Life

Life

It occurred to me the other day that I’ve been learning programming for about a year now! Happy code-a-versary to me!

About a year ago I wanted to go deeper into data sciencey stuff at work. After reading a ton of DIY curriculum guides, it seemed that there was no way around it: I was going to have to learn to code, probably in Python. I’d used SQL a bit in my previous job, but it was a bit of a bore, to be honest.

In the past year I’ve tried learning so many different ways. At first I used online tutorials and taught myself on the job. That was slow goings, with small victories few and far between. However things really came together this spring when I took a Python class at the local community college. Hmm… it’s funny how much you get done when there are deadlines!

After my class I was able to do a lot more on my own, especially at work. Recently I got interested in web development, so I signed up for an intensive front-end web dev course. The class was 6:30 – 9:30pm, from Monday to Friday. I felt like I had no life for an entire month. I woke up early to get some exercise in. Every night I came home exhausted around ten. I had a beer, watched some tv, and went straight to bed. What time I had off on the weekends I spent catching up on cooking, cleaning and more studying. It was hectic and stressful.

And yet… I learned so much. I don’t regret taking the course, even with the *ahem* high fee and time commitment. Or maybe that’s just me rationalizing the expense since it’s too late. :) Now that I’m back on my own and without a set study program, I’m trying to figure out my next steps.  I thought that after trying all these different methods, I’d have a better idea of what was working… but not really.

A little googling turned up the VARK questionnaire, which claims to help you identify how you learn best. It looks like I am a read/write and kinesthetic learner. The other options are aural and visual learner, btw. Read/write is apparently good for traditional schooling, with note-taking and lots of reading and handouts. Ah, that’s why I like regular classes. Kinesthetic = learning by doing, which I was pretty much doing with my work projects.

So, I have way too many options for continued learning:

  • Real Life
    • Continue learning on the job slowly, project by project
    • Go to meetups and informal coding lessons. I’m always so tired after work, and also I’m nervous about going to meetups without knowing anybody there. So, this one will be hard. But being around like-minded people is such an encouraging boost.
    • Books- I don’t really own any relevant books, but I haven’t checked out the SF public library yet.
  •  Online
    • TreeHouse is a nice tutorial site, kind of like Lynda.com. I lucked out a year or so ago and got a free lifetime membership ($25-50/month).
    • Working my way through this Udemy web dev course, which has 147.7K students. (OMG I need to make a Udemy course. That course is 200 bucks usually, but I got it for $10 with a coupon. Either way, this guy has gotta be a millionaire!)
    • Free Code Camp  One bonus of FCC- After you complete all of the lessons and projects, you get to work on portfolio-building projects for non-profits. Win-win!
    • Finish auditing the ever popular CS50x class.

It’s honestly really overwhelming, and why I seem to gravitate toward traditional classroom settings. Somebody just tell me what to do! For now, I’ll just be plodding along as usual… Whatever I do, time will pass. Might as well learn something, even if I’m unsure if I’m going about it the “right” way.

 

 

Life

The other day Ryan mentioned that it was high time that I take down my framed New Year’s Resolutions, which sit on my desk next to an unfinished Stitch Lego sculpture and too much fucking washi tape.

“Why would I do that?” I asked, bracing myself for what I knew was coming next.

“Well, you’re not applying to grad school, you are nowhere close to seeing your family 5 times this year,  maybe you’ll do a chin up… If I were you, that’s just really depressing. I wouldn’t want to look at that everyday and be reminded of my failures.”

Maybe I’m performing some intense mental gymnastics, or I’m just used to the nature of New Year’s resolutions, but I definitely don’t feel depressed that I am not on track to complete my goals.

In my mind, these specific benchmarks I created all have a greater motivation behind them, so it doesn’t matter if I don’t do exactly what I said I would, as long as I make progress in that area of my life.

For example, do a chin up – it would be cool to do a chin up, but what’s really important is for me to continue my strength training, which I’ve done. For applying to grad school, the deeper goal is to further my career and somehow bring more programming into my job. That is happening slowly. (Also I want to note that I have been frugal this year, and I was writing consistently in my journal up to a point, so hey, some things are working.)

