#in an org where none of the rest of us sign off that way ever despite everyone having degrees/many ppl with multiple lol

[daforged]

no bald or don’t care option because you have the ability to continue scrolling

[purplesurveys]

921

LOL was gone for a while to attempt doing that ridiculous 5000 survey myself again and I really thought I was going to breeze through it this time. 2 1/2 weeks and 2500 questions later, I need a fucking break. Need normal surveys plz.

What was the best thing to happen to you this week? Got to visit Gabie today! I brought Cooper as well so that she, her sisters, and their puppy Tofu could finally meet him. Fun day, but I am beat. The blackout yesterday also made me revisit painting, and that felt so good too.

Where do you put your keys when you get home? It always differs, idk why I never picked up a routine. Sometimes I set it on the dining table, other times on the decorative table in the living room, and other times I bring it up with me to my room.

Do you prefer hot coffee or iced coffee? I preferred hot (warm would be more accurate) for the longest time but once I went iced, I never wanted to go back. 

What's your phone background picture? I recently changed my lock screen to one of Audrey Hepburn. My home screen is still Hayley Williams.

If you could move to any country, what would it be? Anywhere with a clean and honest government sounds like heaven.

Have you ever seen a snake in the wild? No. Can’t say there’s a lot of them here in the city, and I’ve never seen any in my trip to provinces either.

What's your favourite movie from the 80s? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Do you have any posters, paintings or other artwork on your walls? I have at least one of each of these, yes.

What would your dream wedding be like? Huge. I’d want a long guest list, expansive food choices, and acts that can provide good music throughout the evening. I never really throw parties for myself, so I would want at least my own wedding to be big.

Would you ever take a trip to space if given the chance? Yesssssss.

How do you cope with anxiety? I'm lucky to have found different outlets, so that said I usually choose from taking surveys, watching a favorite channel on YouTube, turning to my dogs, going to social media to see dumb memes, or taking a nap altogether. Of course there’ll always be those days where none of these work out and I’ll have to just cry through the anxiety attacks until they’re over.

Are you expecting any phone calls or emails? I’m expecting an email from my college, yes. I’m currently applying for civil service eligibility and they’re asking for documents that only the college can provide, so I emailed them a couple of days ago asking for assistance, and that’s considering we’re still under a lockdown and most offices are still under skeleton staffing.

What's the weather like in your part of the world right now? LOVELY. I actually wear oversized sweaters to bed now and I even managed to wear a thick denim jacket out today. The rainy weather has settled beautifully, and I’m perfectly fine with 24ºC-28ºC everyday.

What was the last takeout food you ate? My mom bought me and my siblings a chicken sandwich and chicken nuggets each from McDonald’s last week.

Who makes you laugh the most? Definitely someone from my college barkada. I can’t decide whether it’s Aya, Kate, JM, or Jum; they’re all equally hilarious as fuck.

Do you know anyone with the same middle name as you? See these questions are always weird to me because my country has its own naming customs; it’s basically a mix of American and Spanish customs. We have two first names (where Westerners would understand their second ‘first’ name to be their middle name) and our actual legal middle name is our mother’s maiden surname (which I think doesn’t apply at all in the Western world). So to answer this I’ll go with our own customs and say that no, I don’t know of anyone who has the same middle name as me. It’s not a very common surname anyway.

What did you have done the last time you saw a dentist? Had a tooth removed. I don’t think it was a wisdom tooth; it was just a tooth at the back of my mouth that had been in pretty bad shape for years but was only discovered at that time.

What does a successful relationship look like to you? I believe the formula is different for every couple. Like I value constant communication and checkups, but others might not feel the need to be clingy or update their significant others all the time.

What do you like to put on your baked potato? Don’t really have these a lot, but I remember when my mom used to make baked potatoes with bacon and cheese and those were unbelievably good.

What field of science interests you the most? Biology. <3 I’m sure I would’ve taken up medicine if I only wasn’t so bad in the rest of the sciences.

What's the closest shop or restaurant to your house? There aren’t any nearby shops since I live in a gated community, but once you get out of the village’s main gate, the first thing to the left is a McDonald’s. To the right is a small complex with a hair salon, burger place, music school, and one of those boujee stores that sell hype clothing.

Do you have any family that live in another country? So many relatives. We’re Filipinos, man. We migrate everyfuckingwhere. As far as I know I have family living in the US, Canada, Vietnam, Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand.

What colour is your couch? Gray.

Do you know how to care for plants and keep them alive? Not at all. Every single plant that I’ve been given as a gift or party giveaway has died on me.

What was the most memorable birthday you've had? 18th was awesome. Cruise trip, hotel stay with friends, Tiendesitas + noodle date with Gab. How I got away with three separate celebrations without my parents saying anything about it I’ll never know.

Would you rather go to the beach or the mountains? Beach. The area where I live is mountainous as it is; as someone who’s always lived and studied in the city, a trip to the beach in the province never gets old.

What do you do for work? I don’t have any yet but I’m waiting for openings for our national agency for either history, or culture and the arts. My plans have shifted recently and I’m now eyeing to work for either instead of rotting away while underpaid at a corporate agency.

Have you ever been to see the circus? No. I wouldn’t be interested either; they all just seem so harsh and unethical. 

Are there any words that you hate or make you cringe? Sure.

What is the best house you've ever lived in? The one we live in today has been the most comfortable; but I also hold a lot of nostalgia for my dad’s parents’ house in Tondo because of how raw Manila life was there. Life wasn’t pretty, but it did feel real.

What was the first CD you ever bought? The first CD I actively wanted my parents to buy for me was probably the High School Musical soundtrack, heheh.

Do you look in the mirror before you leave the house? Yeah, always. Wanna make sure my shirt is tucked in properly (if it is), or that my jeans aren’t cuffed funny or whatever else.

What's the most unusual thing you've ever eaten? I’ve mentioned this before but it was the Indian dessert gulab jamun. Really did not expect the flavor that came in when it hit my mouth.

Have you ever seen someone quit their job in a dramatic way? I’ve never had a legit job, but when Jeuel quit the org a couple of years ago because of ~irreconcilable differences~ between him and us officers in the executive board it did feel a tad bit dramatic and passive-aggressive.

What movie reminds you of your childhood? Shrek 2 or The Game Plan.

Do you know why your parents named you what they did? The singer named Robyn was really big then and they ended up being fans of the name.

Do you have any bills that need to be paid? None of my own. My parents usually pay the family bills immediately, so I don’t think we have any pending payments for now.

What do you like to dip your fries in? Mayonnaise.

Is your house clean or messy right now? It’s always clean as my mom is extremely tidy.

What was the last email you received? It’s one of the job-hunting websites I’ve signed up for, giving me job alerts for new openings in my chosen industries.

Do you know someone who speaks without a filter? Yeah and I know people who do it responsibly and those who just come off as tactless.

Are you in any social groups? We call our college group the Daydrinkers, since our friendship began when we started constantly hanging out at nearby bars at like 2 PM, during our breaks lol. I used to be in a barkada in high school but Angela and I broke apart from that since we couldn’t deal with Athenna’s toxicity anymore, though I still keep in touch with most of them, like Chelsea and Kaira. Since then Angela and I have formed our own group consisting mostly of Angela’s friends from architecture and Hans’ friends from Ateneo.

How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Sigh, around 4. I don’t know why it was so few, but it also means that I’m currently drowsy as all hell at 9:03 PM. I will most likely turn in for bed after this.

What's your favourite kind of museum? Those that cover history, so museums that have artifacts and fossils and shit.

Do you believe in alternate universes? I like the idea, and I love literature that explores the idea of alternate realities, multiple universes, pocket universes, etc. Whether or not I believe they exist...idk. I don’t think about it that much in literal terms. < Yeah pretty much. Gaby Dunn wrote an amazing piece on multiverses and that was what got me to find comfort in the idea.

Whose house did you last visit? I was at Gabie’s place this afternoon. We had burritos, talked about career prospects, and puppy-sat our babies.

What games do you play on your smart phone? I turn to 1010 when I’m bored or anxious. I have like 30 other games but I never touch them lol, but I do keep them should the time be right to whip them out.

Have you ever been to Los Angeles? I have not.

What was the first concert you ever went to? Paramore, February 2013. I was a late bloomer; kids my age started going to concerts at least three years before that.

Do you know anyone who is colourblind? I don’t think so.

What's your favourite season and why? The wet season, because it’s colder and I hate the heat during the dry season.

Are you the youngest, middle or eldest child in your family? I’m the eldest.

If you had to make something for a potluck, what would you make? I recently watched this phenomenal recipe for 48-hour chocolate chip cookies that looked absolutely bonkers when they were done baking. I’d for sure give those a try for dessert. If that fails I’d just buy the food so that what I bring is more guaranteed to be good.

What kinds of decorations do you put up at Halloween? My family has never cared much for Halloween. It’s not even a legit holiday, so as much as I love Halloween I don’t think I would spend for decorations myself to decorate my own place. The only instance I imagine doing so would be if I have kids of my own who may want to get into the Halloween ~spirit.

