Week 35 / 2024

Published: 01/09/2024

After a busy last week, I started this week off by spending a day doing absolutely zero work. It was glorious.

What's been happening?

1. Taking Monday completely off work reminded me that I need to do this more often. I'm usually pretty disciplined about taking time off. However, it has become harder to do so since I've been taking on additional work outside of my full-time job. The increased workload often requires me working over weekends. Monday was a good reminder to plan more days of doing no work at all.

   As for how I spent Monday, I spent the day rebuilding my Meridian with linear switches. I desoldered the existing tactile switches, harvested linears from a different keyboard, and then soldered everything back together. It turned out to be a great build. I enjoyed typing on the board through the week!

   

2. I've been loving working with Sanity, Next.js, and Tailwind CSS for my web-based projects. They are simple tools that get out of your way and let you focus on building your ideas.

   I miss the simplicity of such tools when building mobile apps.

3. Health has been a core focus for me lately. I've been getting blood work done regularly, and working with a nutritionist to understand my health markers.

   I underwent a round of tests this week. While waiting for the results, I set up a health tracking spreadsheet to monitor my progress. I'm oddly excited about this project and look forward to studying my bio markers over time. I can't wait to create visualisations.

   That said, while this project is exciting, it can also cause anxiety. As I waited for my results, I started thinking about possible worst-case scenarios, which caused me to spiral a bit. This is something I'll need to be mindful of going forward.

4. I met my friend Namita for the first time on Saturday. We're working together on a project and decided to meet and co-work. It was lovely to finally meet after being Internet friends for so long.

   

   Namita brought along some yummy croissants and I made us drinks. Matcha latte for her, (coffee) latte for me. Our conversations went in all sorts of directions, as most engaging conversations do. We discussed learning languages, thoughtful gift-giving, having a supportive group of friends, and our tendency to pursue multiple interests simultaneously. We also showed each other things we are working on. She showed me her design projects in Figma, I showed her code I've been writing for our project.

   After our hang, I re-downloaded Duolingo to start learning a new language.

   No work happened during this meet.

5. While Saturday was the social half of my weekend, Sunday (today) was the relaxing half. I spent the afternoon cleaning my espresso machine and coffee equipment. In the evening, I watched football. Sadly, my team lost their match and ruined my mood. Fortunately, writing this weeknote has nursed my mood back to its happy self.

Interesting Finds

• Departure Mono — SUCH an incredible font; I really want to use it for something on my website stat. Also: need to make a font one day. Ugh.

Media Diet

• Taeha Types's latest studio tour— I relate so much to the portion of the video title that says: "a collection of all my hobbies". My room at home is also slowly becoming this and I love it.