Accidentally in Code

Tag: life

  • This Week

    This Week

    Credit: DeviantArt / ARISAmizutani
    Credit: DeviantArt / ARISAmizutani

    LIFE

    My sleep schedule was finally somewhat fixed after the long weekend, and I’m feeling so much better as a result. Got a lot of gym time in, including a double which I haven’t done in ages! Although not the classes (weights, yoga) that I want to. But it’s a start. Went to a friend’s for a (fabulous) easter lunch, and out for dinner twice but was otherwise anti-social this week. Went to see my parents for the weekend.

    My website went down – argh such a nightmare – rogue plugin destroyed everything during an update. I uninstalled it, so now I need to go back and replace places where it was used (been meaning to do this anyway). So annoying. I thought I was going to have to reinstall everything, but then I realised database backups were separate from non-website backups, so I restored to a backup, and just had to re-upload a couple of photos. Then, some percentage of the time (judging from stats, maybe 50%) it was rendering wingdings gobbledegook instead of… well, anything. But I uninstalled, deleted, and replaced my caching plugin and now I think things are working again. My stats are back to normal, which is a good sign.

    Not much side-project progress this week, my website woes and going out of town took up most of the time I have for that kind of thing. I need to submit my first draft, and respond to code review comments. Hopefully I’ll have some time later today. Otherwise next weekend is a long weekend (yay), and also my birthday (meh).

    Broke another Nike Fuelband (display no longer working), but I have a spare so it is all good. I’m really liking liking the new bluetooth UP band.

    There is a tube strike next week, which is going to be a nightmare.

    I’m speaking next month at iOS Con, in London. The announcement is up.

    WORK

    Got stuff finished this week, which felt great! I need to do a better job of carving out time for some longer term things, I keep being all “just fix this little thing and…” and then there are more little things. But my TODO list is looking more manageable (it was filling my one postit that I limit it to) and that is a start.

    Took a training course, which I was pretty ambivalent about. It was targeted at women, which is why I signed up for it, but it was very Lean In.

    Wider tech industry has been pretty awful this week. People who I’m friends with, or follow and relate to on Twitter have been having a rough time of it. Especially given timezones, a lot of this plays out during my evenings, and then I get up the following day trying to feel OK about still being in this industry, and to be honest, I don’t. It’s appalling.

    PLACES

    Sushi at Dozo (the Soho branch) which was amazing, and dinner at Oliveto, the pizza was awesome. Had pancakes at My Old Dutch in between workouts (savoury one was not as nice as I’d hoped).

    MEDIA

    Addicted to The Good Wife, it’s got some of the best portrayals of women that I have ever seen and I’m loving legal drama as an escape from sexist tech drama. Also, I find the tech companies features and their relationship to real world tech companies hilarious. Still working on An Absolute Deception, 4 Hour Body (reading slowly to try out tips as I go), and Manage Your Day To Day.

    Saw Waterbabies in Leicester, which was just weird. Kind of Oliver Twist meets Peter Pan. We had pretty terrible seats (up high) and I don’t know if my disconnect from it was because we were so far away from the action, or because it was just a terrible story with weak lyrics.

    Product links Amazon.

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  • Spa Break, January 2014

    Spa Break, January 2014

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    Our Champneys spa experience starts well in advance, with the booking process. It takes 4 phone calls, two unreturned messages, and finally I get through and manage to make a reservation. No email confirmation ever arrives, but they charge my card so my mom and I turn up anyway, and have to deal then with our making of two separate reservations (thankfully for different days).

    There is a huge amount of confusion, but eventually it is sorted and I find the horrendous misspelling of my name, which explains the lack of email. Thankfully the staff at the actual spa are far better than the call centre staff, and recognise us from a previous visit which helps. Aside from the minor issue of our treatments for day 3 being cancelled (for which they were incredibly apologetic, resolved with an improvement on what we had previously reserved, and gave us a little gift – all in all, net win), we went on to have a relaxing weekend.

    I got a declor body wrap and facial, which was fabulous, and out package included a scrub (lovely), head massage (I had two, heaven), and a “thalassiotherapy” session.

    Thallasotherapy, for all it’s grand claims of improving skin, digestion, etc etc etc is like a group hot tub session, except the hot tub isn’t that hot, and you rotate around the jets on command. The hot tub at my (fancy) gym has the better features (water jets to stick your head under, and a cage which pummels you) and is actually warm, so I’ll stick to that. There seemed to be a lot of disorganisation around it, and there were 21 people who thought they were booked into our session, and we were thankfully part of the lucky 12 who didn’t have to go and rebook. What a pain that would have been! Amusingly afterwards we’re told to drink lots of water and relax because it is an “intense treatment”. LOL.

