A Stage of Development - Main Update January 2016

Recently, I’ve been wondering about New Year’s resolutions and why they’re so popular, to realize that it signals hope for change and provides a logical deadline of one year to accomplish your goals. Resolutions have never really worked for me because the Gregorian calendar timeline isn’t particularly motivational. However, insofar that each day of each week in life has its own mini-resolution, things have indeed undergone change and progression.

Speaking of all these plane pictures, I was on a recent flight in which it was nighttime and we were descending. As the plane dipped and turned, the pinpoint stars spun as if we were soaring through the cosmos, the sound of silence gracing peace to the anchorless motion. It was incapturable on camera.

In the past six months since I started this blog, one of the defining arcs has been that I have become more acclimated to my job, a point of focus in my life and a source of satisfaction at this step of success.

After new job training in the summer, my first project had all the ingredients of a great transition project to a post-college full-time job: it was locally-based with a small team, and was quite short. Still, in that period, I was surprised by two things related to change. One was how surprisingly challenging it was to manage change and how unfamiliar I was with it due to an apparently very stable past few years. The second insight was that despite an extraordinarily new environment, my internal self and preferences remained very consistent, even though one thinks they will adapt with the surroundings. Really, these two realizations funnel into one insight which is that I overestimated my ability to adjust, and in that process, I discovered myself a little more by noticing the parts of me that remained impervious to environmental shifts against the parts of me that did change.

After the first, my second project was in Boston, which was another good stepping stone in the sense that I have several good friends who moved to Boston post-college and their proximity helped me feel less displaced. Compounded by the fact that the burden of the travel logistics each week was fairly low, this was a good opportunity to acclimate to the travel aspects of my travel-heavy job. I leave out the several ways in which this period of time was not optimal, because the point is that I continued adjusting.

As an aside, Boston is interesting in that many things operate like a big city but it has a smaller city feel. It’s well-developed with good food options and an easy transportation system. The speed of the assembly line at popular lunch places is in my mind ranked one-two with the speediest cities in the country, based on anecdotal observation. On the flip side, the city isn’t full of steel and glass and the streets aren’t all packed and dirty, so one could conceivably describe parts of Boston as “quaint” if that isn't offensive to the Boston sensibilities.

Following the Boston project, I helped with internal work in an industry that I hadn't worked in before. This turned out to be a great way to take a temperature of how much I liked that industry, which is really the whole point of the first few years of consulting. There are lots of other points, but a big point is exploration.

Now, I’m on my third project, quite far across the country. As I become increasingly familiar with my projects and my company, my brain will continue to release more space to process new questions and new information, the themes of which will inevitably trickle into the next main update I’m sure.

In other random news, I rolled over most of my vacation days from last year because I still don’t really understand how to use them. The concept of self-selected breaks is foreign after a lifetime of schooling. Also I’m the kind of person who rarely spends my loyalty points from any brand anywhere, because if I spend them, it has to be darn worth the irrecoverable points. It's slightly irrational, but still, the same concept applies.

These are the tough issues that we contend with in the adjustment to adulthood. Onwards and upwards to the next six months.

Laughter Around the House

Lately, I’ve had more free time than usual and you know what that means: shenanigans.

I have a hair-trigger sense of humor inherited from my mom. My dad’s jokes, sad to say, set the bar even lower. All in all, I’m not equipped with the greatest foundation for comedic judgment and I think that my brain has resorted to sorting things haphazardly into either of two categories, the hilarious or the unbearably stupid.

For example:
Kristen Bell, career Youtubers, Keegan Michael Key – hilarious.
Big Bang Theory, SNL, Minions – stupid.
You see?

     

My father and mother, represented in the most accurate way I can think of, which is Peanuts form

With some extra creative energy to spare, here are a handful of ways I have made myself laugh recently as well as other accidental things I have stumble across.

Love note to my sister Katie along with the Fedex package I sent her:

        

Reading old yearbook notes:

“Dearest Faith,
[etc. etc.] Thank you for all of the Calc help (aka cram sessions during Psych). It seems like every time you helped me out, you would correct yourself the day after…”

“Faith,
[etc.etc.] My greatest regret is not being able to trip you with my lanyard. Me and Nick wasted an obscene amount of time trying in class.”

Accidentally purchasing this tiny perfume on the right, thinking it would be ten times larger:

Other items of this size: eye drop bottle, chapstick, dandelion fuzz ball

Bonus clip of our Roomba vacuum cleaner turned mom-approved house pet, "Googoo", in action:

Well done, Googoo, very thorough

Credit for design resources: oddhearts@deviantart

Previously On...: A Compendium

Recently and delightfully, I've been able to stay current on my panel of shows, or certain favorites at least. As this Golden age of television marches on, I have curated a small list of shows that fall within my very specific and disparate tastes. Included among the ranks are:

The Good Wife:
Having been a loyal follower since Season 3, I am satisfied that it is now Season 7 and the writing is still so quality. The episode titles follow a palindrome pattern – one-word titles in Season 1, two in S2,... up to four in S4. Then S5 titles go back to three words, and if you do the math, we’re now at one-word titles in S7. Will there be a Season 8? Nobody knows.

