I've been asked to make another tribute video to a team member, this one in the style of a Collingwood Football Club mockumentary. I need to have it done by Tuesday, however, there's only so much Collingwood FC footage I can watch in one sitting, so I'm taking a procrastination break.
I got asked an interesting question at work recently. Someone at work caught her partner chewing some nicotine gum. He had told her that he quit not long after they got together, and at the time, she told him she didn't want to date a smoker, nor someone who was addicted to nicotine in general (gum, mints, patches). She didn't break up with him on the spot, but she said that she was really disappointed and felt conflicted. She said, "Obviously, he hasn't cheated on me, or anything like that, but I feel like he has."
It started an interesting discussion on cheating, and what defines cheating. A few years ago, I was talking to Char about cheating, and she described it as doing something you know would make your partner upset if they knew about it. So I asked her if my eating KFC without telling MrFodder about it counted as cheating, and she said yes. Ever since then, MrFodder and I have had a strict rule that I tell him whenever I am going to have KFC, and I haven't broken it yet!
After speaking to my co-worker, I realised that different people have different places at which they draw the "cheating" line. Having sex with other seems to be a common factor for a lot of people, and from what I've learned from /r/relationships, emotional cheating is also a thing: where the intimacy you share with someone other than your spouse affects your relationship with your spouse.
Personally, I feel like sex isn't a line for me. Though I've never field tested this, as it hasn't happened, I would be comfortable for MrFodder to have sex with someone other than me. I think sex as the ultimate act of intimacy is a bit outdated, as establishing paternity isn't really an issue anymore, and with so many contraceptive methods out there now, sex feels like it's more about mutual enjoyment, than about making babies. Plus, there are so many other sexual things you could do together that doesn't carry the risk of pregnancy, but could be considered "sex" - e.g. oral. To me, sex is just an enjoyable consensual activity shared by one or more people (consent is super important here!), not too different from eating a meal, or playing a sport.
The inevitable question, which my co-worker also asked when I told her my views on sex: would I be upset if MrFodder slept with someone else? I would like to think my answer is no (I can't speak for how I would feel it if actually happened, as this is probably an emotionally charged subject). There are things about me that are unlikely to ever change - e,g. height, voice, race, body shape. If MrFodder were to have a craving for a 2.5m tall, Swedish model who has the vocal range of a contralto (I think my voice is annoyingly high-pitched, but then again, most people hate hearing recordings of themselves), then why shouldn't he be able to indulge? Much like how most of the time, I'll enjoy eating a good pasta, but sometimes, you really just want a nice spicy curry or something like that.
I also feel like in terms of emotional intimacy, because I am quite open about a lot of things through my blog, I don't feel like it's fair to draw the line at emotional intimacy. I have quite a few friends that I feel very close to, and although I wouldn't share things that I think would violate MrFodder's privacy, I feel completely comfortable sharing things about myself that would be considered intimate details.
So I've been thinking about where I draw the line at cheating, and I think the biggest thing for me would be wilful deception. I try to be honest with people when I can, and I appreciate when the sentiment is returned. I really hate it when people lie to me in order to manipulate me into doing something I otherwise wouldn't have done.
I was also asked, what makes my relationship with MrFodder different to my relationship with others - especially as I don't see sex as a defining characteristic? Obviously, he's the only person that I am physically intimate with, but that's more to do with his beliefs than mine. (I would like to note that I don't feel constrained being in a monogamous relationship.) I do like that I feel like we are a team. Even before we got married, I felt like a lot of our decisions were based around what would be mutually beneficial for both of us. I feel like I have his support for whatever it is I want to do. I feel like I can show him my weaknesses and he'll still be there for me.
Maybe that's my idea of intimacy - when you feel like you can trust someone enough to leave yourself vulnerable with them. When you're not trying to second-guess their intentions, or whether there's a hidden meaning behind their words. There is probably some overlap here with emotional intimacy. So after all that, what do I think is cheating? I think it would be if MrFodder was in a sexual or romantic relationship with someone else, and he felt the need to hide it from me.
Sunday 31 July 2016
Thursday 28 July 2016
Birthday Surprise
It all started with Kim. She loved to elaborately decorate people's desks with balloons and streamers for their birthday. I was never a part of it, as I wasn't on her team (I only knew her through the social committee), but it was nice to see the awesome photos. Eventually, Kim left, but the tradition has continued, with Albert taking over. However, for his birthday, to get "revenge", a bunch of people on his team wrapped everything in wrapping paper. His chair, his mouse, his phone. Even the pencils and coat hanger on his desk. I think they said it took them an hour to get it all done (they had to wait for him to leave first, so ended up staying quite late).