    The food is for the most part a big bland, but there was some lovely soup, lunchtime has a chef making something (pasta, wraps) to order, and both our dinners features a divine desert. There was also yummy onion bread, so that sustained me.

    I book into the spa when I think I need to relax, but in retrospect, I’ve had better experiences when that wasn’t the primary goal – I had an amazing session at the spa when I was in Hong Kong for example. It’s like a treadmill of relaxation, and yet with everyone there having the exact same goal it feels constrained. The treatments are very exact in time, and good therapists don’t make you feel this, but last trip my needing nail polish removed before my pedicure became a Big Deal for the timing, and the result is that now I notice. And don’t get a pedicure. It’s also really expensive – we paid 175GBP per person, per night, plus extra treatments. This was for a standard room which was quite basic, and I wasn’t impressed with the toiletries – the conditioner (my barometer for good hotel toiletries) didn’t do much to detangle my curly hair.

    Next time I’ll book a weekend city break, instead.

  • This Week

    This Week

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    LIFE

    I’m not sleeping well and it’s making me exhausted and grumpy, but yay for four day weekends, been able to get some good workouts in, including swimming (I haven’t swam in weeks!) and feel so much better as a result.

    My first draft of The Thing is done. I’m so happy, now all that is left are little tweaks. Such a relief to have this substantially done, it has been a lot of work. Will share exactly what it is soon.

    WORK

    Busy busy, I feel like I keep getting 90% done with things and getting distracted lately, but I finished one thing that I had not-quite-complete at the end of the previous week, and made some progress on some other things.

    Gave a talk at the BCS Lovelace Colloquium, which people responded to really positively, which was nice.

    PLACES

    Dim Sum from Dragon Palace (BBQ pork buns!). Went out for sushi at Sake No Hana (pricey but delicious).

    MEDIA

    Finished Veronica Mars – finally! Watching The Good Wife now, which is amazing – happy to find another TV show with strong female characters. The main female character is such a departure – she’s reserved to the point of being cold, and it’s so refreshing. Still reading An Absolute Deception, and 4 Hour Body (reading slowly to try out tips as I go), and Manage Your Day To Day.

    Saw Political Animal at the Udderbelly Festival at Southbank, which was funny, although I’ve not been following UK politics so some of the references I missed.

    Product links Amazon.

    PUBLISHED

    Elsewhere on the Internet, I was on a podcast talking about my upcoming talk at ModevUX.

    ON THE INTERNET

  • This Week

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    LIFE

    Hectic week with lots of social commitments, out with a friend one night, at a women in tech meet-up another night, had a chat with someone about their challenges recruiting women (followed by a solo-mini-Cate-time, sushi, a book, and a long walk), met up with someone about potentially speaking at their conference, caught up with some people I used to work with who happened to be in town, and recorded a podcast interview for my upcoming talk at modevUX. Weekend was more chill, gym time, afternoon tea with friends, wondered home through Hyde Park (very pretty! There was actually sunshine!) and prep for my talk at the Lovelace Colloquium next week.

    Finally traded in my busted up band for an up24, I really like the automatic syncing.

    WORK

    Productive, but exhausting. Couldn’t even face leaving with my laptop on Friday night (in case I wanted to work from home on Monday), just looked at it and felt can’t and left it behind.

    PLACES

    Dinner at Cubana (meh) and Cocochan (always fab, but expensive), and Moti Mahal (expensive but delicious). Afternoon tea at Bond and Brook, which was fab.

    MEDIA

    Hooked on Veronica Mars, starting to hate it because I like it too much. Still reading An Absolute Deception, and 4 Hour Body (reading slowly to try out tips as I go), and also started Manage Your Day To Day.

    Product links Amazon.

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  • This Week

    This Week

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    LIFE

    Had a lovely time in Frankfurt, the Luminale was cool, although I got sick which is never the funnest. Went to Oxford for the Be The Eloquent Woman workshop which was fantastic, met some great people. Caught up with a friend, and a colleague who came over from another office in Oxford, went for dinner with a friend and his fiancee and had lunch with a woman I met a few weeks ago. Got an intro to someone about yet another potential side project, and also working on another potential speaking opportunity.

