This week was a mad-dash to finalize my cookbook draft and get started on the black & white printing. I first printed off some test copies at the library to make sure the formatting was right before printing the rest myself, and getting ready to send the color pages to the Copy Center. It honestly felt super hectic as I realized just how many pages I would be ending with, but I also felt super accomplished. I’m so excited to hold the final product in my hands!

I’m really grateful I had both my faculty to give me feedback on the layout. They helped me zero in on details that I had previously overlooked. If you ever decide to do something similar to this for your project, I highly recommend having at least two other people as your editors. After working on a project of this scale so long, it’s easy to get caught up in the big picture and forget about the small details.

Alongside getting the black & white printing out of the way, I also worked on getting a piece of my writing published in Overachiever Magazine, an online magazine that centers Asian women and gender nonconforming voices. They put out a call for submissions for their Asian Diaspora Issue in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. One of the prompts was to reflect on your cultural identity, how it has changed and how you relate to it now. I thought it was serendipitous since it was so inline with the work I’ve been doing for my ILC and Senior Capstone Project this quarter. My cultural identity is heavily attached to food, so it felt fitting write a piece to submit.

I titled it “The Ghosts We Know & The Ones We Don’t” which felt like an apt descriptor. It was grounding to write this piece, finally giving myself the time to trace the steps of how I came to know myself and this part of my heritage. Writing this made me feel reinvigorated about my cookbook when I had been started to drown under the pressure a little bit this week. Taking this time to really reflect and refocus on why my project is so important to me, taking this opportunity to reignite my passion, was exactly what I need as the end of quarter slump started to creep in.

Feeling once more inspired, I can’t wait to get my first full copy of the Cookbook on Monday (hopefully). I sent my order in to the Copy Center on Friday and will bring in the black & white pages to be bound with the rest. Stay tuned for the final product!