Ever since then, he has been trying to get them all back, and this year, for some reason, I got roped into the whole desk decoration thing by having my desk decorated. I'm never one to miss an opportunity for surprises, so for Albert's birthday, I had something more elaborate planned. I had already organised with another co-worker to do the standard streamers and balloons, but as Albert and I are both fans of The Office, I wanted to go further.
Inspired by Jim's prank on Dwight where he puts his stapler in jelly, I asked the help desk for a broken keyboard and mouse and used that instead. I tried to get two keyboards, as I needed doubles of H, A, P and Y to spell out Happy birthday with the keys, but was only able to get one in the end, so I ended up using other keys and writing my own letters for the duplicates.
If you ever want to do this, learn from my mistake: keys float. So I started with one layer of jelly (500ml), just so the mouse and keys would be suspended in the middle. Then I placed the mouse and made another layer (which only went halfway up the mouse). Lastly, I got the keys, placed them down and poured two layers' worth of jelly (1L). To my horror, the keys floated to the top of the jelly and it took me a long time to press them down into the first two layers before they stopped floating back up (which is why the keys are in such a messy arrangement). I also ended up adding a couple of packets of gelatine to make it a bit more solid.
It was a lot harder to get out of the container than I thought, so it ended up having ugly cuts on the side, instead of a smoother surface like I wanted.
But oh well, I got the effect I wanted:
Through some research for my last interview, I ended up finding out that person's birthday, which was today. So I put some streamers on his desk as well. As I'm currently recovering from a virus, I didn't want to blow up any balloons, but I talked someone else on his team into blowing them up for me. I thought it'd be fun, as we've talked to each other twice in the entire time we've been on the same floor (once when I asked him to do the interview, and once when we did the actual interview), so I didn't think he'd suspect me at all.
I managed to get away with it for most of the day, until around 4pm, when I got an email from him saying, "Thanks for the streamers" and he attached a song that he had written (not one that he had written specifically for me - I learned in the interview that he writes music as a hobby).
LoL Mark observed that I am a lot more enthusiastic about these little side-hobbies than I am about my own job. He told me that I should do something else. I still don't have the motivation to leave. I'm starting to think that I'm the worst employee someone could have, in the sense that I'm at that point where I'm not engaged by my job, but I feel safe there. There are things I feel like I should care about, but I don't, as I don't fear being fired. If it weren't for the fact that the quality of my work is important to me, I'd probably be that useless person in the office that just barely scrapes by and everyone hopes would quit or get hit by a car.
My boss has been trying though. I think he put me up for this delivery lead stuff because he thinks it'll help me develop. But to be honest, the past few weeks have been pretty miserable for me. I have learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in a project, which is good, but it has further reinforced my belief that management is not for me. I don't know why everyone I work with seems to think I'd make a great manager, despite me telling them that I won't. Maybe when this project crashes and burns, they'll finally believe me. :(
Ever since then, he has been trying to get them all back, and this year, for some reason, I got roped into the whole desk decoration thing by having my desk decorated. I'm never one to miss an opportunity for surprises, so for Albert's birthday, I had something more elaborate planned. I had already organised with another co-worker to do the standard streamers and balloons, but as Albert and I are both fans of The Office, I wanted to go further.
Inspired by Jim's prank on Dwight where he puts his stapler in jelly, I asked the help desk for a broken keyboard and mouse and used that instead. I tried to get two keyboards, as I needed doubles of H, A, P and Y to spell out Happy birthday with the keys, but was only able to get one in the end, so I ended up using other keys and writing my own letters for the duplicates.
If you ever want to do this, learn from my mistake: keys float. So I started with one layer of jelly (500ml), just so the mouse and keys would be suspended in the middle. Then I placed the mouse and made another layer (which only went halfway up the mouse). Lastly, I got the keys, placed them down and poured two layers' worth of jelly (1L). To my horror, the keys floated to the top of the jelly and it took me a long time to press them down into the first two layers before they stopped floating back up (which is why the keys are in such a messy arrangement). I also ended up adding a couple of packets of gelatine to make it a bit more solid.
It was a lot harder to get out of the container than I thought, so it ended up having ugly cuts on the side, instead of a smoother surface like I wanted.
But oh well, I got the effect I wanted:
Through some research for my last interview, I ended up finding out that person's birthday, which was today. So I put some streamers on his desk as well. As I'm currently recovering from a virus, I didn't want to blow up any balloons, but I talked someone else on his team into blowing them up for me. I thought it'd be fun, as we've talked to each other twice in the entire time we've been on the same floor (once when I asked him to do the interview, and once when we did the actual interview), so I didn't think he'd suspect me at all.
I managed to get away with it for most of the day, until around 4pm, when I got an email from him saying, "Thanks for the streamers" and he attached a song that he had written (not one that he had written specifically for me - I learned in the interview that he writes music as a hobby).
