if you can't tell, I got a new like wireless mic
set-up, so we can hear like my voice very crisply :O now maybe I should start doing ASMR videos, that'd
be crazy... hello everyone, it's linh again! welcome back to my apartment, and happy pride month I
can't believe aa and nh/pimonth was just last month, then pride month, and it's just like 60
days of non-stop work and celebrating and love, so if you're celebrating Pride this year, I actually
missed DC Pride because I flew back to Seattle t
o see my friends my high school friends graduate
from college! it's kind of insane I watched them walk their high school grad four years ago, and
now they're one degree hotter, y'all :,) anyways, their graduation was the same weekend as DC Pride, so I
couldn't go :( I did go last year and it was so so fun. if you're going to Pride this year, make sure
you're staying hydrated, you're drinking lots of water, you're staying safe you're staying masked
up, and also you know we do live in a clima
te right now where I think the amount of anti-trans,
don't say gay, anti-lgbtq+legislation being passed introduced and just like affirmed is
at an alarming proliferation. like it is very very terrifying. if you ever need resources for yourself
or a loved one, or if you want to get involved, I have it linked in my description box. but yes, happy
Pride everyone, and also happy Juneteenth, Juneteenth is coming up, and I can't wait to see everyone
just tell their stories and love lots always, t
hroughout the month, throughout the year. anyways,
I thought we'd catch up today! and I haven't done a video like this in a while. I feel like I do them
every six-ish months? and I love acting like I'm on a FaceTime call with y'all ;-; I really love videos
like that because I am that friend who will call you randomly, and I understand that like some
people don't like that, it's a lot - it can be a lot, I understand lol and I am just a notoriously bad
texter. I'm very slow at responding, and
if we do get to the place in our relationship where I'm
quick at responding to you, I feel like the way I text is off-putting to some people, because the way
I text is like a live reaction of all the emotions and thoughts running through my head. so, instead of
putting together one paragraph, one text response, I like text multiple times in a row, which I feel
like some people don't like. and I also feel like I'm just able to explain my reasoning and thoughts
a lot better when I'm just tal
king, so that's what we're gonna do today! I'm going to answer some of
your questions, give you some life updates, y'all gave me some inquiries on my Instagram story
(which if you don't follow me on Instagram, you should! because you can ask me a question in the
future, and you can also see what I'm up to when I'm not on YouTube) but yeah without further
ado, please grab a snack or a drink (I'm just drinking water because I am a hypocrite I don't
take my own advice and I'm constantly dehydr
ated) *sips* yeah,,, H2O! first thing that a lot of people ask
about is when's the new tattoo coming??? and I'm so happy to finally launch it on YouTube! I recently
got a huge back tattoo - I'm wearing the perfect outfit for today! reveal in three, two, one... can you
see it? can you see it??? in case you didn't know, I got my first tattoo - it's like this little carrot
that I drew - my freshman summer, and I got it for my brother whose Vietnamese nickname is "carrot." but I think
it's a li
ttle bit funny, the juxtaposition of like this baby carrot tattoo and then like,
my giant butterfly back !!! I got these abstract butterfly wings by an artist named Marley here in
DC. she's actually a resident tattoo artist at a woman-owned, an aapi-owned (like Vietnamese American-owned actually) parlor and I love love her artwork. she's done like abstract butterflies in the past,
but never to this scale! and she did an amazing job of just molding her artwork to my body. when it
comes to tat
toos, I feel like they held a little bit a stigma when I was younger, but now
I just absolutely love the idea of having like, living art that is made by someone else exist on
your body. and yes, I will be like 60 years old, and so damn happy that I have this abstract butterfly
tattoo on my back ;-; if you're wondering about the meaning, I think it's actually really relevant to
the book that I'm currently reading! which is on earth were briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong... and if
you're wonder
ing, linh you're just now reading the book??? no, I actually just picked it up [again] because the
first time I tried to read it, I had to like, put it down because it was too real and traumatizing oop and
I was not in the right emotional space. but ocean vuong opens this book with a butterfly metaphor
about migration and like immigrants, and I've always associated butterflies with immigrant and
migrant communities. and you know!!! I come from a family of immigrants and refugees :D but you k
now,
then again, I just really love the song Butterfly by BTS ;-; so sorry Mom, I actually haven't told my mom
that I got tattoo yet...so if you're watching this, I'm so sorry that I didn't listen to you when you
told me to stop after the first tattoo... yeah ;-; and of course, as you know I started going back to school.
