to the booklet) “laid out around a pond at its center with walking paths around it. Legend has it that it was designed by master calligrapher and poet Ishikawa Jozan… also developed as a place to enjoy poetry writing and tea ceremony and where Noh and Kyogen plays were performed.”

I’m glad I got out to see a pretty garden on a nice day — though I enjoyed my visit to the imperial palace gardens yesterday in the rain, it’s obviously a very different experience on a nice day.

I have always loved Japanese gardens — our hometown botanic garden has a special Japanese garden that was always my favorite. They’re so thoughtfully constructed with delightful little bridges and walking paths and lookouts — every detail is considered, from aesthetics of trees & flowers to the rocks & structures to other sensory elements like the sound of water. I’m thrilled that the gardens in Japan are as wonderful & peaceful as the handful of imitations I’d experienced at home.

🌸

I slept in (my body is exhausted) and then walked to this cafe. They didn’t have espresso (ack!) so I had this iced matcha with matcha ice cream & a lovely view of some cherry blossoms.

I did my journal and then worked on organizing my expenses for my taxes. Not finished but lots of progress. Now I just have to double check receipts.

Then I walked back — it had gotten chilly and I had only worn my blazer, no coat today — and ate fast food after striking out on izakayas (Friday night).

Now I’m doing laundry, about to eat some convenience store snacks, and try to get some work done before hopefully bedtime by midnight or 1 am.

I am a bit frustrated how behind I am on posting — I have so many lovely photos & videos & moments I want to share; but I feel behind on everything — sightseeing, work, posting, rest. That’s the challenge of the remote work & travel lifestyle. But also life in general — I think we all feel behind on everything all the time. It’s an exhausting way to live. I keep trying to change my mindset & expectations, but I’m not totally there yet!

Anyway happy Friday. I hope you see some pretty sights today. I’m glad I took a few minutes to enjoy the trees.

finished my calligraphy sketchbook / travel journal

I had such a wonderful experience with Chikako last week: 4 days of 1:1 instruction in Japanese calligraphy in her studio in Kyoto, organized via (Vacation With An Artist; my amazing friend company!).

I was a total novice in calligraphy, and I mostly signed up so I could
- finally try a VAWAA myself
- learn more brush technique with a master
- experience something unique to Japan’s local culture & history

I was honestly a bit anxious about 16 hours of calligraphy in a language I don’t know — would I get bored? How would we fill the time? Would I enjoy it?

It was… amazing. Chikako was a wonderful teacher. I really enjoyed learning more of the language & the physical structure of words in kanji. And it’s very focused, meditative, rewarding work.

It was all so special in so many ways, but a major one was an incredible affirmation of my artistic skill. It was totally unexpected, but Chikako and two other master teachers who came by the studio all told me I had a unique talent for a total beginner. I didn’t expect that and I don’t know what to do with it, honestly, but as I continue to feel pulled to pursue art but also terrified & insecure, it’s so powerful to be encouraged & recognized as capable.

I’ll share pictures of my pieces soon, but I was focused on finishing my sketchbook first so I didn’t forget the actual process of what I learned & did.

I don’t expect people to be able to read my regular handwriting 😅 but I thought the calligraphy examples & my watercolor sketches might be of interest.

Photos:
1. Day 1, learning the basics of the character styles and brush strokes

2. My tools: a paper weight with a mouse, 2 brushes, pencil, suzuri ink stone, ink block

3. How to write the character for Kyoto, 3, 5, and the full Kyoto (2 characters): brushstrokes go in certain order & direction; Chikako named them
- line
- mouth (box)
- banana 🍌 when it curves left and tapers off
- dinosaur 🦕 when it curves right and tapers wide
- almond for a small tapered stroke

[continued in the comments]
4. Learning the kanji for the 4 seasons and the ways to write my name

nature appreciation moment for some of the beautiful blooms I’ve encountered thus far in Japan!

Flowers identified by mom via text, or occasionally a guide / friend telling me in-person

1. Japanese Camilla, Kyoto

2. Plum blossom, Kiyomizu-dear temple, Kyoto

3. Garden at Sanjusangendo Temple, Kyoto

4. White plum blossoms, Kyoto

5. (I don’t remember!), Tokyo

6 & 7. Dandelions in a planter on the street, Tokyo

8 & 9. Flowers at Kiyosumi Garden, Tokyo

10. Ranunculus in a street planter, Tokyo

I’ve really enjoyed seeing the flowers on trees and in planters & pots all around Japan. I will post some photos I’ve taken of neighborhood shops & homes with flowers out to brighten the street. I love that people take the time & effort to make their area a little more beautiful for themselves & others to enjoy.

As I wrote about, flowers are a love language in my family. So I’m trained to notice & share them, which I love because I think they’re a beautiful & fairly ubiquitous way to brighten someone’s moment even if just a photo or description, much less giving or sending actual flowers. So I hope you have a moment of delight with these beauties! 🌸

Also, it’s great to remember that nature is imperfect & flamboyant — there is everything natural about being your unique self, about being bold & colorful if you want (or small & subtle!), and that we love & appreciate many things in nature for being different & bold. 💕

did I specifically book this Airbnb because it had cats? is that a travel tactic of mine as a solo traveler who gets lonely for cuddles? 💯💯💯

Now the big bonus is that my host is wonderful (the superhost status is accurate!!), but I’m definitely also thrilled to be winning over the cats & getting some cuddles.

