NaNoWriMo Day 1: State of Limbo

NaNoWriMo is something that I always want to commit to. Back in the olden days (like 4 years back), I actually wrote about 30,000 words of fanfiction in November 2013. I used to wake up at 4 am to talk to my friend in Greece, and we used to write together till it was time for me to get ready for school.

However, times have changed, I read more than I write, and I don’t have the free time that undergrad promised me I would have for the rest of my life. So, no, you’re not getting trashy Glee fanfiction which can be used as fodder for burning fires this winter. (Yes, I’m stretching this metaphor. Yes, I know it’s shitty. It’s also my blog.)

Instead, this is the first of 30 wlogs (like vlogs, but w - because I’m writing, not recording a video) of the next 30 days. In these days, I plan on documenting my thoughts and experiences each day, and trying to get something unique each time. This month (spoiler alert) is going to be more eventful, so I think it’s a sign that this was meant to be.

If you are in this with me, you can follow my blog (look to your right), and kick my butt if I’m not posting every day this month. I promise to be slightly entertaining, and give you my opinions on shows and music if I have nothing interesting for that day.

Day 1: I’m in a state of limbo

Starting off with something that will flow through the story of this entire month, I have a full time job starting this month, that starts with me moving all my belongings (mostly baking appliances, fandom merch, and some clothes) and my lack of social life to a small town called Ann Arbor, MI.

It’s difficult in a way, because I’ve gotten used to the binary weather attitude that comes with living in Texas. I love to talk about how I have a hoodie, a beanie, an umbrella, a pair of sunglasses, and a cap, since the weather here goes from 8 degrees in the morning to 30 degrees in the afternoon when I regret my whole life. I’m instead moving to a place where it’s so cold that you walk to your work in minus 30 degrees and it’s considered normal. I’m suing someone. I’m not sure who, but I am going to do it.

This leads to my every day life being slightly off, since I’m currently finishing up my internship. It’s hard to be completely focused on work, when you know you have less than 10 days left to work there.

Yet, I persevere (with a flair of the dramatic) to make sure my code is completely documented, because who wants to be that horrible person who leaves with garbage code mixed in with the actual code for the next person to find? Not me in my thesis project (shhhhhh).

I like to make small talk with some friendly coworkers during the day, which led to an observation. Poor K (I’m not mentioning names because I’m not sure if they’ll be comfortable with it). K is a lovely person who is always positive and super nice. They’re also a non-tech person, thus needing some help with computer issues. Being the completely benevolent person (read: doormat) that I am, I offered to help. And this is when I realized:

I suck at explaining tech things to non-tech people.

I’m sure this can be translated to other issues directly. But, in this case, I took about 3 minutes to explain something. It went something like this:

Me: So, do you know this thing?

K: … No?

Me: Okay, so if the resolution is low, making the size larger will not help with the blur issue

K:  …resolution? Yes, I don’t want blurred images.

Me: Oh, so you need a larger resolution like 1710x980, I mean, wait, I don’t know the exact numbers… haha, I’m a tech person and I don’t know the numbers…

K: … (HELP)

I ended by showing a picture example and explaining it in a simpler way.

I think I’m just slightly sheltered in terms of explaining such things since I either talk about it to CS people who know the same/more than me, or my mum, but she understands most of what I say as well. It’s something I feel like I should work on, because I’m sure K didn’t feel that way, but I don’t want to condescend to anyone even by mistake.

I also realized that the introvert part of my ambivert self kicking in at work is never a good thing. A new person started working today and introduced themselves to me, and I got super awkward, because I did not have my ten lines of small talk ready in my head to use at the person.

Similarly, I was in the break room, heating up my lunch, when a supervisor walked in. I made 90 seconds of awkward small talk, and rushed out of there.

I’m not sure if it’s something that you grow into, once you’ve spent enough time around other people. I wonder if there’s a way to kick-start yourself into being the happy, outgoing version of yourself all the time, even when all you want to do is just want to listen to a shuffled playlist of Muse as you try to fix bugs. (I am open to suggestions, people!)

Today ended slightly stressfully. I had a plan, a plan to find the best flight that would cost only my arm and not my leg to visit home. Did you know there’s a time period in the day when the available seats are not updated on the site, and so you’re left filling in your credit card details and your phone number and your sister’s phone number and your second cousin’s dog’s name only to find out that it didn’t go through?

I need vodka (Kidding.)

Calling a representative slightly helped even though Millenials? Making Phone calls? because the seats weren’t turning up on her end either, which made me feel, hey, if I’m not booking a flight, at least nobody else can do it either. (I know that doesn’t work if they chose another flight or something along those lines. Let me live my delusions.)

I will say that having a job in hand means I’m not applying to a dozen companies every day anymore (Utsav, if you’re reading this, this reference is for you <3) and I am happy for that. I can nap for about an hour at 7 pm and write a blog article at 11 in the night and it’s okay for me to not revise how to code a binary tree in Python, Java, and C#.

I usually like to end my blogs with a song that I’m listening to. I’ve been listening to my study playlist while writing this, to be honest, and none of the songs stuck out (apart from American Pie by Don McLean). But, I will leave you with this song, because Alt-J is coming to Dallas in two weeks and I can’t go see them because I’ll be busy with packing up my whole life.

Leave me a comment (Constructive criticism, remarks, memes, opinions for future posts, everything is welcome!)

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