September 25, 2024, 9:35pm
Just cleaning up some things and choosing new, more mobile friendly layout for the Notes area where I am slowly adding book quotes highlighted in the last 8 years or so. I really loved the previous theme except that the image was way too big and it took up the entire phone screen. You had to scroll down to see any text.
Listening to: Supernatural Season 1 Episode 22
What I’ve been doing around the site:
- I haven’t done much at all since my last update. It’s been a weird couple of weeks!
- My goals for fall: Add another book to the Notes area, finish my draft on using ChatGPT and a static site generator to create a Neocities website, complete my writer mission statement draft, and upload more photos. I seem to have fallen out of the habit at the end of 2022.
What’s going on creatively:
- I am finalizing my Halloween cards (and envelopes) to send out next month. This year I did low effort decor with markers and stickers, but I also made my own stickers for a personal touch.
- I have been journaling in a small pocket-sized notebook a few times a week. It’s basically turning into a junk journal, but I like the small bursts of inspiration and creativity coming out of it.
- It’s spooky season! I consider home decorating a creative endeavor. I’ve been putting stuff up everywhere.
What’s going on at work:
- Our LMS manager left the company so I’m taking over a project to improve the LMS Continuous Delivery release process. It involves multiple teams and various levels of contribution, documentation, decision-making, and communication. Even though it’s one of the largest interconnected processes I’ve ever improved, it’s easy peasy. I’ve been adjacently part of the process for several years so I know what’s expected of everyone and have already had some ideas for improvement over that time.
- This week I’ve been taking a class to get certified in knowledge management. We’re halfway done today and it’s given me a lot to think about, not only for my company specifically, but for my career overall. It seems I might be shifting from a focus on “writing documentation” to “managing knowledge” (not in my current job, but in my personal/professional focus). It’s exciting to learn things and grow!
September 1, 2024, 4:00pm
I have been working on this site since 11am as if it is my job today. Zenny (my calico cat) is unhappy at the lack of attention! She wanted to spend the day sitting on the couch on my lap.
Listening to: a playlist of ambient instrumental post-hardcore
What I’ve been doing around the site:
- Learned how to use the Multiple Themes WordPress plugin to assign various themes/designs across the site depending on category or tag
- Started typing up book quotes from my library of read books the last decade (don’t worry, I’m not adding literally every book)
- Started some drafts
What’s going on creatively:
- I got a new diagnosis to process so I’ve been feeling inspired to be creative!
- My CampSnap screenless digital camera is GREAT for travel! I feel like I am paying attention more and finding more inspiration from the world.
- I am still battling a mild social media addiction that keeps me away from being creative, but all this new inspiration will help.
What’s going on at work:
- I am developing a classroom content setup strategy for our client’s winter intersession pilot. An intersession occurs between two semesters so operationally it doesn’t fit within the normal development and delivery timelines each semester. The pilot begins in December, but we have to be set up and ready to go before faculty access in November. I love doing process development and I’m excited to do this one collaboratively with a few people I haven’t had the chance to work with yet. It impacts about 15 courses, so up to 500 students!
- I’ve been mentoring a group of support specialists while they audit the documentation that they use to do their jobs. Their manager and I (and others) wrote most of it over the last decade and the entire document library has been overdue for a major revision. So now I have a team of three who are completing an audit to help me organize what to do with the content so we can prioritize the work. Through this project I hope they’ll learn skills related to:
- using spreadsheets for assignment tracking: I have a few required columns, but otherwise they can update in whatever way helps them keep track of their own work;
- planning and prioritization: How to plan a very low priority project amongst much higher priority work and still get it done;
- content analysis: This particular group has reviewed single guides or content sections within a guide, but never all guides in a folder – each of them has been assigned a platform to review from our top 3 technologies and they must rate content based on relevance/currency, accuracy, and audience; and
- gaining a general of understanding documentation maintenance and what it entails: I think this helps the team understand the role of keeping the documentation up to date, and why we ask them to contribute to the accuracy of the knowledge (for context, we don’t have a team of writers at my company).
August 7, 2024, 8:30pm
Sitting in the living room on the couch with Zenny loafed next to me. I’ve been editing things around the site as I redefine the purpose behind this. It originally started as a writing portfolio to reflect my professional experience, but I have more motivation to write about my life and experiences. (So now the site will cover both.)
