Diary of a Workaholic...

Dear diary,

It's Monday again 😢. But at least today I work from home and I heard good news. Some of my colleagues and house occupants seem to have recovered from COVID.

However, work was quite hectic today. The data pipeline that was completely broken last weekend? Well, I basically deduced from my script that it is technically impossible to fix. I have to find other ways to recreate the pipeline. On another project, one of the new interns seem incapable of performing his job. He constantly requested a call with me and sometimes even asked me to do his job. Today he sent an email to one of the chief officers, in which he basically told the chief that I was supposed to send an additional data to him; he emphasized that this was why the number of leads he was going to contact is too small. Incompetence is something that I can occasionally tolerate, but shifting blame seems too much. What did I do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I'm going to resign anyway, right? Hahaha. But during my workout this early evening, the chief called me and said to me he knew that I already did my job correctly. He instructed me to reply to the email, explaining that my job was perfectly adequate so as not to send the wrong impression to everyone copied in that email. So, that's what I did until around 9pm.

Afterwards, I took a brief but relaxing shower. Nothing beats cold shower at night. It just takes away all the exhaustion from work, sore muscle from workout and replenishes your energy. Then I returned to my desk and practiced a few questions for my certification. I think I did OK. But apparently doing OK was not good enough to pass it. I plan to do great before my retry exam in August

Between works and prep for certification, I had some time to enjoy pre-workout coffee and dinner with both of my parents. As a result, I also had some time to think about life. As you know, I've just begun an intermittent fasting and flexitarian diet. The latter diet has basically switched most of my nutrition sources to plant-based food. Today, I ate unusually large amount of chicken meat and, for some reason, I felt terribly guilty for that. I guess, I remembered one of the drawings in Breakfast of Champions, in which Vonnegut explained about fried chicken in a very literal manner. He has one drawing of an alive chicken and another drawing of a cardboard bucket full of chicken drumsticks KFC style. One of the passages also explained how the first becomes the second. Then I thought about the lives of those poor chickens who were slaughtered for food, whose eater sometimes takes for granted and/or wasted. I think most people will be able to feel more compassion for farm animals once they are required to slaughter those animals by themselves. This experience made me reflect and consider being a full-fledged vegetarian. First, I feel that it is a more compassionate way of life and, second, it's probably easier to lose weight with that diet. I'll admit this will be difficult since both of my parents like meat and probably do not think too much about the journey of that meat to the dinner table.

That's a reflection for the day. I'm now going to begin my downtime and prepare for sleep. Tomorrow, we fight again.

Best regards,

Bright (and Pensive) Penguin

Things I'm grateful for today: (1) I found a new recipe for coffee: coffee, milk, white sugar, brown sugar, ginger and a dash of unsweetened soymilk, (2) I was able to feel calm throughout the day despite unmanageable workload piling up on me, and; (3) I conquered my fear of starting again in my certification test prep and proceeded to do practice problems after work.

Dear diary,

Both my upper arms and upper back are sore today. I guess that means I worked out correctly yesterday and the day before. Somehow I feel good even though my body is a bit painful to move today.

At work, I was invited to two impromptu meetings today. I was not sure why I was suddenly invited, but to be honest, I did not really like this. After lunch, I expected to have a more quiet day when I can code without distraction -- but it turned out there were these two meetings. To worsen the situation, I felt that I was not needed in that meeting; I did not see a clear reason why I needed to be there. A better use of my time would be to continue coding my new data pipeline, build dashboard, and (especially) to find new job or study for my certification.

Speaking of which, I've just studied for my certification for about two hours. I think I understand most of what I read, but I feel afraid that the sheer volume of the materials is not something I can digest in a few months. I will have to estimate how much I can digest given the time -- but I guess I'll do this tomorrow.

Lunch and dinner have been excellent today. I ate curried vegetables and curried boiled egg for lunch today and curries are just my favorites. As if two curries a day are not enough, I also ate curry for dinner. To top it off, these curries are vegetarian-friendly (as far as I know), so it fits with my newly-adopted philosophy and my diet.

