04 Feb 2018 |
Life
Posting on a Sunday, wow! I don’t have any specific plans today, so I’m reflecting this morning before I jump on the PS4 to play Horizon. I posted on my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts that I’m running for NAC. Still to do:
- post on Slack #general
- send out HFLA newsletter (elections, Leonard leaving, Civic Hacking 101)
- this week’s NAC candidates forum
I got a nice outpouring of support on social media, which made me feel warm and fuzzy! Saturday evening wasn’t a particularly prime time to post but I’m okay with that.
I’m continuing to lose weight throughout the week. Yesterday morning I reached 171 lbs, which is my lowest point so far. That jumped up to 172 lbs this morning, which is not suprising because I had breaded fried food and beer yesterday. Eating more vegetables/fiber is still a struggle because of the prep. It’s easy to buy and eat ready to go proteins and fatty foods.
In terms of goals… reaching February and still thinking about goals is already a pretty good place for me. I’ve got the rest of the year to actually try to follow through on goals. I know where my weaknesses are. In a perfect world, I’d have daily routines and each goal would have its own time slot. In reality, life is unpredictable and unexpected things happen - which is great! I don’t WANT a predictable routine life without spontaneity. It does make sticking to several goals difficult. Like trying to form multiple habits at once is a bad idea, I do think I have too many goals going right now. My goal to read a book each month took a nosedive in priority once I started playing Horizon. Playing through Horizon essentially became my “want” goal over my “should” goal of reading.
I stopped practicing Japanese daily also. I felt I reached a reasonable point in being able to read hiragana and katakana, and so the urgency decreased. I tried to add in stretch goals of reading basic kanji, increasing vocabulary, and learning basic sentence structures but those were unfeasible to learn by the time of our trip. What I need to do is prep for place to visit, things to eat, activities to do! In just barely over a week, I’m going to be IN JAPAN!
02 Feb 2018 |
Community
I think the last time I ran for anything was high school Winter Formal Queen, and you get nominated for that. No, I did not win and I was perfectly fine with it. Perhaps in an effort to protect my ego, I don’t place any expectation on my ability to ever win an election. Running for the Code For America Brigade National Advisory Council (NAC) is a tiny bit different. I had a few people asking me if I was planning to run (and then they told me I should). Someone actually nominated me and CFA central sent me the candidate form. Some friends actually saw my name in the list of candidates and reached out to wish me luck. Other friends endorsed me on social media. All this support was so much more than I ever dreamed of. It means a great deal to me that these friends went out of their way to vocalize their faith in my abilities.
I still have yet to make a public announcement for myself. I don’t want to screw it up by not knowing what I’m doing and then saying the wrong thing. But… I can’t let my friends’ support go to waste because of my own low self esteem and insecurities. If they have confidence in my ability, who am I to not trust their judgement? I used to dismiss others’ positive opinions of me with the excuse that they didn’t really know me. I could only use that as an excuse if I thought I wasn’t presenting myself the way I saw myself. I’ve improved a lot on that front by striving to present myself openly and authentically. No more excuses, no more buts! As Write/Speak/Code teaches - say “Thank You” - period. Take in the compliment, let yourself accept it and then move on.
So why AM I running?
It’s not because I think I’m the best for the job. Plenty of people know more about tech, public policy, government, community organizing, etc. than I do. The other candidates are people I look up to! I see it as an opportunity for me to make my contribution to something I’m passionate about. And what is it exactly that I’m passionate about? Civic tech, local communities, government, all that - yes. But I’ve realized that even more than those things, I love empowering individuals, creating work that has value, and building relationships that turn into a community. I want to do all of this, in the context of civic tech, local communities, and government.
I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2006. I went into a local government as a systems analyst / fullstack web developer / business analyst and that’s what I’ve been doing for 10 years now. Though I’ve spent the last several years working on developing myself, I still struggle at times with social anxiety and imposter syndrome. It has been a constant learning experience since I first started attending local tech meetup groups 4 years ago.
Most of my career has been spent in my cubicle in front of a computer screen and forcing myself to socialize with strangers was one of the most nervewracking things I ever put myself through. The community was small and close-knit. It wasn’t long before I could say I knew several of the local community leaders. Because of their encouragement and my enthusiasm for what they do, I soon took on leadership roles myself. Connecting with strangers and speaking in front of a crowd… all of it was terrifying to me to the point of nausea but it was worth it.
I’ve been part of Hack for LA leadership since late 2015, and I’ve been a co-captain for 2 of those years. There’s still anxiety, but I love developing relationships with all the amazing and talented people in our community. Even when there are conflicts within the community, I’m compelled to embrace the situation and help resolve the conflicts. If I get elected I can’t guarantee that I won’t be terrified, but I can guarantee that I’ll be committed to doing my best.
What do I want to accomplish? For me it’s all about community. I believe in the power of a group of people with common goals to accomplish great things. By building a talented, supportive community, we can harness a power that is greater than the sum of its parts. We take that approach within Hack for LA and I believe we need to apply that approach nationally as well. Improving the bonds between brigades means we can better learn from each other, collaborate on projects, and spread what works. Brigade members should feel included in their local brigade community as well as the national community. My platform is as simple as that. For me, focusing on the community is the priority. No community means no efficacy.
