Angela Chen

The Yaaas Column | Keep Moving, Weed Pics & Cinema Therapy

Angela Chen -

#1 A quote to live by

During my commute last week, I listened to Ali Abdaal's podcast, Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal. In the episode featuring Matthew Dicks, author of Someday Is Today, they spoke about living purposefully and without regrets. In that episode, Ali shared a piece of advice a mentor gave him in medical school as he was deciding what specialty to go into:

Just pick something and start moving towards it. It's much easier to change direction when you're moving forward rather than when you're stationary.

As a chronic procrastinator, this quote needs to be plastered on my wall.

#2 Just a bunch of weeds

I've been slowly making my way through the book National Geographic Complete Photography by National Geographic. So far, I've learned about the four elements of a photo: subject, composition, light, and exposure. Subject and composition were easy to understand, but light and exposure confused me. To experiment with these concepts, I took some photographs using the Manual setting. Below is a picture I took the other day in my backyard on a sunny day. My favorite part of this photo is the composition, even if they are just a bunch of weeds.

Settings & gear:

  • Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II
  • ISO 3200
  • 8.8 mm f/5.6 aperture
  • 1/1250 s shutter speed

#3 Cinema Therapy

Probably due to my obsession with the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once, the YouTube algorithm started featuring movie review videos. One of the videos was from a channel called Cinema Therapy. Intrigued by the channel name, I clicked. Two men run the channel; one is a licensed therapist, and the other is a professional movie maker. Together, they watch movies while sharing their unique perspectives through the lenses of their professions. I enjoy listening to the therapist's perspective on different relationships and human dynamics in each film. I mean, it's basically free therapy.