Weeknote, June 28: Friends.
My life
A list of activities on different days.
- What a lovely activity, in the world of lovely activities. On a Sunday afternoon.
I don't want to be presumptive and say it's "because Canada" or "because Vancouver", but I do feel like this afternoon was a beautiful combination of openness, generosity, physical fitness, and being out in the fresh air.
For now, let's chalk it up to being extra open to new connections because of rebuilding friendships from the ground up.
I'm so grateful that a friend invited me to a clothing-swap-plus-home-workout afternoon. It was just one of the best ways to have spent a Sunday afternoon. M. taught us how to work with mace sticks 🙌🏽 Which I have never tried, or imagined trying in my life!!! With a soothing [rhythmic gymnastic] clubs shoulder warm-up. (I should probably link to her page, because it was awesome).
Will C.
I was just happy to be there and to get to hear the conversation - with an endurance runner, an actress, a friend who had broken a foot from dancing too much, bubble wands for a lightweight mace option – all in a nice backyard exercise session. To cap that off, homemade bubble tea with the pearls I keep seeing on Instagram, unsweetened oat milk and decaf tea (and condensed milk 😂).
I'm just too thankful I get to experience things like this. Honestly, every week, I'm just thankful to learn so many things from so many people – meditation, on a foundational/ beginner level from P., Brazilian culture from A. and K., as always - stakeholder management lessons from F., learning about the existence of a "community heat response" workshop from D.
- A lovely day also for my daughter's last day of school.
A movie, then swimming for hours in the recreation centre pool with the first and dearest friends whom Z. and I made here: K., K., and their kids ❤️ And, as always, awesome sci-fi-slash-fantasy-series conversations with K.
- Watch Elio. If you're reading this, I feel like there's a high chance that you'll like it, too.
Spoiler:
- Cried two times. Hard.
- It's for everyone who's ever felt too different and too much.
- One of the best (and warmest) depictions of friendship in an animated film, in my book.
- Favorite song for this set of weeks: Swim Good.
Also: New. Favourite. Artist. Michaela Slinger. Wow.
- Today was the best day ever in terms of feeling loved.
Lovely lunch with I. and N. Much needed talk with F. Messages with K. and A. I am so grateful to have found so much love in a short amount of time.
An officemate asked me this week about how it was to be detached from all of my friends, and have to "start over". This day had so many reminders that I'm loved.
- One benefit of trying to do harder things in parkour is more pressure on my joints.
As someone who weighs over 150 pounds and eats whatever I want, I do realize that I need to both strengthen my joints and lose weight, to save my bones from pain. I'm trying to eat more whole and balanced food. These recipes helped me through the week 🙂
The world.
This week. I think too many things scare me that I am not fully absorbing news anymore.
- An invading government is sneaking drugs into the meager food supply of a population that they are starving. This, for me is the worst, most chilling news of this week.
- A publicly-lauded tech figure openly tweeted that his vision for AI is for it to rewrite how we know the past. This is the second most chilling thing I've seen all week.
- But. Hey. People are celebrating that there are spots of hope in terms of leaders for actual public welfare in the US
Pinning for the future: A friend asked me about why I control iPad use for my kid. This can be a whole long-form post in itself.
On Work
- Process, before product.
Double-click version:
- Form follows function = Common slogan for design.
- Same goes for Product scoping -> Jumping into specifications without understanding the end-to-end goal can make us miss out on important context.
- On the enduring power of the Pareto principle.
- What's the 20% that results in an 80% change?
Note to self for this week:
Anj. Nothing happens if you refresh your e-mail 50 times a day. Do. things. Write.