    Finally got around to unboxing my misfit wearable. And getting a haircut! Weekend is for once pure Cate-time. Art, gym, writing (want to finish this project so I can move onto other things!)

    WORK

    3 day week which is always busier. Wrote a lot of tests. Worked on a design doc. Not the greatest week, to be honest. Things with bad associations, even if in themselves they weren’t.

    PLACES

    Treated myself to dim sum from Dragon Palace (BBQ pork buns… mmm) and had dinner at Ken Lo’s Memories of China (tasty). In Oxford, had breakfast at Bill’s, and stayed at the Malmaison, a converted jail but comfortable! Although they didn’t have conditioner, which always annoys me.

    MEDIA

    Watching Covert Affairs Season 4, How I Met Your Mother Season 9, but mostly really loving Veronica Mars. At first it was pleasant background noise whilst doing other things (like email, or writing tests), and somewhere around the middle of season 1 I just got completely hooked on it. Finished The Richer Sex (such an interesting book).

    Novel-wise, reading An Absolute Deception.

    Caught the last of some amazing art shows over the weekend, including Boomoon, and stopped by the Bernard Jacobson Gallery which has these incredible pieces made from tiny wrapped packages, in different colours, so cool. Dale Chihuly: Beyond the Object was amazing, such incredible glass work. And finally I went to Sensing Spaces at the Royal Academy, which was interesting. I loved the scale, but it was pretty crowded which maybe meant I didn’t appreciate the space as much.

    Product links Amazon.

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  • Life After Burnout

    Life After Burnout

    PhotonQ-When the Phoenix Rises
    Credit: Flickr / PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

    I’m currently in what I would describe as a post-burnout-phase. The memory of being burnt out is vivid, and I fear going back there, but I’m doing OK and even cautiously optimistic about the future. Sometimes I resent the cost, and sometimes I just feel so grateful to be in this better place.. and usually, something in between, a bittersweet mix of the two. Shared by my friend, who tells me she misses me like crazy, but she’s so glad I’m doing better.

    Burning Out

    When I look back at where I was, I wonder how I thought that was bearable. Dreading having to start the day, every morning, although some more than others. Walking home in tears, more often than not. Desperate to escape, but feeling trapped by work permits and my identity being so tied up in things that I did, rather than who I was (am). Getting smaller and smaller in what I dared to do because everything seemed to be somehow wrong and then nothing I’m doing is meaningful, or appreciated, and what am I doing here anyway, again?

    The thing about being at my lowest, is that I had lost the ability to fake it, to believe in myself just enough to try. I just got so flat, accepted that nothing good would come, and where do you go from there? Nowhere.

    Until I hit this place of “I cannot do this anymore” is that it forced me to come up with something that I would want to do, instead. And a plan, to work towards it.

    Getting Away

    I looked at the data about what helps women succeed in this industry, and then found that. Specifically – I looked for someone who would look out for me, and be a sponsor. I arranged it, and then I ran away.

    I wasn’t sure if I would come back.

    So I set myself some goals of things to build, and to write. Which I missed, by a long way. And I arranged some places to visit. Maybe over-scheduled myself, somewhat, too much so to be creative.

    But – I recharged. Started to feel joyful again. Exploring gave me reasons to want to get up every morning, again. I started to connect to who I am rather than things that I did, and to contemplate living without them. Got used to being alone, again. Because my life in Sydney was the hardest thing to leave. A casualty of the flames.

    To not be an expat anymore, to return to a country that is technically “home”, but doesn’t feel like it.

    The Present

    I remember the feeling the morning when I realised that I wasn’t dreading the day ahead. I’ve yet to come home in tears. After a rough week I had a moment when I contemplated giving it all up, and knew that if I did, I would be OK.

    Sometimes something reminds me of the things that drove me to that point, and I want to panic. But I try and remain outwardly calm at least, and remind myself that I already met the minimum goal I set for myself. That this experience is not that one. I convince myself that it will be OK, and so far, it has been.

    Of course, one day it might not be. But the clock that was going double time has slowed. This less frantic drum beat, makes me less frantic to have good things right now, yesterday. I can work with OK. An extra few beats does not herald an explosion, it was just a bad day, and tomorrow will be another one.

    Try again.