How many tabs do you have open right now? In my current window, eight.

What's something you've been meaning to do but keep putting off? Taking another online course, just because it’s great to learn new things and earn free certifications while at it. I haven’t been doing a good job at being consistent with them, though.

What's the first thing you check on your phone at the start of the day? Facebook since it’s my primary social media now. Literally never thought this day would come.

Have you ever flown a kite? Yeah but it’s been a while.

Who was your favourite music artist when you were 16? This was the time I was slowly moving away from my punk phase and inching closer to Athenna’s music tastes, so I was into acts like Hozier, Banks, Daya, Twenty One Pilots, etc.

What are three things you usually always have in your fridge? Water, bread, eggs.

[xoruffitup]

The Report Screening (I Successfully did a Thing!)

So this idea sparked in my mind when I first saw The Report back at the Toronto Film Festival in September. Not only does my organization work on rule of law issues in international development, but our Executive Director is also known as a whistleblower figure against the CIA torture program while it was happening. When I heard Scott Burns mention my Director by name in an interview, I knew there were too many connections to ignore. My org should host a screening of the film. 

After Toronto, I took the next chance I found to speak to our Director about the film. Lo and behold, he consulted with Scott Burns on the screenplay and had major input into the film. Beyond that, he knew Dan Jones while Dan was working on the Senate report. My Director was wholly behind the idea of hosting a screening.

Then, fast forward to the AITAF show in November. I’m at the reception beforehand with my Dad and my friends, and who do I recognize across the room but none other than Dan Jones! He was just mingling and chatting, casual as could be, and I freaked out a bit at the sight of him because this had to be a sign?! Knowing this was the chance to make those connections to bring my idea to fruition, I went up to him during the reception and introduced myself. I told him where and who I work with, explained we’d like to host a screening, and he said he’d be more than happy to help us set it up!

I knew from the get-go that Dan would be the most important highlight of the event. Hearing him speak right after you’ve watched the film is simply staggering. So between many Twitter DMs and emails, I finally found the date that worked for both Dan and my Director - December 12th. 

Then came the logistics - To have the event on or off site? How to play the film? After deciding to keep costs down and planning simply by holding the screening in our office event space, the problem then became streaming over our unreliable internet connection. Dan had asked in an earlier email whether we “needed help with Amazon,” so when I explained that we do, he sent one email to some exec and by the end of the day someone from Amazon was on the phone with me promising to ship us a DVD! (They also offered to rent us a theatre??! But by that point the event was less than a week away so there wasn’t enough time to plan for that. Would have been insanely cool though if Amazon paid for our private theatre rental ;))

I set up the catering order; I had our Outreach team make up promo flyers and send an announcement out to our member networks; I hyped up the event to colleagues internally and friends externally. Then today came, and despite all my planning I was still nervous as all hell, with everything resting on my shoulders. 

The film arrived in the mail the morning of, and I called the Amazon contact again so they could give me the password to access the disc. (Some fancy stuff, here.) But then cue three hours of our IT people trying to get the disc to play in our event space. Several near-breakdowns later on my side, we finally get it working with sound and everything. By this point I’m extremely anxious, worrying about IT problems and having really no idea how many people will even be showing up.

The time arrived! The catering came on time, and sure enough the trickle of arriving people quickly became a definite crowd. By the time it came time to start the film, we needed extra chairs!! I said a short welcome, our Director spoke a bit about the film and the legacy of the use of torture, and then (miraculously!!) the film played without even a spot of trouble!! Literally THANK GOODNESS, because an event at our office without any sound or video issues is basically unheard of. But tonight, the impossible happened and the film played all the way through without a single hitch! :’D

When 7:30 rolled around, the film was nearing its end and it was time for me to head downstairs to meet Dan Jones in the lobby. He arrived right on time, I brought him upstairs, and here queue twenty minutes of us sitting outside the event room watching the film through the glass door and just chatting?? He’s literally so chill and friendly and great to talk to? We talked about Star Wars a little and other movies? And I got to ask him a bunch of random questions about The Report I’ve been wondering. (Does he have sneaky cameos in the movie? Yes, he does. Would he ever work in government again? They’d have to drag him back kicking and screaming).

Once the film ended, our Director introduced Dan and he came in to much deserved applause. Our Director started Dan off with a few questions, then we opened up to what quickly became an incredibly engaged, thoughtful, and lively Q&A! A few external attendees were lawyers currently representing Guantanamo detainees, and their questions were among the best. Dan seemed to enjoy the discussion too - appearing much more in his element, in comparison to the Q&A environment/topics at TIFF.

We wrapped up the Q&A after about 45 minutes and that, ladies and gentlemen, was a wrap! Without a single technical snafu or delay!!! The event was incredibly well attended and so many people expressed gratitude to me on their way out. One woman who’s worked at our org for 30 years said it was the best event she’s ever been to! T_T

I couldn’t be more pleased with the evening! Especially considering how near to a breakdown I was this afternoon ;’) But everything literally went completely smoothly and exceeded all my expectations. I’m so glad I managed to actually bring this crazy idea to fruition, albeit with a few months of finagling and organizing. Seriously, couldn’t be happier. :’DD

Me and Dan Jones afterwards and yes I cropped out other people from my org because A) Kinda weird to post them? and B) I totally maybe have a crush on accomplished well-spoken humble funny incredibly chill Dan Jones???

(And Dan with Adam just because)

NOW I FINISH PACKING TO GO TO LONDON FOR TROS PREMIERE! AHHHHH LET’S GO and continue the crazy awesome whirlwind my life has been lately!!!! :’’D

(There was definitely a moment when I joked with Dan about maybe getting Adam’s autograph at the TROS premiere. Dan was like “oh haha are you like a superfan?” and I was immediately like “oh no haha nothing like that hahahahahaha” you know, like a liar. He might get to go to the CA premiere though so I hope he does! Then we can welcome him to the dark side of obsession! >:))

[because-its-important]

transitions & transformations

i. the rest of my batch at RC

I spent the first six weeks of my batch at Recurse Center in an out-and-out sprint. I learned Python, built and released projects, and wrote blog posts every week. I wasn’t sure where my limits were, but I was determined to find out - preferably by overshooting them, then adjusting after the fact.

A curious thing happened. I kept finding that I was more than capable of starting and finishing projects, especially when I had a firm mental image of the end goal. There were at least as many unexpected good-turns as there were setbacks, and I certainly didn’t come up against any inscrutable barriers. Mostly the challenge was in overcoming the distance between a thing that doesn’t exist and a thing that does, which I was able to sort out pretty handily through a consistent application of effort across time.

Who’d have thought?

A selfie taken on my birthday, which also happened in the last few months and was really great!

The second half of my batch was not so visibly productive - with the exception of The Question Game. The Question Game is a simple game designed to help groups of people get to know each other better IRL. I designed it with my friend Brittany a few years ago as an icebreaker when we found ourselves in a group of folks who knew us but didn’t really know each other. The game only really needs a method of generating random numbers for a small but arbitrary group size, but building it out as a toy webapp was a good excuse to get practice working with a JS-only stack. I learned React, got a lil more familiar with node, and even went as far as to attach an otherwise completely unnecessary PG database and Sequelize ORM. You can see the code for it here. Outside of this project, however, I didn’t publish any code. I didn’t publish any writing, either.

So I’d like to take a moment and shine a bit of light on the work that I did during the rest of my batch.

🌒 🌓 🌔 🌕 🌖 🌗 🌘

First, I made the decision to leave community.lawyer, the social impact startup I co-founded in 2016 following the Blue Ridge Labs Fellowship.

I’m happy to report that I left on the come up, which seems a rare and privileged thing for a founder to be able to say. Gaining traction in a hyper-specialized industry like legal tech takes a gargantuan amount of sustained forward momentum, and I departed just as we began to reap the fruits of our labor. In the last few months community.lawyer has reached final approval on partnerships a year in the making, won federal grants we’d submitted to in 2016, and every day our software is being used to help connect people who have legal needs with credible lawyers. Our first two partners were exactly the types of legal organizations at the heart of our mission: the Justice Entrepreneurs Project and the DC Reduced Fee Lawyer & Mediator Referral Service.1 Based in Chicago and Washington DC respectively, these orgs are specifically chartered to deliver quality services at rates that more Americans can afford. I am so proud. ⚖️

Second, I started my first ever job hunt as a software engineer. Wowee, this was scary! I knew that I had to prepare for interviewing, which meant a) getting my career change narrative straight, b) studying Data Structures & Algorithms 101, and c) learning how to perform my handle on both of these in a live, semi-adversarial environment.

At one point during my batch my laptop broke. I read through this wonderful illustrated book during the two days it was being fixed.

In order to direct my search I also had to craft a set of selection criteria of my own. Foremost: “What good will my work do for the world?”2 Additionally, “What degree of access will I have to supportive mentors?”

