101 things about me

If you asked older people how much they’ve changed since their 20s they’ll say “so much!” and the same.

And how much between their 20s and 30s? “So much!”

What about the last 10 years? “So much!”

How much do you think you’ll change in the next 10 years? “eh, maybe a little. I think I’m pretty set now.”

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I don’t remember if I’ve already told you about that study, but I was re-reminded of it from a podcast. (Maybe I’m butchering it but…)Point being: People tend to think they don’t change much. But when they reflect on the past they think they realize they have changed a lot. And yet they still don’t think they’ll change much in the future. I was thinking about this because I’m trying to update my website and I was pondering whether I should write a dreaded “About me” page. It never feels right. And what is it you actually want to know anyway? I don’t know but here are some things that came to mind:

1. I’ve been drawn to asymmetry as of late
2. I’ve done all of my laundry in cold water and hang it to dry for years (except sheets when I feel like I don’t have all the space). I recently learned this is the right answer.
3. I’m a maximizer and it causes me a lot of mental grief. I’d rather be a satisfier but I find it hard to know how to change. I find buying things in a store or used a relief because it limits my choice. (more)
4. I have eczema on my hands
5. I have SnapChat and the only thing I do on it is watch Grant’s videos of his cat and the Viral Animals channel. Videos with animals doing things is 100% my guilty internet pleasure.
6. I’ve gotten really into garment sewing as of late
7. I’m way too familiar with the IKEA catalogue
8. I find connections to all the things I learn and hear about, from fictional stories, to psychology studies, to books, to the news
9. I’m really socially anxious and I’m constantly worried that we’re being too loud as neighbors because we’re living on the top floor of a split house that doesn’t have any special apartment soundproofing (sorry neighbors!).
10. I would rather be cold than hot.
11. I almost never watch TV shows but have been enjoying Ted Lasso as of late
12. I’ve taken 2 psychology classes and a writing class since getting my masters degree
13. I took a tap dancing class when I was 21 and at my final recital and it was just me and a bunch of little girls
14. I’m coming to terms with the color pink
15. I’ve unsuccessfully had two magazine subscriptions
16. I want to learn Vietnamese but don’t know where to learn
17. I find containers very satisfying
18. I totally don’t understand getting manicures and pedicures
19. I have a racing mind and didn’t realize until recently it was a thing that you could control. I found meditating very helpful and yet, like exercising and eating well, struggle to actually commit to the habit.
20. I like wooden furniture
21. It’s difficult for me to feel close to people and am genuinely surprised when I find out I’m someone’s friend. Or that my current friends continue to like me.
22. I would say that I like crocheting, knitting, sewing, and cross stitching. That punch needling was not as fun as I thought it would be, but that it could have been the pattern I chose. That I like embroidery patterns, but am not creative enough to go rogue.
23. I’ve had to run after a train before. The staff held their hands out and had to pull me up onto the caboose. I was wearing flip flops.
24. I’ve started really resenting technology as the solution to everything. I hate downloading apps onto my phone. (Yes, I work in technology)
25. It’s out of character for me to wear a sweatshirt out
26. I think it would be cool to design book covers
27. I wanted to be a writer when I was little. I also thought being a bank teller would be easy because people just drive up to you and give you money.
28. I have dry earwax (typical of east asian people) and didn’t know that white people had wet earwax until later.
29. We ended up getting 4 covid tests during the process of crossing the US/Canada border. Our noses hurt.
30. I’ve only had fish, birds, and a rabbit as a pet. The rabbit is by far the most exciting for me.
31. I’ve climbed half dome with a hurt ankle.
32. Mountains > Beach
33. I still like analog clocks
34. I’ve had four cell phone numbers
35. I only got into emojis because of Slack at my last job. Now I see the light.
36. I hate it when recruiters use my personal email because I know they’ve used an info crawler site. I have spent hours trying to remove my personal information from indexing sites (it’s scary!)
37. I don’t think I’ve had a sunburn before?
38. I love all things coconut
39. I don’t like the taste of alcohol but if cocktails mask it I can be enticed to drink
40. My mom taught me to spell my name “Jaclyn”
41. I’m frugal
42. Once, I had a dream about a spider and I woke with a spider crawling across my eyelashes.
43. I’m bad at spelling and typing
44. I’m slow at determining right & left and cardinal directions are lost on me
45. I am afraid of driving. I haven’t driven regularly or had a car for 8 years.
46. I read mostly non-fiction books and I’m trying to get back to reading more fiction too. Any recommendations?
47. I use cloth napkins and reusable ziplock bags, recycle, compost, and try to use environmentally friendly products…and also kind of feel like I’m getting scammed.
48. Out of all the jobs I’ve had and even the student projects that have cause all-nighters…the most stressful by far is when I’ve taught. I love learning so much and feel like I don’t want to disappoint the students and public speaking is very stressful for me.
49. I have a fantasy that it would be really cool to work in a book shop or library. (I don’t know if that’s true. From volunteering at the LA Library it seems like it has its own stresses)
50. I try not to be on Instagram that much (but I am)
51. I’m irreverent
52. I’m so used to taking off my shoes when I enter a house that I take off my house slippers when I go onto my rabbit’s rug.
53. I like imperfect drawings
54. I’m pro-bidet
55. I haven’t read all of the Harry Potter books
56. I don’t consider myself very brave, but I try not to live with regrets, which has led me to do some brave things
57. I don’t care for Valentine’s Day.
58. Re fact #3 — I actually hate making decisions and second guess myself all the time. I don’t like it when a group of people are all like “I’m easy, whatever you want” because that feels like the decision making is getting put onto me with no data points. My friend recently told me she works under the McDonald’s hypothesis: whenever a group of people can’t decide where to go she’ll suggest McDonald’s to see if it turns out someone does in fact have an opinion. (She also doesn’t mind McDonald’s)