    It’s weird, going past the milestones. The first time I felt appreciated – gave me a warm glow for days, still does, even. The first time I did a women in tech event – terrified because I had to be “on”, worried because I have nothing good to say about the experience of women in this industry, still… and I had a great time. Talking to school kids, panicking because I’m an appalling liar and being positive felt like it would feel like lying… and then realising that it didn’t, that it wasn’t. Putting something I’d done out there, afraid that I was behind, worse than everyone else… and realising that wasn’t the case at all.

    I think though, the same way that you never fall in love again like the first time, because the first time you give yourself fully and optimistically in a way that it’s never possible to do again… Now, I keep something back. Make an effort to maintain my “side” interests, and projects so that they’ll be there when I need them. Keep in mind the plan, which is not a lifetime of casual misogyny, but a life that I define, and things I want to create.

    Not being on a work-permit helps the way I thought it would. I feel less trapped. It’s easier to be happier in a place where you don’t feel like you have to be.

    Of course, it’s also easier to be happier in a better place. I’m lucky to have found one.

  • This Week

    This Week

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    LIFE

    Mostly exhausted from travel and working a lot because of Looming Deadline, and in desperate need of a haircut – which I should before everyone unfollows me on twitter me for tweeting too frequently that my hair is making me despondent. Managed to get in a couple of workouts, submit a conference proposal, and then took off to Frankfurt for a weekend (to see the Luminale). I have big plans next weekend to not go to an airport.

    Went to the Eloquent Woman event at the Houses of Parliament which was amazing, although getting in was scary – lots of men with guns. Afterwards I had drinks with Denise, I’m a huge fan of her blog so it was great to meet her in real life. Next week I’m taking her training course in Oxford.

    Tough decision but cancelled my flights to NZ. Just too much on right now, and I need to focus on some other things. I might try and get away for a bit over my birthday in May instead.

    WORK

    Busy busy with the Looming Deadline, performance review time, and I had a lot of emails to delete after the previous hectic week when I wasn’t even bothering to carry my laptop around! Although did manage to have a day working from home writing tests (this is basically like relaxing, IMO). Got some nice feedback from my manager from Q1, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into my next project. Got some design doc writing to do next week!

    PLACES

    I drank hot chocolate at a pub, it was nice. And went to the Palace of Westminster – haven’t been there since I went with my politics class (soon after dropped) 11+ years ago.

    MEDIA

    Watching Covert Affairs Season 4, How I Met Your Mother Season 9, and Veronica Mars. Bit more progress on 4 Hour Body (now trying to stop eating/drinking fruit), and The Richer Sex (so fascinating). Re-reading Between Males, which isn’t my favourite of Fiona Walker’s books and was annoying me in a dysfunctional relationships, woman needing to be rescued kind of way, but I’m approaching the end and at some point started to really enjoy it!

    Product links Amazon.

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  • Yoga Retreat in Sagres, November 2013

    Yoga Retreat in Sagres, November 2013

    [slickr-flickr search=”sets” set=”72157638481068194″ align=”center”]

    Photos on Flickr

    For the last week of my burnout break, my parents and I went to the south of Portugal, near Sagres, for a week of yoga – my first yoga retreat. I figured it was my last time to really relax, before heading back to work. I was hoping for some time to finish some of the many, many half-finished blog posts, bits of code etc, but our schedule ended up being pretty packed with relaxing activities – something I found at times a bit stressful!

    We had yoga morning and evening, but a slower than usual form that frustratingly at first didn’t give me the post-yoga high that I was getting in Bali. Although as the week went on, it got a little faster and more intense, and I started to enjoy it more.

    I took a surfing lesson, which was fun. I felt no desire to stand on the surf board, but enjoyed riding the waves. I’ve never really been interested in learning to surf, but it was surprisingly fun! I would definitely be up for body boarding another time.

    We were on a vegetarian diet, which was mostly very nice, although on the most active day there was no protein, which left me feeling horrible – most people picked at the jar of nuts made available to us, but I’m allergic so that wasn’t an option for me.

    As the week went on, I decided to just focus on the yoga classes and spend the rest of the time doing whatever I felt like, rather than going out and about – my skin had reacted to some sunscreen, so I was not wild to spend too much time outside, and definitely not in salt water! So I spent time in the gym, went swimming, and read and wrote and coded, and did about 3 hours of yoga a day. I started to stress less – I find having my day completely scheduled difficult, especially when scheduled by someone else – and enjoy myself more.

    By the end of the week my skin was brighter, and I felt healthier, and frankly, as relaxed as I am ever going to be. As a bonus, doing yoga (well, body flow) a week later, despite a stressful week at work, brought me back to feeling more centred and chilled out, and I could tell the difference in my flexibility too. Hopefully this (and Bali) have kickstarted a yoga habit for me.