Listening to: Deadpool 2. I’m rewatching a few of the movies tonight.
What I’ve been doing around the site:
- Changed the theme, not sure I like it but we’ll see how it goes
- Updated some content here and there for the new purpose
- Started some drafts
What’s going on creatively:
- I’m writing much more frequently in my journal in “shareable ways” (could become posts)
- I’ve been doing a lot of doodles lately
- I got a “screenless” digital camera – I have to connect to my phone or computer to view the photos and I’ve been having fun with that! Old school.
What’s going on at work:
- We’re well into faculty access for the fall semester, but students don’t have access to courses yet. Due to faculty access, lots of tickets have come in already. I’m researching an issue with the course interface for some fall courses which appears to be caused by knowledge and communication gaps. Looking forward to improving this process with our technical teams so this doesn’t happen again in the future.
- All of our projects restarted in the last few weeks (though we were still on pause well after the original July 5 date). It’s almost a frustrating amount of work but our partner team lost their vendor help, so we’re doing what we can to help.
June 15, 2024, ~2pm
Sitting in the living room on the couch while Zenny sleeps in the bedroom (it’s darker in there, there is less noise, and that room tends to be cooler than the living room). Making some improvements around the site that I’ve been neglecting for too long. Reflecting on what I want maxwrites to become now that I’ve achieved one of my primary career goals!
Listening to: Nothing, just the fan and the birds outside
What I’ve been doing around the site:
- Updating some code for accessibility and responsiveness
- Cleaning up the pages
- Updated 404 page
- Writing documentation for site management (for myself)
What’s going on creatively:
- I’ve been working on a website for a zine
- Finally bought all the supplies to make mini Monster Hunter item boxes
- Created a “journal” folder in my Google drive to encourage me to type my thoughts more often
- Started building my Black Cat (DC) MOC Lego but I don’t have the right pieces to continue
What’s going on at work:
- The release team is working on a monthly newsletter that reviews all releases from that month. Immediately, we post a release notes news item on our internal stakeholder site, then we summarize all the releases after the last one is deployed. It’s something new we are trying since our stakeholders are getting too many emails – this one will only go out once a month.
- Almost all of our projects have been paused until at least July 5 (likely longer) to engage in all-hands type of work for fall course readiness. The university has made a lot of huge changes for the upcoming fall semester so they’ve recruited our team and others to assist in getting everything out the door on time. It’s literally the kind of work I was hired to do 10 years ago so it’s been fun to revisit for a little while.
- In the meantime, I am still supporting the LTI tool integrations by creating technical documentation for course builders, faculty, and students. I’m pretty on top of my to do list and balancing everything well. We’re also deploying updates to an internal application that’s on a tight deadline, but I have confidence that testing through the environments will be quick.
2/19/24
Listening to nothing, just the gentle hum of the computer and the creaky house
Reading/learning:
* The Rise and Reign of the Mammals on audiobook though I don’t like the narrator’s voice so I might abandon it, which is unfortunate because it’s really interesting. It sounds like he’s shouting.
* Automate the Boring Stuff with Python online. I started reading this because ChatGPT recommended it as an intro to python and programming so I can learn how to use genAI to help with things
* How to be Multiple on ebook, learning all kinds of interesting and fucked up stuff about how the world thinks of twins
Loving lately:
* Once again I’m feeling the creative motivation return – I guess I feel like I got into a little slump for a bit after the new year started (after my vacation ended and I had to go back to work)
* My perfect cat
* I’m loving more aspects of my job again, which is very exciting – that is good news for the burnout I experienced, I think it’s going away. We’ve made a lot of improvements internally & now we’re working on improving everything else.
1/10/24
Listening to You’re Reading in an 18th Century Library and It’s Raining Outside
Reading/learning:
* Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg
* May I ask a Technical Question: Questions About Digital Reliability Each of Us Should Ask by Matt Hoff, Jeff Krinock
* Spanish on Duolingo (I just passed 365 days of language study, though a large bulk of that year went to Japanese)
Loving lately:
* Feeling my creative energy return, having time and motivation to work on personal/home projects!
* My perfect cat
9/9/23
enjoying the silence.
reading/learning:
* how humans learn: the science and stories behind effective college teaching by joshua r. eyler
* chinese fairy tales and legends collected by frederick h. martens and richard wilhelm
* spanish on duolingo (after sticking exclusively to japanese for a few years)
loving lately:
* trying new restaurants and parks around the area
* finding small ways to be creative in my day to day
* halloween season is coming on strong!
