Summary: Work, watched Swiss Army Man, drinks, what the youths call “chilling”, and more work.
People talked to: Katie, Sarah, Vinita, Grant, Joseph, Dina, Chris, Gil
Sitting on my bench, texting Sarah on my way home.
Day 3, Tuesday
~5:45a. Woke up sometime before my alarm. Dreaming about needing to revise notification mocks. It’s so gloomy outside I think it must be early still. Dreamless sleep.
6:00a. Alarm goes off. Turn it off in bed and see some messages that came in while I was asleep. Look up the weather so I know how to dress for the day. Get ready for work.
6:38a. Pack up my things and and out the front door. It’s pretty foggy today. I get a medium number of lights.
6:56a. At the overrated brunch place. where a smattering of people looking at their phones briefly look up at me. I always pay attention to whether the people waiting are blocking doorways or not. They are not.
6:58a. I sit in my spot. Put in the hard, unforgiving stones which are the Apple earbuds and listen to my audiobook because I don’t feel like today will be a good bus day.
8:00a. Arrive on campus, get off on at an earlier stop to go to a cafeteria that has muesli. It’s not as good as in Switzerland, but I’ve gotten used to it.
8:15a. Bike to my office.
8:25a. Make tea, get water. Draw the illustration for yesterday of me at my desk. I am glad Bubbles is still on my desk. Look over the post. While the photo is uploading a check some more emails and fix something in a presentation someone commented on and leave feedback on something else.
9:00a. Publish the post. Start writing this morning’s before I forget. I think maybe this is not the most authentic description of my day because I usually don’t spend my day writing in great detail about my previous day. What a world we live in.
9:18a. I was checking and responding to emails, had my Sketch files open to start work. I wanted to review that all the work was complete or questions asked for our up to our iOS app before a meeting.
9:50a. Our studio review for designers is cancelled, probably because everyone is “heads down” working, as the saying goes.
11:29a. Go to a meeting and meet some of the new engineers that will be working on the project during this last mad dash.
11:45a. After I finish my part, I leave because they want to get caught up from a technical perspective with the lead engineer.
12:00p. It’s kind of early but a ‘lunch train’ of engineers comes around opting for a walk to a different cafe and I join. With out a clear place in mind, we end up walking to a food truck and eating outside. We get into a long discussion about the popularity of the word ‘salty‘ with internet kids. And then how any word can enter the language through by different means. It’s interesting to me that this is spun as a new turn of phrase because salty has been used to describe old cranky sailors for a very long time. We talked about the merits of ‘ain’t’, less vs fewer, inflammable vs flammable, and regardless vs irregardless. Definitely my kind of talk. Did you know that the phrase “happy as a clam” is the short form of “happy as a clam at high tide,” which is when you can’t shuck a clam? Language! The phrase “fleshed out” vs “flushed out,” which I am just learning I was wrong. We took the long way around the path to get back.
1:05p. I check my calendar for when my next meeting is. I review some of the open tasks left for it so I have a better idea of where things are before the meeting.
1:20p. The engineer comes over to see how long we’re meeting and then we end up talking about what’s needed to be done still and the visual design aspects of it with another designer who sees us talking and comes over. By this time we’ve gotten to the to actual meeting time so we switch over to that room.
1:30p. We meet for the entire time about what our options are. We meet another new engineer who will be helping us out on this project
2:07p. I send out a summary to the broader team about the decisions we made.
2:10p. I am trying to finish this one smaller project but I’m also chatting with another designer about whether we have to meet or not. I can’t get something to run on my watch that I wanted to show them anyway. So we move the meeting to Thursday. More time!
3:30p. Meet with an engineer and a new PM joining the project (usually there aren’t this many new people) to get him up to speed about what’s left for the project.
4:08p. I collect my things in a hurry and head out to catch the bus. The Dixie Chicks (apparently they are still a band?) are playing a concert at the amphitheater that will disrupt traffic.
4:18p. I get on the bus. I had told my friend that I would go to the Maker’s Club with her tonight but I had gotten the week wrong so we plan for a movie, with another friend, instead. It’s voted on Swiss Army Man at the Kabuki. Besides checking my phone a few times, I don’t feel like I’d be able to work on the bus today. I listen to the remaining 24 minutes of Snow Crash. And then I listen to a podcast that I really love called Invisibilia. Their episode “Frame of Reference” is about concrete examples of people gaining new perspectives on their life or grappling with them to begin with. For example, the first person interview is self-diagnosed with Aspergers and is able to take a psychology experiment much later in life where she is briefly able to read social nuances and it has a profound affect on her. She realizes why so many misunderstandings have arisen in her life. I think, like I always think, I wish everyone was listening to this podcast so that they would just know what I know and we’d have the same frame or reference to view the world in.
5:57p. Bus gets to my stop and I walk home.
6:09p. I get home (the bus drops me off closer in the evenings) and start heating up leftovers to eat before going out.
6:30p. laying in bed trying to order tickets for everyone. No middle seats left, naturally.
6:45p. I look up the bus schedule and realize I have to leave now if I want to make it on time.
6:54p. I get to the stop to see the bus driving past. I will be late.
7:27p. Get into the theater and sit down next to my friends. Thank goodness for reserved seating! The preview I catch seems like a good movie as well.
9:01p. We get out of the theater. We all really liked the movie. It was really different and hard to describe but still good. Joseph says that he really liked it because it didn’t have a single tone it kept throughout the movie, sometimes it was funny some times it was really serious….Dina says confidently “I’d call it a comedy.” We hem and haw about this.
9:04p. We part ways and I go to the bus stop only to realize it will be another 15 minutes before it comes so decide to take the 30 minute walk home.
9:15p. I am walking passed a friend’s house and let them know and ask them if they want to get a ice cream (my preference). They just had dessert and suggest drinks instead. :/. We meet at the bar and talk for a while and want to continue our conversation. We go to his apartment for water and talk with his roommate as well.
11:45p. I leave to walk home.
12:01a. Get ready for bed and then but want to finish one more thing for work that’s been haunting me.
12:59p. Publish my work and go to bed. I try to decide if Im going to sleep in or not tomorrow. probably not because I can’t work that late tomorrow because a friend is visiting from out of town.