we continue to persist
celebrating over one year of this, a look into me and jaymin's first tea popup, and always: FUCK AI!
Happy belated one year to me keeping up with this newsletter (and making a ton of comics for it)!! Super stoked to have successfully executed my goal for last year and to also continue to make work that I can share with people- since most of the work I do I don’t actually share! Whether that’s the NDA work I’ve done or my sketchbook drawings. None of that really makes it into the public… so I’m glad to have art that I’ve made that I can share with people. :-)
Also caveat: I totally started this comic on my actual one year anniversary of this newsletter (end of January) but I wasn’t able to write the newsletter for it on time and covered other stuff first instead! Navigating my own plans for my upcoming posts while my health’s plummeting rapidly has been really difficult. But I’ll keep trying and still aim for 1-2 articles a month. (thumbs up emoji) So far so good?
Again, I wrote this comic back in January initially, and the messaging of it has been ringing in my mind ever since. I went to SCAD for the Comic Arts Forum a little bit after drawing this (in Feb, covered in this newsletter post), and could not reiterate more that it’s so important for us to KEEP making stuff in this era of AI slop. AI “art” will never be better than us- because it has no soul. There is nothing personal or special about it for us to connect to and enjoy. What makes your work special is that it’s a culmination of your life experiences, the media you grew up with, the era we live in, the things you enjoy, etc. It’s special and unique to YOU. Because YOU made it. And what a privilege it is to celebrate and witness your creations and your story. So yeah, fuck AI! Keep making stuff, keep celebrating being human, and keep thinking for yourself.
Doing a tea popup has been on my to-do list for over a year now! It’s super fun doing the cafe popups, albeit extremely exhausting for me… I spend all week baking and preparing for it, and then clock in early in the morning the day of the popup to continue prep, and then also work the entire event. Doing a sort of sit down tea experience has been my dream! And Jaymin and I had the opportunity to do so in early February at the request of his sister and my friend, Kiana. Truthfully, it was a cover for a proposal, but of course we had to go all out anyways!! >:)
Kiana had requested us to do this event a little over a week prior to us actually doing it- so we immediately made plans to meet ahead and finalize the date. After ruminating on the plan for a week, we met 3 days before the event to test out some of the new teas that Jaymin had just received and formulate the menu! Jaymin had a pretty good idea of what he wanted the menu to look like, with the variety of teas and the amount of caffeine tapering from most caffeinated to least. While testing the teas, I thought about what possible snacks/pastries I could pair them with! I tried to keep it pretty varied, and hopefully the guests enjoyed what we came up with.
Also! I just wanna take a moment of silence to appreciate how beautiful and cozy Jaymin’s tea corner is. The photos simply do not do it justice!! I aspire to have a tea corner unique to me in my home someday.
This was the final menu we came up with! I tried sending a draft over to Kiana and Jaymin to see if they wanted any extra information on it, but the draft was approved pretty quickly and I cleaned it up for print. Corey printed copies of the menu at work and I cut them the morning of, so that every guest, and especially the main characters of the event (the proposer and proposee), could have a copy of it as a souvenir. I loooove collecting little paper memorabilia anytime I go do something. It’s nice to put it in a journal and remember it in the future… It’s the little things!
It’s kind of funny reminiscing on this now about two months later! This was definitely a core memory for me and I’m incredibly grateful and honored to be part of such a memory and experience!! This was also a great test run for potential tea popups in the future. I think we learned that we need to shrink down the menu a bit and limit to 4 different teas instead of the 6 courses we had planned for this. I would also maybe try to include a savory heavy thing for people to eat so the caffeine doesn’t absolutely destroy everyone sitting with us for a few hours. This omakase tea experience lasted about 3 hours I think? That’s a pretty long time to be somewhat hungry and overly caffeinated. Almost nauseating! Lots to think about and adjust for the future… but I hope we get to do something like this again someday!
Thank you to the big boss Kiana for giving us this mission, and thank you to Jaymin for being such an awesome co-host for this dreamy event. Shoutout to Matt for taking all the professional pics during, and huge huge huge thank you to everyone that came early to help set up and thank you to the rest of the cast that participated and helped execute the perfect proposal for Kiana. We freaking did it!!! And I could not be prouder.
I was super red and kind of swollen from my weird health stuff, but I still managed to show up and do my job. And I’m ever so grateful to everyone who has been so understanding of my health and my circumstances, and so grateful that I can still manage to do these projects/events! It’s incredibly fulfilling!! And even as my health continues to worsen, I would continue to work this hard. For all of you! <3
Speaking of tea popups… I was recently invited to a taste testing for my friends’ Lydia and Tue’s upcoming coffee popup! They did coffee popups like 2 years ago and went on a long break, but are ramping up for a revival- but different… instead of their usual cafe style popup (made to order), they’re coming back as a coffee omakase experience with food pairings! I actually uh don’t drink coffee… so I brought Corey and Jaymin along with me so they can give actual feedback haha. Lydia and Tue were kind enough to make me non-coffee drinks, so I had a really nice time regardless. And all the drinks were amazing! Corey and Jaymin really enjoyed every single drink methinks. I’m hoping and begging on my knees that I can come and hang out at the actual upcoming event even if I’m not having anything… please friends, let me in!!!
I don’t know if they have a dedicated instagram for their popup, so I’ll ask if I get to attend the next omakase and plug them next time! I think their first one’s happening the day after I fly back to LA. So, fingers crossed I can make it! I didn’t explain this yet… but I’m in the Philippines right now! I’m on a long trip to southeast Asia with my whole ass family- mom, stepdad, brother, grandma, uncle, aunt, cousin. My family on my mom’s side is very small. We’re all visiting other family right now during holy week (my family is catholic) and I got to witness some magdarame in real life (self-flagellation in kapampangan). My mom and my uncle are from Pampanga and my grandma is from Pangasinan. My family speaks both Kapampangan and some Pangasinan on top of Tagalog and English. My stepdad’s family is from Manila though, so he mostly just speaks Tagalog. I can mostly understand when they speak their dialects or tagalog, but I’m not super great at speaking myself. I actually default to answering everyone in English… lmao… but it’s been really cool visiting family and seeing how the Philippines has changed since I was last here 16 years ago. I got to see my mom’s school and meet her friends from school. We walked around and talked about what things were like when she grew up here. I’m unfortunately still on the struggle bus with my health, and I’ve attempted to see two doctors so far. I got some medicine to try, but who knows!! Maybe the air being so full of gasoline isn’t helping hahaha.
Anyway, I’m out of the country right now! I’m writing this off of my mom’s laptop because I… still don’t own one myself LOL! Maybe someday I’ll get one… manifesting… but I’m gone for about a month and we’ll be hitting Vietnam and Singapore next, then back to the Philippines like a sandwich and then back home to California. I’m now contemplating whether or not to do one newsletter per place, or cover everything under one post. I’ll keep pondering this!
Thanks again for being here and reading my comics. See you in the next one! :-)
-nicey