Getting started with interview prep was a challenge, at least partly because I had so many options for where to start. But I did get started! I read Cracking the Coding Interview, I did the free trial and weekly free problems on Interview Cake. I attended a few group mock interviews at Recurse Center and signed up for a 1-1 mock interview with an RC alum. Her name is Leah, and she’s amazing - the superbly friendly and encouraging Comp Sci TA I wish I’d had years ago. 💚Brittany also set up mock technical screens for me with her pals, Leaf and Ian. They were the vanguard against my outsized anxiety about programming for an audience and they each took the time to give me solid feedback.

Third, I extended my batch at Recurse Center by another 6 weeks. I had decided early on I wouldn’t extend (for no real reason) and stuck with this decision up until two days before my batch ending. A small group of folks - Lily, Connor, Alicja and I - went to NYX in Union Square to try out lipsticks. We played with different colors and finishes (satin! matte! shimmer!) for half an hour or so. There came a point when I looked up, glanced across the narrow makeup store at my beautiful friends’ beautiful faces and thought, “You know, you don’t have to leave yet, right? What’s the rush?” I’d already accomplished my primary goal, to forcibly rework my identity as an engineer, but it sure seemed that I could stand to reach for a second one. That night I decided to extend my batch, with the intention of sampling a more open method of self-directed learning, i.e. with a little more chill and a lot less panic. Specifically, I wanted to practice connecting meaningfully with my limited supply of social energy.

In my bonus six weeks, I: gave three talks (2 planned, 1 impromptu) under encouragement from Ayla and Lily, learned to juggle thanks to instruction from a fellow RCer, Edward, who also loaned me a book about learning, made it into weekly Feelings Check-in (read as: opt-in support group) fairly regularly, picked my first ever lock, saw a live-coding show and then later attended two live-coding workshops (one on TidalCycles, another on Super Collider), sat in a dark room and played howling wolf clips while Microsoft Sam read grimoires aloud, got my hair braided for the first time in a decade, made dumplings and DJ’d for a dinner party, connected with folks about queer-poly relationships, gave fiery advice, and received compliments so earnest and rational and persistent that it was difficult to refute them.

Zine fair plus Lightning Bolt concert inside a movie theater in Times Square??

I also put my interview prep to use and interviewed with a handful of Recurse Center partner companies. Job searching meant squaring off against impostor syndrome and a ton of related anxieties in rapid succession. I successfully choked most of that down when it mattered, though, and it was only a couple short weeks before I received my first offer.

To that end, I’m super happy to say that I’ll be joining Blink Health as a Fullstack Product Engineer! Blink Health is a healthcare startup in SoHo. They make it easier for people to afford prescription drugs, especially for those with limited insurance plans or none at all. These savings aren’t trivial either: an extra $50 can spare someone from choosing between groceries or medicine that week, and for some folks Blink saves many times that. I’ll be starting at the end of this month. ✌️🤓

The last two years have been a wild ride: participating in a social impact fellowship and accelerator, busting my product chops and learning web dev to get a public benefit company off the ground, then diving into four months of self-directed learning at Recurse Center. I’m really looking forward to having some externally imposed structure again. Real health insurance, too.

ii. some hard truths

I made a few radical life changes in 2016, like getting involved in activist spaces, dating more, biking everywhere, building strong friendships, going capital-B Boogying, programming full-time. As I carried those changes forward through 2017, I began to notice a lot of mental and emotional reconfiguration happening to me.

Did you know that along its way to becoming a butterfly, a caterpillar nearly completely liquifies inside its cocoon?

Psychological growth is confusing, full of false starts, and generally painful. You’ve got the static pain of stretching beyond your limits, the pleasure-pain of feeling an old knot finally release, the frustrating pain of stubbing your toe because some helpful asshole has been rearranging your psychic furniture when you weren’t looking. There’s the more dramatic knife-in-the-gut pain of realizing that just because you’re growing doesn’t mean the people closest to you are, and that now in certain cases what you previoulsy regarded as friendship actually looks a whole lot like run-of-the-mill exploitation or even emotional abuse, if you're being honest, and it's a realization that only hurts more because it’s so irredeemably cliche and boring. And despite all that pain you gotta go ahead and grow anyway, claw your way out of the relative comfort of ignorance. Transcendence may not be the only show in town but afaik it’s the one most worth watching.

Prior to attending Recurse Center I’d spent lots of time exploring my surroundings and cataloguing people and places worth coming back to. My view of myself did change (and positively!) as a consequence. But sooner or later, ya get tired of the taste of low-hanging fruit.

So, armed with the bookshelf of a philosophy grad and a burgeoning psychoanalytic vocabulary begging to be let off leash, I decided to use my time at RC to try confronting a few of my Hard To See truths in addition to becoming a better programmer.

Here’s what I’ve found so far.

Truth #1: People like me a lot. This causes me problems.

I’ve been metabolizing this one for some time. I remember having a conversation with Brittany in January of 2016. I don’t remember what social anxiety I’d been vocalizing, but I must have been worrying that someone “hated me.” Brittany cut me off, exasperated in the way that only a friend can be in the face of utter delusion: “No one hates you Nicole! You’re always worried that people don’t like you and it’s never true!”

I carried that admonishment with me through two years of voracious friendship-building. On the whole, seeing that people do in fact enjoy and seek out my company has curbed the most egregious overreaches of my social anxiety. But reckoning with my anxiety honestly has also meant acknowledging that my compulsive instinct to withdraw from social situations is also a protective (if suboptimal) response to a few very real dangers.

Most acutely: being friendly, generous, and intensely empathetic makes me a ready target for users. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt for as long as I can, which makes me proportionally susceptible to being taken advantage of and then gaslighted about it. A lifetime of socialization as a petite woman don’t help, neither. This leads to a pattern where, semi-regularly, I look up and take stock of how someone has been treating me and realize that the answer is Very Badly, For Quite A While. This in turn leads to rough periods of cutting ties and moving on. Ideally I’d like to be be able to filter bad actors out sooner, but I also want to stay open, giving, and hopeful beyond reason. Those desires are fundamentally at odds with each other - raising vs. lowering one’s defenses - but it’s clear that I need to come up with a strategy that balances both.

More broadly, though, I operate under an ever-present dread of inevitably disappointing everyone who knows me. Whether people project onto me because they already like me or like me more because they project positively onto me, I am extremely sensitive to the fact that when people meet me the conception they form has waaay more to do with what they want to find than what’s actually there. My body is a surface readily projected upon: young, female-shaped, ethnically ambiguous, small, smiling. These well-intended projections cause me the most trouble when people see me interacting socially; they’ll witness fifteen minutes of seemingly effortless extroversion on my part and extrapolate out massively. As far as they’re concerned I’ve got plenty of social energy to spare, and if I don’t spend it hanging out with them, it must be because either my friendliness is fake or I don’t like them.

Pretty much none of this is conducted consciously, of course, but it still creates a lot of unnecessary pressure that I can’t pretend not to feel and resent. I know there are people who dream about attaining this kind of “popularity” - to be assumed Cooler than one truly is - but getting buffeted around by folks’ totally unexamined, unarticulated psychological desires mostly sucks.

Truth #2: I’m non-binary.

I’ve also spent a very long time resisting this one. Two decades on the rack, easy. As such, the story of getting here is long. Perhaps one day I’ll tell it. 😛

The short of it, though, is this: I’m probably at least as much of a boy3 as I am a girl. Outside of where my life has been mutated by the chronic background radiation of sexism, “benevolent” and otherwise, I don’t strongly identify as a woman. Furthermore, I find the two-gender system to be infinitely more alienating than comforting. Gender is a social construction designed to impose order on the natural messiness of sexual experience, and as far as I’m cool with that, I am decidedly Not Cool with the “normal” state of affairs, i.e. aggressively shoving whole human beings into an absurdly reductive false dichotomy.

Between its either-or-ism and its forced assignment, the traditional approach to gender reveals itself to be obviously bullshit to anyone who spends more than a few minutes thinking about it. Its boundaries are arbitrary, inconsistent, and generally ill-fitting at the level of individual experience, which why they require such an outrageous amount of coercion and bodily violence to enforce. As much as other folks want to participate in a system of ritualized violence I guess they are free to? Personally, I’d prefer to see it actively dismantled.

If gender is to be saved it’ll be by subverting it, taking it apart, remaking it into something life-affirming. Not the dehumanizing garbage we’ve got now.

As of yet I don’t have any plans to change my presentation because I don’t fuckin’ gotta!

I do have a preference towards They / Them pronouns, but She / Her is still fine. For most of my friends this isn’t going to be at all surprising nor will it in any way negatively impact our relationship. Anyone who needs me to just-be-a-girl, however, can expect turbulence.

Truth #3: My righteous anger is justified and I am good at using it to help others.

I have felt conflicted about my anger for a long time. Since a very vocal childhood I have been regularly frustrated by prejudices and injustices, and I was frequently the first voice of dissent against them, whether that meant challenging adults or my peers. Unsurprisingly, I became well acquainted with the standard strokes of the backlash.