So, yeah I’m not sad when I look at my list. This is shallow, but what I’m more worried about is what my friends think of my changes of heart. For example, several years ago I said that I wanted to be a marriage and family therapist. I told everyone. I looked into it, researched MFT programs and signed up to work with the Friendship Line (elderly suicide hotline). After putting about 6 months of work into that path, I scrapped it. The reality of a therapist’s hustle and the fun of dealing with health insurance red tape was not what I wanted for my life. While I had done my due diligence in investigating this career path, I still felt embarrassed when I had to tell others that I had changed my mind. Right now I’m doing a similar “pivot” and I worry about not appearing serious enough about my goals.

On a slightly related note, lately quite a few people in my life have had job changes (mostly voluntary) and so I’ve been a patient ear in too many soul searching “what should I do with my life?!!” conversations. I usually enjoy these chats because it’s fun to hear other people’s dreams.

This time around, I’ve found myself getting angry at any signs of flakiness and lack of follow-through in my friends. I know that this is partly me projecting my feelings of inadequacy about changing my own damn mind, but on the other hand, some of my friends are actually really flaky. They come up with grand ideas and never follow through, or give up quickly.

Or even worse, they are chronic complainers. It’s really draining to regularly listen to someone whine about their recurring problems, discuss solutions, and then have them shoot down whatever you suggest, or see them do absolutely nothing to improve their situation. Next time we meet up, we’re having the same conversation. Rinse, repeat. We’re too old for this shit!

I’m still trying to figure out how to act in order to be supportive, but also to protect myself emotionally. The best I can come up with is to listen, and try to avoid giving advice. When the conversation is over, I take a big breath and “let it go.” It’s a bit of structured detachment, and it’s hard. It goes against my natural tendencies to get overly involved in my friends’ lives. But I gotta let it go, in order focus on my own goals.

Anyone have tips for dealing with friends stuck in a rut, or acting consistently negative?

Life

Obligatory “Hey I haven’t posted in forever, but here is a life update” disclaimer….

So, at the beginning of the year I was pretty nervous about balancing two college courses along with my full time job (and relationships and hobbies and family and SLEEP…). I meant to blog about the classes in order to make some sense of the madness, but I found that my perspective on the situation kept changing.

In January I was anxious about making it all work. About a month in, I found a rhythm, and thought I was handling things rather well. I found a way to start using the skills I picked up in class at my day job, and that really helped accelerate my learning. Also, it was incredibly satisfying to be encouraged and PAID to pursue my interests. My company is the best.

Well, I lied. My rhythm turned out to be studying all the time, which is total folly. When I got tired, I switched from Python to Linear Algebra (woo hoo!), then back again. My lack of balance was a perfect recipe for burnout. Eventually my body said NO FUCK THIS SHIT I’M OUT.

Luckily, this happened just before a planned vacation. Ryan and I went to Myanmar, but as much as I love Southeast Asia, it was stressful and exhausting (I was sick the entire time). I came back tired and humbled, but determined to plow through the rest of the semester. Since I had more flexibility with my online Linear Algebra class, I put it on the back burner and focused on Python. I decided not to kill myself, and skipped a couple of homework labs. And you know what? It was FINE. I got a B, and a recommendation for a teacher’s assistant job in the fall. 😀

So, now here we are about a month and a half after my Python class wrapped. I’m mostly excited by the projects I’m working on, but to be honest, when I’m not in the zone, I feel bummed out. My friends’ summer vacation photos taunt me. I could go on vacation, but I need to be saving money. Also, several people in my life have recently gotten big promotions, and while I am truly happy for them, I wonder to myself when my hard work will pay off. I’ve been at this for about a year, and the goal still feels so far away.

So, this whole balance thing… I’m still figuring it out. Here are a couple of tips that have saved me:

  • Health is a priority. Eat healthy, make time for daily exercise, sleep. Don’t drink too much. Whenever I skimped on any of these things, I felt it the next day. I’m old.
  • Outsource what you can. Despite living within walking distance to 6 grocery stores, I started buying groceries on Instacart again. Having one less thing to do gave me more time to relax, which was well worth the delivery fee.
  • Lean on your partner for support. That’s why they’re there, right?
  • Lower your standards.  Sometimes things just have to be “good enough.” Easier said than done, as I am a total control freak who can not let go.
  • Keep your hobbies. Or you will become a boring zombie.
  • Batch your chores during non-peak hours to save time and stress. I fell under the spell of Meal Prep Sundays, and did my laundry at weird hours.
  • Do not feel guilty and attempt to read all of your magazine subscriptions which have piled up on your nightstand and remind you that you have no life… START FRESH.
  • Schedule time with friends. Going into hermit mode was a mistake that I learned too late.
  • Find like-minded people. I barely had time for my friends, but being around classmates who were going through the same craziness has been invaluable for support and motivation.

