Monthly Log: June

Memo of my 2019–06

5 min readJul 15, 2019

Background

Writing Monthly Log was one of the best routines I keep when I drop out of high school to be a self-learner(2016–2018). By writing an overview of the past month, I re-visit my life decision and outcome which slowly makes me live more consciously and courageously.

As my priority changed, the Monthly Log habit disappeared for a while. I also encounter challenges such as:

Writing it becomes a significant ritual, which took longer time but most likely only finished partially.
I am writing in public to shift my focus away from self-awareness as the purpose. I think what not to write based on people’s reaction. This concern also reinforced challenge #1.

But I realized blogging is dominant in the way it connects you with mind-like people. I also realized the essence of writing for your own after a conversation with J Wang.

So here we go, Monthly Log — start from this June! (July Log should be finished on 7/1 — book the writing time on my google calendar.)

About my June: Awesome events, got around in SF and Yosemite with Tieh, momentum at work, less goal-driven but more relaxing.

Tieh visit San Francisco

It’s been a dream come true. Living in a foreign city could be a lonely experience when not many people shared the same background as you. As Tieh came, everything became more lovely — I can finally share these collective experience with a close partner.

This also changes our long term relationship quite a lot. More observation about how each other think, feel, and express. Some arguments. Some sincere appreciation. Lots and lots of shared, happy memories.

She flew back to Taipei on the early morning of June 22, after her 17 days trip. This time, I find I’m more mature in a relationship — either more aware of myself and my partner. But at the same time, I also discovered my naiveness or self-centered reaction. Still, I enjoy this month, too enjoy that I didn’t even use the time to keep a written journal — so most of the memories again dynamics like fluid right now. Indeed, we should follow a private blog for this trip!

We went to Yosemite, Ocean Beach, Lands End, Dolores Park, SF MoMA, Oakland, UC Berkely, Golden gate park. We walk around Valentia and Haight and Ashbury, visit SF shops and thrift shop.

We had fantastic food at Piccino, one of the best restaurants in the neighborhood. We randomly found Taiwanese cuisine and had super duper local food and drinks. We homecooked lunch and dinner together. She was impressed by her first burrito in her life — at where I had my first burrito.

We love doing exercise — so we did yoga as well as bouldering together, which is so lovely — wish we had done more.

Also, many cools events took place in June. Bay Breakers SF on a ferry at 6:00 am, Taiwanese data science meetup at Google SF, Away From Keyboard concert.

Yosemite

Tieh and I rent backpacking gears at Last-Minutes Gears on Friday evening and head to Yosemite the next morning(via public transportation). Hopefully, things went incredibly smooth, thanks to the backpacking experience with Minerva classmates back in last fall.

Summer Yosemite is super duper amazing. The landscape is not just a looks like high-solution Mac desktop photo(jk), but something touches your heart and occupies it for a long time — like the feeling after watched your favorite movie. It’s remarkable.

We spend the first day at Yosemite valley and backpacker campground, the second and third days hike from the popular Yosemite fall trails to a campsite in pine tree forest, that had only us and the bears were around.

Yes, Tieh saw bears. A little bear and the mother bear. That is the first time I got offended in a relationship — for serious safety concern. We argued before and then came the bears walking around the forest — which add tensions to everything. Was quite a unique experience and thank god I’m not mad anymore after Tieh’s apology.

Me and Tieh both like natures a lot, so going into the wild together is always something we hope to do together — didn’t get this kind of chance in Taipei and super glad that we make this trip happened in California!

Event

Day Breakers. A sober-6am-ferry party, with music, dance, and sunlight. Enjoy being loosed, realized I’m more relaxed about enjoying the moment(compare to July 2018, for example. Glad me and Tieh make it during our SF trip.
Taiwanese Data Science Meetup at Google SF. Talks from data scientist from Kaggle and Facebook. A lot of sales knowledge and new terms for me so took lots of notes. Learned data is a valuable personal property that most of us didn’t take control of.
Away from keyboard concert. Music is a powerful connection. Invited Alex together and had a “complete” social feeling, like some important people are engaging first hand in things I’m passionate about.
Ambitious party was a house party in mission, lots of young talents, rooftop dj, conversation with new friends and old friends — turned out I’m much more cherish those interactions with old friends — had a good talk with Yev and Brian. I finally told Phil his blog is great.
Pride was eye-opening to me. So proud we have Taiwanese stickers and a whole Taiwanese group attended — to celebrate Taiwan is the first Asian country legalized same-sex marriage. Talked to Lucy.

Summer Internships at Netlify

Made a lot of milestones in the second month — working on cohort analysis and got demonstrated to our CEO, Matt, who is incredibly smart and humble. Also attended my first all-hands meeting in company, with CEOs making the announcements about current status and future of Netlify. Making that kind of decision is hard, man.
Stealing terms from physics: one reason I’m passionate about working at Netlify, is the potential to learn how a company generates momentum to build great things. That’s about team dynamics. I hope to remain a sharp and curious lens to look into it and always reflect on the way.
Got a 1–1 with CEO Matt, Chief designer Rafa, Support lead Chris. Very notable conversation.

Funny/Nice Moment

Run into Sara in her house. What a coincidence! Then this finally pushes us to a chat/house dinner at my place. Had so much to chat with her, and think a lot afterward.
Saw NBA Final at the bar on the way home. The atmosphere was dynamic but also tense. A lot of breath-holding moment in the last 5 min to us, which is magical.
Bought a nice jacket!

Failure and Mistakes

The internship is a really open-ended relationship with the company. I try to ‘think’ too much which didn’t converge into actions and deliverables. For this month I should be more mind-free at working and give myself more exercise to cultivate reflection and ideas. Because I always feel ideas popping out during the workout.
Delay too much for my magazine column writing about Habit of Minds in Minerva. Should have pivoted to something considering I really know I stuck at the writing.
Didn’t really plan out my finance with girlfriends visit. Lack of emergency funds gets me into a struggle with the coliving house. Hopefully, upcoming salary will cover it.

Other

Books I read: Getting Things Done, Zero To One