When you are confronting bigotry in a mixed environment, the voice of the status quo will generally manifest in one of two ways:

Gaslighting, e.g. “you are wrong to have said this at all, obviously I am a Good Person, you are just imagining that what I said sounded like XYZ, honestly how could you even think this, as a matter of fact it is I who is offended!”

Tone policing, e.g. “you’re too upset about this! after all, I, the person who did Fucked Up Thing, am perfectly calm about Fucked Up Thing, so any amount of anger makes you irrational by contrast, and I get a raincheck on whatever this is about!”

I know these responses are repulsive. I know they are merely the signs of a weak and imperiled ego acting out of fear. And yet I still spend an inordinate amount of time second-guessing my own anger. Gaslighting and tone policing are a favored weapon of the status quo because they work, and they work in direct proportion to how agreeable their target wants to be.

content warning: the following segment talks about sexual harassment and assault

About couple weeks ago I had the misfortune of being sexually harassed at a club in Bushwick. After numerous rejections and explicitly telling a creep bothering me, my friends, and other women in the club to get lost, I finally went to get a bouncer to eject him. The bouncer got the creep to leave. When I went to thank him, the bouncer told me a whole story about how the creep was “a harmless guy.” Then he reached down and grabbed my ass. Presumably he felt entitled to do this after helping me get rid of a person I asked him to remove... for unwanted touching.

It Really Sucked.

At every turn during the whole ordeal (and its aftermath) I had to hold onto my anger, convince myself that I wasn’t overreacting, remind myself that anyone who thought this was acceptable to do to me is almost certainly doing worse to more vulnerable people. I kept picturing myself the way this guy, this man in a position of power, must have seen me in order to feel okay doing what he did. That I was young, small, female, too friendly to say No, already indebted anyway; that he was one of the Good Guys, that his behavior was also “harmless” because he had decided it was. I conjured up as much anger as I could, pushed down the nausea of envisioning my own degradation from an attacker’s POV, and got to work. I reached out to the club and was quickly put in contact with the owner. The venue now has a publicly posted zero tolerance sexual harassment policy. The entire staff is going through training with a local org dedicated to creating safer nightlife spaces. And that motherfucker has been fired.

I demonstrably made the world better. I wasn’t alone, but all that happened because of my actions. Me and my anger, we did that.

I wish more people were this fucking angry. 💢

~ end of content warning ~

iii. an opinion

My Saturn return is upon me, y’all. As Frank Ocean serenades, we’ll never be those kids again. I have lived a few of these here nine lives and it seems only prudent to be moving forward with some sort of opinion on the matter.

My opinion is this: us folks with financial and physical security should be spending more time fixing shit around here. Figuring out what needs fixing and how you might help are the first steps.

If you’re operating on a similar scale of privilege as I am, maybe that means changing jobs to do more mission-oriented work. If you can’t swing a change of that magnitude, maybe it means showing up to community events and engaging with, caring for, supporting people you otherwise wouldn’t talk to. Churches, libraries, volunteering, supporting local artists, participating in local politics - this all counts. If you’re already doing this sorta thing, that is awesome! Maybe you also have a friend worth inviting who you sense is just itching for a chance to exercise compassion?

I’m using “fixing” pretty loosely here, too. Fixing, to my mind, means making the world brighter, safer, and sweeter for your fellows, human and otherwise. We’ve all got different ideas about what that looks like, and there are definitely folks - myopic or malevolent or both - who will swear up and down that their fear- and hate-driven behaviors will bring about better world. Ultimately, though, I believe that many hands reaching towards their personal vision of Better will in fact make things Better, especially when that vision is informed by meaningful interaction with the real world and its real sorrows and its real triumphs.

But ya gotta reach. Ya gotta try.

I am so tired of hearing my well-fed, well-homed friends piss and moan about late capitalism4 without lifting a damn finger in service of the communities bearing the brunt of material hardship. Unfettered capitalism sure does have a marked tendency to wreak havoc on organic life! But capitalism is not a monolith, and lamenting the abuses perpetuated by its principle benefactors as unchanging or inevitable only normalizes them. Any investigation into the history of capitalism (or the broader phenomena of how a Few come to subjugate the Many) will very quickly disabuse you of the notion that this shit is going to stop without a great deal of active resistance.5

So unless you are personally doing work to put our current strand of democracy-withering corporatism six-feet-under, seriously, just STFU instead. Your nihilism is boring! You don’t sound woke! Save it for your local DSA working group!

Which isn’t to say that I’m not convinced of the wickedness6 of the problems we’re facing: skyrocketing wealth disparity with no relief in sight; the destruction of most of Earth’s biodiversity via mass extinction; a pernicious climate of racism and xenophobia that scapegoats black and brown folks and then visits misery upon them; the weight of an aging population bearing down on the shittiest healthcare system of any nation in its class; a widely disenfranchised electorate further fragmented and fatigued by hyper-polarization; the gendered terrorism that is inflicted daily on women, trans and non-binary folks, and queer people at large; a rising wave of depressive anxiety as people become more aware of these problems and how thoroughly they’ve been disempowered from changing things for the better.

So yeah, I get it. These are hard problems. I just don’t see any better option than trying anyway. I want to spend my time fixing things around here and encouraging others to try their hand too. You already know the bad news: real change is hard and it can take a very long time. You might work your whole life sowing seeds whose fruit you never get to taste.

The good news, however, is that you can get started whenever and wherever you are. The good news is that a sense of purpose is its own reward.

iv. how to get started

When you’ve got hard work ahead of you, your best bet is to use your beautiful human brain and create some leverage. Ask Archimedes about it.7

Lever systems got two parts:

The lever, which is the tool you use to amplify your effort. The longer your lever is, the easier your job will be.

The fulcrum, which is the wedge the lever rests on. The nearer your fulcrum is to the thing you want to move, the easier your job will be.

If you’re starting from zero - “I want to do more for the world but I don’t know how!” - my advice is to forget about the lever arm for now. A lever ain’t shit without a fulcrum, anyway. Your time is better spent exploring the world, keeping an eye out for problems you’d like to solve, and identifying nearby points of leverage. If you want to get into activism, a fulcrum might be volunteering to fold pamphlets for an organization with a mission you believe in. If want to see more self-expression in the world, it might be might be inviting your friends to a zine-making class or hosting your own arts and craft night.

The best fulcrum is one that makes you Feel Good when you apply any amount of effort against it. Too many people get caught up in a self-defeating belief that if they can’t give 110% of their creative energy to something they might as well not try. I can confidently say that trying is itself a virtue. Every time you try even a little bit you make it easier for yourself to try again later, and more importantly, you make trying easier for others. A bunch of people altering their behavior a smidge in the same direction doesn’t add up to nothing; on the contrary, it’s a sea change.

If you’ve got a decent idea of the types of problems you want to solve, though, and you’ve tested your fulcrums, and you are thinking, “Okay, but is this all I’m capable of giving?” then it’s probably time to work on your lever. Given your own interests and inclinations, what skills can you develop that will increase the good you’re doing 10x, 100x over? This is the long game, but it scales a whole lot better than “keep doing what I’m already doing, but more.”

For me right now this means deepening my technical knowledge, building a resilient support network, and sharing what I’m learning. Helping others has been a powerful motivator for self-improvement, not the least of which because it’s a convenient shortcut through the snarl of self-confidence issues.

I am so grateful that Recurse Center was a stop on lengthening my lever! What a concentrated cluster of helpful, considerate beings.

I’ve spent the last two years wandering around New York City in wide-eyed wonder, asking myself the most ambitious question I could think of: how do you save the world?

Getting older comes with a lot of downsides, but asking yourself big questions and living your life as the answer is the primary pleasure of adulthood. It took a ton of courage to get started and I am still frequently awed to find myself moving in the right direction. I’m humbled by the grace and fortitude of the folks who’ve been at this for way longer.

I’m also a hell of a lot happier. This summer’s gonna be rad. ☀️

There are lots of extraordinarily sexy company names like this in the legal world. ↩︎

Having the choice to direct my energies in this way is a privilege. Working in tech gives me this freedom of motion and I have been drawn to software engineering in part because it is the freest of the free (if you still gotta labor for your living). ↩︎

😱😫😖😬😬😬... 😏 ↩︎

Substitute with whatever modifier is en vogue. As a point of fact, “late capitalism” is a term that’s been floating around for literally over a hundred years. ↩︎

Thankfully, history also clearly demonstrates that the tide can be turned. ↩︎

“The use of the term ‘wicked’ here has come to denote resistance to resolution.” Wikipedia page. ↩︎

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world,” etc etc. ↩︎

[rwilcox]

My review: The Unicorn Project

Over the weekend I read The Unicorn Project. Let me write my note down here, before I forget the rest of what I thought was a very forgettable book.