Just so you know, dear diary, I've been trying to instill a new good habit into my own life: mindfulness meditation -- but this is difficult. I would find many excuses not to meditate, such as to believe that reading book would be more useful or and extra 15 minutes of sleep is more valuable. But for some reason I feel drawn to this idea of mindfulness. I just can't seem to find the time and/or justification to do it consistently.

Tomorrow is Friday and that means tomorrow is going to be good. I'll go to a shopping mall on Saturday to purchase a new laptop. I hope the laptop I'm seeking will be available.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Things I'm grateful for: (1) curries!; (2) great HIIT cardio session early this evening, and; (3) I squashed my desire to procrastinate and was able to study effectively for my certification.

p.s. Hey secret upvoter (Fervent Flame), this message is for you. I saw that you are no longer on this site. Thanks so much for reading my diary and for your upvotes. I wish I can get to know you as much as you've gotten to know me. Do let me know if you plan to create diary entries of your own. In any case, I wish you all the best things in life!

Dear diary,

It's been a long time since we talked. I've been quite busy these past few days. In fact, I think I was struggling to keep up with things at work and at home. But I have so many interesting things to tell you.

Last Saturday, I finally purchased a new laptop. I really like it! It is much better than the previous laptop I had, but for some reason I still feel fondness for my old laptop. Obviously I am also very excited to be using the new laptop. For the past few days, I've just been copying the files and installing programs that I need in this new laptop. This is one factor why it's been difficult to keep up with my study for the certification exam and my job interview. But this is a problem I'm happy to have. It's better to be busy with these things than to have nothing to do.

My workload also has broken a new record. As of today, I have 9 ongoing tasks that no one can help me with! No wonder this happened. In the new project I was assigned, I'm the only person in the data team. No doubt this is exciting, considering that I get to learn so many different stuff. But I feel taken advantage of by my employer. They should have hired at least 1 person to help me.

I also spent some time to study for my certification exam today. I read some passages from the textbooks and then did some practice questions. Unfortunately I did not do well on the practice questions 😭. I need to do better next time. Additionally, I got a new mock interview partner last Sunday. He just began his prep 3 weeks ago, but doing good already! I'm excited to practice again this Sunday. I need to prepare some interview questions, but it's difficult to find the time.

I guess, that's it from me today. Cheers, dear diary.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Things I'm grateful for today: (1) Found a band I heard and forgot a long time ago: Great Good Fine OK. It's like having an annoying itch finally being scratched, (2) effective workout today, must remember: slow negative movement, rapid positive movement, and (3) Twin Peaks The Return. I'm gonna watch the 3rd episode tonight!

Dear diary,

I woke up in a funk today. For some reason, I felt emotionally numb this morning. I guess it was partially because I finished most of my work this week yesterday -- and thus I did not have much to do at work today. Another factor may be the recent happening in the border of Ukraine that made me feel frustrated. (More about this later).

As I was saying, I found out about Great Good Fine OK a few days ago and I watched its new music video So Far So Good last night. I really like the video with its sunny background and a couple dancing together. It somehow made me want to be in a relationship with a woman I genuinely love -- whom I have not met. There was also an urgent email I received last night, but did not see until this morning and did not reply at all. It was another bureaucratic move by my former boss to hinder my career. I have no interest whatsoever in responding. It made me realize that I'm somewhat stuck on my career at least until June where I can get an interview with my dream company. It brought another realization that I do not have anyone to turn to. No girlfriend, no best friend and I'm not that close with my parents or sister too. I've never told my deepest aspiration and fear to them or to anyone else, to be honest. Is it possible to be happy then with this current state of things? I don't know. This contemplation made me emotionally numb this morning.

There were a few meetings I had to attend during the day and some additional work for next week that I start doing today. Throughout all of this, I thought about what happens in Ukraine. I thought about all the families torn apart and homes destroyed due to politicians' greed. I sympathize with all the Ukrainians' soldiers, civilians as well as their Russian counterparts who may also be impacted by this. People can talk about justice all they want, but the reality is the strong conquers the weak -- and unfortunately sometimes the strong is not just. I really want to help the Ukrainians defend their homes.

After a few days of no practice, I had a self mock interview just before this. Made a few careless errors which could have been avoided, but that's OK. Overall, I performed quite strongly I think. Afterwards, I opened up my learning ecosystem for the certification exam, but I have no energy left to study. So I closed it again.