59. I didn’t read all my assigned reading when I was an English major. I am convinced that I’m too slow of a reader for it to have actually been possible.
60. I actually really hated sleepovers when I was little. I wanted to go, but couldn’t sleep all night.
61. I had a bunch of rag dolls growing up that looked kind of like this. I think my mom got them from Goodwill.
62. I could live without cilantro
63. I learned what a thirst trap was from overhearing a conversation with Shanna and Sarah. And I learned what a thirst tweet was from this video of Bowen Yang reading his. Thanks friends.
64. Related, I know very little slang or things happening in the modern universe if it doesn’t involved animals. (thank you @animalsdoingthings)
65. I have many failed attempts at blog/newsletter subscriptions too. Even of ones I like, like wait but why. But the newsletters I have managed to read and keep up with are:
    1. The Whippet, which has a delightful tone, is short, has a good intermix of images, and is mostly science, history, and weird trivia that I can get down with. I subscribe to the newsletter, which gets sent out once every 2 weeks (I think?)
    2. Benedict Evans weekly tech newsletter. I’ll admit that I just scan the headlines (which are helpfully written and summarized) and click on the ones that are interesting to me. More helpful when I worked in tech though. I will add that summarizing what the articles are actually about and his editorial notes on them are worth their weight in gold and more people should do this (including me).
66. I’m a design generalist more than anything.
67. I am not convinced I want to be a manager or supervise people (at least in the short term)
68. When I’ve traveled alone, I would meet up with people on CouchSurfing to do touristy things with. This has worked out in Croatia (we even traveled to multiple cities together), Hanoi, and Barcelona.
69. I didn’t like reading growing up until I read a book I actually liked in 5th grade. Then I was an English major.
70. I come back to this xkcd comic about how you react to people learning new things again and again. It’s about being excited to show people something that they don’t know, instead of making fun of them for not knowing. It was shared with me by a friend when I teased them for not knowing something and I’ve been really thankful for this perspective.
71. I love brushing my teeth
72. I used to drink a cup of green tea every morning but I haven’t since moving in with Scott because he makes coffee in the morning. Also when I learned about adding milk & sugar into black tea (so much better).
73. TBH, I still don’t really understand how to use github that much even though I contributed to one a lot.
74. I can fit into children’s shoe sizes
75. I have a lot of imposter syndrome.
76. There’s an alternative reality where I accepted a job as one of two designers at Mashable and went to work on Park Avenue instead of going to grad school at CMU. Weird right?
77. I’m not a very good swimmer.
78. I counted once and I think there were something like seven federal/local/government programs that supported me throughout my education. I’ve always felt very lucky and almost unworthy of the opportunities given to me.
79. I had to do a project on the silverback gorilla and Gambia as two school projects in elementary school.
80. I was put in a gifted program in elementary school. It caused me a lot of turmoil and I didn’t do very well because I would procrastinated. I wanted to do something really really good and also thought I was going to fail miserably. I still have a weird relationship with expectations. Like, it would be easier to never have anyone expect anything of me than to disappoint people. I remember after turning in a particularly bad project my regular teacher took me aside and told me that my art teacher had nominated me and he was a college professor, so it was A Big Deal that he thought I was special and I should do better. Now that I’m writing this, I wonder if the implication was that she didn’t think I should be in the program? Anyway, I was only in the program for one year I think.
81. I’ve always had teeny tiny blood vessels visible on my cheeks (telangiectasias maybe?). When I was little I thought this was cool because I was like I was always wearing blush. My sister said they were gross, but she’s kind of mean.
82. I feel like I missed the day when teachers explained what vowels were. I remember in like third grade third were talking about vowels and I was like “when did everyone else learn this?”
83. I lived in the same house all through my childhood.
84. The first alcoholic drink I had was a malibu rum & coke in Stratford-upon-Avon. I just copied a girl I was traveling with who said they were good.
85. Not really into incense. I feel like my sense of smell has gotten more sensitive as I’ve gotten older.
86. One of my bosses said I was getting fat when he was drunk
87. There was a farming general store near me while I was growing up that had baby chickens. I strongly argued to my dad that we should have one. Or a duck.
88. I haven’t seen The Dark Night movies
89. I always have room for either ice cream or noodles
90. I do not like cold pizza
91. I’ve heard that other countries don’t do the random greetings all the time (“hi how are you how was your weekend did you have a good weekend?”) and that appeals to me
92. I got yelled at in a New York laundry mat for not speaking up and letting someone know I was in their way. I was like, fine waiting for her though. NYC, man.
93. When I lived in Pittsburgh for two years I think I only went out to eat a handful of times because I was a super busy and poor grad student. People have asked me how Pittsburgh is and I feel like I don’t really know.
94. I thought I would have to leave my college (undegrad) one year because I didn’t think I could pay tuition. I got an academic scholarship just in time.
95. I was a business major at first. After first business class: HARD NOPE.
96. Secret things I’d like to study: Linguistics, Philosophy, Social psychology, Sociology, Decision sciences, Design ethics, Law (for like, a moment to see if it’s interesting and then maybe bail), Behavioral economics, Writing
97. Things I could actually probably benefit more from studying: Statistics, Quantitative research methods, Data science…maybe also Writing
98. I am convinced I can’t keep plants alive.
99. I don’t drink enough water.
100. I became lactose intolerant at 18.
101. My robot vacuum’s name is Gramps 1.

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Whew.

Was that an effective way to get to know me?

Could you tell I was struggling at one point and was thinking about my childhood?