I read The Phoenix Project a couple years ago. I found myself cross-referencing Juran, Demarco, and several other technical and business writers. My review of _that_ book is, and was, "great, but you have to read these other books, because drinking the Kool-Aid straight is a hell of a thing".

The Unicorn Project had an interesting story, but as a parable I thought it fell down far more than it should. It felt like Kool-Aid, in a blender, with honey, a bear-claw, and a Starbucks unicorn frapachino.

Here's an early swing and a miss: the second chapter has our heroine manually track all the things to set up the project on her laptop. It takes her a couple weeks in ticket back and forth... then she meets the right people and the setup book is dropped in her lap ("Based on your great notes, nobody's ever done that before"). Ok, documentation is good, persistence is good... now draw the rest of the fucking owl?

Sure, digital transformation and all, but in my experience (writing and evolving one of these) is: step 1: write something basic in a public place, step 2 iterate on it, steps 3-50: have every engineer do it and a couple standout people will take it on themselves to improve it. That's the empowerment and transformation.

I may always have come in at the right time on big enterprise project’s I’ve been on, where the groundwork has been laid. Either swooping in as part of a big contracing company (and then given latitude to pick whatever we want to get the job done), or going to a place where good engineers are given the tools they need then people get out of their way (for the most part), to “we’ve sold most of this transformation, here’s what’s coming in and what we’ve already sold them on”). Not the hard slog of selling, “Wow, this can’t go on like this, here’s a better way”.

To speak of that, I’m not sue the book really gives good tools or ideas on how to sell that idea either. (Beyond, “yay, faster innovation”. Ok, cool I guess, but... everyone wants to go faster, duh?)

Sometimes it’s advice is spot on: if something hurts, then try to do less of it more often. Be that merges, or deploys, or whatever.

Sometimes the book ignores simple boots on the ground advice: when I started my current job I looked around for what standard practices and tools that were good to keep, and what practices needed replacement - and grabbed the standard practices that were good and just used them.... even if those went against my personal opinions. (I don’t particularly like Jasmine as a testing tool, for example, but it’s what we use because it was a choice with backing that I didn’t have to make.). Find where there’s already forward momentum, or a choice, or informal “eh, George started doing it, and what-do-you-know, most everyone here uses Emacs now, how odd, meanwhile here’s a ton of emacs lisp snippets you might like, if you like golden paths. Or not, you do you...”..

Towards the latter part of the book, if you have two turn-around projects with some history and informal connections (and seriously, make friends with the build engineers and people on other teams!)... well, Unicorn and Phoenix should have been sharing so much tech and learning there towards the end. Where’s the overlap between digital transformation and DevOps, beyond “yay containers mean it’s easy to spin up developer machines?”

Another funny thing the book does is, “Wow, this process hurts, let’s just not do it anymore”. Sometimes that’s an option, and sometimes it ain’t. They site an Architectural Review Board that doesn’t let anything pass... and route around it. (And later an offhanded comment is made about “Hey, the ARB could have prevented this problem we just had”... so what exactly is the lesson?). (It’s a trust issue... but how do you build that trust beyond “here’s a genius engineer that has done it, they’ll go off and do it”. Deus Ex machina.

Another example: just spin everything up into the cloud. Ok, sure, great... but tell me again, if you still have on-prem stuff... just the networking permissions are going to be hard. Practical advice about handling non “woke’ teams?.

There was a couple practical things I thought, and many of those were throw-away one-liners at the end. For example, yes you need a career ladder (that you can actually climb!) for your individual contributors. And yes, are there things you’re running that don’t really matter? Does a move to say Office 365 make sense, over your on-prem install? Or: maybe it actually does make sense to run Jenkins “yourself” somewhere vs using AWS CodeBuild beause of your scale. (Run a couple thousand builds a month or a week through CodeBuild and.. it’ll cost).

Maybe I’m not reading the right books: I’m pretty plugged into the Quality stuff, and DevOps and Agile stuff, but none of the situations made me dive for another book to see how X thought about things. The bibliography at the end was equally silly, I thought.

I guess if I had to give my advice on digital transformation (and it’s a loop, not a one and done thing), here it is:

 Identify that you have a problem

 Get people talking and either making those cow-paths, or finding the cowpaths (the heroine’s machine setup story would have been more interesting if she had documented on the company or project wide wiki... or set one up, even better).

What can you use that people have already spent capital on / build organizational muscle around, what should you trash?

Always Be Selling

.The Agile manifesto is good: working, maybe initially crappy software that you iterate on; people over process that works at your scale

“Digital” or your “Technology” org really isn’t a thing.

Always be (improving) communication

Lowest common denominator tools first, then grow into specialized tooling. (Else you risk following a tool because it’s shiny, not knowing you actually have problems X, Y and Z). (Then again, why is my personal blog hosted on Tumblr? Because I could get it up in 5 minutes, vs spending an hour a month making sure Wordpres is up to date, or 10 hours writing some static site render using M2 tags or whatever.)

Can you find places where you can isolate change first, then scale the change?

You do need a developer support team, engineering organization, ad to build an engineering culture (including advancement paths!).

Somehow I thought the book imagined 20% of the team was developer support. Sign me up, I could rock with that much help that way

I guess the book could have been significantly better if there was some psychology mixed in (change is hard! And transformation is about that), technical leadership, communications, maybe even organizational strategy or Agile practices. (Although the book takes that part as a given: our heroine attends some standups early in the book)

Anyway, I was excited to get this book... and less excited the further I read through the book, finding not much substance behind the parable.

[survivorelsalvador]

EPISODE 1 - An Army Of Porn Pete (TM) - Josh (Camp)

(If a confessional is just a gif or a picture then it was most likely Veronica, winner of Jeju Island, uwu <3)

WILLA

One world? This is going to be an iconic mess and I can't wait to see how this turns out.

WILL

Will she decapitate me or will we work together: The Regan/Will love story begins all over again (for when these go public I have nothing against you Regan you're a queen in my eyes)

DANA

How quickly are you trying to kill me. First of all: I literally know 99% of these people and am playing in Athena with them right now, which makes my game in each more complicated. On my tribe: Me, Chris, Willow, Willa, and Austin The only person I don't know is Austin. I'm aligned with Willa in another game and was aligned with Chris in the same game. Willow and I were friendly in Solomon Islands. Hopefully this puts me in a good spot. Other than that, going through the rest of the cast on other tribes: Playing with in Athena right now: Adrian, Kai, Lily, Jaiden, and Nicholas. I'm in an alliance with all of them except Adrian (who might not like me after tonight). From Solomon: Zakriah, my literal child and snapchat streak buddy. He's also vv close with Willow, so this is good. Potential alliance? From Great Lakes: Kyle and Ashton. Idk Ashton AT all. We were never on a tribe together. Heard he's pretty good at orgs though. Kyle and I didn't super get along in GL. I voted him as first merge boot, he voted me, and I went home. I've also heard a lot about Regan and i'm excited to meet her. Basically I know/ have a relationship with half of the cast, so this should be INTERESTING. I'm excited.

JAKE

So the game hasn't even officially started yet and I formed a tight bond with Kyle and Lexi. I feel that we all relate to each other pretty well, so I like where this is going.

LEXI

Ok so i already have an alliance with ribsor and jake. I know jake from a mini we played together and we bonded right away. I also know regan,austin and jaiden from the other tribe. I have a good relationship with all 3 so that made me happy seeing them. I hope they can stay and fight until merge. Heck i hope i can stay and fight until merge. this is a small tribe so thats alittle scary. Also this one world crap aint working for me. I cant talk to that many people and keep up. I'm in another tumblr game and hosting a skype org...so its hard to keep up. But i try my hardest and im just glad i got in an alliance already.

WILL

I actually feel pretty good so far like I think I'm on the good side of mostly everyone on my tribe - two of them played with me before two of them don't know me - and I'm already sensing some tension between certain people so like... this will be a good one lol. Plus I have Nicholas on my side through one world and I've made some other lowkey connections so it's all going great for the first day

KAI

Been a pretty quiet day, no ones really spoken much so kinda worried but oh wwll

JOSH

OKAY.  Hello.  I'm here to confess and such for the round since I haven't just yet.  I'm feeling pretty okay on my tribe so far?  I know Regan from previous experiences and we're friends and I think that Jaiden knows he isn't super popular so he'll rely on me to kind of keep him safe?  I"m talking with Will a lot and I enjoy him so I'm glad to have him here.  The only person I'm not feeling really great about is Zakariah so far?  I'm not sure how close he is with other people, so I have to wary about just throwing his name out.  But, if I had to choose someone to be at the bottom of the totem pole on our tribe.. It'd be him.  He's not super active.  I can also see Jaiden being a bit of a flop and being first to die, so I'm just going to kind of figure out where people STAND here right now and figure it out later.  Because I don't imagine us being on these tribes of five for too long, so I just need to make sure that I do my best to survive here while I still can. I'LL HAVE MORE THOUGHTS AFTER I TALK MORE STRATEGY BUT I NEED TO WORK ON IMPROVING MY SCORE

DANA

my new aesthetic in games is to just talk to the hosts in host chat instead of the players because i love them more. <3 Rob

WILLOW

I'm just gonna do a cast assessment rn bc why not Dana- Ahh we played in Solomon together and I love her, she's so sweet! Austin- We talked a lot last night and he's really nice, and has a good taste in survivor opinions Chips- Hasn't messaged me back yet and has only talked in the tribe chat twice Willa- Seems cool, but didn't talk to me for very long Also I'm confused about what happened during the "fight" in One World Also One World is too much at the beginning so I might just stick to talking to the people on my tribe first, and then once theres a swap I'll start talking to the other people idk.

