{"id":32320,"date":"2020-05-05T19:14:43","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T02:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wazwu.com\/blog\/?p=32320"},"modified":"2021-03-01T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T04:20:08","slug":"an-update-from-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wazwu.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/05\/an-update-from-portland\/","title":{"rendered":"An Update from Portland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Portland<\/p>\n

May 5, 2020. Day 50 of quarantine.<\/h2>\n

Hello friends. It feels very strange to be writing my first post of 2020 while we are all in quarantine. I can’t believe it’s been months since I popped on here to say hi. I can’t believe it’s already May.<\/p>\n

I entered the new decade ready to make 2020 my year. Before coronavirus, 2020 was going better than I could have imagined. I was happy and optimistic…\u00a0 it was the first time I’ve felt like myself in a while. And I was so busy, I could barely find time for blogging. I was working on a number of creative projects that I was excited about, including opportunities that came to me out of the blue. Veganizer was thriving, and I was on track to line up a full year of events and partnerships. I was contributing vegan maps to Eater PDX, which was pretty special for me as not that long ago, I looked to Eater NYC for restaurant tips, and I always wondered “how does one get to write for Eater?” I’ve always enjoyed exploring Portland’s food and beverage scene, but it has brought me a remarkable amount of joy over the past few months. Along the way, I made a lot of new friends and built meaningful relationships within the vegan and food communities. As an added bonus, I recently met a cute boy with an cuter cat. It was the first time I’ve been this excited about someone since my divorce.<\/p>\n

Then it all came crashing down. The world became a crazy, scary mess. Everything I had grown to love and taken for granted had disappeared. Events cancelled. Projects postponed. Friendships turned into Facetime chats. Human relationships have become complicated as our only interactions are entirely virtual, and everyone has their own way of navigating the current state of things. It feels like we are living in an episode of Black Mirror<\/em>. People talk about “when all this over”, but honestly, when will this really be over? This is the new normal.<\/em><\/strong> The world that we used to know is gone and won’t be back for some time. It’s starting to sink in that it will be years before things are really normal normal again.<\/p>\n

Today marks day 50 of my quarantine. I went into lockdown on Monday, March 16. I remember my last weekend in the Before Times vivdly because it was a typical, yet enjoyable one. I cleaned my house, I made dinner for a special someone, we opened a bottle of wine, we watched movies and documentaries, we got pizza from Baby Blue, and the cats entertained us with their shenanigans. I even remember everything I had planned for March 16, which was quickly cancelled once I realized how bad the covid situation had gotten.<\/p>\n

So here we are, Tuesday, May 5. After a long and meaningless April, I’ve started to adapt to this corona world and have been keeping myself busy. The words “unprecedented” and “pivot” have become overused these days, but I have finally managed to pivot during these unprecedented times. I’m not sure how often I’ll write here or what I want to be doing with this space (maybe I’ll finish up some travel content as the only travel we’ll be doing anytime soon is virtual). For now, I wanted to share some Instagram highlights, including a few that are pre-corona. These are my favorite posts from the past few months.<\/p>\n

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2020 Instagram Highlights<\/h2>\n
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Stepping into 2020. \ud83d\udc99 Since it\u2019s a new year, and I haven\u2019t done an intro in a while, here we go: Hello, I\u2019m Waz! \ud83d\ude4b\ud83c\udffb\u200d\u2640\ufe0f I\u2019m an architect turned graphic designer who got into food blogging while working in advertising for the wine industry. Originally from Singapore, I\u2019m a former New Yorker who moved to Portland a few years ago. I\u2019m a wearer of many hats: designer, writer, photographer, home cook, event planner, cat lady. I wasn\u2019t vegan or even vegetarian when I started this blogger journey, and I never plan on turning back. My website and Instagram started with food, and that will always be a core focus, but I want to change things up. I say I\u2019m all about vegan food + living, and I\u2019m still figuring out what that means. I\u2019m not a food personality. My brand and my name are one and the same. There\u2019s no online persona. My brand is genuinely, authentically me. I want to share more of veganism beyond food. I want to share some of the food\/blogger\/vegan\/social media topics that get discussed offline, behind the scenes. I want to offer more transparency to my audience. I want to share more of the random things good and bad that keep me up at night. I have many ideas, but the truth is I have no idea what I\u2019m doing. So, we\u2019ll see where all this goes. New year, new ideas. Cheers! \u2014\u2014 \ud83d\udcf8: @perfectfooddays<\/a><\/p>\n

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