5/21/23
watching:
⦁ bad horror
⦁ a discovery of witches
reading/learning:
⦁ shady characters: the secret life of punctuation, symbols, & other typographical marks by keith houston
⦁ the book of yokai: mysterious creatures of japanese folklore by michael dylan foster
⦁ responsive web design
⦁ morse code
loving lately:
⦁ my cat, zenny (it’s been a month!)
⦁ long walks to fun music
⦁ writing and rewriting all kinds of things
12/11/22
watching:
⦁ train cam videos/streaming from train cabs (example)
⦁ christmas movies
reading/learning:
⦁ the product is docs: writing technical documentation in a product development group by christopher gales
⦁ caste: the origins of our discontents by isabel wilkerson
loving lately:
⦁ reorganizing my home (moving furniture, getting rid of stuff, setting up areas to do the stuff i love)
⦁ implementing personal processes & systems that serve me better
⦁ being patient with myself and going at my own pace
⦁ having downtime/respecting the need for downtime – not beating myself up when i watch 3 hours of tiktok, for example
⦁ learning asl/getting consistent streaks on asl bloom & duolingo
⦁ the two little beeps some trains do (meep-meep like roadrunner!)
articles & other people’s words:
a debugging manifesto
I love this. I’m going to adapt this idea to troubleshooting and processing tickets and create a little quick guide for my team at work. Some of our team members seem to have it in mind that the purpose of a ticket is to resolve it ASAP. At face value I guess that’s true – you want to take care of the customer and reduce their frustrations – but in order to provide overall amazing continued support, you have to view each ticket as a story. You have to understand the context (how it’s supposed to behave, what went wrong, and the resources that helped you resolve it). This helps you to provide better (and sometimes faster) support in the future. Otherwise, each ticket tends to feel like an isolated event, and you have to start from scratch every time you go to resolve it.
11/12/22
netflix:
⦁ warrior nun – finished
⦁ midnight club
⦁ the bastard son of the devil himself
⦁ the imperfects
⦁ love is blind (new season) – finished
reading/learning:
⦁ purposeful documentation and writing for the web
⦁ racism in america
loving lately:
⦁ Finch app (self-care)
⦁ sweepy
⦁ taking walks no matter what the weather
⦁ level setting & restarting – focusing inward and creating new patterns
⦁ WRITING
⦁ doodling
⦁ seasonal decorating & reflection
⦁ existing outside of time (not paying attention to the clock)
⦁ mushrooms
⦁ downfall of bird app
⦁ narrowing my tools
⦁ new connection with myself
⦁ new connections with old friends
⦁ being happily single
⦁ burning candles for the ritual of putting them out
articles & other people’s words:
https://thisisimportant.net/posts/defining-my-career-values/
I am at a good place with my career (I think) with lots of experience under the belt, but there is a lack of focus. I feel like I’m facing every direction they need me to face to do the job, but not facing the direction I want to face to focus my career. I used this post and many of the suggestions to help begin the journey of defining my values, which will help me define my goals.
https://ungated.media/article/lowercase-magi
freewriting is a therapeutic activity for me. it’s like there’s a buildup of emotional sludge in my system, and freewriting helps me open a valve to clear it all out. with the words out of my head, i always feel lighter and better. and when i freewrite in lowercase, there’s not only more output, but it’s more real and honest.
Date:
July 6, 2022
nownownow.com
Projects:
- Weeknotes – recording weekly reflections on my professional experience (July 2022 – ?)
- Seasons – writing seasonal letters/reflections and sending to friends/family (Winter 2021 – Fall 2022)
- Home – going through everything I own to get rid of stuff (2018 – ?)
- Reading through my “in progress” books
- Adding all my owned books to a database showing me various stats about them
- Cryptids – ‘adopting’ one cryptid per season and learning everything about it! includes travel/destination sight-seeing (Winter 2021 – ?)
- Winter – Mothman
- Spring – Sasquatch
- Summer – Flatwoods Monster
- Fall – ?
Upcoming:
- Figure out how to record music from my drums to my computer
- Documentation of Year 38
- Organize zines
- Legal name change