Happiness is Chic: DailyLife

I love the idea of Etsy. It's a whimsical, regulated, organized space where beautiful people sell beautiful things. I yearn to belong there all the more when I see fellow bloggers and crafty women I admire thriving there.

The problem is, as much as I love to shop there and and get inspiration, I have given it two to three earnest attempts and have not made a single sale.

Here are my issues with Etsy from a seller's prospective:

I get discouraged by similar sellers' shockingly low prices. It is occasionally under the cost of materials and must be done to edge out the competition. Well played.
"It's hard to make it before you've made it" with the rating system. When a similar shop has lots of positive reviews and I have no reviews, people go for the safe bet.
It appears a lot of social media is required to run a successful Etsy shop. Lots of shops have a Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, a blog, etc. that they post to regularly. I'm a working gal who merely has time to make something pretty and then put it out there into the universe... and then obsessively check my page views.

For now, I've decided to give up on my Etsy dream. I will admit defeat and not join the ranks of attractive people laughing in good lighting together in front of SRL cameras and will return to my comfortable den of familiarity that has never failed me yet. Craig's List.

Craig's List is the wild west of the internet...so much so that they don't even have an official app. Their website is so 1995 that I think it's being marketed at Urban Outfitters as cool. I am only slightly less likely to connect with a serial killer or Ponzi schemer than a customer BUT I owe so much to Craig's List.

It's simply the best because:

It's free. A 100% free buyer/seller connection. I can't believe this is still a thing.
Correct grammar and good pictures are optional/discouraged which saves time on posts!
It's unregulated nature causes buyers to react in a frenzied way that cuts down on small talk. "I'll come now with cash" is pretty much the standard email I get these days.

Etsy, you're fabulous and one day when I'm done with grad school, I will audition again. For now I am sticking to your awkward, clunkier older brother who doesn't know what a social media strategist is.

Thanks for reading and have a fabulous day!

-Genevieve

Hello There,

It has been far too long since my last update, so let me try to recap. In the last three months I:
*decided I want to move to Austin, Texas after I finish in Korea
*went to Japan with a friend from home and my Korean entourage
*got a really great boyfriend who lives in....Austin <3
*studied for and took (half of) the GRE (the other half to come Oct. 23rd)
*applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to teach and advise university students in Romania
*went to China with nine amazing friends
*decided which grad school I want to go to for Higher Education Administration (U of T Austin)
*finished the final round of my teaching competition to become the BEST teacher in (part of :P) Busan

I feel exhausted just repeating everything that's happened! This has been a really fun summer for me. As opposed to my last post where I was a touch melodramatic, I'm feeling very optimistic about my life plans. Although there are a few different places I could go next year, all roads lead to the same general "five year plan." Good enough for me!

Traveling a ton and not working very much certainly might have something to do with my elevated spirits as well. Japan was amazing. I met up with my sister's husband's family, who are Japanese, and they were absolutely charming! I can't believe he would be willing to move to America with a family like that. We stayed around Tokyo for eight days and had a really good time exploring the city. I went to Fukoka last year but only for a long weekend. Now I can say with absolute certainty that the Japanese are a lot different than the Koreans. They seem a bit quieter and extremely happy. They also have a booming counterculture in Japan. I saw a lot of guys with long hair and grungy threads whereas the Korean guys seem really content to wear their Teenie Weanie brand polo with an over sized teddy bear logo on it.

A month after Japan, the Korean Thanksgiving rolled around and so I went with a huge group of friends on a guided tour of Beijing and the Great Wall! It was amazing. Maybe it was because we were staying at the Holiday Inn on steroids or maybe it was because our hilarious guide took us to every possible tourist attraction, but I really felt like I got my money's worth. China, at least Beijing, was much more developed than I had heard it was. It is such a fascinating place. I saw a line of street vendors selling snakes, centipedes and insect larva on a stick. A mere block away from this old world market, I saw H&M and a handful of haute couture shops.

This is a picture I took of my shoe on the Great Wall. Even though it was super crowded with tourists, that was still the highlight of the trip for me. Seeing one of the seven wonders of the world made me realize how many amazing experiences I've had since coming to Asia nineteen months ago. Oh, and Laura and I got to recreate our epic Berlin wall photo. Success all around!