LoL Mark observed that I am a lot more enthusiastic about these little side-hobbies than I am about my own job. He told me that I should do something else. I still don't have the motivation to leave. I'm starting to think that I'm the worst employee someone could have, in the sense that I'm at that point where I'm not engaged by my job, but I feel safe there. There are things I feel like I should care about, but I don't, as I don't fear being fired. If it weren't for the fact that the quality of my work is important to me, I'd probably be that useless person in the office that just barely scrapes by and everyone hopes would quit or get hit by a car.
My boss has been trying though. I think he put me up for this delivery lead stuff because he thinks it'll help me develop. But to be honest, the past few weeks have been pretty miserable for me. I have learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in a project, which is good, but it has further reinforced my belief that management is not for me. I don't know why everyone I work with seems to think I'd make a great manager, despite me telling them that I won't. Maybe when this project crashes and burns, they'll finally believe me. :(
Thursday 21 July 2016
Choc-Chip Cookie Experiment
When it comes to stress-relief baking, my fall-back option is always choc-chip cookies. While I do love the feeling of kneading dough, there's just something so comforting about the smell of choc-chip cookies in the oven. I've been playing around with trying to make a vegan version of the Serious Eats choc-chip cookie recipe and my first goal is to replace the dairy, My first attempt was to replace the butter with Nuttelex Buttery, but add a teaspoon of coconut flour (which is just ground up coconut) to give it something to "brown". My second attempt was to use coconut oil, in the ratio of 220g oil, 5g coconut flour, to replace the butter. Oh, and I found these amazing dark choc-chips at Costco, which are not super bitter (they don't list anything dairy in the ingredients, but it does say, "May contain: milk").
I probably should have taken more photos of the process, but I didn't feel like the results were perfect (compared to the dairy version of the cookie).
The dough looked nice:
And the final cookies spread out and had that great chewy, yet crunchy texture.
MrFodder and I both preferred the Nuttelex version, rather than the coconut oil version.
But I knew more work had to be done. I was starting to get a bit sick of cookies though, and it definitely wasn't very good for my waistline - or MrFodder's! But I still had 96 cookies worth of dough in the fridge, so I figured I'd take some to work. Then I thought, why not ask the people at work which cookies were better? It's not like they hadn't done it before, with the various bake-offs we had had in the office.
So I did the same, labelled some plates, left some paper and pens, and waited.
(I forgot to take a photo at the start, but I broke the cookies into 5 pieces each, just so I could get more feedback.)
The results of the first test:
9 votes for A (the Nuttelex cookies)
5 votes for B (the coconut oil cookies)
1 vote for "NEEDS MILK"
MrFodder pointed out that people could just be voting for A since it's first. I performed a second test - same dough, slightly longer cooking time (as that was the general feedback I had received), but this time I switched the order of the plates.
The results of the second test:
6 votes for A (although one voter only got to sample A, as B had run out)
7 votes for B
Funnily enough, someone wrote on their vote, "Is this a trick? Are they both the same?".
I thought that'd be a funny experiment, but I had run out of dough by this point, so I decided to make a third batch. Some of the comments I received said that full-dairy cookies were better, so I made the recipe again, this time following the original recipe with no substitutions.
Then I broke up and laid out the cookies again like last time, except the cookies for both plates were from the same batch. I wanted a bit more data this time, so I made 24 cookies, which should have given me 60 votes.
Here are the results:
9 votes for A
9 votes for B
2 votes saying they're both the same
1 vote saying, "Got milk?" - which I actually addressed! If you read the Post-It note in the middle, it says, "There's milk in the fridge if you think the tasting experience requires it."
I guess there doesn't seem to be a bias either way towards the order of the plates.
It was funny having people come up to me and say things like, "Plate A was much better this time." And I thought there would be 60 votes, but I had some time to observe people's patterns today, and it gave some insight into why I had so many samples, but was getting so few votes back.
1) People were going back for seconds. That in itself wasn't a bad thing, as I'd get maybe half the expected votes. The problem was that people were going back for seconds in an uneven manner, and only getting seconds from one plate. Maybe since the votes were distributed fairly evenly, it might not have made a huge difference, but there was one voter who only got to sample one side of the experiment. Who knows who else only got to eat one side, but didn't bother voting as they didn't think it'd be worth it?
2) People were eating and not voting. Made me sad, but I wasn't going to stand there all day and make people vote - I do have a work to do, plus, it seems unethical!
3) I ran out of paper. Someone was resourceful and brought over a pad over Post-It notes, but I can't tell how many votes I missed because there were no pieces of paper left.