ADRIAN

Whew El Salvador! Que tal chicos y chicas? Me llamo Adrian y yo soy no esperando nada mas por el juego para comenzar! Like this tribe a lot and really, I see 2 people from other games that are running side by side on my tribe, and really its cool to see that people are willing to work with me. But there is the downside of having people being inactive on the Apopa tribe, and really I'm not ready for shit like that to happen so quickly. 

Of course it would be One World this season. I see alot of familiar names and faces and I'm already thrilled to start this game, until I see Regan. Is it possible to hate a bitch because of how negatively she rubs people upon meeting them? Wait, hold that thought. Yeah. Its very possible. 

Its not even the end of Day 2, and already this bitch is asking for me to rip her head off. Like I don't give a flying fuck. Don't slander my name when you don't know me either. Fuck. Seriously, don't go preaching shit you won't practice. Regan's asking for a verbal beatdown, in English and in Spanish. 

Keep it up Regan, and I will end you before you have a chance to be on a tribe with me. I am not someone to fuck around with and I don't care how many people would say that I should apologize to her. I guess I can't play more subtly now cause I just ended the living shit out of her. Oh btw, she can have her wig back. There's like pieces of scalp like attached to it. 

(Note: Each paragraph was its own confessional)

DANA

My tribe is killing me with this challenge. Why did none of them start until like 7hrs before it is due when none of them know any Spanish and this challenge is semi-all about putting in time. Me right now: trying to make up for literally everyone's scores on my tribe. Quick assessment of my tribe? (Even though I knew everyone except Austin before we got here) Austin: Putting in a lot of effort to be friendly, which is good. Probably will want to work with him honestly but betraying someone I am already friendly with to do this will be hard. Chips: Isn't speaking to anybody. Why? Idk ur guess is as good as mine honestly. Willa: Honestly a fav. He better want to work with me here. Willow: My queen. My thoughts on one world? IT IS HYSTERICAL. Pls bring Regan back so she and Adrian can fight more and I can intervene with lighthearted comedy. Honestly I love problems and drama, sign me up pls. 

LILY

Hi! So I don't know what I'm doing playing two games cause it ain't my style but I'm trying. So far I really like jake on my tribe because he is also a Michigander and that makes you awesome. I also like will a lot but he isn't on my tribe sooooo. Yeah. Also I suck at Spanish. So yeah.

AUSTIN

I know nobody on my tribe. So far I want to work with Willow and Dana!! Honestly I'll probably be the first boot but my goal is to make the tribe swap I guess. I know Lexi ribbons and Jake I hope I play with them :)

WILLA

Dana is a lesbian? oh cool

JAIDEN

I have nothing to tell the world about my experience... yet.

MICHEAL

Dana is a lesbian which is not a suprise i mean have you seen her profile pic anyway in the game i made no connections i know what a great way to start the game but tonight i plan on making them

NICHOLAS

KAI

WOOO! WE WOOONNNN! That's pretty awesome!

RREGAN (That’s how she spelled it in the confessional hehe)

im perfect ill send one after bbhell ty

ASHTON

Well ugh life is good. This game on the other hand I have no idea what's going on. I've talked to richie cuz i knew him already but that's about it. Overall i'm happy im not gonna be first boot but pretty sure i'll be gone soon lol

RICHIE

who am i if i dont start off the game with my first confessional saying "i hate this fucking tribe!!!!!!!!" i've been out doing things for the last 3 days so i havent gotten a chance to do anything or really talk to anyone but i just played the duolingo immunity challenge before i went to sleep and when i was on the bus and train going to my friends lmao i didnt realize that i was the only one who was actually putting effort into it and thats sad because i really didnt play much but i guess the rest of my tribe is just full of flops!!! ashton i played with before we didnt talk much and we voted for eachother but i like them hope we can talk kai i talked to a little but like..... that needs to be worked on michael is the biggest flop ive ever met they are perfect first boot material if i leave before them i'm never playing another game and nicolas seems cool thats it! uneventful first week my social game is weak nothing happened not much to report but whew

KYLE

this host sucks

NICHOLAS

hello i am excited for this game but my tribe is dry as fuck besides richie 

[paintmetara]

into the kingdom

“You can’t take these things with you into the Kingdom.” - Rebel and Anchor

https://open.spotify.com/track/2w6RmbnbCzJcFWpCUrVsNz

I am on day 18 of a 30 day minimalist challenge. The way it works is - you get rid of the amount of “things” corresponding to that day. For example, on day 18 I got rid of 18 things. Right in the middle of this challenge, it was my 26th birthday! This year for my birthday I received some new “things,” all of which I loved! Among those gifts included coffee and a man candle, so basically, the essentials. However, a couple of friends decided to give me a “thing-free birthday.”

The first of these gifts was from Kathryn. She donated to a building project for Ethnos360 as a way to start investing in my (hopefully) future ministry with them. This blew me away. What a blessing to have a friend so much in your corner and confident in your future. She is amazingly supportive in word and in deed. If you want more information on Ethnos360, you can find that here: https://ethnos360.org This was such a unique and thoughtful gift and I am storing it away to pass along to somebody else.

The next of my “thing-free birthday” gifts is what brings us back to tumblr today. First, we have to rewind to a week prior to my birthday when Ryan calls and asks me to take Friday, June 16th off of work, but for no particular reason. The next week is filled with asking questions, day dreaming of possibilities, and lots of laughter grilling those closest to me. On my actual birthday, Ryan provided me with a packing list which included, but was not limited to, a swimsuit, a hammock, lots of socks, an extra large fanny pack, a bicycle, and mix tapes. Now I am typically a low maintenance girl, but when you are going overnight somewhere and you have no idea how to prepare, you would overpack, too, right?

On Wednesday June 14th, my actual birthday, my dear friend Andrew called to let me know that he and his wife Taylor were at the hospital waiting for baby Jack Harrison to arrive. Guess what! He did! He arrived on my birthday and was the best gift of all. Baby Jack is an evidence of God’s grace and, for me, a picture of a hopeful future. He is in the hands of two people who trust in Jesus and place His desires above all else. Needless to say, I was ecstatic about this news. 

One other thing Ryan asked me to have prepared for my surprise was an “Adventure Log.” I will be using this to share the rest of the story with you. Fast forward to Friday- the adventure log, a journal given to me by Ryan three years prior, is packed away in my purse. I woke at 6am to at text from him- “Morning birthday girl!” I did my 110 squats for the day and then made breakfast with the man himself. Eggs. Avocado. Toast. After breakfast, Ryan insisted I get started on my journal while he took my over the top packing to the car. When he walked back in the door, he was not himself. He was ANNA! She lied, lied, lied. Anna had convinced me she was not involved in whatever he was planning, but I was so thrilled to see her come through the apartment. What was already going to be a great day was turned up times 100. I screamed. I was then instructed to put my blindfold on and get in the car to begin our road trip to who knows where. I asked for these pictures with the car at the end so we could document the road trip but the blindfold picture is completely candid.

We’d been playing a fun game with my mix CDs- I would put in a new CD and we’d each pick a track number to listen to. Lets just say my music taste is not very selective. I was told we were almost there which was great news because I really had to pee... 

Ryan had Anna hand me a paper towel. When I asked why he said it was because I was going to cry. Anna thought it was in case I was going to pee my pants. Her joke made me laugh so hard that I almost did!

Anna & Ryan had been texting with “Johnny” all morning. None of us actually know a Johnny. When I was finally allowed to take my blindfold off, it became very clear to me who Johnny was. Johnny was/is Andrew Lovette. We had arrived at the hospital to visit Andrew, Taylor, and baby Jack Harrison. I was blown away, and yes, there were tears before I even entered the doors. Upon entering we were greeted by the front desk and offered bottled water and cookies. Moments later Andrew found us and we caught up about life. Ryan and Anna met Andrew and Taylor for the first time which was very sweet for me to witness. I love bringing my best friends together. Then we headed back to the room to see the beautiful Taylor and baby Jack! He was absolutely perfect and huge! They shared about their experience and how their love for each other had grown in the past two days. My time with them always makes me thankful to God for so many reasons. All the while I was snuggling baby Jack. He was so cuddly, sleepy, warm, precious, and altogether lovable. I’ve been told his feet are something to see, but I missed that show. We also discussed the idea that “growth only comes in the time under tension,” and how this applies to so many areas of life. Interestingly enough, two days later, I am feeling that tension and holding onto the truth that it will bring me growth. This was an stop that overwhelmed me with thanks, joy, & awe.

