Work
I have continued to do not much work on code-related side projects and such. Life gets in the way. I did spend some (not too much) time writing and outlining, but it has been taking a little bit to get from draft to reality. The bright side is that I have more drafts, fanfic ideas, etc. On the other hand, there’s more WIP stuff and not as much completed stuff. I feel like I shouldn’t start any more things without completing at least 2 WIPs. Need to institute a very strict queue, the way people buy clothes and prevent clutter from building up.
A friend and I were debating alternate income streams, and it’s very clear that we need to get in on this grift thing that most people have been able to pull and get away with over the last decade. A grift is: 1. Something that does not take too much time (upper limit of 30 hours?) 2. Something that gives us an outsized return (maybe $10,000?)
Workshops are a great grift. I would love to be able to charge a corporate groups $600 for a six hour (in person!) workshop on how to build shaders or how to maximise design<>engineering efficiency. But the thing that got us most excited was teaching tech-bros how to keep house. Maybe one day I will write a quick and dirty and put it on gumroad and offer individual consultations to help.
I read Vinay Hiremath’s blogpost on life after money and this brought up the age-old question of what I would do without needing to work. We don’t dream of labour, so what is it that brings about satisfaction? I’ve taken two sabbaticals (one involuntary, but still) and by the end of both I just got back to ~~work~~writing code with increased purpose and vigour. When I think about not needing to work for a living, I think about talking to people to increase their own life satisfaction, or about turning houses into homes. I’m good at making people feel comfortable and safe to be vulnerable. Maybe this means I should go into therapy? Maybe I should go into interior design (and get a masters in Paris or something else equally glamorous)? Twenty-year old Tanvi promised herself she will be what she did not see when she was starting out - a senior engineer who happens to be a woman. It’s hard to not feel beholden to that promise.
Life
This is a regular refrain on this blog at this point, but I’m always so grateful to friends and their ability to casually hang out with me. I have not been sleeping well but on Saturday I went and had lunch and then just napped besides the board game gang. Another time I was working from a cafe alone and ran out of battery on all my devices so Sohom came and rescued me with many chargers. Shruti made me chai and promised me long skirts when I crashed at hers after my own home felt too lonely. My heart is bursting.
A grand-uncle passed, and I did a day trip to Mysore to pay my respects. Grief is a strange thing to be around. My mum says that it’s alright if people don’t show up for celebrations, but we must always show up for the bad times, and now that’s a maxim for me. Funerals are for the living, right? And what better comfort to know that you are not alone in your grief, and that you can rely on your brethren to carry you forward? I was heartened to see that the regular restrictions and compulsory practices that come with any caste-specific ritual had at least lost the gendered aspect of it. My grand-uncle’s daughter and grand-daughter were able to go with the men to the cremation grounds if they wished, which isn’t generally an option for women in my caste location. This is why plurality is so good - other castes don’t have this restriction, so the attitudes towards this practice have slowly changed. When asked if possible, the priest said “Tangel mog bhi dakouch nak ve?” - don’t they [the daughters] deserve to show their love too? - which has always existed, but only just acknowledged. This hasn’t yet happened the other way around though. After the corpse is taken away, the daughter-in-law/daughter(s) of the family are supposed to clean the home (ideally with cow dung) before bathing and putting on the porridge, but you didn’t see the men volunteering. See also how men can’t wear dresses, or women-dominated fields lose value in society.
Health
No headaches or bad pain days this week! Yay! However, I’ve had two more days this week where I have not been able to fall asleep at all, and that’s after I’ve been religious about taking magnesium and omega-3. This means that I have been feeling pretty crappily rested.
This week for my workout I ran instead of doing my regular routine. I learnt that my cardio ability has gone to shit, along with my ability to do scapular pull ups. Also, my left ankle hurt after, in the same place I sprained it in Hong Kong. I discovered two weeks ago that my legs have a slight inward rotation likely to compensate for ankle/knee instability that hampers my ability to do Bulgarian split squats, and it’s probably the same issue at play here. But I don’t want to spend yet more money on health things. When will I be delivered from this cruel experience.
Learning
Mandarin learning has been going fine, but I think I want to move away from Duolingo. They haven’t responded to my many support requests so I can’t pay for my own super or do any voice exercises and I don’t know why. I also discovered that the bird shat on Amber Heard during that media circus of a trial. Vomit. What can I use to continue learning Mandarin that still has an element of every day exercises to it?
I’ve also been attempting to get more familiar with inane JavaScript features I probably won’t think to use in the spirit of knowing my tools and keeping up to date. I found some interview prep type thing online and I’ve just been following it and have allowed myself to fall into rabbit holes - it has been so much fun! And so tiring for my brain. Hopefully this practice will help my brain learn how to learn faster.
Media Diet
Watched
Jennifer’s body: What an iconic movie. I’m so glad it is having its moment of glory and Tumblr finally got on this bandwagon, because it is so deserved! Please give me more horror-comedies. I must say that you should probably watch this in same-gender groups, and you should probably not watch this if you’re a man with a fragile masculinity. Also, go read the fanfiction. There’s lots of it and it’s all excellent.
Reading
- Started and finished reading Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi. Hauntingly beautiful. I enjoyed the unreliable character narration and the mystery of the setting, and also the explorations into what it means to have a self.
- Started reading Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory, but I’ve stopped because of the fantastic content warning at the beginning of the book (more books should do this!) that I want more information about. If you’ve read it already please contact me so I can get answers and move on with this?
- I’m reading Rohin Bhatt’s The Urban Elite vs Union of India for Queer Reads Bangalore this month. I’m only a few chapters in and I really appreciate how accessible it has been for the lay person. It’s also heartbreaking to revisit those dehumanising arguments and that crap judgement again, but we have a long fight to win and I don’t intend to opt out of the struggles of my fellows in this one.
- My particular brand of health struggles means that I’ve been turning to supplements a lot better so it seems only fitting that I started reading Vitamania, which criticises the industry.