Dominica May

diversity & creativity from a writer, actor, improvisor

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For those of you who want to know about what occupied a good chunk of my time and energy in 2025.

2025 In Review

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In which I analyse the lessons I'm choosing to learn after identifying a situation that triggers the heck out of me.

Identifying Triggers and Shame to Short-Circuit Automated Reactions, Defensiveness, and Trauma Responses

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Some of the things I've been learning to help me grow from being a fearful avoidant attacher to being more secure.

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My mum passed away almost 20 years ago. She should've been 70 today. I reflect on some of her history and the lessons I've learned from her here.

Tears Stream Down My Face on My Mother's 70th Birthday

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One of the Best Things You Can Do to Heal from a Toxic Relationship

When you get out of a toxic relationship, it can be hard to know how to heal from it. Here's a sampling of what I did to help me heal from mine.

Have you ever felt at a loss after the end of a toxic relationship? Tried to sort out and sift through the details of what happened? Whether you ended the relationship, or were the one broken up with, knowing the relationship was toxic doesn’t preclude you from experiencing some level of grief for the end of things. Sometimes you might be plagued with thoughts, wondering what you could’ve done…

One of the Best Things You Can Do to Heal from a Toxic Relationship

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Thankful for the Friends who Support my Livestreaming Efforts

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the friends who've joined me in conversation for my livestreaming. In this blog post, I talk about my livestreaming experiences and invite you to watch.

This year, to date, I have gone live on my YouTube channel 17 times, and will hopefully do at least a couple more before the end of the year. I don’t have much of an audience, and in fact rarely have anyone watching live these days. It would be nice to have a bigger audience, but I don’t do these livestreams to build an audience or to try and get famous. I do them because it’s been a great way…

Thankful for the Friends who Support my Livestreaming Efforts

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Soup's On!

Two years ago, I created a coding project for a writing competition. I found a recipe dataset and reduced it to just soup recipes, then created an interactive website utilising my coding skills. Now I'm sharing the project with a wider audience!

This project was originally created for a writing competition in August 2022. I published it on a different platform, but now I’ve decided to repost it to my personal, public blog to showcase this project to a wider audience. Data analytics and coding is my bread and butter. It’s what put food on the table in my house. So I thought, what better way to talk about it than to build you a…

Soup's On!

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Attempting to End the Quest for External Validation, Once and for All

Anyone else raised in an environment where they feel like they sought external validation over internal motivation? It's a wild ride to escape.

As a teenager, I felt like getting my mum’s approval was the most important thing for me. It didn’t feel automatic or unconditional, but I loved making her feel proud. I felt like she had certain expectations of me, and if I didn’t live up to them, I wouldn’t be “good enough.” She was a pioneer for women in engineering, the only woman in her classes, and consistently smarter than the men she went…

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Sweeeeeeet. Nebula was a nice surprise because she's not on the box. Nebula wearing a Thanos ugly sweater is hilarious. Guardians of the Galaxy LEGO Advent Calendar day 9. Last picture is a before/after Nebula LEGO with the original from a retired set. #LEGO #AdventCalendar #Marvel #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy #Nebula #Thanos https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl-PhmWLc1v/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Guardians of the Galaxy LEGO Advent Calendar day 8. Roast turkey! The second to last picture sets up the pieces like the front of the box. The last picture compares the advent calendar Rocket with the Rocket I have from a retired Guardians of the Galaxy set. They're like reversed colours! What do you prefer, grey or brown Rocket? #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy #LEGO #AdventCalendar #RocketRaccoon https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl7oK2OrGxi/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Guardians of the Galaxy LEGO Advent Calendar day 7. I think this weapon needs a leg because otherwise Rocket would fall over while he's holding it because it's so big. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl5Hv-uLtNb/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Guardians of the Galaxy LEGO Advent Calendar day 5 - Rocket! #RocketRaccoon #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy #LEGO #Marvel #AdventCalendar #StarLord https://www.instagram.com/p/Clz17_wLyvx/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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I decided to take the plunge and got myself a video capture card so I could start live streaming video games. My intention at the time was to play new games for the Switch and PS4, but figured I may as well test it with my old Super Nintendo first (fortunately I already had an RCA to HDMI adapter so I could play it on my TV). Yes, this IS still my original Super Nintendo from the 90s, from Australia, and I am playing it in the United States (it's a whole setup, let me tell you). I haven't properly played this game in about 25 years. I may have made an attempt again with some of my Malaysian friends just before moving to California about 8.5 years ago, but I hadn't tried since. Anyhow, I was surprised by how well I did and how much I kinda remembered of the game, so I was able to defeat all the first levels and the first castle in about 21 minutes, and only died 3 times. Not bad considering how long it's been! Anyway, if anyone's interested in watching me play video games sometimes (it won't always be old school stuff like Super Mario World), I'll be streaming on Twitch at twitch.tv/dominicacreates Enjoy some screenshots from my first gaming stream until my next one. #SuperMarioWorld #MarioBros #Mario #Yoshi #livestream #gaming #videogames #SuperNintendo https://www.instagram.com/p/ClxhEnyufkg/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar day 3... I'm not even entirely sure what this is supposed to be. 😂 https://www.instagram.com/p/Cluw4G-rcQ4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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I made a video yesterday for the Guardians of the Galaxy LEGO Advent Calendar day 1, but I've decided I'm just going to document in pictures instead. So, this is day 1 & 2. When I opened day 1 yesterday, I didn't even realize there were instructions and so I built Star Lord by looking at him on the box 😂 - that's what happens when I try to do it on video I guess. So glad I saw the instructions on the back of the door for day 2 because the range of pieces made me more unsure of how it was supposed to go together. Decided to give Star Lord the extra set of goggles though. Tune in tomorrow to see what's in day 3 with me! #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy #LEGO #AdventCalendar #StarLord https://www.instagram.com/p/ClsPQlDLa-S/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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I call this...Wolverine visits the fun fair and Goofy takes over his Mech armor. I built these two @lego sets on my birthday. #LEGO #MickeyMouse #MinnieMouse #Goofy #Wolverine #FunFair https://www.instagram.com/p/ClpaSX-J0Ng/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Tuesday night I went to see the Frozen musical at the Orpheum in San Francisco. It was adorable seeing all the kids in the audience. At one point there was a little girl who yelled back at the bad guy and it was so cute and funny. I thought it was a pretty good night. It was interesting to see the changes from the animated movie, but overall it made sense given they had to convert it to a stage production. Preferred the songs they included from the original movie rather than the ones they added, but that's no surprise because I'm used to those and have heard the soundtrack countless times. #Frozen #musicals https://www.instagram.com/p/ClZQXUbveWd/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=