A few other observations of the whole process. Many people came up to me to ask me which plate was mine. I refused to say, claiming that they should vote based on which they thought tasted better, not who they thought had baked it. A few people asked who the other baker was, and some were convinced it was my croissant baking rival, which I felt a bit bad about, as I didn't want him to get harassed over my experiment, but he didn't say anything to me about it.
I think a people were starting to get suspicious by day 3. Obviously there were the two people who realised they were the same, but rather than being asked which plate was mine, they were starting to ask what was going on, and whether I'd laced the cookies with poison. That didn't seem to stop them from being eaten though.
My favourite part was that this morning I saw someone get out of the lift on my floor, come in, sample the cookies, vote, and then get back into the lift and return to whichever floor he was going to. I thought that was really cute. :) Though he will be disappointed tomorrow, as I don't have another experiment to run.
I plan to do waffles next Monday, if I have the time, but I haven't worked out what I'm going to test yet. I feel like a whole world of social experiments has opened up to me. And food experiments, of course. I still need to work towards the ultimate cookie.
Tangent: The whole choc-chip cookie thing started with Terry. She told me that the best cookies ever were the cookies at Subway. Back then, mum never rarely let me eat take-away, so I'd never even been to Subway, and since they were most likely dairy-cookies, I'd never had a Subway cookie. I had no way of disproving her claim, and didn't even eat choc-chip cookies anyway, so I had no frame of reference either. I just knew that in cartoons and on TV, they were usually what people pulled out of the oven, and you'd see the aroma lines, and characters would drift towards it as though it smelled so amazing it was powerful enough to pull them in.
My aspiration for so long was to make cookies just as good as Subway cookies. I have seen them many times, but I've still never had one. It wasn't until a month ago, when I told MrFodder about said aspiration and he replied, "Subway cookies are shit." that I realised maybe I should aspire for something more.
I probably should have taken more photos of the process, but I didn't feel like the results were perfect (compared to the dairy version of the cookie).
The dough looked nice:
And the final cookies spread out and had that great chewy, yet crunchy texture.
MrFodder and I both preferred the Nuttelex version, rather than the coconut oil version.
But I knew more work had to be done. I was starting to get a bit sick of cookies though, and it definitely wasn't very good for my waistline - or MrFodder's! But I still had 96 cookies worth of dough in the fridge, so I figured I'd take some to work. Then I thought, why not ask the people at work which cookies were better? It's not like they hadn't done it before, with the various bake-offs we had had in the office.
So I did the same, labelled some plates, left some paper and pens, and waited.
The results of the first test:
9 votes for A (the Nuttelex cookies)
5 votes for B (the coconut oil cookies)
1 vote for "NEEDS MILK"
MrFodder pointed out that people could just be voting for A since it's first. I performed a second test - same dough, slightly longer cooking time (as that was the general feedback I had received), but this time I switched the order of the plates.
The results of the second test:
6 votes for A (although one voter only got to sample A, as B had run out)
7 votes for B
Funnily enough, someone wrote on their vote, "Is this a trick? Are they both the same?".
I thought that'd be a funny experiment, but I had run out of dough by this point, so I decided to make a third batch. Some of the comments I received said that full-dairy cookies were better, so I made the recipe again, this time following the original recipe with no substitutions.
Then I broke up and laid out the cookies again like last time, except the cookies for both plates were from the same batch. I wanted a bit more data this time, so I made 24 cookies, which should have given me 60 votes.
Here are the results:
9 votes for A
9 votes for B
2 votes saying they're both the same
1 vote saying, "Got milk?" - which I actually addressed! If you read the Post-It note in the middle, it says, "There's milk in the fridge if you think the tasting experience requires it."
I guess there doesn't seem to be a bias either way towards the order of the plates.
It was funny having people come up to me and say things like, "Plate A was much better this time." And I thought there would be 60 votes, but I had some time to observe people's patterns today, and it gave some insight into why I had so many samples, but was getting so few votes back.
1) People were going back for seconds. That in itself wasn't a bad thing, as I'd get maybe half the expected votes. The problem was that people were going back for seconds in an uneven manner, and only getting seconds from one plate. Maybe since the votes were distributed fairly evenly, it might not have made a huge difference, but there was one voter who only got to sample one side of the experiment. Who knows who else only got to eat one side, but didn't bother voting as they didn't think it'd be worth it?
2) People were eating and not voting. Made me sad, but I wasn't going to stand there all day and make people vote - I do have a work to do, plus, it seems unethical!
3) I ran out of paper. Someone was resourceful and brought over a pad over Post-It notes, but I can't tell how many votes I missed because there were no pieces of paper left.
A few other observations of the whole process. Many people came up to me to ask me which plate was mine. I refused to say, claiming that they should vote based on which they thought tasted better, not who they thought had baked it. A few people asked who the other baker was, and some were convinced it was my croissant baking rival, which I felt a bit bad about, as I didn't want him to get harassed over my experiment, but he didn't say anything to me about it.
