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I can’t believe summer is just passing by and we’re already midway into the season. Time go by just a bit slower so I can stop and stay for a lil while but not a long while. I hope everyone had a wonderful June, and if anyone is reading this right now, feel free to drop us a note on how your month went by. June was a month of learning and getting out of my comfort zone, so let’s get right into it. -- Stephanie
Lifestyle
I said this last month but, June was my third month of my new job and yes it did go by even faster than the previous. All in all, I’ve really been enjoying it. From the environment, day to day, culture, and the people. I feel so thankful to be in this mindset with work because it wasn’t always this way. I was always a firm believer that things can get better with time, but the headspace I am in now has exceeded my expectations and I am so thankful to be here. I still remember at how anxious I once was with little work life balance, and now I get to live life doing work that I enjoy but also carefree when spending time with friends and family. My new job also unexpectedly taught me to get out of my comfort zone, learn and grow in aspects outside of day to day work. One notable event was in the beginning of June I had to visit my company HQ in SJ for the first time. It’s funny a few months leading up to it I was so anxious about how am I going to get there (caltrain ~ 2 hours one way / 4 hours round trip, on a strict schedule but safe -- or -- drive out of sf alone for the first time, ~1.5 hr one way/3 hours round trip, flexible schedule but bad traffic and not as safe) because there really was no option that was better than the other. Maybe it’s because I learned to drive in my later teens, or that I overthink easily and get anxious, or that I grew up with my mom who’s an extreme overthinker and high anxiety -- but deciding to drive was not a no brainer for me. In the end I actually couldn’t decide, so I asked my dad to decide for me and he told me to just drive. And so I did it and as anxious as I once was, maybe it was his trust in me to make that decision for me, gave me the courage to do it and have a pretty calm/chill time most of the drive to and back. I quite enjoyed my me time with music. I’ve been licensed for so many years, driven to SJ numerous times, but I really don’t think had it not been for my new job with HQ at SJ, I would have never been put in a situation that forced me to do the drive out to SJ alone. And it really was pivotal! Not just for this one event, but it is what gave me the courage to drive my dad to SFO and pick him up from SFO, to drive my family around while my dad was out (I wasn’t planning on driving them around town while my dad was out but somehow I felt okay). And then to drive myself to our SF office at the end of June, I usually bus to this office because its still in SF and its not terribly far that I would think of driving, but I still need to switch two buses and it takes me 50min-1hour which I find kinda annoying on cold days so I drove myself to work in the SF office for the first time lol. Which I think in hindsight I am glad I did because I then realized I had a foot infection that day and it was painful to walk (tmi lol). This bleeds into my personal lifestyle this month which I’ll start in the next paragraph.
So not only am I anxious about driving myself, I am also anxious about driving other people because I feel responsible for their lives, but this month I drove a friend I’ve never drive before, to a place I’ve never driven to before either lol. We went to visit our mutual friend in the Marin county and had a whole day escaping the city life. Tbh growing up my family wasn’t the biggest fan of nature, suburbs, and small towns -- but I very much enjoyed hiking, visiting small beach towns and suburbs, and watching the sunset with my friends that day. There’s so much nature has to offer us that you just have to see live in person. Going up a high mountain without a clear trail anymore also shoved right in my face how little experience I have with this lifestyle lol! I’ve always gone on clear trails and was afraid of going downhill vs uphill, for some reason I feel like I start to lose my grounding when I go downhill. And my friends were so fast and here I was clinging on to dear life as I tried to go down lol. Being in nature shows me how much I’ve yet to see of it. In many ways, this really was a month of doing things I usually wouldn’t do. More onto the personal side of life, I usually never go out on weekdays but I had a friend flying in and tuesday night was her only day free so I ended up busing from my residential area to downtown sf and back at 10pm which is early to others but very late for me on a tuesday lol. When we caught up, it was like hours just became minutes. I was also able to catch up with my friend Diana one last time before she left and I kinda wish I was a better friend to have made more hangouts happen, but this one was with a couple friends of hers that were all in med/lab/ucsf so I felt kinda out of place but did not want to back out so I told myself to go anyways. It went well! I did feel awkward in the beginning when everyone kept talking about all things med/ucsf but I found a way to join the convo and I am glad I ended up going -- while I didn’t know at the time, it was the last time I was able to see Diana before fly back this past week. You know what I think my Lifestyle section might just end up taking up all of my journey entry space for this month lol, but one more thing I wanted to highlight on Lifestyle is that June was the month of being a TikTok creator for me. I’ve always only been an observer, but June was when I really started to make videos (like at a regular weekly basis) on TikTok. I did not see this coming y’all. But I very much have been enjoying creating low stakes quick videos to document bits of my life to look back on.