31 Jan 2018 |
Life
Disruptions to my routine throw me off track easily. Getting my period last week meant weight loss progress was on hold. The bachelorette weekend with high school friends meant no dieting on the weekend either. I’m 3 days into this week, and still working on re-establishing my routine. I’ve been cheating on the diet a little too much and not prepping meals/buying groceries. Luckily, my weight is still going back down from a high of 175 lbs on Monday to 172.6 lbs today. I haven’t practiced Japanese since last week. I haven’t read either. Partially to blame is that every free moment at home I’ve been playing Horizon. Work has been the anchor for my routines, being the only routine thing in my life. It’s a little sad for me because I don’t like the idea that improving my life is so closely tied to my work, but maybe that’s something I should strive to get over.
In other news… wow, in less than 2 weeks I’ll be in Japan! I want to enjoy it, but I’m still thinking about how that will be 2 weeks off my diet! I’ve been putting off itinerary planning, but I think it’s about time to get serious with defining options.
Also within the next 2 weeks… Code For America NAC elections. I ran for the positions, verrrry last minute. I had several people ask if I was running, and my immediate excuse for not was that I knew Anthony was considering running. Then Hunter said I should run and that he would talk Anthony down from running if necessary! Immediately after that Chris Whitaker from CFA messaged me saying someone had nominated me to run and that I should fill out the form. I realized that I don’t want to perpetually let myself use other people’s actions to decide my own actions so I decided to go for it. But I also needed to let Anthony know so that it wouldn’t seem like I’m trying to undermine him when I knew he was thinking of running. Turns out he decided not to run and that he wanted to focus more on Hack For LA. Next internal crisis - how much effort do I put into campaigning and getting people to vote for me?! I felt it was a nice baby step that I even stepped up to run, but with so many people saying they would vote for me and think I would be good for it… just having my name listed seems not enough. I’d be letting people down if I don’t put any effort into running. Doing it for myself is apparently not enough of a reason, I need to do it for the people around me. Do I tell friends to vote for me even if they’ve never been to a hack night? Do I post on our Slack and ask members to vote for me even though many of them may not know me personally? Hunter wrote a really sweet endorsement of me on Twitter. Do I promote myself running on my various social media platforms?!
24 Jan 2018 |
Life
This is turning into a daily posting. :) Which is great! I saw an inspirational journal spread on instagram that defined a “daily rhythm”. I like that description. Routine has such a negative connotation, and rhythm implies structure with room for flexibility. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
- Get out of bed by 7:30 am
- shower
- make coffee
- make breakfast
- Leave home by 8:30 am
- Prep for bed by 10:00 pm
- brush teeth
- floss
- clean & moisturize face (maybe mask)
- In bed by 11:00 pm
Muffin peed on the bed again this morning. It was completely my fault. I haven’t been cleaning out the litter box regularly, even after the previous 2 times she peed on the bed. Even last night, I had the thought in my head that I should clean the litter box… but I ignored it. This has been an unfortunate pattern. As much as I have negative voices in my head that amplify my insecurities, I also have good voices that I should be listening to. I often ignore them due to laziness, or telling myself it will be okay. So many times, I regret not having followed my gut. What will it take for me to pay attention?
I’m overhwelming myself again with choices in tools. I’ve expanded into to-do list apps to manage daily goals as a checklist. The problem is the tool itself will not help with motivating me to actually do the habits, so it doesn’t matter which tool I use. I need something simple enough that it doesn’t take much setup time, and doesn’t allow me to complicate things too much.
23 Jan 2018 |
Personal Development
Finding balance has been a common theme in my life because I tend to NOT practice balance. Is it flow or addiction? I’ll get immersed in something and spend all my time doing that thing. It could be crafting, gaming, coding, reading, etc. One article I saw mentioned an author who describes all humans as being chemically predisposed to addiction and the flow stat. Our challenge is to figure out how to manage our addictions.
I’d like to read more books about this. I’ve read some articles and taken a quiz. Apparently I’m a “deep thinker” type and I need to make the effort to give myself the solitary calm time needed to enter my flow state because modern life is so noisy and overwhelming. While I’ve never been overly physical, developing my physicality can give me another means to enter a flow state. I find all of this to be true given my past experiences. Flow is apparently something that I’ve already understood and actively used.
Reading about flow, it’s no wonder that gaming triggers flow state for me. It challenges me but is not overwhelming, there is constant feedback and a clear goal. Also, when it involves groups (World of Warcraft) we’ve worked to achieve a group state of flow through constant communication, listening, being familiar with each other, etc.
I’ve utilized flow state in a productive way as well. When I started to take coding seriously, I spent many days coding for hours on end. I needed a baseline level of knowledge so that the problems I encountered did not seem overwhelming. I also needed time to adjust my view on failure. Failure is not a bad thing. It gives you the opportunity to learn so that you can get on the right track sooner.
I’ve applied some of this to life beyond coding and gaming. It’s hard because in life and relationships, your actions and failures are not inconsequential. What I love about the digital realm, is that you can always reset. Delete what you wrote, delete your files, re-format your computer… anything you DO, you can UNDO. There’s no permanent consequences to failure. With people, your career, your body, actions have real consequences. I’ve started to take more risks there, so that’s progress. With my career, the risks have been tiny baby steps. Fear of the consequences of risking my career and livelihood have been so ingrained from a young age, it will take a concerted effort conquer. Self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy? :)