Coming back to my reflection today. Sometimes I wonder if it is right to be happy in a world that is less than ideal like this one. Should one be happy in a place where injustice prevails? That sounds delusional to me. I also read about a gruesome murder case in Pakistan today and I felt indignant by this. Why are people so bad to each other? Why do some of them can go unpunished after doing what they've done? Today I felt really frustrated by everything that happens out there as well as my current situation. I feel that I have no one to talk to and I sense vaguely that I may never meet a woman that I can truly love. She is just a figment of my imagination, conjured up by youthful idealism that will be soon extinguished by harsh reality. I feel that I'm not ready for a real relationship.

My apologies for the rant. I feel that my thoughts are all over the place today. I just need someone to vent, but you're the only one here who can listen to me without being judgemental.

Best regards,

Bright (and Lonely) Penguin

Things I'm grateful today: (1) vigorous jump-rope HIIT early this evening, (2) great vegetarian lunch and dinner, and (3) some time to reflect despite the relatively hectic day today.

Dear diary,

I can't stop thinking about Ukraine today. I fear for the lives of the Ukrainian people -- and the Russian people who are involved in this. At work, I kept trying to watch President Zelenskyy's speech and any latest news about the situation. Earlier this evening, I read a news about the Russian amassing 40 miles long of military vehicles, heading towards Kyev. It is terrible. I hope for the safety and freedom of Ukranian people.

I am not sure how things are going to end. But even if the Ukrainians are victorious, there may be some major negative sentiments towards Russian people afterwards. People are so quick to judge, I feel. The decision to invade Ukraine was probably not backed by all (or not even most) Russians, but unfortunately all Russians might end up paying for what their governments have done. I hope people will understand that just because the Russian government invaded Ukraine, not all Russians had hostility towards Ukrainians.

Out of respect of the Ukrainian people, this is the only update I'm going to write today. In comparison to what the Ukrainians had to suffer, my problems seem trivial and insignificant.

Best regards,

Bright (and Afraid) Penguin

Dear diary,

My mother was sick yesterday night. Food poisoning, I think. She threw up twice yesterday night and today she hasn't felt much better. I hope she will have recovered well by tomorrow morning, since tomorrow she will get her booster vaccine.

I also took a day off today and felt quite productive. I woke up and practiced for job interview. Afterwards I had lunch, when I ate rice steamed in coconut milk and then took a short nap. I also managed to study for my certification exam, read a few articles and did some practice problems. I felt so happy that I got good score on one of the topics and that I will be moving on to the next topic in my next study session.

In between study sessions, I actually started playing Rubik's cube again. Suddenly I became interested in blindsolving again. In addition to that, I also played a few chess games this afternoon and I felt satisfied after winning some of them.

However, I still feel anxious about what is currently happening in Ukraine. I actually donated 2000 hryvnia the day before yesterday: half to the Ukrainian Red Cross and the other half to Ukrainian military. This is a battle between freedom and tyranny. I hope freedom will win and set a good example to all authoritarian states that the free people are not to be underestimated.

As usual, I can't help but searching for latest news regarding Russia-Ukraine war and I came across a speech by political scientist John Mearsheimer about this issue. I was so captivated by the idea that I looked up a few of the books he wrote. Political science seems an interesting subject to study and I noted down some books I want to read in this subject.

When I finally return to the US (or, at least, move to a country where I belong), I want to contribute to the intellectual life of that nation. There are many pressing issues in this world today: poverty, disease, and war to mention a few. I feel a strong desire to understand all of these important issues and to assist the handling of this issue in the US. The recent events made me so grateful to the US, for without its military strength I am sure the situation in Ukraine would have gotten a lot worse, a lot sooner.

It's tragic that I was not born in the US and that I'm not an American by citizenship. But I can assure you that I'm American by heart.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Things I'm grateful about today: (1) the 40-miles Russian convoy that stalled around Kyev. Let them stall forever and let freedom wins. (2) able to prepare for job interview and certification exam today, and; (3) an oh-so-delicious rice noodle bread I ate before workout.

