This Week on Rae’s Tea
I’ve been re-watching Avatar the Last Airbender, and it’s been re-teaching me so much about life and myself. (I also found out there’s a Japanese dub 👀)
Latest YouTube video: 6 Universal Truths (I tried out a new YT video style for this one that I’d like to develop more! Let me know what you think~)
Latest Blog post: How to Customise Anki Desktop
Waagwaan Frennies! ☀️🌍
I’m 25 years old now (woah!) and I’m feeling a bit bittersweet. Usually, I love the idea of getting older, getting wiser and shifting through all the phases of life, but I can’t help but occasionally be affected by the world’s idea of timelines and comparative success.
The gifted kid in me is screaming daily — telling me that I’m setting my bar too low.
The 18 year old in me is proud that I’ve made it this far, that I can look myself in the mirror and smile. That I can wake up and feel good about myself. That I’ve finally made 10K subscribers and that I love what I share online.
The 22 year old in me is tapping their foot impatiently, aching for adventure and for more excitement beyond my desk.
Every version of me yearns for the best for me, and it’s exactly on my birthday that they all come together to review and reflect. It’s also the half-way mark through the year— so it’s a great time to take a deep breath and really help myself to see the wins and the losses, and what I’d like to fill the rest of 2023 with.
Last week I shared this video on six universal truths I’m using to navigate my 20s. To say it another way, it’s six core value I’m using to validate my journey and to guide my daily choices as I continue to create my dream life.
I’d love to hear what your ‘core values’ are, and how you incorporate them into your daily life.
The Language Corner
(Now, a permanent segment!)
After feedback and interaction with my closest followers (you lovely people!), I’ve decided to start mixing in languages back into my personal brand. For the last 2 years or so, I’ve been trying to split them up because I felt like I didn’t want to be limited to speaking only about languages. I have a lot of things to share, and a lot of ways I can help people, and I was feeling trapped.
However after speaking with you, the people on this newsletter in particular, I realised that languages don’t limit me, and that I can talk about life and building workflows and systems alongside languages. That, they in fact complement each other!
The people subscribed to this newsletter, are amazing multifaceted polymaths— global citizens who are hoping to connect with the world.
You are so much more than just words, and you are so much more than just productivity. You are people who seek to navigate life, career and self-actualisation with the wisdom of the world.
My Studies This Week
This week, I was able to work on Mandarin & Korean!
For Korean:
I used my favourite Advanced Korean study resource, the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@APieceOfKorean/videos
For Mandarin:
I continued to work with Anki, and did some practise making sentences with newer Anki vocabulary. I also started working through book 2 of A Contemporary Course in Chinese; it’s much below my level but I’m combing through quickly and writing down any words I’m not as familiar with and re-visiting some grammar structures I may have over simplified when I was lower-level. For context, I studied with Book 4&5 in Taiwan when I did in person classes.
Weekly Poll / Question
How do you take notes? Why? Do you have any thoughts on improving your note system?