I think a people were starting to get suspicious by day 3. Obviously there were the two people who realised they were the same, but rather than being asked which plate was mine, they were starting to ask what was going on, and whether I'd laced the cookies with poison. That didn't seem to stop them from being eaten though.
My favourite part was that this morning I saw someone get out of the lift on my floor, come in, sample the cookies, vote, and then get back into the lift and return to whichever floor he was going to. I thought that was really cute. :) Though he will be disappointed tomorrow, as I don't have another experiment to run.
I plan to do waffles next Monday, if I have the time, but I haven't worked out what I'm going to test yet. I feel like a whole world of social experiments has opened up to me. And food experiments, of course. I still need to work towards the ultimate cookie.
Tangent: The whole choc-chip cookie thing started with Terry. She told me that the best cookies ever were the cookies at Subway. Back then, mum never rarely let me eat take-away, so I'd never even been to Subway, and since they were most likely dairy-cookies, I'd never had a Subway cookie. I had no way of disproving her claim, and didn't even eat choc-chip cookies anyway, so I had no frame of reference either. I just knew that in cartoons and on TV, they were usually what people pulled out of the oven, and you'd see the aroma lines, and characters would drift towards it as though it smelled so amazing it was powerful enough to pull them in.
My aspiration for so long was to make cookies just as good as Subway cookies. I have seen them many times, but I've still never had one. It wasn't until a month ago, when I told MrFodder about said aspiration and he replied, "Subway cookies are shit." that I realised maybe I should aspire for something more.
Wednesday 20 July 2016
Interview with the Vampirefodder
I mentioned in a previous post that I've been trying to interview people in my department as a way to boost morale. I've done 11 interviews so far, and have a couple more lined up. I don't think I'm a particularly outgoing person, and I am not a huge fan of talking to people that I don't know, but I've found the whole experience enjoyable so far.
At first, I had a set list of questions that I was asking everyone, which is probably why my first interview was a disaster, but after a few interviews, I learned from my mistake, and rather than trying to force answers to those questions, I tried to let the conversation evolve naturally. I found out that one of my co-workers used to be an actor back in his home country, and another used to be involved in street fighting. One came to Australia as a refugee, and another plays in a band.
I've been publishing the interviews on our team wiki, and the intention was for our department head to send out some links to them in his monthly newsletter. Well, I think his monthly newsletter is no longer a thing, so I think only a couple of people have been reading them. Oh well, not a big deal.
I have been trying to use my newfound knowledge for the forces of good though. One person told me that he had a race coming up, and that he really likes puppies. He works in a different city to me, so I asked a co-worker I know from that office to print a picture of a puppy with the words, "Good luck for your race this weekend!" and put it on his desk. He told me (after my co-worker dobbed me in) that it made him smile, and he thinks it's what helped him win that weekend - which I don't think is true, but was nice of him to say.
I've been trying to treat it as a "For me it was Tuesday" thing, but in a positive way, not a "I killed your dad" way. If I can do something in a few minutes, that would cheer someone up for a whole day, then why not do it?
My entire motivation for doing these interviews is because there are so many people in my department, but most people only talk to others in their team. It's not just that there are a ton of fascinating people in the team, but there are some problems that are being encountered in multiple teams, and rather than learning from the mistakes one team has made, each team will try their own solutions, and often make the same mistakes themselves.
In the project I'm currently working on, I've been putting together a solution design document, and I had it reviewed by developers from two of the other teams. In a one hour discussion, we managed to simply the solution so much that rather than the two releases that were planned, I believe we can achieve all of the goals w are trying to solve with one solution. The developers on my team would never have thought of that alone as we're too close to the current system.
That all sounds good in theory, and I've explained my motivations to everyone who has asked, and yet I've found that some people are saying that the only reason I'm doing this is to suck up to the department manager. I guess the fact that I've also become the unofficial head of the floor's social committee and in charge of the Friday afternoon food and drinks doesn't help that impression. And that I'm the reason we can't have alcohol on the floor (because I made the mistake of actually checking with the legal team whether we were allowed to, and was told no, instead of just doing it anyway and pretending I didn't know any better).
I know it's silly, but it makes me so dejected, because I feel like I just wanted to do something nice, and people are questioning my motives or complaining that it's not good enough. To add to that, we just found out that we're merging with another team (in the same department) and their boss is going to be our boss. I have not heard good things, but I should at least keep an open mind and judge for myself rather than rely on hearsay. Then I found out the actual social committee was being cut, and I feel like that's just going to add extra pressure to the unofficial social committee I'm on (which really only started because a few people wanted to make cheesecake!).
