Howdy Readers!! Today I want to go over what I have learned in the year that I have spent trying to get something written out on paper for over a year haha. There has been so many different things. This year has been interesting and full of change haha. When I first started this blog I had been working in my first job out of college and struggling to find motivation to work and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Then in November I had moved on into a role that I feel in love with surrounded by smart driven people developing tools for scientests that all want to work on research to make the world a better place. I also met someone who is really cool and made me feel a lot better about love and life and finally allowed myself to get into more of my passions and began drawing and coloring again. But I want to talk about everything in this little post haha so please strap in and I hope you enjoy my musings.

Since I have last written over a month ago I have been struggling to figure out what I want to write about and how I should write for it in this blog. This place is a place for my thoughts and feelings and most of them are intertwined with software and building it out. Not much has changed in that respect besides feeling fulfilled at work with the systems they have designed and having been given the ability to really stress out parts of big data that I have only before been all theortical. I loved studying how you handle loads of data and streaming it and batching it and figuring out good patterns for adding fault tolerance to a system. There is a part of me that always misses my old job where I was working on figuring out how you expose a system that secured a home to only those that are supposed to and figuring out the different ways to enable a user to use the devices they don’t own but are given access too. When thinking about smart home most people think about locks that you buy and then can work with using your phone but the space I inhabited is one where the person who is using that lock is not the same person who spent money on haha. It was so cool to explore exactly how one is able to give access to others to be able to do simple things like just open a door. There is also that part of sharing a device across many different people when it came to common areas and how one would go about recording that device in your system to be able to grant access in a way that makes sense to the person who owns the building. It was always a large permissions issue and being able to navigate both the legal and techincal requirements for it was always fun. That old job will always carry a special place in my heart but I did feel like I wasn’t able to do anything truly interesting in terms of what I wanted to do with software and ultimately being side-lined to work on a legacy platform instead of the latest and greatest made me just feel underutilized and decaying.

After leaving that place I landed in a lab working for a Cooperative where I was making tools that both hospitals and research labs use to be able to analyize the data they collect with different tests from blood work to cancer screenings. Honestly this place feels so fun and I feel so happy. I never knew that I could find a place that felt so safe and secure haha. The pay isn’t great all the time but honestly the people make me feel happy and grateful for being able to be of value for. Growing up I had a specific mindset burned into me. We only have value if we can provide services to others. Because of that I have always sought to find ways to serve those around me but due to not being very charismatic I never went beyond the people in my vicinity. I have always wondered what it would be like to be able to serve a larger community and I think I have found it in this place. I feel like the community I have with my co-workers is enough for me and that because of that need that I fill I am able to focus on myself more. I feel so grateful to finally feel like I am in a position where I am doing enough for those I work with and still have energy to be able to build myself out more.

Lately I have been going to do more things to help my health like going to the gym and honestly just moving my body more. On top of that I have also been drawing again and finding the time to be able to express myself through more and more mediums. I am so happy that I am finally giving myself permission to push forward with the harder parts of my life so that I can discover new things that can bring value for those I care about and really give more of myself to others. Right now the main thing I am focusing on is learning how to use color to add depth to images and figure out how I can use contrast and color theory to really make the images I am looknig at pop off the page. I feel satisfied with what I have started doing but I am not going to settle for where I am now. I look forward to the day that I can really express myself and build out even games and software using my skills as an artist to decorate it in a way that makes it feel incredible. I want to be able to build something worth sharing and that is worth using too. The past year has been a long one but I feel like it has lead me to a place I always wanted to be and I am proud of this year even more then I have been even at my peak of college and school in general. I am happy where I am and I can’t wait to see where I land a year from now. Thanks for listening to my ramblings and I hope you have an amazing day!!