A tale of the weird times that is late summer and fall of 2022

Hi friends!

Last we "talked" was June 2022, when I first came back from Italy and France, fresh out of my first Covid experience. A lot has happened since then, but it's been all a blur to me, thanks to my health being a complete mess as a result of the increasingly common long Covid syndrome. As I continue on my path to improve my health while trying my absolute best to not catch it again, I thought I'd update you with a thing or two about what I'm working on.

After nearly 2 years in the making, my furniture brand Bezier Home has finally officially launched! Those of you who have been following my updates may remember that it was called Maison Bezier before. When I was traveling in Italy and France earlier this summer, I casually brought it up to my friend Camille that "maison" is a word that doesn't feel right. It means "home" in French, but it has been overused by so many vintage furniture stores and bakeries. I just had an icky feeling about using this word for my brand. 

Camille said, why not just use "Bezier" (which I took from "Bezier curves", which is a parametric curve used in computer graphics that most designers are familiar with) and add "Home" to the end so that people understand what it is even if they don't know what "Bezier" is? 

I immediately did a quick domain and social handle search. All are available! I jumped on it and secured the rights to all across platforms and our new brand name is born. Now it feels completely right!  

I applied to exhibit in the Palm Springs Modernism Week show this year and was accepted right away! This is the biggest and most famed modern design event in the United States and I have attended for 2 years twice a year as an attendee. Even though there is a significant cost to pull this off, I'm thrilled to take my new brand to be showcased in front of industry professionals. From October 14-16, 2022, find me and my furniture at the Palm Springs Convention Center! 

For those of you who like to hear the stories behind the scene and wonder what "disaster" means in the subject, and can "keep this a secret", here is the tea: when I received my batch of vanity shipment from China, after 2 years of back and forth with manufacturers, I discovered the mirror was looking odd. After a few seconds, I realized what had happened. 

My parents, who have been amazing supporters of my crazy furniture ventures, somehow thought acrylic mirrors were a good idea since it is practically unbreakable. My lack of knowledge of the fact that although acrylic mirrors are hard to break, it is extremely pro to warping. 

That's why when my parents said the shipment looks okay, I trusted them without a second thought. 

This turns out to be a very expensive lesson and mistake. 

All of the acrylic mirrors were warped when arrived. My beauty vanity became a fun house. I can't sell them like this! After I went through the initial shock and frustration, I hired a local glass and mirror shop to replace them with real mirrors. The stress of this event probably triggered another bout of painful post covid illnesses, but I am just glad that they have been fixed, albeit at a cost that could have been avoided. 

Lesson learned - always research materials, triple and quadruple check. Ask obvious and repetitive questions. Never assume other people will take care of anything, not even family. 

In other news, I have been invited to speak at Web Direction Summit 2022, in Sydney Australia this December! I'm thrilled to be traveling to Oceania for the first time. This is the first in-person conference I will be attending and presenting after these gruesome years of the pandemic. Now as a founder, I will be speaking in the product management track, presenting "How To Be Relentless Resourceful In Building A Bootstrap Education Startup". 

Any Sydney and surrounding recommendation is welcomed! 

And given my excruciating long covid symptoms and how I contracted the virus on the plane back from Europe sitting next to a sick man who did not wear a mask, your girl will be wearing a mask the whole time sans food and drink out of a sipping cup from under a mask - crazy I know but wish me luck! If anyone on this newsletter in around Sydney, please say hi!

Both my school Path Unbound and myself personally are taking on video content creation more seriously this year. From my school's end, we are seeing more and more students who came through inquiring about our courses after watching our videos, which many have found helpful. 

Encouraged by this feedback, I have invited back one of our most popular guests, Kerry McPhearson, who kindly agreed to be our regular guests in a new design talk series, Design Uncensored which we have launched a few weeks ago. Check it out if you are interested in keeping up with our weekly, super honest and candid discussions about the latest industry issues! It is also available on most podcast platforms.

On the personal side, when I am sick, which is often, I found it very healing to spend some time putting together trip videos. My mother has encouraged me to pick up my broadcast storytelling background and document my life in interesting ways, which I have shied away from for many years. I am not someone who wants to be on camera or hold a camera all the time. The thought of living like the Kardashians disgusted me. But I have warmed up to the idea in recent years and started documenting more and more special moments. 

So here we go - a lengthy 30-minute video of my Europe trip this summer. I'm slowly editing more videos from the past 2 years in the upcoming weeks and months as a way to remember those fun memories. But if you want to follow along, you can always check out my humble little channel here that is more for fun than anything else. 

A fun side note, I discovered a Chinese video editing app that has been very popular in China for a long time. It is a million times better than Adobe Premiere. Now fully migrated to editing with this application, my editing speed has tremendously improved, and cutting together tons of footage became a joy, not a chore like before. That's why every time I upload a video now, I will do a Chinese version and an English version. Kudos to the incredibly accurate voice-to-caption function in the Chinese editing app. Adobe - you are falling lightyears behind!

My writing has continued to slow down due to the many eventful days and nights of these past few months. I wrote mostly about my personal life experience in my Medium account now and my design writing has all been moved to my school account here. 

If you missed my last 2 articles, I wrote a mini-memoir about my late grandmother, and how she, along with my mother were (and are) my biggest influence in becoming who I am today. 

I also recounted my beyond bizarre Covid experience. An update about my long covid experience, which I am still very much suffering every day till this day, will follow soon.