I'm taking some summer classes, which actually has been pretty fun! I think the gap year did what
it need to do, and I now feel reinvigorated in my passion for ;earning and
for my career. and a
lot of people asked if I could share my gap year experiences, and of course I can! the first thing
and really the only thing you need to take away is that if you want to take a gap year, whether
it's to get some work experience, you want to save money, you want to you know take a break for
mental health, or pursue other hobbies,,, do it!!! do it !!!! it doesn't matter if you're doing it like out of
high school, out of college, like before grad school or before you lik
e enter the workforce,, like do it !
I cannot stress enough how grateful and how much I took away from my year off. and in a way, it wasn't
a year off. I had a lot of work opportunities, speaking opportunities, I had internships pretty
much the entirety of my gap year, so I was always like doing something, you know what I mean? but
it also gave me way more time and space to think about myself, you know, be introspective, think about
what I want for my future, because when you're a full-time
student... goddamn you are like a student
24/7. like yes, once you entered the workforce and work a nine to five, you eventually clock out.
but when you're in college or in high school, you're living-eating-breathing school ! like you're
constantly doing homework, or readings, or you're doing something for a club or an extracurricular!
and I think a lot of the stigma that is centered around gap years has to do a lot with like
~American ideals of capitalism capitalism~ not linh, the sociology
majo,r talking about capitalism
and how it's bad again -_- and I do think gap years are way less stigmatized now, just because with the
pandemic and with COVID lockdown & quarantine, I think a lot more people have grown compassionate.
I feel like we're taught that we're set on this path ever since high school that we need to, like,
go to college, and then like go to grad school, and entered the workforce, but if you really think
about it, the reason why we're not encouraged to take breaks
is because they want us to spend
as many years of our lives working [as possible]. they really just put value on how much labor we can give
into the workforce and the economy, and we're never actually given a period of time where we're
like, "wow,,,, what do I want for myself?" and I'm so so fortunate (this is like my biggest takeaway for my
gap year) that I have an amazing support system. my parents trusted me, were totally supportive of me
taking a year off, and I think it helps that, you
know, I am financially independent from them, and
I was also planning on graduating in 2024, so I'm graduating in like three years. and my friends
have also been like the rock in my life. you're probably also curious about my internship
experiences because a lot of people were like, how would you land an internship? and how do you pursue
like pre-professional goals while you're being a full-time student or like working another job? and
for me, I always always knew that I wanted to work in
advocacy in the government and political
spaces, and so when I got my internship last summer, I was technically housed under OCA-Asian
Pacific American Advocates, and they were like the people paying me, and then I also worked at the
White House initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in the summer and
fall, that's where I was placed. and I actually got that internship without ever having an internship
experience before! and a big reason why I got the interns
hip experience was because they really
wanted to hire me because of my video editing skills ;-; even in like my pre-professional aspirations :,)
and what I've learned is that the people who are getting internship opportunities are people,,,
who know about them! and a lot of people just like don't know that these opportunities exist!!! so I
highly encourage you to go to your college career center, reach out to connections, and ultimately,
there's a lot of people people who enter an internshi
p applicant pool with really stacked
resumes, but at the end of the day the reason why an internship coordinator or a placement
program might hire you is 1) they see like an opportunity for you to grow! like that's a
lot more appealing than someone who's overly qualified, and also 2) you're a nice person. you'd
be surprised that, like, people remember certain kinds of people not because like they're the most
talented, or the most well accomplished in the room, sometimes it's just because th
at's the person
that like brings them baked goods to the office, or the person who's always able to make everyone
laugh. so you know, being a kind individual really really goes a long way when you're interviewing. I
think during my gap year you know I went through a breakup, and I really got to cherish my friendships
a lot more. during summer 2022, I was surrounded by so many queer, trans, non-binary, Asian Americans
like I've never been before, and I developed such genuine long-lasting fri
endship with those people.
