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[embracing-my-snail-era]

I Want to be Mediocre

As a gifted child, I was always told I was exceptional. I read faster, learned quicker, and comprehended far quicker then my peers.

She's going places.

My life gained a narrative that I was unaware of. The stories and autobiographies you read of inspiring people from humble beginnings. People looked at me and assumed they were witnessing those opening pages.

Everything just comes so naturally to her.

As I grew older and the demands more challenging, I began to struggle. Things stopped just clicking. Yet I knew I couldn't ask for help because I was exceptional. Exceptional people don't struggle. So I hid my troubles. I lied. I never did or took anything I knew would expose me as unexceptional. My world shrank significantly.

She used to be so bright.

The whispers happened slowly, yet never touched the heart of the issue. It was never help offered but criticism. The conclusions were that I was just lazy. Smart but not applying myself.

I became depressed and wouldn't surface for air until a decade later.

Now as a recovering gifted kid, I'm trying to embrace an ordinary mediocre life. To get myself to understand that if my life fades away with a whisper, forgotten to time that it was still a life worth living. That my goal is just to experience each day and the small joys within and share those with close friends and family. That I don't need to amount to anything to create meaning for my life.

I want a mediocre and unassuming life because the one I'm currently striving for has frozen me in place and I want to start moving again.

[embracing-my-snail-era]

Creating Outside a Capitalist Mindset

So this year I want to start doing things for me and not because it could make money or be profitable. A simple goal that is proving to be far more difficult then first anticipated.

I've been like this since I was young. On top of my rampant perfectionism the people in my life always talked about monetizing your talents; and not just in a way of making money but as a marker of legitimacy.

Are you a writer if you self published a book only for yourself?

Are you an artist if your pieces aren't in galleries or on merchandise?

Anytime I started doing something new my first thoughts are how this thing can make me money or how I can be "legitimate" in it. Take dancing for example. I'm currently taking dance classes online through steezy to finally learn how to dance and I'm really enjoying it. Just moving my body and having fun. But I'm only a few weeks in and my mind is already having the following thoughts:

Once you get good enough you should start taking in person dance classes so you can network with other dancers.

Hey, maybe you can start making dances on tiktok and go viral?

If you practice really hard you could join a group or even been a choreographer for [insert famous person here]

And now something that was just once fun is now pressure to do well, to perform at an elite level and profit.

So I sat with that feeling, and I realized I'm afraid of just being mediocre at something. Like if I practice dance for the rest of my life and I only ever reach "Ah she's pretty ok" and my achievements are a few dances at weddings and dancing in my living room, that would somehow be worse then never dancing at all...... That my motivations are for more extrinsic then they should be.

A hard line of thinking to break as my parents were the "if you can't do it well then don't do it at all" type and every hobby I got my parents tried to find a way to show me off. So I learned my hobbies were for others but not for myself.

I want to change this.

I don't have all the answers now but I at least know what I need to work on. Learning to let the joy of doing the activity motivate me and not my perceived level or outside praise.

This year I'm embracing mediocrity.

[embracing-my-snail-era]

Boiling the Ocean

So one thing I have learned from many a new years resolutions now is that my idea of a small project is way to big....

Especially when it comes to my interactive fiction pieces. I come with these multi scene, multi character stories which I get really excited for. I start of really strong! For the first couple of days I'm on it. Coming up with flow and characters. Thinking up cool scenario and I'll even get the opening scene done.

Then a week passes and I only have 10% of the project finished. I realize how much more work there is to go and I start feeling overwhelmed. I then abandon the project and it sits collecting dust in a corner.

This causes a few major problems:

I never learn how to finish a project

I never learn how to edit and revise a project

I never get to explore and grow as I'm only learning how to write intro's over and over again.

Because of this I am now giving myself REALLY small projects. Like one scene and three characters max. In order to get better I NEED the repetition of starting and completing to grow. A hundred terrible finished stories can eventually lead to mediocre stories but a hundred unfinished "perfect" stories leads to nothing.