Journaling has also helped me navigate my stress. I’ll try to post more frequently here, since I am paying for the web hosting after all :p. Let’s say once a week, optimistically.

Life

New Year, New You

The blogosphere has been a bit overwhelming lately. I usually enjoy all the Year in Review and Resolutions posts. I like reading between the lines for drama (especially juicy breakups, so good), and reading resolutions is inspiring. But now everybody’s posting 12 part retrospectives with each and every month’s highlights and struggles? Phew, exhausting stuff. I mean, it’s already boring thinking about my past year. Plus these photo heavy posts take forever to load!

Even more annoying than the trend of month by month breakdowns is the hot new un-resolution trend of choosing a single word to manifest in the coming year. Common words I’ve seen: create, balance, gratitude, embrace, enough, beauty. BARF. The New York Times has gotten ahold of this trend, so it’s totally basic by now.

Anyways, here in my little 11 x 10 corner of the world, I’m sticking to my personal tried and true: setting S.M.A.R.T. goals. That’s right, going Six Sigma on my life. I learned about SMART at an old job, and while I didn’t meet my professional goals there (it was the type of place that talked about goals, but didn’t really honor them when it came to resources), SMART has been great for my personal life!

Specific / Measurable / Achievable / Relevant / Time Bound

I had a little trouble coming up with goals for the year, so I tried to remember what I did in 2014. It was a pretty good year. I feel like for the most part I handled most challenges like a rational and kind human being. While I didn’t expect much out of the year except a serious grind at work, looking back I accomplished quite a bit.

Health

  • Mostly, it was a big year for fitness. For some reason my running got better in the beginning of the year. I honestly don’t know what I did differently. Riding that wave of success, I decided to do a half marathon (inconceivable!). I tried a few new types of exercise for fun (Insanity, Zumba, kettlebells), but due to the race training I ended up settling into a weekly routine of lifting/Pilates, running, and yoga. With the intense training schedule and a slightly cleaner diet, I dropped 15 pounds in about 7 months. So I lost the extra pounds I put on last year and then some.
  • I also tackled my general moodiness with a few new tools and found myself feeling much better by winter. No Seasonal Affective Disorder- huge win!

$$$ / Hustle

  • I made February a frugal month, which was a needed reset after the holidays. Overall for the year, I didn’t save that much, which was disappointing. Surprisingly, I still hit my net worth goal of 100k, pretty much all in retirement funds. 😀
  • I started an Etsy shop.While I haven’t made a ton of money from it, it’s been a really fun side project. I’ve even gotten some touching emails from customers. Can’t complain.
  • I got a promotion at work, which is good, but not a surprise.

Education

  • This sounds silly, but I finally finished a class on Coursera. Two, in fact. For years I’ve been signing up and dropping out weeks later-my secret shame. For the record, the Wharton Intro to Marketing class is really interesting, and doesn’t require much of a time commitment.
  • I started learning R & Python this year. It makes my brain hurt a lot, but I’m glad I finally got serious about it.
  • Not learning my lesson the first time, in a fit of madness I began seriously contemplating grad school. I’ve found a few part time night and weekend programs that look promising (Berkeley?), but I’ve got a lot of work to do to apply, starting with prereqs.

Relationships

  • 2013 ended with me kicking out a roommate, which was awkward but necessary. Two roommates later Ryan moved in. While it was a bit bumpy adjusting to the change, overall it has been positive. Despite having less privacy I think our relationship has gotten better. Also everybody in the house gets along, which makes it such a happier atmosphere. No more worrying about being attacked by a drunk roommate.
  • I visited Los Angeles 3 times in 2014, which is better than the year before but not great.
  • The floor in our bathroom rotted out and everything had to be gutted. I developed quite the daily relationship with the annoying handymen. I thought maybe I would learn to love them, but no. It was terrible.