                                                             The Good Wife in One word: JuliannaMargulies
                                                                                             Two words: Legal drama
                                                                                            Four words: Not cheesy  Not easy

Limitless:

I stumbled upon this flipping through hotel tv channels one night, and my power of intuition told me within minutes that I liked it. It’s a new show and a little rough around the “snappy” dialogue edges but right up my alley for brilliant, above-the-norm main characters. What can I say, there was a hole where White Collar used to be.

Better Off Ted:

A Netflix show that ended a few years ago, the super dry humor is amazing and everyone I recommend this to love it. I like Portia de Rossi who plays the corporate shark archetype Veronica, who is laser focused on the bottom line though is occasionally forced to contend with unfamiliar concepts like empathy or humility. So close, Veronica, yet so far.

Scandal:

I still haven't decided whether Scandal is artistic and culturally progressive or if it’s so dramatic it’s trashy. I just like that they talk fast and I hate that I never get to watch it live while all the actors are live tweeting.


Other good shows if you’re looking for ideas:
Madam Secretary – if you like capable characters and strong female leads
Sherlock – if you are a human being; next season airs at the beginning of next year, finally!
Mindy Project – if you like hilariously confident female main characters
Lie to Me – if you have Netflix and like procedurals as much as I do. I seriously have the longest list of both good and moderately acceptable procedurals (Standoff, Psych, Numbers, House, Scorpion, CSI Cyber).

Shows I’m looking forward to:
Heartbeat – with the actress Melissa George (who played guest characters on several shows on this list) starring as, yes, the grand synchronization of a female lead in a procedural dramedy
Younger – season two of an unusual plotline, starring the naturally talented Sutton Foster

I kind of want to say that I need something else going on in my life, but wouldn't that get too real.

A Motivating Factor

Even when things get busy, I usually manage to fit one or two episodes of TV watching on the weekends. You always make time for the things you like to do, and I definitely like to stack up the pillows on my bed on a weekend, turn the bedside lamp on, and settle in for a good story about my character peeps solving their world-changing problems time after time. So when it's 10:30pm on a Tuesday and I'm still at work, the version of myself in TV-watching position is what I imagine when I envision the light at the end of the tunnel.

Though TV is typically an evening activity, what happened near the end of a recent trip was that I got too tired and unmotivated for exercise in the morning so decided that as an incentive, I'd put on an episode of some good show whenever I went to the gym.

(Side note: I've always wondered how people can watch the news while exercising. It sounds like a double whammy situation. As my Econ professor would say, just stick with the single whammy. I recall recording this joke on the margin of my Econ notes in college. Yes, good times.)

I ended up playing Scandal while "speed walking" on an inclined treadmill every morning the final week of that project, which, though is concessionary and barely exercise, still made my days better. I'm convinced. At any rate, it took two and half mornings of gym time to watch through a single episode of drama, not to mention it got awkwardly tricky when certain scenes came up. All in all, it was a fairly unsatisfying viewing experience, but was surprisingly effective at getting me out of bed.

Tricks of the trade for ya, although I don't recommend sharing with your Soulcycling coworkers the fact that sauntering in front of your laptop-turned-TV is your new favorite way to work out. You just won't win.

One Food Item Only

Question #14 on the 50 Facts About Me tag asks If you had to eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Given that I eat this particular thing once or twice a day already (unless I run out of it), I am super inspired to answer this question – it's the delicious, nutritious Greek Yogurt with Berries.

Here, let me show you:

Components:

  Huge dollop of Greek yogurt, plain or honey

  Blackberries

  Raspberries

  Blueberries

  Roasted Pecans


Triumvirate of Food Objectives Achieved:

  Protein

  Fruit

  Sweetness


If you're using plain yogurt, you can add a spoonful of raspberry preserves or lemon curd.

    or    

For interesting texture and to join the superfood bandwagon, add the miraculous chia seeds. (DL on chia seeds: Add water, wait, stir. Gelatinous and a little earthy-tasting. Loads of fiber and other things.)

A quick Google search has revealed to me that there are no set questions to the Facts About Me tag. The tag is just 50 facts that you share about yourself, so actually there is no defined question 14. But anyway, I shared that one fact and now you know.

Was That Really Intermediate Level? - Charlotte, NC

I have a handful of bruises to show for last weekend's adventure. Under no circumstances will I take pictures of them, though I strangely always want to take pictures of bruises and tan lines.