Sorry for going on a rant. I've kinda lost interest in the social committee stuff, but I am still interested in the interviews, so I will continue with that. I'm also just going to continue with the things I actually enjoy doing, rather than trying to do what I think will make others happy. I got the idea of doing some experiments in the office, so that's my new goal. The results of my first experiment should be ready tomorrow!
At first, I had a set list of questions that I was asking everyone, which is probably why my first interview was a disaster, but after a few interviews, I learned from my mistake, and rather than trying to force answers to those questions, I tried to let the conversation evolve naturally. I found out that one of my co-workers used to be an actor back in his home country, and another used to be involved in street fighting. One came to Australia as a refugee, and another plays in a band.
I've been publishing the interviews on our team wiki, and the intention was for our department head to send out some links to them in his monthly newsletter. Well, I think his monthly newsletter is no longer a thing, so I think only a couple of people have been reading them. Oh well, not a big deal.
I have been trying to use my newfound knowledge for the forces of good though. One person told me that he had a race coming up, and that he really likes puppies. He works in a different city to me, so I asked a co-worker I know from that office to print a picture of a puppy with the words, "Good luck for your race this weekend!" and put it on his desk. He told me (after my co-worker dobbed me in) that it made him smile, and he thinks it's what helped him win that weekend - which I don't think is true, but was nice of him to say.
I've been trying to treat it as a "For me it was Tuesday" thing, but in a positive way, not a "I killed your dad" way. If I can do something in a few minutes, that would cheer someone up for a whole day, then why not do it?
My entire motivation for doing these interviews is because there are so many people in my department, but most people only talk to others in their team. It's not just that there are a ton of fascinating people in the team, but there are some problems that are being encountered in multiple teams, and rather than learning from the mistakes one team has made, each team will try their own solutions, and often make the same mistakes themselves.
In the project I'm currently working on, I've been putting together a solution design document, and I had it reviewed by developers from two of the other teams. In a one hour discussion, we managed to simply the solution so much that rather than the two releases that were planned, I believe we can achieve all of the goals w are trying to solve with one solution. The developers on my team would never have thought of that alone as we're too close to the current system.
That all sounds good in theory, and I've explained my motivations to everyone who has asked, and yet I've found that some people are saying that the only reason I'm doing this is to suck up to the department manager. I guess the fact that I've also become the unofficial head of the floor's social committee and in charge of the Friday afternoon food and drinks doesn't help that impression. And that I'm the reason we can't have alcohol on the floor (because I made the mistake of actually checking with the legal team whether we were allowed to, and was told no, instead of just doing it anyway and pretending I didn't know any better).
I know it's silly, but it makes me so dejected, because I feel like I just wanted to do something nice, and people are questioning my motives or complaining that it's not good enough. To add to that, we just found out that we're merging with another team (in the same department) and their boss is going to be our boss. I have not heard good things, but I should at least keep an open mind and judge for myself rather than rely on hearsay. Then I found out the actual social committee was being cut, and I feel like that's just going to add extra pressure to the unofficial social committee I'm on (which really only started because a few people wanted to make cheesecake!).
Sorry for going on a rant. I've kinda lost interest in the social committee stuff, but I am still interested in the interviews, so I will continue with that. I'm also just going to continue with the things I actually enjoy doing, rather than trying to do what I think will make others happy. I got the idea of doing some experiments in the office, so that's my new goal. The results of my first experiment should be ready tomorrow!
Another Truman Chips Adventure
Unexpected Truman chips adventure - I caught up for lunch with MB on the 8th of July, and as per the tradition we seem to have developed, we went to the Truman chips place. It was an interesting test for me, as I hadn't been in a while, and I wanted to see if my casual clothes theory panned out (I wasn't in casual that day).
We ordered at around 12:35pm. It was very busy at the restaurant (it was a Friday, after all). We were served by an Asian girl.
I actually suggested that MB ordered a burger without the chips, as I had a feeling I'd be getting Truman chips, and.... *drum roll*.... I did get it.
So there goes the casual clothes theory.
We ordered at around 12:35pm. It was very busy at the restaurant (it was a Friday, after all). We were served by an Asian girl.
I actually suggested that MB ordered a burger without the chips, as I had a feeling I'd be getting Truman chips, and.... *drum roll*.... I did get it.
So there goes the casual clothes theory.
Thursday 7 July 2016
Love and Language
I told someone at work about my high school phase of being in love with Bill Gates. I found it hard to explain the dynamics of female high school relationships, and the insistence that there must be someone I'm interested in, which led to my decision that Mr Gates would be my default response to the question of whether I "like-liked" anyone. So I think he took my response at face value. His response was to ask what I believe love is, as I was so freely able to throw the word around to someone I'd never even met. Then he asked if it had changed over time.
