It turns out life can get better. I’ve had a great month so far and just wanted to do a little recap :).

I got to see some of my old RIT friends at the beginning of the month! Literally the first day, and it started out great. Sol, Ezra, Elena, and I met up for some Pizza in Redwood City and had a blast. Great food, great talk, and we even walked to get some dessert after the dinner! It was so nice to see some of the CSAPX gang again. And now that Sol’s on the West (worse) coast, I can see him more hopefully, even if it’s just us playing games together.

We started out with the July 4th group camp trip. It was supposed to be from July 3-5, with me, mason, liz, soph, Juliette, and Ember camping together for two nights. Shit happened I guess, because mason, liz, and soph all decided they wanted to leave after one day, kinda ruining the trip. While Ember, Juliette, and I went on a really amazing hike, they cleaned up and left. Alas, that was my last straw. I haven’t talked to any of them since, and none of them have reached out to me. Who knew that cutting off the toxic people in your life was the answer!

Honestly things got much worse before they got better. I was stuck in a hole that I couldn’t get out of, and I didn’t have enough support for a while to get out of it. That’s where my new volleyball friends really came in. I don’t think they realized how much they helped, but it’s been amazing. It’s nice to have a group of people who choose me.

I joined a BB IVL team, as seen in the video, and it’s been a lot of fun. I love being able to play with a consistent team at a high level, and it’s really helping me become a better libero. I’m also subbing for a Coed B league occasionally which is a lot of fun in a different way. It’s always really fun when I’m in back row and people are easy to predict :). Plus I just get to move around more in the lower-level places since people can never pass as well.

Poongi and I keep going on adventures, too. We’ve seen plenty of movies (as seen on my Letterboxd) together this month - including: Enola Holmes 3 (mid), Zoolander (great), 10 Things I Hate About You (love), Spider-Man: Brand New Day (amazing), and Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender (good). I love taking Poongi into the theaters with me lol.

I also take Poongi with me to volleyball, sometimes. It’s a fun little side quest to have our stuffed animals meet up. Here, you can see Poongi being a fatass eating two different people’s Taco Bell orders.

I also went down to see my beautiful girlfriend this month! I was down there from Wednesday morning to Saturday night, and we had a blast. We got great food, we saw Minions & Monsters together, and we repaired Big Cinna! We then trapped Big Cinna in the car while we watched the movie and got food. That day we got both Din Tai Fung and acai bowls. Lots of good food and good movie.

The rest of the week we went shopping together a few times and got more food and desserts. It was amazing and I loved helping her set up her new house. Plus it was great to see Tate and Tyler again for a few days.

Juliette finally moved back to the bay this month, so I got to see her again :). We took a Saturday morning and went on a great hike together. We were following a stream-bed next to our trail for a few miles and scrambled around a lot, it was a lot of fun.

As I keep saying, volleyball is most of what I do. I’ve been average 4-5 days a week of playing. That covers beach, IVL, open rec, and the open gym I host each week. So of course, I try to get creative with the fits sometimes. I found my old hot pink hoodie from club volleyball in high school, my first pair of slunks, and the pink shirt I got from USAV Nationals this year. It turned into a very pink outfit, especially when I added my pink hat from an apple farm in Rochester, NY. I did learn, though, that I Hate playing in cotton shirts. I despise the feeling of the sweaty material on my skin lol.

Tate and Tyler finally came up to Palo Alto for a week, after months of me asking :P. It was great to see them and show them around where I live. I finally got to take them to the spots I’d been hyping up for a long time. We did a lot of climbing, got great food, and had so much fun hanging out together each day at work. I took Tate to Movement Mountain View a day that Tyler was busy and got some fun shots of him, here’s one of him trying to campus a move. I’d never seen him cut feet on purpose before but it almost worked.

On Friday, Tate needed to be at the airport by 2pm, so we took a long lunch and spent some time in San Francisco. We drove up in my car and went straight to a record store. Tate had been dreaming about it all week, so of course I had to indulge him. He got nearly 10 CDs and spent over a hundred dollars, but he loved it. And I had fun too, of course, I always like excuses to go up since I never find myself up there.

It was a great ending to the month, having them up here. I think this month has been one of my favorite months in California in general, though. Since cutting off the people who never chose me, I’ve stopped being as anxious and down all the time, making the rest of my time better :).

Here’s to another great month!