Here's to small steps and incremental growth in 2023!

[embracing-my-snail-era]

Lock it in a Box

So as mentioned in previous posts, my social media usage has been going up. A few days ago I bought one of those timer lock boxes. I used a few times during work meetings and it has worked well. Then this weekend hit and I told myself "I didn't need to use it outside of work" and I can just put my phone away to focus on things.

Those were lies my friends. This morning I set the timer for three hours put my phone in it and hit start. I had a fantastic morning just chilling, writing, and reading.

It may seem extreme, but dammit it works. Would recommend if your trying to cut down your phone usage.

In the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari he talks about letting present you set things up for when future you may be tempted. Hence the lock box.

[embracing-my-snail-era]

Defeating Perfectionism is a Herculean Effort

So..... the past few days I have been distracted. While I still kept up with a few things I enjoy/am learning such as dance and Japanese on duolingo, my phone usage has been slowly ramping up for the past few days.

The old me would have considered this a total failure of my resolutions, despaired, and given up or double downed and made an impossible schedule to "get back on track" only to give up as I just set myself up for failure.

Thankfully I don't do either of those anymore and have learned to give myself grace but when you defeat one head of perfectionism another aspect of it rears its ugly head.

What I'm dealing with now is what I like to call "things are hard so procrastinate". Basically I'm doing new things and I'm not good at it. Which I acknowledge and don't feel any shame about it; where before I wouldn't even start something if I knew I wouldn't be immediately good at it.

Now though its when I pass the--

"everything's new and shiny and obviously it will be hard as I don't know anything but everyday is forward progress"

into--

"OH DEAR LORD, I now have to build on my knowledge and things are still hard but its now a slog as it takes much longer to see progress and I fear I have plateaued. Will I ever get any better?" stage.

And while I'm not at that stage yet with my learning to dance endeavor. I am there with my language learning and writing.....

Hence "things are hard so procrastinate". Anytime I set aside time to write or practice on Duolingo, like clockwork a few minutes before my set aside time, my phone is out, social media open. I will scroll for hours just to avoid that feeling.

You know the one. Of frustration your not farther along, jealousy of others farther along the journey then you, despair that you won't ever get better, confusion on why you can't just "be good", embarrassment at how amateur you are....... yeah that feeling.

Because of this feeling I have:

Not written a finished interactive fiction piece since 2020

Have not passed the third section in Duolingo Japanese

Have a folder full of half finished story ideas and partially start interactive fiction projects

Restarted the first section of WaniKani at least ten times

Have probably written 1,000 words total all of 2022

So for 2023 I am learning to embrace that feeling. Yes, embrace. Last year I have really been focusing on mindfulness and meditation and one thing that keeps popping up is not avoiding or trying to destroy bad feelings but learning to sit and be with them as an observer and not an intrinsic part of self.

So when that feeling arises it, I acknowledge it, allow myself to feel it, and just continue.

I've spent years running so can't hurt to try a different tactic.

[embracing-my-snail-era]

Let's Dance!

So I love dancing. When I was younger I was obsessed with DDR and would memorize para para routines in my free time. I would also come up with silly dances to songs I really liked. It was fun but I wasn't eh.... rhythmically inclined or coordinated. I would get so frustrated that I never looked like the dancers I saw on tv.

My parents even put me in ballet, tap, and jazz classes up until I was 10. But even then I was always the worst in the class. The comments I always got were "you tried your best!" and I was always put in the back :(

Later on as an adult I started buying the Just Dance games which I loved but cringed at the replays. What I had in my head never matched what my body was actually doing.

I did try learning from youtube tutorials (especially for kpop dances) but I would constantly get frustrated and quite. (Thanks perfectionism)

Fast forward after my latest fitness journey I have been on, this year(2023) I'm shifting focus and going back to a love.