I still talk to them, like when they're in DC, we catch up, sometimes they crash on my couch, I'll go
visit them at their college, like,,, it's like it's like we're tight y'all! and it's from these people
that I learn what it means to build a community, what platonic love and friendship looks like, and
I hate to say that like in a lot of professional careers, some people are just there to get the
bang for the buck. they're just there to like climb the ladder and n
etwork. and I think it sucks...
it's like a really sucky feeling when you realize that someone's only talking to you because
they want something to gain from you. it's very transactional. very fortunate that every single
work environment and social environment that I've been in for the past year has been filled with
people who genuinely care about making pathways for underrepresented, marginalized communities, and
folks like themselves. I think something I hear about a lot is about paying i
t forward, and making
sure that you know you don't like, kick down the ladder once you're able to like climb the ladder,
and you're always like helping people up. and you know that's something I hope to do too! and besides
all the lovely friendships and relationships I've made, I also grew a lot technically! I think I
became a better writer - you know I learned how to do like press releases, talking points, media clips, when I was a communications intern. and this past spring, I was actually
a design intern
at the Democratic National Committee, so I made like little newsletter graphics and social media
graphics for like the Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and like the DNC accounts, and that was really
fun just because once again, like the people I worked with were amazing! so funny, hilarious ! and
also I realized that there's an avenue for art and advocacy and political work, which is really cool! because you know, I've been told my entire life that art is something that would make m
e broke and not have a career -_- which is simply not true! creativity is needed everywhere,
in every sector, and I really enjoyed learning how to do corporate branding. obviously having
all of these experiences helped me reevaluate my life goals. I think post-grad, I always knew that
I wanted to go work first before I ever entered grad school, but now I know for sure that I do
want to go to grad school! I think I want to get my master's in public policy, so I'm gonna work for
a year or two
in DC, and then hopefully, I really really want to go to grad school on the west
coast, because the west coast is where I want to end up permanently. I can't believe I've come this
far in like the gap year is over! and I'm back at school!!! wow ;-; I've also really come into my gender
identity and my relationship with my gender has just been so nourished, it's been flourishing y'all!
I have been so happy with just who I am nowadays, and a lot of people had some inquiries about like,
how d
o you achieve an androgynous look? what does androgyny mean to you? what does it mean to balance
femininity and masculinity? honestly I think that's both like such a collective and individualized
experience, because androgyny, as someone who has read a lot of critical queer and gender theory,
is something that is inherently racialized, so for instance you think about the masculization of
Black Woman, the emasculation (is that the right word?) of Asian men, I think it's very important that
we
always look at gender in both like a racial and ethnic context, because the two? interlinked!
and it's both influenced by the culture you might have grown up in, like especially if you
come from a culture where there are non-binary or gender non-conforming identities, you know, before
like...Western imperialism and colonialism kicked in -_- but also I strongly believe that androgyny
is a feeling, and it's not necessarily how you might express your gender with tangible items, and
that femini
nity and masculinity are not the right parameters of "the right concoction of
these two elements is gonna like mesh together and create this perfect gender non-conforming look."
I think like gender non-conformity those be beyond the binary, and a lot of people ask me like how did
you know, linh, that you were non-binary? now here's the thing,,, I think I always knew, but a little thing
called religious trauma just got in the way ;-; but since I was a kid, there were signs, and maybe I
just
didn't have the vocabulary to describe it at the time. but like if I told my parents,
I don't think they'd be surprised either. I'm very lucky that, you know I have issues, as everyone does,
and conflicts with their parents, but my parents even, though they always told me that I was a daughter, I was always a sister, they never really told me that like I needed to be a
girl in a way that other girls were. I was always very aware that I had a responsibility as an
eldest kid, as an eldest daug
hter. I have a younger brother who I feel a lot of responsibility for, and
so from a young age, my parents were like linh! you are your brother's protector. because of that, they
instilled a lot of values and responsibilities within me that I feel like only like sons have.
