Numbers from ~08/22/2017, Notes from 09/04/17
I write these entries as my log of the month past. And I try to write them when I'm in a good or neutral mood. I already have a notebook I write in when I'm so blindingly angry that I can't express what I'm angry about. Writing down my thoughts helps me slow down and recognize what issues I'm pissed about and which are just annoying or extenuating circumstances. The entries here are different. I don't want to reread my personal writing and think I am always a negative person. So I record these entries with a neutral to positive outlook, as an accurate snapshot of my life.
With that being said, the end of August was a sad time for me. I always have my period around that time, on top of that I had a week of being seriously sick with fever, congestion, the whole kit. I took a couple days off of work and only had the energy to collate August numbers. I got a bunch of R&R over this Labor Day weekend and want to backfill my entry.
The dynamics of my team changed last month. My team consists of four developers under my manager: the oldest engineer has been at the company for 5 years, the next oldest who has been here for 4 years, the youngest who joined last summer after doing an internship here, and me who joined in February. The youngest engineer on my team got promoted to Senior Engineer last month. That makes me the only one on my team with the title Engineer. Everyone else is Senior or Staff Engineer. Having my younger peer get promoted a year after joining the company made me feel really bad during the last two weeks of August. I felt like I was stuck in the same place while the world moved forward. It didn't help that my manager estimated I would get promoted next fall when I want to be promoted next spring.
My parents and sister flew in from the east coast and I bought a sofa-bed and coffee table for my living room in preparation. I also borrowed some folding chairs from a friend. The visit went as well as could be hoped given that my sister is a teenager. She and my parents tend to miscommunicate and set off each other's pet peeves. It's a headache when it's happening but funny to think back on. My parents usually speak in our native language which my sister doesn't have a thorough understanding of. One time my mom used an idiom in our native language whose literal English translation is "the time never happened" but which really means "the occasion never came up". My sister thinks my parents are dumb because they speak Indian English and she often corrects their pronunciations to be more American. So my sister starts yelling at my mom, "What do you mean, you had so many weekends of free time!!!". And I had to explain to the teenage know-it-all that she doesn't understand idioms in our native language and that even though the denotation of the word my mom said means one thing, the connotation is another thing entirely. I had to propose that in such a scenario she should always pause and clarify what my mom meant before politely correcting her. I hope my sister becomes more mature in college.
My boyfriend has been busy with his own family, he took them to see all the sights nearby. I had met and liked his sister already, and his parents are good people. We arranged a dinner with both sets of parents and his sister (my sister refused to go when my parents set off her pet peeve). From being around his parents, his perspective of our relationship has gotten more serious. Yesterday he asked me if I wanted to stay at his place for 10 days straight to test drive living together. So we're doing it.
After my parents left, my good friend from undergrad was in town for a business trip. I drove him, his colleague, and I to Monterrey Bay Aquarium. We had a nice time there and stopped at a redwood state park on the way back. His wife later flew in on her own business trip and I got dinner with them and his cousin one evening. One of my mentees flew here for her cousin's wedding and she, her sister, and another mentee who's lived here came to my workplace to get lunch with me. I'm glad I live in a place where people travel and contact me to meet up. It's easier to stay in touch with old friends. One sad thing is the mentee who's lived here accepted a job by Seattle and flew away last week.
Family and relationships aside, there was a lot of spending on the money front. I bought living room furniture, another year of car registration with the DMV, flights to the east coast for my cousin's wedding, and flights to Seoul for an extended vacation over Thanksgiving. I also forgot to pay for my car insurance renewal because I was sick. I just realized I've been driving without car insurance for over a week. I'm kinda too lazy to shop around for a better deal right now so I just paid it for another six months even though they increased the rate by $40 for 6 months. The pld 401k check is still with me but I did end up investing the cash from selling my company stock. I literally bought IXUS with it. |