Dear diary,

Not much is going on today, diary. I woke up rather late and listened to some music. I had no interview practice today, so I was able to stretch out my morning habit almost until 10am. I really enjoyed Great Good Fine OK's music. I listened to GGFOUR and Great Good Five OK albums and I literally liked most of the tracks there. It's astonishing how creative people can be with music.

In between my actual wake-up from sleep with the time I left the room, I saw the blue cloudless sky from the balcony. It reminded me of the house I rented in the US. At that time, I'd sometimes go out to the balcony and watch the back of a building next to it. Nothing unusual about the back of the building, just the typical red bricks, fan for the air conditioning, back alley for cars and some obscure windows. But it used to calm me. It was a reminder that there's more to life than work. Sometimes we can just stop and enjoy the present. The sky usually does not fail in reminding me of this. So for a brief minutes, I was just standing on the balcony, thinking about my life 3 years ago.

After tidying up my bed and brushing my teeth, I read a few chapters to prepare for my certification exam in August. The reading was quite dense, but I felt able to absorb much of it. But then I have this vague feeling that I will forget most of them if I don't review frequently. After lunch, washing my dog and a one-hour nap, I revisited this issue.

I learned about a method of reading retention called Leitner System. It says that to promote long-term retention, one can study using flashcards where each concept is reviewed periodically. If short-term recall is successful, that flashcard will be moved to another bucket of flashcard where it will be reviewed again after a longer time has passed. What's coolest about this is there is an app for this learning method called Anki. I'm going to try this sometime.

During the evening, I played chess a little bit, tried out the M2/R2 solving method for Rubik's cube and watched Twin Peaks. I'm now on the 12th episode of the 2017 season. I will finish the series quite soon and I know I'm going to miss watching it. I guess it will free up my time also, but I often feel nostalgic for some past habits I had.

For almost a week now, I've been getting into a habit of checking latest Russia-Ukraine war news after waking up and before sleeping. Today is no different. Despite the international support for Ukrainian people, I am afraid for the safety of the Ukrainian people. If there is any good thing that came out of this is that it fostered my interest in studying political science. But this effect on my curiosity is dwarfed by the horror of war and misery of Ukrainian (and Russian) people involved. I hope this invasion will end very soon.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Things to be grateful for today: (1) kindled a new passion in learning political science/international relations, (2) productive day with respect to my certification exam prep, and (3) had some time to think about the past.

Dear diary,

It seems that 7 Cups just changed the interface of thread. For a brief minute, I was confused how to add another entry, but it appears that I'm doing this correctly.

Work has been OK today. I've been spending a few days over the 2 tasks I'm supposed to finish this week. It turns out the tasks are more complex than I previously thought. It is very likely that I won't be able to finish it tomorrow -- and since I'm not going to work on weekend, I won't finish it this week. I still wish that I can miraculously finish it tomorrow (or maybe even tomorrow morning).

In the evening, I studied for the certification exam. However the module I read today was particularly tough and I did not understand most of the stuff. I felt very frustrated by it, especially given that I spent more than 1 hour on this reading. Knowing that studying and frustration cannot happen at the same time, I just closed the reading. Impulsively, I opened up a chess website I've been playing at and I played a few games. Needless to say, my mindset was not in the best shape and I lost many games. It triggered frustration again which prompted me to play more games in the hope that I would win. It was a disaster.

But after 5-6 games, I stopped. I took a deep breath and thought about how I felt during the game. I applied mindfulness to fight this "procrastination" in the shape of playing chess mindlessly. So I closed the site and started watching Twin Peaks. I felt accomplished of being able to apply this trick. The article was right. Mindfulness is useful in fighting procrastination too. In midst of playing chess mindlessly, I was able to reflect how I felt and if it's the best way of alleviating the frustration I experienced. It's OK, bright penguin. The certification exam was difficult. Tomorrow, you can read the chapter again.

I just finished watching Twin Peaks. It feels sad that only 2 more episodes are left. I'm going to finish this series this Saturday. But next in line, I'm going to watch Bridge to Terabithia. I remember watching it during my childhood. It evoked a very strong emotion and I still remember the basic plot of the film. The details, however, escaped me now. So it might be a good time to re-watch it.

