💖 My Extraordinary October

From packing up my life to impromptu speeches to pivoting my life to Thailand (Letter 236)

Sawadee ka fellow learn-it-all 👋

Greetings from Chiang Rai, Thailand

I hear fireworks currently popping off outside. They’ve been going for the past five hours. I just shared my evening with the whole high school I live at dancing in a circle with all my students with lit up lanterns and laughing all around. What a hoot that was. It’s Loy Krathong this weekend. A time to thank the water goddess and release flower offerings into the water. Here’s mine and Katherine’s from Thursday night:

As twilight descends today, Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second-largest city, will come alive with thousands of glowing lanterns for Yi Peng. Yes, another holiday this weekend as well. It’s held on the full moon of the second month of the Lanna lunar calendar. This celebration is about letting go of negativity and embracing new beginnings. I am heading on a bus before the sunrises tomorrow to go to Chiang Mai to celebrate this holiday, and I couldn’t be more excited to set intentions. I’ve decided to bring two of my three cameras. Goody goody gumdrops. Here’s a Bing shot of the day:

Anywho, this week, fifteen days into November, I will go over my extraordinary October. Why? Because my future self would cringe, too. Much at me if I didn’t. She is already skipping my month of August reflection because “too much” was going on. When the actual truth is, that’s true, almost always. October was yet another epic month of 2024. Why? Oh, I’ve got a lot to share.

If this is too long for you to read, here’s a tldr; it started in Michigan at a hair salon where I didn’t cry surprisingly like usual. I attended a nerdy summit for the first time since pre-Covid in LA, had a perfect day with my best friend in San Francisco, and ate a bunch of home-cooked meals in Seattle before my month ended with me wearing a witch’s hat walking to my first day of teaching at a science high school in Thailand.

Now, let’s dive into letter 235 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!

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❓Question to think about

What were some memorable moments I loved in October?

📸Photos of the Month

🖊️Writing

2️⃣5️⃣ moments:

1. All the pieces I was able to publish over the past four weeks in October. Here’s a recap:

   1. 🔍 Finding Certainty in Uncertainty

   2. 🤸‍♀️Limboing through life

   3. 🌬️Tumbleweed Mode Engaged & Book Updates

   4. 🎉 My Book Is Live! + A New Adventure in Thailand 🌏

2. Fitting everything into one big and one small Away suitcase for my indefinite travels that my Mom drive me to the airport with the doggies to start.

3. Starting my experiment on my Supernote E-ink journal on October 1 the day befor eI left for LA.

4. Meeting Tiago Forté for the first time at his Second Brain Summit. When I said it was nice to meet him finally, he said he felt like he had already met me many times before, but this was a first time not in pixels.

5. Winning a raffle to have my brain EEG scanned and getting a validation that my brain make sense of the world through connections that are metaphors.

6. My impromptu speech on my love of journaling after I raised my hand in a random room I wandered into late. It was with my now Ultraspeaking friends Tristan de Montebello and Michael Gendler. I was their guinea pig who was coached in front of the whole room on how to public speak better.

7. Finally meeting Anne- Laure Le Cunff who has inspired countless of my creative projects. A main one being to publish for 100 days straight in 2020. Her intimate curiosity meetup was joyous.

8. Finally also meeting Julia Saxena beyond a Zoom gird after we’ve taken countless courses inline together since 2020. So delightful to connect in person over dinner with like minds :)

9. Wandering around bookstores that have turned the books into art like at “The Last Bookstore in LA”

10. Eating Chick Fil-A for the first and last time this year at the cinema watching “My Old Ass”, laughing and crying more than I have in a while.

11. The best lavender matcha latte I ever drank from Lolla in LA area and enjoying my afternoon at Barnes and Noble updating my bucket list in rainbow markers.

12. A call with Sandra Yvonne which led to her magically creating my book cover’s vision and getting my book across the finish line.

13. Sunset walkies with the mini Polar Bear doggy Layla.

14. My solo trail run in the run outside of Seattle on Rattlesnake Ridge and feeling more alive than ever.

15. A bike ride to Ocean Beach with my best friend on the most beautiful day in San Francisco, biking by windmills, surfers, and joyous smiling faces. My life felt like a movie on this day.

16. Home-cooked meals with Allison in Seattle. So cozy.

17. Crying on Zoom in my women’s group and releasing my fears by shouting them all out.

18. Randomly sitting on a bus, now known as the zest-mobile from the Bangkok airport, next to my new friend who does morning pages, loves fitness, and is obsessed with adventure and education.

19. When everyone on the bus mentioned above was down to connect and pull a card from my deck of curiosity cards.

20. When I discovered that my hotel had A/C that was hidden with a button behind the nightstand phone.

21. Encouragement from my LA hosts Bridget and Aaron on my book project on days when I was discouraged by bottlenecks. We had a celebratory dinner the day the first print proof came in for the small win. :)

22. My friend Scott James being my go-to support to figure out the hoops I needed to jump through to navigate KDP on Amazon to publish my book.

23. The promoting my family and friends did for my book while I was traversing the globe without the Internet, which led to making it a #1 Amazon bestseller for Midwest memoirs.

24. Live music four nights in a row. I became a groupie for two nights with free VIP tickets to Sasha Alex Sloan’s sold-out show in SF and Seattle because my friend is friends with the guitarist. Thank you Kieran!

25. picking up final printed copies of Letters to my Life the day before I left the country right before going to a bible study group. They are spiral bound, but still beautiful.

🎞️ Film from my month

📸More Fun Photos from my Month

Find and go seek:

a bag of bones making music, a very water-resistant rain jacket, nausea-reducing goggles for Topanga Canyan, uncomfortable stick-on nails, a witch hat, a camel from Morrocco, and ultrasound gel injections.

🎧Listening

Moon Music by Coldplay

“Maybe I'm just crazy, I should just be a brick in the wall

Sit and watch the TV, blame everyone else for it all

But I'm tryin' to trust in the heavens above

And I'm tryin' to trust in a world full of love

Fire and water and constantly dream

Of the balance of things and the music between”

🔍Word to Define

Oubaitari: (a Japanese word) The idea that people, like flowers, bloom in their own time and follow their own individual journeys; the acceptance of not comparing oneself to others, and focusing on one's own uniqueness.

🌟Quote to Inspire

“Dance like no one is watching, love like you'll never be hurt, sing like no one is listening, and live like it's heaven on earth.” —William W. Purkey (b. 1929)

🙏Shoutouts

• To everyone mentioned above, I appreciate you!! Life is so so beautiful. The best is yet to come :-)

I appreciate you reading this!

If ideas resonated, I’d love you to press the heart button, leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetjl@gmail.com.

Keep on learning 😁

Ka poon ka 🌺

Jen

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