Update June 2016: it's gotten so confusing trying to keep track of these even in my head, so I try to stay away from referencing names in posts now. But if you stumble on one of my older posts, chances are that you'll see a name specified below.
You may notice that I’ve created aliases for people I mention on the blog. I could use their real names, but 1) I’m not completely sure they would want to be talked about so explicitly (this sounds bad but I hope you know what I mean) and 2) it’s more fun this way.
Here’s a quick run-down on these people, a character guide if you will.
Yang: This is in reference to our shared love/obsession of a certain medical drama, and how she’s kind of like my person. We’ve known each other for three years and have been friends for a shorter amount of time than that, but somehow we spend a lot of time together (on a recent three-day weekend, I spent most of my time alone/with my family, and then 8 hours with this girlie) and we’re super close. She loves pearl milk tea and Korean food.
Cleopatra: Her social media tends to have riffs off of Cleopatra, so here she is. She’s obsessed with soup, and was irrationally sad when her favorite neighborhood pearl milk tea place closed down (although there is another one 20 minutes from our houses).
Scooter: A mix between Scott Hoying (her favorite Pentatonix member) and Peter Pan (her favorite Disney character). She loves going on crazy adventures; she once drove down with one of our mutual friends, took us to Disneyland for 12 hours, then immediately drove back home. Her willingness to do almost anything is intoxicating (sorry, Mom).
Hermione: We met at seven years old, but weren’t really friends until seventh grade, five years later. This seems to be a recurring trend in my life. We’re pretty chill though, and I’d say she is one of my closest friends that I didn’t meet through school. Hermione is Harry Potter obsessed (the amount of merch she has is ridiculous, and she even joined her school’s quidditch team).
Puppy: Puppy, Hermione and I would hang out a lot over high school through church, though I knew both before from basketball. Puppy loves puppies (she might be thinking about vet school, but you know how fast people change their minds in college), and Hermione and I would call her boyfriend the puppy because of how he would trail her around places.
Lola: Honestly, Lola is kind of random to describe this friend. But she’s kind of kooky (she has this pose called the pineapple, and Yang sends me Snapchats of Lola balancing spoons on her nose), so it works. We played basketball against each other and went to middle school together. She was my first baking buddy, and we’ve done things from Orello (orange jello in hollowed orange halves that you can eat like an orange) to macarons.
Dough Girl: We share a love for cookie dough, cake batter, cheesecake batter, you name it. We shared cheesecake batter in middle school cooking class to our peers’ horror, and we’ve made cookie dough cupcakes together (and Yang and I made her a cake with cookie dough for her birthday recently).
Kala: Kala loves animals (it was between the art/entrepreneurship program she’s in now and some sort of vet major), hence her gorilla namesake a la Tarzan. We met in middle school when we had lockers next to each other in PE and we shared an animosity (maybe jealousy? Middle school emotions were hazy, even when I was experiencing them) towards one of the few white girls at school. We didn’t talk for a bit in high school, but now we’re chummy.
Bun-of-Secrets: Yang’s friend from choir. She’s adorable and obsessed with One Direction (she made me a grad poster with their lyrics on it). Yang and I took her to Whole Foods one day, and Bun is convinced we saw Tom Felton (aka Draco Malfoy).
Aunty Pin: My mom’s oldest sister. She’s always trying something new off of Pinterest, hence her name. She’s married to Uncle French Toast (named as such because he loves the Christmas french toast casserole), and is mom to Orange (my cousin, and lover of all things orange and pearl milk tea) and her brother.
Tiny: She’s, well, tiny. The food she shared in middle school was my first foray into Korean food.
Aunty Lily: This is the only person who doesn't have an alias. My late great-aunt was one of the kindest, most generous people I knew. She'd always have butter mochi when I visited her, because she knew how much I loved it. She hosted countless girls' days, sewing lessons, Christmas parties and Easter egg hunts, and I can't even try to quantify how much happier she made our extended family.