I will probably finish To the Lighthouse pretty soon too. The second part of the novel was inspiring. Woolf is capable of creating a sense of fleeting time and it inspires an idea that's difficult to convey otherwise.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Things I'm grateful for today: (1) read a great article about American Transcendentalism, (2) starting to remember the algorithms for M2/R2 blindsolving, and (3) was able to apply new methods for studying called spaced repetition (Leitner system), interleaved practice, and active recall.

Dear diary,

I finished watching Twin Peaks yesterday night. Yes! All 48 episodes of it. I absolutely love it. What a great TV series. Sadly it left a kind of empty feeling now that I can no longer watch a new episode of Twin Peaks. It felt as if I said good bye to a wonderful (yet scary) world along with its people.

Also yesterday, I reconnected with one of my college friends from the US. He was interested to pursue a career in data science and asked me questions about how to start. I tried to answer each of them in as helpful manner as I could. It felt good to reconnect with old friends.

Monday comes and things start to crash again. Work has been pretty boring today. I can no longer appreciate my work, it seems as if I'm doing things that are not useful anyway. My supervisor also has a task that he cannot finish, so he gave it to me 😭. I took it like a gentleman, when I should have rejected it. I also did not do much today. I scheduled a meeting with myself and entered the meeting room, so that my computer did not sleep. After doing this, I know that the tracker on my computer will not recognize that I'm away from my computer. Then I took a 30-minutes nap. After work hour was over, I ate a delicious fruit soup as my pre-workout snack. I did not have time to drink coffee, but the workout was pretty intense.

I also spent 25 minutes studying for my exam (barely enough time per day to pass the exam), but it felt productive. I was able to understand the subject matter and I came away feeling accomplished. Now I want to watch Bridge to Terabithia. I want to be reminded of an emotion I haven't felt for quite a long time now.

Best regards,

Bright Penguin

Things to be grateful today: (1) Healthy lunch and dinner, (2) productive 25-minutes session to prep for my exam, and (3) work from home today!

Dear diary,

It's been more than a week since we last talked. Lots of things have happened of course. Last week I worked from home for the entire week and this week I have to go to the office. As usual, that means exhaustion.

The situation at work has been getting worse. My supervisor is perhaps as dysfunctional as he can be: out of reach, unresponsive, indecisive. His boss (supervisor of my supervisor) sent a message to him today and, quite unusually, my supervisor replied quickly. I think it's only a matter of time until he was found out to be incompetent and just plain lazy. Oh boy, if only I prepared for my dream job sooner. July seems like a lifetime away.

On a positive note, a new coffee shop just opened in my office. It's a pretty well-known coffee shop, but I still haven't tried any of their food/drinks. I guess I am going to try tomorrow. The only issue is that the shop is quite open and it's a bit difficult to hide from my colleagues there. Why do I need to hide, you may ask? Well, let me tell you that I've been spending lots of my time at work to study for my certification exam. If you ask me, I consider it time well-spent. I felt far more productive studying for it than actually do my work since even my supervisor did not care about his work. In a place where most people don't care, I think I have the right to do what is more important for my future.

For the past few days, I've been reading a lot about martial arts, especially Jeet Kune Do and Krav Maga. It made me wish that I studied martial arts as a kid, to be honest. It would help instill discipline as well as self-defense capability which are very important. I went so far to actually watching Krav Maga stance tutorial and trying it a few times before I slept yesterday. 😄

More importantly though, I've been thinking a lot about stoicism and mindfulness. Around last week, I started reading The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, which is well-written and eye-opening. Matthiessen's account of his journey in Nepal really provided me with an opportunity to escape mundanity and also to learn about applying mindfulness to practice. I guess I can try to reframe the hardship at work as an opportunity to develop my stoicism and mindfulness muscles. "It's unfortunate that this happened. No, it's fortunate that it happened and I remained unharmed by it" as stated by Marcus Aurelius.

I plan to sleep early today and wake up early tomorrow. It's been quite some time since I last jumped rope. I hope I'm able to wake up early and do HIIT before I go for work.

Dear diary, I do hope that I won't be stuck in this career for much longer. Wishing myself stoic wisdom: to change what can be changed, to accept what cannot be changed.

Sincerely,

Bright (and Exhausted) Penguin

Things to be grateful for: (1) new coffee shop at the office, (2) found great new music Night Drive by Cannons, and (3) went home relatively early today.