November 28th, 2015

Maui – part 1

Alright, I edited enough photos to do the first entry! Out of… two or three maybe? I’ll be splitting my Maui trip up, so it’s not terribly long each time 🙂

Day 1 – 11/7

The start of our trip was actually not in Maui. Since we have to fly out from the west coast, we decided to spend a day in San Francisco to see two close friends and also two of my cousins. We arrived in the morning and met up with our friends for lunch before heading to Muir Woods, which is known for redwood trees. Though there were many people near the entrance, we found a longer and less traveled route that let us walk through the park in peace.

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Afterwards, we stopped by Marin Headlands on the way back and saw that there was a beautiful, clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset.

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Then we met with my cousins and their girlfriends for dinner! Two of my cousins moved to San Francisco just this year from New York for work. One of them has been a close friend growing up, and it was so great to see him and catch up 😀

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12 · Posted in Hawaii, Vacation
November 23rd, 2015

Little Happy Things

Lately I’ve noticed that I have been happier. It’s not that I wasn’t before I guess, but I remember feeling very stressed out a few months ago. I think it was mainly being overwhelmed at work and not being fully prepared for my team’s growth. I was mentoring 3 interns, had 4 new hires start around the same time, and was switching to more of a management position.

Don’t get me wrong; I was relieved to have more people! My team definitely needed the help! It took me a few months of trying new things to organize all the chaos. Now we have found what works for us, are working together well, and my team has told me that they really like my management style. Even if my work is still as busy as before… it feels really good now which makes me happy 🙂

And when things feel good, even little things just put me in a very good mood. Some small things that have made me happy…

  • Knowing alternate routes to work and feeling like a car ninja when I take back roads to bypass traffic.
  • Quoting a lesser known movie I love and having people recognize and respond to it. “You use this word? Alcoves?” “Nooks and crannies, yes!”
  • Looking at my work calendar for the day and seeing it free of meetings. (This is a rarity now.)
  • Having people miss me while I was out on vacation and then having them joke that I’m not allowed to leave anymore XD;;
  • Randomly finding Pocky flavors I haven’t tried yet. Did you know there’s a chocolate banana flavor?
  • When my husband has the same food craving as me. “What should we eat tonight?” “I kind of want ramen…” “I was thinking the same thing!”
  • Hanging up new art on the walls.
  • Emptying the vacuum cleaner and seeing how much it picked up. (Ok this is also kind of gross, but it’s satisfying, you know?)
  • When the radio station plays several songs in a row that I like.
  • That last hour in the work day when most people have gone home, and I can do a bit of coding.
  • Post processing my photos and feeling proud of the results. Here’s a preview of what I’ll be sharing in my first Maui entry!

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Are there any small things that have made you happy too? I hope everyone has a great week!

14 · Posted in Random
October 24th, 2015

Project 52, part 9

It’s amazing how behind you can feel after being gone for only a week. It’s short enough where people will wait until you get back to ask or talk to you about something, and it’s long enough that tasks just pile up. So where was I the past week?

10/13-10/16: A few coworkers and I attended the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing, which is a tech conference for women (though men could attend too). There were 12,000 attendees this year, and it looked like about 90% were women. That’s pretty amazing. I’ve been in the Computer Science field for 12 years (4 in school, 8 in industry) and that was my first time surrounded by so many women in tech!

10/17: Even though it was a Saturday, I went to work! We had a group of interns come to our office for internship interviews, and I interviewed four of them.

10/18-10/20: My husband and I flew to West Point, NY and met up with some of his family to bury his paternal grandmother. Both sides of his family were military families that grew up in West Point, and his grandmother wanted to be buried alongside her late husband there. I had the pleasure of meeting her once for our wedding, and hearing stories about how much she meant to everyone made me wish I knew her more. It was a lovely trip though, especially since I hadn’t been in this area of NY in a while. I talk about visiting NYC often, but little known fact: I actually grew up in Poughkeepsie!

And so, I’ve been playing catch-up since I got back. I’m behind on work, reading blogs, and posting about my Project 52. Let’s start with catching up on the last one!

#37 – Greatest Swordsman
This probably looks familiar because I already showed it in my last Favorite Things entry! Like I said in that entry, Zoro is one of my favorite characters, and this is my most recent figure purchase. To make this photo work, I had to get the lighting and camera angle under him. Otherwise, his bandana would cast a shadow over his eyes.

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10 · Posted in Photography, Project 52
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