when my dad had like work trips, or like company dinners, or like camping trips, instead of taking my
brother, he would take me! or when like, he was trying to teach someone how to mow the lawn, it was
me! or tending the g
arden, it was me and like doing all these quote-unquote manly things. my mother,
in the same way, never really forced any concept of like dating or marriage or love onto me. she
always reaffirmed, over and over again throughout my entire like 18 years of like living under the
same roof, that I should always focus on my career, that I should never depend on a man, all that
jazz. and so it was very interesting to get like, this type of parenting from my mom and my dad,
because when I started b
eing like, I don't really like wearing dresses! I don't really like wearing
skirts! (this is around like sixth grade and middle school) they were like,,, okay, so we can put you in
some capris and like a button-up polo. that's what I would wear, and I feel like a lot of people have
approached me, and also talked about it in like the comments of my content, being like, "maybe you're
just a tomboy? have you ever thought about that linh?" like,,,,, for you to have the audacity to think
that yo
u know me,,, better than me ! I converted to Mormonism when I was 11. in a church setting, in
a religious setting, was where I started getting attacked by all these gender norms. let me tell you
something, I don't think that queerness is mutually exclusive from religion and spirituality. I think
like the two come together, it's like a really beautiful moment, and I think we are becoming more
expansive of how we think of love. usually this is just an anecdote I reserve for like two truths
an
d a lie, because people don't see it coming. they're like, whoa linh you were Mormon??? I'm like
yeah ;-; but I originally joined the church because if there's one thing Mormons are really good at,
is that they're really good at creating social support systems and stability. and there's a lot of
genuinely kind, good people who are like practicing Mormons, so for someone who did not always have
stability in their life, it was very appealing for me, even though it was like sacrificing I think
a
lot of the values that I had. when I started going to church, I-I would only wear polos and capris
and like slacks, and obviously everyone else is in their "sunday best" but like what's sunday
best for a girl is like a skirt or a dress. I didn't really care for the beginning. I was just
like, well if God loves me or whatever, like he's not gonna care! but the thing, is like, when you
show up to church every week, and you show up to youth night every wednesday, you kind of start
to feel i
solated, you know. it didn't help that I lived in birmingham at the time, in a predominantly
white neighborhood, going to a predominantly white schoolb and obviously in a predominantly white
religion. I always stuck out as someone who is asian american, I stuck out even more as like a
person who looked like they wanted to be a boy. and I remember, like slowly caving in to the
pressure of wanting to conform, and that that shizwas tough! because I remember the first day,
it was like a couple
months after I had converted, the first day I went to church in a skirt, one of
the missionaries who helped baptize and convert me and was like, oh my gosh linh you're wearing like
a dress or whatever, like we're so proud of you! and I think like I think something in me broke
that day, and I didn't realize it. I had really short hair; I started growing it out. I started
doing like these more feminine things. and I was deep in it y'all! I was like going to all the
programming. I went to girl
s camp, I did like the little pioneer trek where they recreate the
trail, um, I also did seminary for two years in high school, which is like bible study. I feel like
a part of me didn't always believe everything that was going on, and you know, the church also has
like a pretty racist, and anti-lgbtq+ history, and anti-woman history, and when I eventually left
the church in like 2015-16 (that's like the year of the trump/clinton election), it did feel like
I was like separating myself from
such like a cornerstone of my life. and I think I'm still like
healing from all those experience,s just because I really do feel like part of me...will
never get that that part of youth back. um like I missed out on so much. and a lot of my
friends who grew up mormon with me or like we went to school and like seminary together, a lot
of them have distance themselves, just because, you know, they're also queer! or they're people
of color ! and I also know that there's a lot of folks who are
queer and people of color in the
church who like - can't like - they don't have the ability to like separate themselves from that,
whether it's because of like getting separated from their family and like disowned, or like the
fact that they're probably still going to school, and like school is like really affordable when
you are a practicing mormon and you go to a BYU school. various other factors, like I understand
that there are so many folks who are like still in that predicament, and
it's just like hella hella
hella tough. so my heart goes out to you, especially during pride month, and I just want you to know
that it gets better. it does get better! anyways, let's talk about dating! let's talk about something
a little bit spicierm because that was kind of sad and depressing ;-; so I haven't really dated... that's
like essentially my life in a nutshell, but I have like had crushes (none of them have worked
out lmao we don't need to talk about that) I think a part of me i
s apprehensive about dating because
