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Sep 3, 20217 min read

It's okay | Stephanie's August 2021


Hi September! Every month, I’m always amazed at how it’s already a month since my last entry. I think September is especially bittersweet -- the end of Summer, welcoming Fall, and the feeling of back to school (tho now that I’m an adult I don’t have summer it still feels like a back from summer vacation mode). Even more bittersweet at time passing, it’s officially one year since we started the KPC blogs! And so let’s get started with this month’s recap on August -- Stephanie

 

Lifestyle:

Every two weeks of August seemed to be a change in lifestyle to be honest! My first two weeks were probably the best, I had just been announced of a conversion and promotion, I was really enjoying working with the intern, loved going to Yoga after work and I had 3 free classes for the first 2 weeks of Aug, and I was feeling like I was back up to pace with life before July’s trip to Hawaii. The next two weeks were a bit more difficult, which I will share in the lows section, but overall August was a good month. Not the best month, not without lows, but a decently good month!


In my personal life, every weekend my family would try to implement some form of longer distance driving where I would take the lead on driving us to cities nearby but outside of SF. It was a fun practice and I felt like I got the chance to spend quality family time while exploring new places. I’ve never really driven consistently/regularly since I got my license, and even though this is just once a week, I am getting there..! Hopefully someday soon I can get my dads trust and my own trust in myself. Additionally with every drive we shortly drop by my grandparents since their place is on the way from the freeway, and it has been a highlight seeing my grandparents even though its just for a few minutes, and seeing them happy to see my parents and my sister and I. Very precious moments I will treasure.


In terms of friendships I was able to catch up with an old friend over hot pot/bbq (which I haven’t went out for since pre-covid 2020!) and some autodesk friends (I also haven’t seen in person since Winter 2019) Just writing out these two incidents and ‘the last time’ prior (literally over 1.5 years) feels soooo weird to say. But also even weirder to admit that it literally does not feel like that long of a time. Oh yeah, I also had the chance to do my first in person fundraising event for one of the orgs I volunteer for, and was able to meet some people I’ve only ever-zoom’d. This event was at a location in SF I don’t really visit and wow I realized how privileged I am and really stayed in my safe neighborhoods bubble since covid. For the first time in a long time, I felt like the streets were dangerous / scared and that really showed me how sheltered I’ve kept myself in only venturing to safe districts.


And lastly (but not importantly lol) I decided to give meeting people and Hinge a try. Haha not that I was ever against it, I was also just never that interested and wanted to just meet people in organic settings and if things happen, they happen. Anyway for August, I decided to match with someone and carry on a conversation (literally typing essays on the regular wtf lol) and meet this person virtually. All of which I haven’t done before, and I am glad I gave it a try and got the experience. As for where I’m at with this person now, I don’t think I’m ready to jump into anything, but it was cool to have met someone and have had these convos!


 

Lows:


1. A new change in lifestyle with new management

In full disclaimer (tho who am I even trying to explain myself to here lol), I do think its a good thing we hired a new Leadership role for my team because the VP is way too busy to guide all our teams nor has the direct expertise in every sub-team. However, with new management takes adjusting. And I felt like when the new Leader who joined mid-August, she just went straight to questioning and changing up a ton of the way we do things and asking a lot. I am not saying this is bad but I wish she tried to understand our current lay of land first, and step by step make changes instead of massive blasts at once. Maybe I am overthinking it. Anyway with her sudden leadership and changes and demands, that led to me working much later each day. When I first started my role I was working late each day, then midway and especially the Stephanie at the beginning of August, I felt like I finally had a good balance and grip of work-life balance each month, though now here I am back at square 1 lol. This low also bled into my personal life as I would just end late each day (and still not finish everything) and would fall asleep easily (literally while sitting up on the couch lol), replying later, going on walks later, and basically everything getting pushed back. Hopefully this changes soon as I get the hang of her new leadership over time.


2. Covid scare

Another low was that my friend Ashley, who always gets tested and always gets negative, tested positive for covid. We hang out a lot because she lives so near, and I really didn’t expect her to test positive because she always gets a negative test result and she’s fully vaccinated. We hung out per usual before her results came, and then I get a text from her that she got positive … and we hangout and shared food the day before … so then there was this whole scare and I definitely don’t want to give it to my family. Long story short, I ended up getting a Walgreens test kit (very convenient I must say) and tested, and got negative (wooh bless!). Though I still feel very bad for Ashley for getting positive and hopes she gets better soon.

 

Lessons:


1. At the start of each month, take a look through your camera roll, emails, or documents for the past month

  1. This was such a good practice to do while I was writing this blog post. While I am at the later half of August where things aren’t so sunny as the beginning, taking a look at my camera, email, and document history for the month shows me all that went on. Photos, showed me all the fun times or yummy food I was able to have this month. Emails and documents (my personal email and docs lol not work) showed me how August was still a month of growth. I think its so easy to feel stagnant when results aren’t clear cut. I had hoped to join some sort of professional community or continue interviewing like July pre-Hawaii, neither happened. Though I look at my past files and emails and I get to see and remember that I did get to meet cool people this month, our conversations, and even re-connecting with my college TA Camille!

[here is a random image I found while scrolling through my phone for the month lol an awesome quote I snapped my friends when I was at the lockers at Corepower yoga haha!]

2. It’s not a bad life, just a bad day

  1. This kind of ties with my lesson above, just putting things into perspective. I remember last week I was having a bad day at work and personally, and then I had a call scheduled with a old mentor of mine. I didn’t want to cancel on her since we set this date months ago, but I also didn’t want to bring in the sad energy from the day. So I was honest and told her today aint the best (I do feel a bit more comfortable with her at this point since I’ve known her for a while) and I told her I also wrote a list of good things that did happen lately since we last chatted lol that reminds me that even tho today is bad, I shouldn’t judge one day (one datapoint) that everything is bad. We laughed this off lol and it was a really good chat! Which I guess brings it back to this lesson, we should be empathetic towards our days too? One bad day (or more) is still just a couple datapoints, its not representative of your whole life and let’s not be too quick to judge! It’s just a bad day, not a bad life, and I can’t wait for what life has to offer next in the future :)

3. Sometimes it’s better to just do things alone

  1. I remember in my last post I wrote that I was doing a lot of things alone, and while scary at first, it helped me grow as a person a lot. Well this month I actually invited a friend to an event and she was down, but throughout the event she wasn’t having a good time and wanted to leave. This taught me that next time, I should double check if people really want to go to an event with me or if they’re just being kind, because she didn’t have a good time and I also didn’t have a good time watching her not have a good time.

 

My pick of the month: Postcard from Joyce

Okay in all honesty I actually didn’t even get postcard until the end of August lol so idk if it truly represents my whole month. BUT this was too cute (and meaningful) to not find a place to post it, so enjoy, and thank you Joyce :) I met Joyce back in Manchester and now that we’re both back at our home country, we started sending each other postcards each time we go somewhere, and it was just a nice surprise in the mailbox :)


[here's the front of the postcard, Joyce didn't travel out but just wanted to send over a message, how thoughtful!]


Strangely, I am not as scared as I thought I would be now that September is here. Though do I like September? I still prefer Spring and Summer months lol but time must go on. So I’ll embrace it and see what comes next for me this month. Wishing everyone a Happy September and start to Fall!


Until October,

Stephanie


 

Mixes I've been listening to this month:

^how fitting is this last mix's title that I was unconsciously listening to it on repeat during the last months of summer lol


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