So last year I also signed up for Apple Fitness and have been taking their dance classes on and off. They are basically zumba classes and I always have a BLAST with them.

Although as I moved more to body neutrality I also have moved away from goal based fitness. I'm trying to frame improvement as great but not required.

Don't get me wrong, in the beginning having goals like:

I want to lift more weight

Walk 3 miles in one shot

Hold half moon

Improve output on cycling class

Run for 5 minutes without stopping

Although now I see movement as fun and great for my mental health, improvement is a side effect not the main goal. A tiktoker I follow likes to describe her fitness as adult recess. My new goals look more like:

Do movement that makes me feel joyful

Do movement that helps me manage stress

Do things that make me feel strong

So in 2023 I decided I want to learn how to dance and dance more in general. The difference this time is if at the end of the year I am only marginally better then the beginning then that's fine. As long as I had fun along the way that's most important.

So I signed up for an annual subscription to steezy (use code Welcome30 for a discount) and am taking the intro to dance classes and so far am having so much fun! There zumba/dance sweat classes are a ton of fun. There is a ton of free classes too (you just need to make an account) and the first class of intro to dance is one of them! :)

I also plan to record myself once a month for my own personal satisfaction. Not to measure progress but a documentation of my journey. Looking forward to grooving in 2023!

[embracing-my-snail-era]

Movement and Fitness

tw: diet culture, ed

So, my relationship with fitness and exercise have been... interesting.

Growing up I never saw myself as athletic. I was the kid that read books during recess and I never really did any sports.

In my college years I really got into Kpop and wanted to look like my favorite idols. Grant it, I was already very thin but want "long lean lines" so I started eating even less then the dismal amount I ate and started doing pilates and yoga on youtube. I think I was doing the blogilates challenges at the time. Although it never lasted long. I would have two weeks of being "consistent" and then not do anything for months.

This went on for years where I barely ate and occasionally did yoga or pilates. Also when I did eat I made sure it was always "healthy, organic, natural, low carb" etc.

Overtime I started doing yoga more for the mindfulness of it. In my mid 20's I really got into hot yoga. It was a great stress reliever, but I still wasn't eating very much and I still saw movement as a means to burn calories.

Then the pandemic hit. I was at least doing hot yoga (albeit slower paced) twice a week prior to the pandemic shutdown. Then the studio closed and I switched to working from home and didn't move at all for almost a year. I think I was averaging 500 steps a day. Any fitness I had been maintaining prior was all out the window now.

Then in May 2021, I woke up with a pain in my stomach worse then anything I had felt before and I have had some debilitating cramps before..... When I got to the hospital there wasn't any clear cause but they proposed my lack of movement and barely eating was causing damage to my digestion..... The pain subsided when I had food and walked around at the hospital. After that I realized I had to make some changes. So..... the next month, I bought a peloton XD

As for diet I did a deep dive into nutrition and eating and found the AMAZING Abbey Sharp and Elaina Efird on youtube. Actual registered dietitians giving good quality advice. I started getting into intuitive eating. Although in the beginning I had to still track to make sure I was getting enough as prior I was getting around 1,000 calories a day and now was shooting for at least 2,000.

Then the peloton effect. So one great thing about the platform is the don't talk about diet culture at all. Its all about joyful movement, getting stronger, doing hard things, and having fun. It was such a mindset shift. I went from wanting to stay super thing to wanting to be strong and do cool things. I ended up buying the peloton tread six months after the bike.

Although it was a reality check. When I first got sucked into the peloton world in June 2020 my fitness stats were:

Could only lift 5 pound weights and barely do a dead-lift with 10 pound weights (peloton has strength classes on the app)

Longest I could last was a 15 min cycling class where I had to stop and catch my breath halfway through.

Standing for longer then 5 minutes made me lightheaded.

Couldn't hold a plank on my knees or do one push on my knees

I had 0 core strength

Walking longer then 5 minutes left me winded.