    I’ll definitely go on another yoga retreat at some point, although I don’t know that I’ll go out of my way to surf again!

    We went with Pure Flow Motions (good crowd of people, many around my age, and lots of them had come alone), and stayed at the Memmo Baleeira, which is a gorgeous hotel. Very comfortable and spacious.

  • My On-Going Delusion About Being Human

    My On-Going Delusion About Being Human

    Robot Girl
    Credit: DeviantArt / Daydreamer6123

    I have, and have had for years (I’ve written about it again and again from either side of thinking I’m going mad), this on-going delusion that I should be super-human. That I should be killing it at work, on my side projects, working out like a crazy person, having an active social life and a functional relationship that is actually going somewhere, whilst living in a beautiful spotless apartment and dressing fabulously!

    I’m not sure that I’m doing great at any of these things right now. In fact about a month ago I decided to just give up dating for 6 months. This has freed up a bunch of time and emotional energy – it’s a good decision for me right now. I’m focusing on Cate.

    So I’m talking to one of my friends about how hard it is to figure out habits, and how thrown my habits are by this latest move. And how I feel pulled in all these directions, there is a show I really want to see and tonight is the last night, and there’s a piece of work I need to finish, and I need to weight train more and there is a class I could take but I’m not sure I can do that either and meanwhile my shoulder is really sore from the yoga class I did yesterday and just how do I possibly fit it all in. And commute. And deadlines. And job more emotionally demanding because I’m more optimistic and engaged in what I’m doing and I hadn’t quite thought of that.

    Meanwhile I moved back thinking I could spend more time with my family, but had a completely serious conversation with my parents about whether it was feasible for me to meet them in Dubai in a couple of weeks. Because otherwise I’m unlikely to see them until April.

    Really, I’m just not good at the day to day logistics of life. I am late filing my taxes. I don’t book my own travel anymore, and there are plenty of reasonable reasons for that, like when I do crazy trips with multiple stops you basically have to have a travel agent, but the real reason is that booking travel can be viewed as an optimisation problem… but you can never really solve it. Because that flight can be delayed, or cancelled, or something horrible can happen, and voila, no amount of advance thinking helped at all. So it’s better just not to worry about it too much, lay out my parameters, have someone else deal with it, and then just live with whatever they come up with.

    And I’m too prone to seeing life as an optimisation problem. And there are these aspects to maximise, and then these constraints. Like, the best way to get a good workout in is to do it in the morning. But, getting in early to work makes me so much more productive. Pick one. I can work on side projects and do a long workout at the weekend, but if I workout first I’m sometimes to be too tired to do any. Only one can be the top priority. The way to get up early is just to do it, be tired and deal, but I spend all day staring at a screen and too little sleep isn’t just being tired, it’s also spending the afternoon with a horrible headache. Not today, please.

    And so I create these arbitrary rules. Like, only eat sandwiches at the weekend. Only watch TV at the gym. Do something cultural every week. 5 positive things around the house for every 5 chapters of a book.

    These rules, ingrained, work really well. Only I got the flu, and then I took a trip. And voila, everything fell apart. I started watching TV at home, and overwhelmed by the grocery store self-medicated with bread. And I got into work later, having not worked out, because I was so exhausted. And the more I felt like I was failing at every aspect of my life, the more I wondered why I was trying with anything at all.

    The thing about habits, is they can disintegrate so quickly. Even a short trip can throw me right off, if I have terrible jetlag and I’m exhausted everything feels like a catastrophe (talking to my friend, I realised that my messed up sleep schedule is the root problem for at least two things I’m failing at). Meanwhile, I pack out my schedule – as I write this, the following week I have plans Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, an 8pm meeting on Thursday, and on Friday I’m supposed to be in Manchester.

    (Not that I’ve figured out a hotel or a train to Manchester at this point. Logistics are hard.)

    Even when all habits fall apart at once, you have to build habits up bit by bit. So last week, I got a reasonable amount of cardio and one yoga class in, and I was mindful about what I ate in the evenings, despite feeling exhausted (always harder). I dealt with a bunch of personal email, and made a significant amount of progress on The Project. This has to be a win.

    Next week, I’ll focus on fixing my sleep schedule, and finishing up this section of The Project. If these are under control by next Sunday, I’ll view that as a win.