Charlotte is quite nice. Someone made a good point that since the U.S. is only a couple hundred years old, there's only so much culture that has developed in each city, especially compared to places like Berlin or Beijing.

However, I can be easily entertained, so several good meals and a few points of interest make for a solid weekend excursion, which is exactly what happened.

The Great Outdoors Created by People
Unanimous opinion across travelers' guides agree that one certain wilderness park is the best location for fun in Charlotte. Essentially, the park built a man-made whitewater course and strung a series of "ropes" courses high up in the trees within this medium-sized outdoors area. My travel companion and I spent most of Saturday running around inside it, and while I'm still a little confused why this national park, which shouts "mountains" to me, was built in the middle of North Carolina, which shouts "beach", I fully concur with the experts on the quality of entertainment. It was super fun.

We did rafting and a lot of ropes courses, the latter of which constitutes of myself in a harness connected to a steel guide wire above me. I inch across taut wires, ropes or wooden plats hung at foot level between trees and poles, and the goal is to get from tree to tree through segments of varying balance-difficulty. I'm pretty sure all of my bruises were from this one course where wooden beams hung vertically from a wire above. The 2-by-2's are installed with grips you see on rock walls, so like a precarious monkey, you climb from beam to beam going sideways until you reach the tree at the end. That was Intermediate difficulty. Like, what.

But also, we ziplined, and I think that was a fair reward.

U.S. National Whitewater Center

Food, Food, Food

      

     

Smelly Cat Coffee Shop; BBQ and fried corn; Cookie Butter Latte; The Crispy Crepe brunch

Chilling on Sunday
We looked on Groupon for activities, of which they had plenty... on every day but Sunday. Since most things were closed, we wandered around different neighborhoods, stopping by a Latin American street festival uptown for example.

Despite the fact that Charlotte felt a little small, I was impressed by the remarkable variety of unique skyscraper designs within the central district, which added a certain quirk and interest to the city. This is synecdochic of my takeaway impression generally: that Charlotte seems to be a scaled-down city done well.

    

Uptown; Transit system

“There is No Typical Week In My Life”

I have a proposition for myself, and it is that I will buy and enjoy one fruit tart pastry each and every week that I am on a travel project. There are no conditions and no quid pro quo. I'm not even obligated to have a fruit tart if I didn’t want one that week, although I’m not sure what unusual event would cause that circumstance to arise.

Side note, speaking of quid pro quo and other words or phrases that one might look up, I recently watched an episode of the Good Wife and had to pause it twice to look up new words until I gave up and went on inferring definitions. Side-side note: I am so delighted by the commencement of TV season again.

As I was saying, this is paradigmatic of a personal tradition, a bakery-sourced tartlet on a weekly consumption cycle. Quite frankly forming such a habit is otherwise meaningless but for the theoretical relief that there’s one less decision you have to consciously make during the week (and one more certainty you can bank on).

To give you a snapshot of my current weekly traditions and activities, here’s the set-up. Mindy Kaling’s most recent book has a chapter one chapter outlining her day-to-day activities by the hour. A highly engaging, fly-on-the-wall read. This series illustrates what a recent week looked like for me, as I break into my new rhythm.

Main Post | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

"There is No Typical Week In My Life" - Monday

Monday

Morning 4:15am: I wake up way before sunrise to fly out to work. Sometimes, my mom has prepared something for me like a fruit salad. It’s very cozy when I get to carry away something homemade - the very real perks of living with my family. By the way, ‘living with family’ seems to sound better than ‘living with parents’.

5:30am: The Uber that takes me to the airport has a leather dashboard that gently gleams against the still-black morning. I'm not quite ready to wind up for the day, so I take it easy and interchangeably think quietly or read the New York Times daily briefing on my phone. (Interesting fact: the New York Times features most consistently among the papers that the "most successful" people read regularly. I did a background check on the NYT before subscribing.)

6:20am: I’m in the back of a long line through TSA, trying to deep-breathe away the bubbling freak-out over being late for my flight. I get through with time to spare as always, because the line moves faster than what I fear. Sometimes however, my belated boarding sticks me with subprime real estate in the overhead bins for my luggage.

9:30am: I get breakfast in the office this morning and also every other morning, which is a healthy habit I'm happy about. Fruit, greek yogurt with granola, oatmeal, Naked juice, or potentially a granola bar - something from that list. I’ve been known to grab a cheeky fruit tart while I’m at the bakery to save for later and there was that one time I bought kombucha tea, only to take a sip and put it away because it tastes like alcohol (it’s non-alcoholic, but fermented, and the classification may or may not be a fuzzy subject).