My initial response was love is that feeling you have when being around that person / thing makes you happy. I don't think love only extends to people. It's perfectly reasonable to love things or experiences, like loving pasta, or playing golf. So he asked if I was at a stand up comedy show and laughing, is that love? I definitely don't think that. The only alteration I could think of at the time was to amend my initial statement to say love also includes the compulsion to go back and experience that thing again. So with MrFodder, I enjoy repeated experiences with him, and I enjoy eating pasta over and over.
But I feel like that description doesn't cover some of the deeper aspects of love, especially how it has changed over time. The love I have for MrFodder now is not the same as the love I felt at the start.
I'm not sure why, but as I was falling asleep last night, I was thinking about one of my Japanese lecturers, and about the process of learning Japanese.
I actually missed my first Japanese class because I had been told that the first lecture is always useless, and I was having so much fun playing board games with the role-playing club. When I went to the second class, I realised I had missed the entire first row of hiragana (one of the alphabets used in Japanese). They had done. あa, いi, うu, えe, おo and had moved on to かka, きki, くku, けke, こko. I had never done Japanese before, so not only was I wondering what these squiggly lines were about, I was already on the back foot trying to catch up.
Fortunately, the Japanese textbook we were using was in romaji ( English alphabet representing the sounds), so I was able to keep up. Rather than trying to catch up, years of coasting in high school meant that I was confident I could learn it all in a day, and so I played more board games and lots of WoW. Class was fun, I was learning new words so quickly. Forming basic sentences. わたしはアナです I am Anna. I was making progress with very little effort.
Needless to say, I fell further and further behind, and once the book stopped using romaji, I struggled to participate in class. We moved from hiragana and katakana on to kanji ( pictographic characters used to represent words), and after the initial few characters that I had learned at Chinese school in the few classes I had attended, most were foreign to me. It took a lot more effort and the rate at which I was learning new things slowed. Japanese class became hard.
Somehow, I managed to pass the first year, but it kept getting harder. It became less about learning new words and more about learning characters and grammar rules. Rather than learning 20 new words a week, I'd barely understand one new grammar rule.
I've since forgotten most of the stuff I learned in my second year of Japanese class, but interestingly, the earlier stuff I still remember, despite struggling with it at the time. Hiragana is pretty much second nature to me now, but I still have vivid memories of the struggle I had learning it. It's comfortable for me now, and I'm actually a lot slower when reading romaji.
A huge tangent, but it made me think that love is like learning a new language. At the start, things are easy, and you're always discovering new things. Sure, dialogue is maybe somewhat stilted and you can't really discuss anything complex, but you just enjoy the process of learning new things. Things are so simple that any obstacles feel fairly minor. If you hit an obstacle you can't overcome, well, maybe this language wasn't for you, perhaps try something else? However, words don't always come easily, and If you want to make the best impression, you'd better think twice about what you say in case you end up saying that you like mutilating geese instead of asking someone to pass the salt.
It's this stage that appears in movies and on TV, where Adam Sandler rushes onto the departing plane just so he can tell Drew Barrymore that he loves her. Awwww.
After a while, that initial novelty wears off. Rushing onto planes is pretty expensive after a while! You're not learning new things all the time, which can actually be a bit of a relief, as you can work on building up what you already know. Refining it. You can start talking about deeper and more meaningful things. But at this stage, it takes a lot more effort to overcome obstacles. You start to question whether it's worth the effort, there's still time to try another language, but you have already committed so much effort.
Then you become fluent, or at least proficient enough to have deep conversations. You learn slang, and no longer feel the need to say sentences in their full form. You know enough to get your meaning across with the least amount of effort. Learning new things becomes a rare event, but the best thing is that communication is effortless. You are comfortable. You no longer need to question whether you should be saying X or Y, you can just say whatever flows into your head. It takes a lot of effort to keep improving, but in all honesty, do you really need to? Learning new things is quite rare.
I know it sounds a bit negative at the end, but I feel like that's how love evolves. I feel comfortable with MrFodder now, and every day isn't a need to impress. I realise perhaps that is not the best attitude to have, and we are working on making sure we both still put effort in the relationship, but I really like the feeling of familiarity. I like that I can come home from a long day of work and just relax. Maybe that's not for everyone, but I'm the kind of person who orders the same thing at a restaurant because I already know it's good and don't want to risk getting something bad. I like comfortable. I hate getting dressed up, and while I can put on a mask and play the cheerful, "normal" person, it's exhausting and not something I want to do when relaxed.
That's what love is to me. The exciting burn which slows to a comfortable warmth.
Then you have lust, which is like meeting a person with a foreign accent. It's nice to listen to them speak, but after a while, you realise that you can't really say anything meaningful to each other.