Thank you, Lovettes, for allowing us to be a part of this most precious time. After taking off from the hospital we had a quick lunch at Subway and headed to my next surprise! I was able to talk the kids into letting me keep the blindfold off since I wouldn't know where I was headed in relation to Raleigh- where we had been to see baby Jack. In this next part of the day I had a sweet time of Worship and study of some chapters in Galatians. I was reminded to walk in the Spirit and not the flesh. What does this look like? Galatians 5:22-24 says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Take some time to reflect on these characteristics and look for where they may be lacking, then ask the Lord to help you walk in these ways. 

After finishing my reading, I discovered where we were headed! It was not the road signs plastered everywhere that said “Asheville - 60 miles” but the surrounding mountains that tipped me off. We were headed to see the Crosbys! Caleb and Elizabeth have recently moved to Asheville, NC and I was going to get the chance to see them as well as their new home! As we approached the city, we got stuck in stand still traffic. Ryan’s car was off. The sky was blue. It was raining. We listened to “I Have Made Mistakes” by the Oh Hellos.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3CiPunzgvlLdvJj0bUErJd

“The sun, it does not cause us, the sun it does not cause us to grow. It is the rain that will strengthen, the rain that will strengthen your soul. It will make you whole.”

Upon arriving at the Crosby’s, Caleb took us to the Blue Ridge Parkway to see the French Broad. We relived our childhood driving through tunnels and holding our breath until the end. We saw beautiful views and took all the fun photos.

Following our visit to the mountains we headed to downtown Asheville to have dinner at the Twisted Laurel. The highlights of this mean included watching Caleb and Elizabeth stick to the Whole30 and sharing meals between myself, Ryan, and Anna. With no context to clue you in, because thats how they are best received, Ryan’s quotes of the night were:

“inappropriate food consumption” and “I want more of that taste in my mouth.”

These quotes were nothing compared to his live demonstration of roofing in the middle of the restaurant followed by his blowing water at me for laughing so hard at him.

After dinner, we walked around downtown. We hit the must sees. The drum circle, Double D’s- a double decker bus- for local coffee, & we stumbled upon street performers: Chris Rodriguez and Abby the Spoon Lady. They were amazing and they even played the Elvis hit “That’s All Right, Mama.” Abby was really playing two metal spoons and ringing bells. Chris was playing all the things.

After this adventure we drove past Biltmore Village and the Mission Hospital where we are pushing Anna to apply. The girls drove home separately for some girl talk and jamming to TSwift. We ended the night in Caleb and Elizabeth’s cozy and comfy apartment. 6-17-2017

I awoke to the smell of a delicious Whole30 breakfast- eggs, potatoes with garlic and mustard, bacon, and fresh Counter Culture coffee. Anna informed us about the origins of coffee. It goes something like this: A shepherd in Afghanistan had goats. One area of land had these strange bushes. The goats in that particular area were hyper active, prancing goats. Hence, the discovery of the coffee bean. Her new phrase is “thats a goat prancing good cup of coffee right there!”

Sadly we had to cut the morning short, but the moments we had were very memorable and sweet. The drive home consisted of lots of M. Ward and good talks. While the trip was more than anything I could have imagined, it all ended too suddenly. Can you ever really have enough time with your best friends in life? Can you ever really have enough adventure? Can you compare the things of this world with the investment into the Kingdom of God? Each of the people I visited and spent the week with are a reminder and challenge to be investing into this Kingdom rather than the world. What are we going to take to the Kingdom? Who will we be with? Am I looking to see that group grow, and am I pointing my current friends to think with a heavenly perspective? These are questions I am asking myself as I reflect on my “things-free birthday.” 

To the man responsible for this adventure: Thank you. Thank you for the planning, for changing your plans to provide an even crazier surprise, for your car, for your money, for your time, for making me keep this adventure log, for laughing with me, for spending your weekend with two girls, and for giving me time with so many people that I love so deeply. I am thankful for these things and simply for who you are.

My challenge now is to move forward in year 26 finding ways to not take the day to day for granted, to live for the Kingdom, and to do this remembering that God knows best and has promised me far greater things in heaven than any on earth. I have access to these promises through the blood of Jesus Christ. He is my Savior and my reason for joy- my reason for the strength and beauty in each of the relationships mentioned above. He redeems all things.

[purplesurveys]

711

How fast can you say the alphabet? I can say it quickly without my accent failing me, I guess? I’m too lazy to time it. What are you allergic to? None. How many serious relationships have you had? Just one. If you could read one person's mind, who would it be? I wouldn’t want to target one person like that. I’d only be picking my dog’s so I can hear what he thinks of me, ha. If someone dared you, what dare would you be afraid to attempt? Eating/drinking anything rotten.

How do you like your eggs? Scrambled or over easy. What's your most expensive piece of clothing? Probably my shoes. Most of them are several thousand bucks. What was your last big achievement? The last objectively big achievement I made was finishing the first half of my thesis and getting the go signal to finish the rest of it. But if we’re counting tiny steps that feel like big achievements, it’s having an article published in my org’s publication this week. I co-wrote it with JM and Rick, but it still feels nice to get to say I was productive during the quarantine. What famous person's memoir would you like to read? I’m willing to read anyone’s biography/autobiography since it’s one of my favorite genres. But at the moment I’m probably most willing to read something about Kim Jong Un since it’s generally hard to find material in North Korea as it is, and it would be fascinating to hear about their life and culture there. Have you ever had a "false alarm" moment, what was it about? Sure. A few months ago I was in Manila for a workshop and my car wouldn’t start when it was time to drive back home. Pressing any button on the key fob wouldn’t work and I couldn’t open the doors, so I was pretty much just locked out. I was already stuck there for a while and I was starting to panic, so I called up my parents to ask for help and they were already getting dressed to drive all the way where I was. Right before they left the house Jhian was mysteriously able to make stuff work and opened my door and I gave my parents the happiest “false alarm” ever haha. Do you know how to ride a bike? I don’t. My dad recently pumped air into the wheels of the bike that we have in the house so I can practice riding it throughout the quarantine, but I just can’t. I never did learn what my friends say when they tell me to just “find my balance.” If you could breed two species together what new animal would you create? No thanks. What 5 world leaders would you make sit down in a room to discuss issues? Isn’t that already the point of UN? If you were in the hospital who are the two people you'd want by your side? Gab and my dad. When was the last time you cried and what made you cry? Ooh ya got me. With this quarantine not letting me go anywhere and giving me new experiences, I’ve had no reason to cry lol. 

The last most vivid reason I remember crying was that one Wednesday in February where everything went wrong  – Andrew and I got red marks all over our thesis and we got practically yelled at over how bad our work had been so far; accidentally spewing peanut sauce all over the said thesis draft immediately after it was returned to us; almost losing this one thing for the org that I 100% WAS NOT allowed to lose, and having to ask Andrew to go back to campus at mid-fucking-night just to retrieve it and feeling shit the whole time for asking that of him; and having to deal with an unresponsive source for an article I needed to write and finish ASAP. I cried nonstop until like 2 AM that night. If you could ever take a street sign, what sign do you want? It’d be such a pointless steal, so no thanks. What is your favorite ride at any amusement park? Haha anything mild and for kids tbh. My stomach can’t handle rides. Have you ever raised money for charity? I haven’t spearheaded any fundraisers but I’ve donated for some, like whenever workers from exploitative corporations go to UP to visit some classes, talk about their struggles, and ask for support. How do you feel about growing older? I’ve got little time to be scared of it because getting old just happens all the time and constantly. I just take it for what it is and learn along the way. What wild animal scares you? Probs lion. I’ve never seen one in real life and movies and shows have conditioned me to think they’ll attack any human that comes close enough, soooooooo no thanks. I’d love to be corrected and to find out that they’re big softies, though. Do you think actors and athletes are overpaid? I can argue that for some actors, but definitely not athletes. Athletes bust their ass day in and day out and are in constant need of training, transportation, and the adequate gear, equipment, etc. Some actors just have to sit pretty and they wouldn’t even be good at it. Have you ever been alienated, if so for what? This was me for most of what you’d call middle school. People were starting to be more conscious of trends and using it as a basis for who to hang out with, so while everyone had a Blackberry, got side bangs, and listened to The Summer Set, I was struggling to fit in a place where my love of wrestling would be accepted. Of course there was none, and I felt left out for a while.

More recently, this was also me in applying for AIESEC but I’ve already touched on that a couple of times here. The alienation was so bad my friends and I just resort to laughing about my experience whenever it gets brought up. Have you ever not returned something you borrowed and if so what was it? I have a couple of Gab’s jackets, but she doesn’t mind me keeping them since I get cold quicker and more often. When you pack your lunch, what's your favorite packed lunch? Loooove when my dad makes curry for me to bring to school. What was the one most important thing you learned from your parents? It’s impossible to start at the bottom and work your way to the very top. I’m constantly worried about staying at the bottom, so it’s always comforting to see how far they’ve come.