I-I think the idea of being desirable to someone kind of gives me the ick. like I don't - I don't
know if I like being desirable, because I feel like that places you in a very certain context of
like being a sexual and romantic pursuit, and both of those I don't like, I don't like. so I'm very unsure
about like what I look for in a partner, or if I like will be dating anytime soon. I honestly don't
think I'm gonna date at all until post-grad. I will say,
that like seeing people, especially queer
people in love, and like out and about, makes me really happy, and it brings me a lot of joy. but
yeah coming up this August, I will be single for a year! which I have not been single for that long
ever since I've started dating; I've always like been seeing someone casually, or on and off, or in
a long-term relationship. and I've honestly been so happy single! I feel like I focused more on you
know my career, and also my friendship, like my besties
! oh, I feel like the hardest thing about
becoming an adult is that one John Mulaney bit becoming true (and I know John mulaney's canceled
okay) but you know that one part where he said like, "oh like are you free Monday or Tuesday? and
they're like oh no? not at all? oh I guess I just won't see you for another five years!" that's
exactly what adulting and friendships feel like. some of the best people you'll meet who genuinely
care for you, and you generally care for them, when you meet up
again, whether it's in like three weeks,
two years, at their wedding, like the dynamics never gonna change. you're always gonna have something to
talk about, it's gonna feel the same way that it did when you first met them. but I will say sometimes,
trying to schedule a time to hang out with friends, even when they live in the same city, or when
they live across multiple different time zones, it's just a pain in the ass!!! I said it! breaks my
heart that like, girl, I really have to schedu
le a FaceTime call with you three, four weeks out ???? like
anyways, we're gonna do some fire questions because I have to go, but I want to talk about as many
things as I can! so favorite BTS album and era? I obviously love take two right now. this song is so
good, it was such like the perfect song for Festa too! but I've been listening to a lot of the most
beautiful moment in life pt two. we're talking about run, autumn leaves, butterfly, outro: house of cards. too cool for school and bulle
tproof, like those two eras, I really love the music from
then, but aesthetically speaking, I actually really love their clothing from dynamite, the butter era,
like their newer eras. I also like their outfits from the Busan concert. I am still not over Hobi
and his fit! and like his hair! I think about that at least two times a week. anyways, let me know if
you're excited for the new alleged Jungkook music :O I've been like dying over his lives! he's such
like,,, I don't knowm he's such li
ke an unemployed boyfriend. when is a silver jewelry line coming
out? is coming soon! like in the next few months! we're just perfecting everything, okay? I have
like finalized a lot of pieces, there's gonna be rings, there's gonna be silver iterations of
my last gold line. I'm so excited to share with y'all! any new manga and anime? so I have been
sucked into skip and loafer. as you can tell, a big theme of this video is that I just love
platonic love, okay? and skip and loafer,,,, I not o
nly started watching the show, but I am caught up
with the manga! the representation of friendships, of like woman friendships, like friendships
between men and women, and there's also a trans character! I think it's just like so well
done in this manga. and like the artist writer , ah , captures so many beautiful nuances. highly
recommend! I am not caught up on the anime, but I have been caught up with Demon Slayer, the sword
maker village arc! let me tell you something: don't watch that s
hiz at 3am, because that's what I did
I watched like 10 episodes starting from like 2 am to like 5am, and that was a mistake because
there are so many like depressing ass backstories that will just make you SOB at like 3:30 am. I
feel like I should know this because I've seen the saddest shiz happen in Demon Slayer like time
and time again, but like I was just like,,,, dude we're going to another backstory? I'm still recovering
from the last one ;-;" but as always the animation is wonderful
! I've also been obsessed with spider-man
across the spider-verse like every other b, because I am just in love with the art style.
they keep topping themselves over and over again ! I also think the soundtrack's really good. I love
Hobie, obviously. I think his art style is also my favorite, and in across the spider verse, you also see
more of Gwen's world, and I think Gwen's world is beautiful. it's like these oily pastels. okay, and
that's the end of this video !I hope you enjoyed my ram
blings, it might have been a lot... it was
probably a lot. but please please fill me in on your life, too! I don't want this like to just be
like a one-way echo chamber of my thoughts, because I want to read about like, what you've been up to,
what you're excited about, and I'll be sure to like read and like heart your comments down below! but
as always, I love you all so so so much, and I'm so grateful for you always! I feel like the amount
of growth I've had as a person (all this is gonna
sound so cheesy) the amount of growth that I've had
as a person has been only because of y'all, and the community that we have here on the internet! so
I can't wait to see you again in the future, in our next video, and I hope you stay safe! lots of
love
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