Let’s be clear — the cats were getting on me *before* I had treats because I’ve been petting & brushing them all week. And then my host gave me treats to feed them as a bonus for everyone for bonding 😻😻

Old man Ghin is on my lap and Sumire is lurking in the background, which I only noticed after I started posting it 😹 she had her treat first and then finished his

When I saw this photo, it made me think of an old 90s pic of a parent with their kid, the kind you see in an old family scrapbook, which honestly this is totally that phase of my life. I’m in my 30s, the random cats I meet are my babies (Ollie of course remains number 1), and the photographers are not my spouse but a friend or loved one.

And that’s what made me want to share this picture actually. I’ve been feeling body conscious and insecure lately — not because I’m a giant here (that’s fine), but just all the changes in my body & the disconnect between how I see myself in my mind’s eye vs how I see myself in photos is just tremendous and painful every time. I still feel strong & athletic and imagine myself as my old self, and the photos I see always disappoint me with this strange inflated version of myself in my place. (I’m not aiming for anything but acceptance, and I’m making progress sometimes.)

Anyway, when I saw this picture and the snapshot moment of myself smiling with these cats, I liked it & I looked like me to me.

I thought of how much I love these photos of my parents at my age, and I felt a little bit connected to that. Like even with my weird lifestyle and lack of connection, that I still get to have moments where someone takes a snapshot of me & the photo looks like love.

went on a ramen tour today around Shibuya and Ebisu — our guide took us to 3 ramen shops to try 6 different flavors of ramen 😋🍜

Photo 1 is from stop 2, but it was my favorite of the day & photogenic so I put it first 😃

Also shoutout to our guide from — it was well organized & informative & fun 🥳

Stop 1: shin-bu-saki-ya
Hokkaido classics. I tried their Miso ramen [pic 2] & Shio (light & refreshing, salt base) [pic 3].

Trying these made me realize I essentially always only eat tonkotsu ramen because they flavors were so different. The shio is super light and kinda reminded me of chicken noodle soup?

Stop 2:
The Kyushu region is where tonkotsu pork bone ramen originated — here, they serve a modern twist with different flavors:
- Original = pork bone
- Red = sweet & spicy, hot chili oil, yakiniku bbq sauce [pic 1], which I liked — not painfully spicy & delish
- Black = squid ink and sweet chili garlic oil (I tried someone’s broth and it seemed amazing!)
- Green = pesto! Unusual flavor / fusion [pic 6] prob not my preference but interesting to try something unique!

They had thinner noodles here = cook faster (like 10 seconds!! ⏰)

This restaurant is their original location [pic 4] and they have expanded to other countries, including the USA (cali) if you want to try it. I love tonkotsu so it was my favorite stop of our day & I’d prob go back to try their original and/or squid ink.

The other interesting thing we learned was the owner or Ramen Nagi set up these frozen vending machines during the pandemic so ramen shops could sell frozen fresh ramen dishes for people to buy & take home — all you have to do is boil it! [pic 5]

Stop 3: Shuuichi
It’s more common to have curry udon than curry ramen so this place is rare style (or, as our guide said, a movement!). They had thicker noodles & made the broth with pork, chicken, beef broth with milk! 🥛

Black sesame Tantanmen = curry base with black sesame [pic 8], pretty good but I don’t think I love this kind of curry

Curry Abura Soba = soup-less, flavored with oils, can add vinegar to thin the curry [pic 9], not my favorite — very salty!

Overall, a fun, educational & yummy activity 😊

yesterday was a full day & a good introduction to Tokyo!

Photos:
1. Mochi and wagashi that I made in a cooking class via (video to come soon!) with

2. Hot soba noodles for lunch with chicken tempura

3. Sakura 🌸 (cherry blossom) street cover

4. Quiet morning street at 7 am (I woke up at 4:40 thanks to jet lag)

5. Another cool street sign on the sidewalk

6. Apparently Starbucks is one of the only things@open at 7 am here, so I got a Sakura donut and an iced coffee

7. Since I was up, I joined the family zoom workout with (Monday 6 pm CT / Tuesday 9 am JT)

8. The soba noodle shop where I had lunch alongside a bunch of businesspeople. Luckily the server spoke enough English to help me order. People are so nice here even though I’m an idiot tourist who doesn’t speak their language 🙌🏻💕

9. My mochi cooking class instructor

10. Dinner at a seafood restaurant — I had some sashimi and then mixed tempura

Not shown is taking a hard nap around 7-9 pm, feeling miserably tired when my alarm went off at 9, taking a shower, then hopping on work calls from 10 pm - midnight, working until 1:30 am, and then crashing from 2 am - 9 am. So yes it’s wonderful & I am so happy to be here, but don’t forget that there’s a lot not shown in photos!

Also shoutout to my work team at GR for just being so nice & supportive & positive to work with. Y’all are great 💙