2015 Goals- Building on 2014. Challenging, but doable.

  • See my family 4-5x this year. I’m really hoping to land one of those 1$ MegaBus tickets. One dollar!!!!
  • To fulfill my prereqs I’m taking two after work college classes this semester. I’d like to make it through without losing my shit (is that measurable?). Since I’m going to have to study during most of my non-work time, I need to learn to accept “good enough” and to let go of control by delegating tasks to others. This is actually really hard for me.
  • Be more frugal. Save up enough money for another year off. Safety money.
  • Journal daily. I’m using a 2015 daily planner as a journal. So far, so good. Surprisingly, the 2015 Moleskine daily planners are extremely popular -Amazon is sold out of most models. AMAZON.
  • Work on my lifting and get some super strong arms. Goal: chin ups.

So there you have it. I found this holiday card on sale at the art store, and filled it out with my goals. It’s staring at me every day. No excuses!

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Life

Fall Update from the Trenches: Running, Feeling Down, and Everything Else

Screenshot 2014-09-25 at 10.22.56 PM

My mom mentioned that I hadn’t posted on my blog in a while (and I hate it when she’s right), so here we go.

I was talking to her about my half marathon, and how it was slightly unreal that it was a mere month away. I’ve been training for four months, folks! A third of a year! Are you kidding me? Time flies!

She wished me well, then reminded me to be careful. “Oh, I’m careful with my training, I’ll try to avoid injury, especially with all the hills” I was thinking of the epic wipeouts that I’d seen at the Chase Corporate Challenge the previous week. There was a straight up ambulance loading someone up at the finish line. What could possibly happen in 3.35 miles??????

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Pre-race glamour shot

“No, no, Tracy! You need to be careful! There are crazy people out there! You heard about the guy at the White House? He climbed the fence and just went into the White House! Watch out!!!”

Oh mom, you are adorable. Don’t worry, nobody is going to try to bomb the Columbia Gorge. The more I look at those course photos, the more excited I am for the race. It was listed in Active.com’s “10 Must Do Marathons” for its killer views and waterfalls. Although I think the Great Wall of China Marathon probably wins for epic-ness.

Listen to me, I sound like a runner. It’s weird. While it’s true that last Sunday I ran 10.28 miles, and I’ve been running with my work run club somewhat regularly, it’s also true that every single run is tough. It doesn’t really get easier, folks. 10 miles or 3 miles. Inertia is still a pain in the ass.

The toughness of running aside, overall training for the last four months has been actually pretty easy to maintain. When I choose to do something, I just… do it? Unfortunately it has required quite a bit of structure around my life, and I found myself a bit more isolated than usual, turning down happy hour drinks in favor of being sober for my weight lifting, or getting up extra early to bust out a 3-5 mile run. When I could I packed in happy hours and important social events.  At night I fell asleep easily as I collapsed in exhaustion.

At the same time, my boyfriend and my housemates fell deeper down the workout rabbit hole, and our conversations became all about workouts and nutrition. We called each other “brah” and shared protein powder. We were watching each other on MyFitnessPal, “encouraging” each other’s weightloss, with a bit of envy thrown into the mix. I contracted a mysterious illness which I brushed off as allergies. I WAS DOING PILATES AT 7AM VIA YOUTUBE VIDEOS. Who was I becoming?

My days became a blur of activity, but when I tried to write an “End of Summer” wrapup for this blog, I felt so empty looking at my calendar. There on my GCal was a list of endless fun activities: pool parties and operas, festivals and movies, Kanye even! And yet I felt nothing.

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Yeezy what is life all about???

It occurred to me that I had fallen into a bit of a rut and had become slightly depressed. This happens every now and then,but for some reason my summer blues were pervasive. It got worse before it got better.

Mood disorders are  a mystery. I’m honestly not sure how I got through it. I just did what I always do, I persevered. Threw myself into my work. Made choices, made plans for the future even though that seemed so far away. I learned new things and tried to push forward. Surrounded myself with good people. Saw my family. Oh, and saw my doctor! It turned out that I had a chronic nasal infection which had burst my eardrum!! WTH 🙁

Time passed, the feelings passed. I can safely say that I’ve made it through another round of feeling crappy. Thanks to everybody who put with me- you are all true friends. As we go into autumn, a dark time that can trigger so many insecurities, I hope you all take it easy on yourselves. Keep on fighting the good fight.

-T