I was at least semi flexible thanks to all the yoga......

I was objectively very weak......

A year and a half later I can:

Use 15/20 pound weights for upper body and 30/40 pound weights for lower body.

I can do 5 full pushups and hold a plank for 90 seconds

I can stand for long periods of time without getting light headed

I can do 45 minute cycling classes and have done hour long cycling sessions.

I have a strong core!

I can go hiking with my friends and keep up! I've also taken hour long hiking classes on my tread :)

I'm more flexible and can now do crow, half moon, and warrior 3 in yoga!

I put on weight and muscle and although I'm no longer "societal thin" I feel so much better in my body and have adopted a body neutral stance. I care what my body can do and not what it looks like.

I feel so strong now!

But in 2023 I have a new fitness focus and an evolved relationship which I will talk about in my next post!

[embracing-my-snail-era]

The Elephant Shaped iPhone

So this year as I stated previously I want to be more mindful and present as well as engage in more slow paced activities. Currently my biggest obstacle to that is my phone. Looking at the screen time in the last year, I spend about 2 hours of each week day on social media and 5 hours total on my phone. The weekends look even worse with about 5 hours of social media and 10 hours total on my phone....

This is actually an improvement from 2021 where I was on social media on average 4 hours each day and sometimes basically all day on weekends. I made the shift by using opal, which is an app that blocks you from using apps. Its far more strict then iphones built in screen time restrictions.

My current goal is to reduce my time on social media to about 30 minutes a day and also reduce the number of pickups(currently averaging 100 a day). I'm currently reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and in it says the every pickup or ding can break focus and it can take upwards to 20 minutes to refocus. Even having it in the same room can cause distractions.

So I bought one of those timer lock boxes to put it in. It gets here Friday and hopefully that will help break the urge to use my phone. Until then a drawer in another room will have to suffice.

[embracing-my-snail-era]

New Direction

So disclaimer, any posts prior to this one were made back around 2016. Back then the goal of this blog was a studyblr and computer science focused tumblr.

I didn’t want to start a new blog as I want to preserve the history here. Honestly at this point this blog is like a time capsule and coming back to is eight years later has been quite fun. I am now a software engineer at a job I love and have learned more about myself in the past few years then any other time in my life. I don’t have SAD I realized but ADHD/Autism and my new goal in life for 2023 is to focus on being present and slowing down. So from this post on that is what the focus will be about. Rekindling lost hobbies and prioritizing a slow life. Thanks!

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DarkSkin + 4C Hair

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Udacity Nanodegree

So I’m doing the Android Basic Nanodegree program. Will keep you posted on my progress and what I think about it. So far so good. I like how they divide the lessons into small chunks.

The jokes are corny but eh, can’t be perfect. So far it's a lot of “watch this video, take this quiz, now experiment with this code that you just learned” 

I’m looking forward to my first project though!

[embracing-my-snail-era]

Went to see Hidden Figures last night

Really really good!!!!!! I bought the book this morning, it will be my first book for my read 50 books this year challenge. Honestly, it was really nice to see a positive historical movie about black peeps that doesn’t put us as slaves. I left feeling excited and inspired.

[embracing-my-snail-era]

Hidden Figures (2016) directed by Theodore Melfi  

“Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation…” 

Poster design by Gravillis Inc.

Get the book here

[Follow SuperheroesInColor faceb / instag / twitter / tumblr / pinterest]

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Goal for 2017

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TIME MANAGEMENT STUFF / TERM 7 

I’ve got a lot of questions about this during my Art Center time, so I drew it ! This system came from when I had to manage my time during art high school (8am-5pm everyday) with 2 waitress jobs. Everybody has different working method, but I will be more than happy if anyone gets new idea from it ! 

[embracing-my-snail-era]

millennial dreams: to have enough money for a 1 bedroom apartment, bills, and groceries. 

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