We carved these pumpkins in October 2008, ahead of the presidential election that felt like it was the most consequential of my lifetime.

16 years later, and this is, again, the most critical election that I’ve experienced.

I am hopeful beyond hope that we will cry with joy & celebration once again, and that we will make history again.

Made my first kkaenip kimchi (preserved perilla leaves) from homegrown perilla. I love eating it and I’d never made it before! And it was so easy, with staples I have around the house.

Perilla has a very fragrant and bitter flavor. Like Thai basil and shiso got together but also went through an angry heartbreak. It’s particularly great with pork belly as it provides a nice balance to the fat & unctuousness.

This was a set of fortune cookie fortunes we got nine years ago today, back in 2015. @helava and I had started work on Wonderspark (our startup) the year before, but at this point, we realized we weren’t looking for VC money.

We had just decided to raise a friends & family round so that we could hire a team but it was rough. These pieces of paper gave us hope though. I think that night, or the morning after, our first friend sent us an email saying they were in.

We cried so much.

Reading a book on BTS by a Seoul National University professor of cultural studies, and it’s really interesting. She had published a book back in 2013 about the so-called Hallyu/Korean Wave, before BTS had debuted, but right after Psy’s Gangnam Style had broken all sorts of records on YouTube. She’s been studying the topic since the early 2000s which is the very start of the Hallyu Wave so she has a ton of insights on the unique global rise of BTS.

This is already a fascinating read!

I won one of these little awards for running some workshops this year. 😍😭

They look like a tiny plastic Oscar 😂