Evening circa 7:30pm: At some point in the evening, I leave the office and go back to my hotel room. I’m usually hungry, but it’s Monday so it’s also a relief/chore mixture to have to unpack. I also want to respond to any personal texts or emails I hadn’t seen from the day. There’s a bit of triage going on here where I have to order Postmate or Seamless food first because it takes time to arrive. But I had texted a couple people on my ride to the hotel, so I’m in conversation with one of them now. And this reminds me that I should message someone to move a hangout from tomorrow to Wednesday, so I better text them before I forget.

8:30pm: I stalk my Postmate via his moving icon on the map until my food finally comes. The food is never what I expect but I’m hungry so it’s fine. It’s always my own fault to order from an app where I can’t see any pictures and furthermore to order from a different restaurant each time because I like to try new things. The food is still fairly good and I can't complain.

Main Post | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

"There is No Typical Week In My Life" - Tuesday

Tuesday

Evening circa 8:30pm: When I’m back in the hotel after work, I pick a hobby and loosely commit myself to work on it at least one night during the week, which will be tonight. This particular week, I work on my expenses which is slightly more complicated as of late, so I have a good time constructing an airtight process for keeping track of different credit cards, bank accounts, and expense sheets. I’m not being sarcastic right now - I legitimately enjoy doing my finances, even more so when it requires some creativity to design a streamlined process. Other hobby options include writing blogposts (good luck going to bed on time those weeks), reading books, and reading product reviews on something or other. I also film video diaries occasionally, and I may eventually add a learning-oriented activity, like reading economics papers or crash course guides on topics like European imperialism (aspirations). All these hobbies get cycled through, one hobby per week, unless of course I have no free time after work.

10pm: I wind down for sleep by watching a few newly posted videos from among my Youtube subscriptions, perhaps a selection from my Watch Later list. Maybe it’s a vlog, a comedy sketch, or a video on pancake art. It’s best to start off with something I want to devote more attention to and transition to background chatter. If I flip-flop the order, I would end up becoming more awake from a highly entertaining video, and may keep watching until an unacceptable hour.

Main Post | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

"There is No Typical Week In My Life" - Wednesday

Wednesday

Morning 6:15am: My first alarm goes off. I set it early so I have plenty of time to exercise and get ready for work. However, as is typical, I roll out of bed at 6:45 or even 7 after a long chain of 5-minute-interval alarms. I gear up, brush my teeth, and go downstairs to work out. When I’m on the treadmill, I feel like I’m suffering, but I know I’ll feel better during the day if I reach my bare minimum goal. Then I do some non-treadmill stuff which I enjoy much more and I am back upstairs and showering within 40 minutes. I play a handful of Youtube videos as I get ready, much like morning radio, often including a daily episode of Good Mythical Morning which I find clever-funny.

Evening circa 7:30pm: I’m meeting friends who now live in the area, so I drop my laptop at the hotel and coordinate where to meet. We have dinner, where I consider ordering salad and decide that for whatever reason, the fact that it’s later in the week means I don’t have to eat as healthy. We hang out and it’s a fun way to spend the evening, getting the vibe of the city. Then I return to the hotel, which fun fact, I sometimes refer to as “home” for short.

Main Post | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

"There is No Typical Week In My Life" - Thursday

Thursday

Morning 8:15am: I’ve finished getting ready this morning and need to pack to check out. I always leave myself less time than I need, but it’s really very efficient how quickly I can stuff everything into various bags and corners of my suitcase. My shampoo bar goes back into its case – it’s the Rose Jam bar from Lush, whose nice smell pervasively fills all my hotel bathrooms and which I now positively associate with traveling for work. My adorably small travel razor also goes in my bag and I wonder if there’s anything I can do to prevent it from rusting so much quicker than my normal razor at home. My liquids go in a bag and I make a mental note to refill certain things, hoping that I won’t leave myself high and literally dry next week by forgetting. This week, I also learn that hotels will store bags for returning customers, so instead of double-overstuffing my bag, I separate out a few things to leave with front desk such as running shoes. Then I rush to work like a composed but crazy person.

Afternoon 5:30pm: I’m on the plane headed for my real home and I send a quick email before lift-off which makes me feel slightly like I’m in a movie about a businesswoman. Then I’m almost instantly knocked-out, because though my neck gets uncomfortable, I find it very easy to sleep on planes fortunately.

Evening 8pm: I’m back home in my comfy room with a bunch of boxes containing various online shopping orders that came in during the week. It doesn't make sense to pick things up at CVS if I can get it cheaper and easier on Amazon. Due to the fact that I'm away during the week anyway, I can simply forget about the order until return to I find it waiting for me, and thus the delayed gratification from shipping transit bothers me not at all. In the weekend ahead, I know it helps me feel good and get errands done if I take a gym class Saturday morning and play rule-free racquetball Sunday morning. Otherwise, weekends follow no pattern as long as I’m locked and loaded by Monday morning to start another week all over again, fruit tart and all. That's full circle, check.

Main Post | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday