I left my job 2 months ago and I’ve been exploring the world around me. Here’s what I’ve been up to!

  • Health
    • I’ve done some sort of physical activity every day. This has been a top priority of mine
    • Running – there’s a track nearby that’s been wonderful. I used to run track in high school, and it feels like an old friend. I’ve gotten much faster!
    • Biking
    • Sleeping well!
    • Being kind to myself, and noticing when I’m not
    • Bought a new set of toothbrushes. They’re my new favorite
  • Coliving
    • I’ve been living in a wonderful community for 5 months now
    • Cooking once a week, for 2 hours
    • Made bread for the first time
    • Gardening! I planted seeds for the first time. They haven’t yet flourished, but I have hope.
    • Lots of time hanging out with people and eating dinner with them
      • Breakfasts are often my favorite
    • I also do what I can to help out – cleaning, organizing things, and helping out with a transition to Slack
    • We had an event called “roomwarming” where everyone shows off their room to the house. I made crepes and got the house to play the game Sardines
    • Set up a new router
    • Customized my room to hang my skateboard and bike, and installed shelves
    • Our house got 3 new kittens! I try to see them most days. I sometimes just brush my teeth next to them.
  • Reading a few random magazines, books (I randomly saw a new book by John Krakaur, who’s one of my favorite authors. I wasn’t interested in getting into the gritty details of Mormon Fundamentalism , but the first 20 pages were fascinating.)
  • Podcasts
    • One about the Stethoscope
    • One about how we’re almost able to synthesize fake videos and audio of people. That is, we could take a speech by Obama and change what he says. The implications are pretty terrifying.
    • One about the invention of basketball
    • One about how McDonald’s changed their french fry recipe in 1990, and now makes worse french fries
  • Writing this blog post!
  • Software Design
    • I’ve been learning software design principals from a friend of mine in Boston. Most recently, I put together a design case study of a popular open source repository.
  • I’ve been taking two classes at a nearby college: Programming Languages and Databases
  • Small Tasks
    • Diagnosed the check engine light and SRS light on my car
    • Bought a monitor on craigslist
    • Bought a bike on craigslist (and got locked out of my car, eek)
  • “Fun” things
    • I did a scavenger hunt with some friends.
    • Various house gatherings and parties
    • Catching up with friends
    • Went to my first EDM concert
    • Fountain Hopping
    • Iceland for 10 days
    • White water rafting
    • Burmese food for the first time
    • Various parties and gatherings at friends houses
    • I’m visiting Boston this weekend to hang out with friends! It took a decent amount of planning.
  • I went to my first conference. It was free, and unsurprisingly uninteresting, but there happened to be another really neat medical conference going on right next to it!
  • Learning Adobe Illustrator – about 8 hours in total
  • Art! I used colored pencils for the first time in over 6 years
  • Science Hackathon
  • Visited my friend at a nearby college he’s teaching at
  • Experimenting with coworking – I have a few friends that also don’t have full time jobs, and I’ve been learning what it’s like to work with them
  • Beginning to learn Piano. I’ve practiced on 7 different occasions over the past 2 months (or so my notes say).
  • A group of friends and I have each built our own 6-week curriculum to follow. Mine focused on learning more about jobs. We met once a week to present our progress.
  • I went to a yearly gathering at the Internet Archive
  • Investigating the life of being a software contractor
    • I did 28 hours of contracting for my past company
    • I filled out some profiles to help get matched with other companies
    • I talked to a friend that’s been contracting for 2 years, and has been loving it
  • Things I have purposefully not been doing
    • Reading any kind of political news
    • Reading my facebook news feed (I’ve disabled this for 2.5 years now)