On a parenting note, I’ve learned that I should talk to my future kids the way they are – kids. Ever since I can remember my mom has always gotten mad at me as if I was already an adult, so it’s made me permanently terrified of all adults/the idea of pissing anyone off. She would always just get mad, banging stuff around, and never explain to me what I did wrong, so to this day I get very self-punishing when I feel like I’ve done something wrong but don’t exactly know what it was I did.

How fast can you run? I used to be good as a kid which is what landed me on the track team in grade school, but I didn’t enjoy running so I did it less and less every year. Now I’m just meh at it. Have you done something you worry could come back to haunt you, what? Nothing that bad, no. What is your most favorite feature of your favorite electronic device? I’m very happy with the battery life of my laptop, considering how 1) my old Macbook Air only had a battery life of one hour, and 2) the laptop I had before had a damaged battery to begin with so I couldn’t even use it/bring it anywhere unless it was plugged in. The 10-hour battery life for my current one is a fucking dream for me lmao. If you had to build a small ark, what 7 animals would you save? All the endangered ones so like an elephant, Philippine eagle, panda, orangutan, tiger, and a rhinoceros. I’d save the last slot for a stray dog. What is your favorite Christmas or holiday tradition? I love going over to my mom’s cousins’ place and have our tradition of exchanging gifts singing My Monito/Monita. What novel would you love to be transported into to live out your days? I prefer non-fiction, soz. What is your favorite hiding place? MY CAR. It’s seen my worst breakdowns, my sleeping sessions in the middle of the day, and the days where I’m okay but simply need a break from everyone. If I feel like being alone I just head inside, recline my seat, and tune out the whole world. What is something your parents love that you actually love too? Indian food. Have anyone ever said "I love you" and you couldn't say it back. This is me with my mom. I’ve stopped saying “I love you” ever since I came to terms with the fact that she has brought a lot of trauma into my life and it would be unfair to the both of us (mostly me, heh) if I said it back. Have you ever ridden a camel? I haven’t. It would be very difficult to find a camel on this side of the planet.

What's been the hardest loss you've had to take? My grandfather and Nacho. What emotion is your least favorite and the one you are not in touch with? I hate feeling embarrassed obviously, but I’m regularly in touch with it because there’s always at least one event a day where I fuck up and I feel extremely embarrassed. Do you think facial moles or freckles are cute? I don’t mind them. They’re not a common facial trait where I live, so I’m more fascinated by them than anything else. Would you ever pick up a hitchhiker? I’ve read too many accounts of serial killers where hitchhikers were involved to feel skeptical about them but I know I’d also feel bad if I ignored them. I honestly don’t know what to feel about them as I don’t live in a hitchhike-y area.

What was your funniest computer or phone wallpaper? Eh, I don’t really pick wallpapers to find them funny. If you're searching for a relationship, where is your go place to look? Unapplicable for my demi ass. When and where are you happiest? Either anywhere with Gab or Skywalk with my orgmates. What was your favorite age, so far? 16 has so far been the year with the least fuckups. What is your favorite part of the day? Typically, it would be the moment I realize I’m done with everything that needed to be done for that day, like if my last meeting has ended or if I’m finished with my last class, and all that’s left to do is to drive home. What book have you read multiple times? The Septimus Heap series up til the 5th book (there are 7) only because in the past I had always made plans to restart and finish the whole series, but I never did get around to finishing it so I’ve only just kept restarting and restarting the books.   Do you keep a budget? No budget. What matters to me is at least being able to have savings at the end of the week, which is tbh not the smartest thing to do. Have you ever test driven a car you knew you weren't going to buy? Nope, I’ve never gone car shopping like that. Pretend you're doing an interview, what's the first question? Uhhhhhhhhhh idk depends on what the interview is for? What do you have a hard time visualizing? Everything. I’m not a very visual person and creativity is my weak point, so I genuinely struggle if I do have to imagine anything. Abstract reasoning has always been my least favorite part of tests. What makes you feel uncomfortable in group settings? If all of them already know each other and I am just starting to try and fit in – it’s worse if they’re all loud and extroverts. The former is what made my internship hard for me in the beginning, but thankfully they were all very nice and could tell I was shy so they knew not to overwhelm me by being too loud. What was your worst date ever? I haven’t had a bad date. Have you ever gotten in a bidding war on Ebay, if so for what item? Nope. If you had to pick one food to eat everyday for life, what would it be? Risotto or chicken wings. For dessert, macarons. Are you supportive of your friends even if you don't agree with them? As long as their choice doesn’t entail stepping on human rights, e.g. not being pro-choice or supporting a president that supports killing the poor, I’ll be fine with the disagreement. Have you ever used the opposite sex restroom in an emergency? Yeah I had a bad nausea attack one time and needed to vomit but I only had enough time to run to the men’s bathroom before I started throwing up everywhere, so that’s where I ran. What did you think was stupid until you tried it? Ube cheesecake. I really hate ube flavor and I hate everything it’s in, but I gave it a chance when a local bakeshop incorporated ube in cheesecake since it’s my favorite kind of cake. I ended up really liking it and now I often look for it when we have family get-togethers. What subject do you and your parents never see eye to eye on? Politics, duh. Where do you see yourself in 1 year's time? Having a job, out of the quarantine, maybe saving for a trip. How scared of the dark are you? I’m fine with the dark as long as I’m not somewhere that’s meant to be haunted. What is your favorite type of seafood? Crab fat, sashimi, eel, and sea urchin. What triggers your inner shopaholic? I don’t really have a trigger. I don’t even consider myself a shopaholic. I just shop for new clothes once I feel like I’ve been repeating my clothes too much. What is the rudest thing a person can do to another person in your opinion? Insulting dead parents is one. Except if you’re the Marcoses, heh. What public figure do you disagree with the most? President Duterte, obviously. I wanna barf just having to call him President. Do you think you could ever be a firefighter, why/why not? Nope, because I’m terrified of fire and I don’t have half the stamina needed to carry the shit they have to lift when they have to put out fires. What is/was your favorite bedtime story? I don’t have any. My favorite kids’ book was Corduroy, though. What was the last thing to make you feel happy? My dog going down the stairs and going straight to me for pats once he was done. What is your opinion on rats as pets? Rats are pests here so I find it pretty disgusting. I think hamsters are fine, though. What is something you're afraid to try? Cliff diving, bungee jumping... anything that would give me the sensation of leaving my stomach behind lmao. What cartoon character best describes you? Mr. Peanutbutter from BoJack Horseman. What keeps you interested in your goals or dreams? The fact that I went through so much shit as a child/teenager that I absolutely have to make myself happy in the end, and I can only do that by achieving my goals. What is your favorite actress beginning with the letter J? Jessica Chastain. What song makes you dance uncontrollably? Crazy in Love by Beyoncé, heh. If you wanted to live off the radar where would you live? I was gonna say Sagada but everyone knows it’s my favorite place so it’d probably be one of the first areas they’d start to look... so I’d go with Batanes. That place can’t get any more secretive with their sporadic phone signal and nonexistent internet/data connection. Do you like nachos, if so what topping is a MUST have? Melted cheese. Do you have any subscriptions? Netflix and (technically) Spotify. Which is better, Mario or Sonic? Mario. I’ve never played a Sonic game and I’ve only ever encountered him playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which is a Mario-themed game to begin with. Who is the most creative person you know? Alex, someone from my high school who can recreate any. thing. Art is in her blood; she was my seatmate for one sem and she was constantly doodling and drawing and making new stuff in every class we were in. Besides a pickle, what is your favorite thing pickled? I hate pickles and anything pickled :/ Not really in the Filipino palate. What did you do for your 21st birthday? If not, 21 what are your plans? I celebrated it mostly alone because Gab couldn’t be present. Angela made me feel better by taking me to dinner and an arcade.

Are you a role model for anyone in your life? I dunno. I hope so, for at least one person. What song do you hate the most? Any song by The Vamps or Meghan Trainor. Do you think you need to slow down and enjoy life more? Isn’t slowing down what we’re all kinda forced to do right now? Can you impersonate anyone famous? Eh, sure. It’s fun to copy Gordon Ramsay for one hahaha. If you could go back in time to change one thing what would it be? Going out of my shell as early as freshman year and avoiding the semester-long breakdown/depressive episode I had. Can you honestly say you're enjoying your life right now? I can’t say I’m unhappy lmao. I have no problem doing nothing at home for more than a month – besides, this already serves as the break I planned to have shortly after graduating. After this I’ll be really ready to start looking for a job. What is your favorite salty snack? Pringles. What is your favorite restaurant? Yabu, Torch, Pound by Todd English, or Frankies. Idk man, I’m craving so much shit now that I haven’t eaten out for more than a month.  Have you ever been in a play for school? Yeah, we were all required to be in all the annual school productions from kinder to senior year.