My initial response was love is that feeling you have when being around that person / thing makes you happy. I don't think love only extends to people. It's perfectly reasonable to love things or experiences, like loving pasta, or playing golf. So he asked if I was at a stand up comedy show and laughing, is that love? I definitely don't think that. The only alteration I could think of at the time was to amend my initial statement to say love also includes the compulsion to go back and experience that thing again. So with MrFodder, I enjoy repeated experiences with him, and I enjoy eating pasta over and over.
But I feel like that description doesn't cover some of the deeper aspects of love, especially how it has changed over time. The love I have for MrFodder now is not the same as the love I felt at the start.
I'm not sure why, but as I was falling asleep last night, I was thinking about one of my Japanese lecturers, and about the process of learning Japanese.
I actually missed my first Japanese class because I had been told that the first lecture is always useless, and I was having so much fun playing board games with the role-playing club. When I went to the second class, I realised I had missed the entire first row of hiragana (one of the alphabets used in Japanese). They had done. あa, いi, うu, えe, おo and had moved on to かka, きki, くku, けke, こko. I had never done Japanese before, so not only was I wondering what these squiggly lines were about, I was already on the back foot trying to catch up.
Fortunately, the Japanese textbook we were using was in romaji ( English alphabet representing the sounds), so I was able to keep up. Rather than trying to catch up, years of coasting in high school meant that I was confident I could learn it all in a day, and so I played more board games and lots of WoW. Class was fun, I was learning new words so quickly. Forming basic sentences. わたしはアナです I am Anna. I was making progress with very little effort.
Needless to say, I fell further and further behind, and once the book stopped using romaji, I struggled to participate in class. We moved from hiragana and katakana on to kanji ( pictographic characters used to represent words), and after the initial few characters that I had learned at Chinese school in the few classes I had attended, most were foreign to me. It took a lot more effort and the rate at which I was learning new things slowed. Japanese class became hard.
Somehow, I managed to pass the first year, but it kept getting harder. It became less about learning new words and more about learning characters and grammar rules. Rather than learning 20 new words a week, I'd barely understand one new grammar rule.
I've since forgotten most of the stuff I learned in my second year of Japanese class, but interestingly, the earlier stuff I still remember, despite struggling with it at the time. Hiragana is pretty much second nature to me now, but I still have vivid memories of the struggle I had learning it. It's comfortable for me now, and I'm actually a lot slower when reading romaji.
A huge tangent, but it made me think that love is like learning a new language. At the start, things are easy, and you're always discovering new things. Sure, dialogue is maybe somewhat stilted and you can't really discuss anything complex, but you just enjoy the process of learning new things. Things are so simple that any obstacles feel fairly minor. If you hit an obstacle you can't overcome, well, maybe this language wasn't for you, perhaps try something else? However, words don't always come easily, and If you want to make the best impression, you'd better think twice about what you say in case you end up saying that you like mutilating geese instead of asking someone to pass the salt.
It's this stage that appears in movies and on TV, where Adam Sandler rushes onto the departing plane just so he can tell Drew Barrymore that he loves her. Awwww.
After a while, that initial novelty wears off. Rushing onto planes is pretty expensive after a while! You're not learning new things all the time, which can actually be a bit of a relief, as you can work on building up what you already know. Refining it. You can start talking about deeper and more meaningful things. But at this stage, it takes a lot more effort to overcome obstacles. You start to question whether it's worth the effort, there's still time to try another language, but you have already committed so much effort.
Then you become fluent, or at least proficient enough to have deep conversations. You learn slang, and no longer feel the need to say sentences in their full form. You know enough to get your meaning across with the least amount of effort. Learning new things becomes a rare event, but the best thing is that communication is effortless. You are comfortable. You no longer need to question whether you should be saying X or Y, you can just say whatever flows into your head. It takes a lot of effort to keep improving, but in all honesty, do you really need to? Learning new things is quite rare.
I know it sounds a bit negative at the end, but I feel like that's how love evolves. I feel comfortable with MrFodder now, and every day isn't a need to impress. I realise perhaps that is not the best attitude to have, and we are working on making sure we both still put effort in the relationship, but I really like the feeling of familiarity. I like that I can come home from a long day of work and just relax. Maybe that's not for everyone, but I'm the kind of person who orders the same thing at a restaurant because I already know it's good and don't want to risk getting something bad. I like comfortable. I hate getting dressed up, and while I can put on a mask and play the cheerful, "normal" person, it's exhausting and not something I want to do when relaxed.
That's what love is to me. The exciting burn which slows to a comfortable warmth.
Then you have lust, which is like meeting a person with a foreign accent. It's nice to listen to them speak, but after a while, you realise that you can't really say anything meaningful to each other.
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