Lows
Thought and Reality of people leaving
The only truly low I can recall was both the thought and reality of people leaving at work, because life is full of change. Someone I wasn’t that close to in my team left this month, along with someone in an adjacent team. People switch jobs all the time and I usually don’t get too attached, but I’ve been getting along with my manager and a couple people very well on my new team that the thought of them leaving made me sad because I know one day that day will come. This exceeded my own expectations because I’ve always seen work relationships mostly as just work. Even if that day ends up coming extremely soon (though I hope it does not come for a while), I will always be thankful for the few months I got to have come across and work with these amazing people.
Low/Lesson
Including Others
This is both a low and a lesson, where earlier in the month a friend invited me to hangout and she was someone I met where we both were in the same friend group. Another person (not in our og group) was also invited to this hangout and I wasn’t the organizer, so I wasn’t sure if I should invite a third girl who was actually in the og group. It made me feel so bad and guilty that she wasn’t yet invited but since I wasn’t the organizer I also didn’t know what to do … Then later on that third girl asked me to hangout and I couldn’t keep it from her so I ended up inviting her, …and I am so glad I did! We talked for hours and ended up connecting more after the larger hangout was over. I feel bad thinking she didn’t get an initial invite and why didn’t I act faster. This was an eye opening lesson to me to always include others. It must suck to feel excluded because I know when I would feel sad if people I knew in the same group hung out without giving me an invite. I wish I acted sooner and will always include others when I can.
My pick of the month: Stranger Things
I am probably one of the later people to have started watching Stranger Things Tbh! But the month of June was a month of starting season 1 and finishing season 4 :0. I kid you not I spent about 3 weeks watching this almost daily b2b. I was feeling iffy in the beginning but I ended up getting hooked! Y’all got to watch it if you haven’t already.
This all started when I attended a virtual happy hour with co workers. I’m never the biggest fan of attending these because I never know what to say and I’m not the best at sharing about myself. But in one session I attended, we were talking about this new Stranger Things experience that opened in SF and my coworker kept raving about how good Stranger Things is and how I have to watch it if I’m into horror/scary shows. So I decided to check out what htis hype was all about and tbh the first few episodes didn’t really grab me. But somehow the more I watched the more I wanted to find out more. I think it was at Season 3 where I truly felt hooked (it’s also my favorite season). There’s so much I can say about this show so I will just end it with go watch it because there’s really something for everyone. Unlike other shows I’ve watched where each season seems messier and less thought out (and possibly even worse than the previous season), with Stranger Things I felt like everything was so well thought out, the production was so well done, and I think each season just got better and better. Anyway now I can’t wait for season 5 whenever that comes out so do let me know your thoughts if you’ve watched Stranger Things too!
June was another month of being happy and thankful for so much life has to offer me and I want to thank you all for being here for it. I always go into these entries a bit lazy to write but I somehow always end up getting into the mood and coming out with a whole essay of a journey entry -- I hope you all like it as I had a good time reflecting when writing this. July kind of scares me because it will be Fall soon and I usually get sad around the colder months. But I’m trying to learn to stop being sad/scared for something that’s not even here yet and to enjoy the moment I have now instead of being sad/scared early because the time will come for that when it does. Enjoy summer and have a wonderful July everyone!
Cheers until August,
Stephanie
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