Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Bye bye, Facebook!

Well, I finally did it: I am completely divorced from the greater Facebook empire.

WhatsApp - the popular messaging app owned by Facebook - will begin sharing user data with its parent company starting on February 8th. Previously it was possible to opt out of this farce, but no longer. You either share your personal data, or you don’t use the app at all. The absorption of WhatsApp into the Facebook ecosystem will finally be complete in a few weeks’ time.

This was the last straw for me, and yesterday my entire friend group migrated over to Signal. It seems plenty of others did as well. Signal is a cross-platform messaging app, backed by a non-profit company, that promises complete privacy. Messages are end-to-end encrypted, user data are not harvested for anything, and messages can be set to expire, deleted forever.

Perhaps more so than the privacy benefits, I really want nothing to do with Facebook. I’ve long stopped using the main Facebook app, and quit instagram some years ago. Those platforms are mindless time-sucks that negatively affects mental health. Not once since deletion did I ever pined to go back to instagram, even though I dearly miss the app’s early days. When it was just the photographs, and nothing else.

I kept using WhatsApp because even though Facebook bought the company, it was completely standalone and had no integration with anything else. A walled garden compared to Facebook’s own messenger app, where content is mined for target advertisement. That will no longer be the case come February 8th, which is why I’ve jumped ship to Signal.

Farewell, Facebook.

That escalated quickly

It was just a normal work day as I headed to a 11:00 AM meeting. Half hour later, I check the twitter feed and come to find out the U.S. Capitol building has been taken over by rabid Trump supporters. On the day congress was to certify the 2020 Presidential election for Joe Biden, I was surprised at the utter lack of additional security. How was it this easy to storm the Capitol?

With Trump talking of what a pivotal day January 6th was, egging on supporters to show up in DC and make a stand, you’d think the protection levels around the Capitol would be heighten. I guess not.

Insurrection. Attempted coup. Things I didn’t think I’d ever see in America, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. This is the consequence of the losing side refusing to concede, even against all hard evidence. instead, Trump has fanned the flames of grievance, making false claims of a stolen election. His followers bought into the madness, and yesterday’s events in DC was the natural endgame. At least one person who stormed the Capitol has died. There goes America’s moral high ground on peaceful transitions of power.

Obviously, it was rather difficult to focus on work during the latter half of yesterday. It’s tough to peel away from twitter when such unprecedented calamity is happening right now. My mind was on Washington DC, yet during moments I had to remind myself there’s actually work still to be done. It was a surreal and floating sensation, my concentration split into two halves. The half focused on the news in stunned disbelief.

I have to say there was some satisfying schadenfreude in seeing some Republicans finally confront the horror, reaping the results of what they’ve sown the past four years. A person’s character. matters, especially for someone occupying the highest office in the land. Let’s not make this mistake ever again. Two more weeks until decency returns to the executive branch.

Daily break life

During the winter break, unable to travel anywhere, daily life wasn’t all that different compared to working-from-home. Obviously, I didn’t have to keep tabs on the work portal, but that’s about it. I’m still sat in front of the computer for most of the day, starring at a refreshing screen, hoping to be entertained. This is why I didn’t request additional time off: there’s only so much YouTube videos to watch before I’m really just wasting time.

On a few of the days, however, I did get a pseudo experience of what it would be like to be a freelance writer. I had two big pieces to write: reflections on 2020 (insane), and December update for the M2 Competition. The inertia of laziness is strong; I was surprised at my own discipline in finishing those articles on time. It all starts with getting the daily tasks out of the way. I’d wake up (not so) bright and early, and studying Korean for an hour. Then it’s reading for another hour (The Gulag Archipelago volume 2. Fitting for our times, am I right?).

With the two daily tasks out of the way, it’s time for breakfast. After the stomach is fed, then it’s time to start writing. One trick that really helps me stay focused is to set some soft boundaries: how many words in total? How long am I writing before breaking for lunch? These soft goals makes the project seem manageable and less daunting. It keeps me concentrated on the process: let’s just write for two hours; lunch will be the reward.

After lunch, I’d write for another two hours, before breaking once again. This time it’s to workout. There’s truly no better antidote than the euphoric high that comes after exercising. With that done, I would then write some more until it was time for dinner. By that point, I was already (largely) done with an article. A night’s supper is extra sweet when you’ve had a productive day.

Perhaps someday I’ll find a way to get paid for this sort of work. In the meantime, it’s all for fun; exercising the creative mind.

Should I learn the piano?

The calendar may have turned to a new year, yet sadly the coronavirus pandemic is still raging on. Multiple vaccines have been approved and are being distributed throughout the country, but the rollout have been slow and inefficient. Daily U.S. deaths are hovering around the three thousands, and local ICU bed capacity is in the single digits percentage. San Francisco has extended a stay-at-home order indefinitely.

What I am trying to say is: we’re going to be stuck in our homes for a longer while still, likely longer that we’d hoped. Approving the vaccines was the beginning of the end, but it’s going to be a gradual descent back to normalcy, rather than the drop of a rollercoaster.

With yet more free time on the horizon, unable to go anywhere, I pondered on a new hobby to pick up. A new practice that would take about an hour each day. Hopefully by the proper end of the pandemic, I’d learned a new skill. Even if it’s only for self enrichment, it would be a worthwhile endeavor to fill up the free time productively.

Recently, I narrowed it down to (finally) learning the piano, in what was a childhood aspiration. I took a semester of lessons back in high school, but I never kept up the practice. Back then I wasn’t a fan of learning for learning’s sake, more focused on the fun parts of being an adult.. It’s different now, obviously: I am the person that self-taught himself Korean, a project that’s still ongoing. So reckon I have the discipline now to follow through with a dream from childhood.

What’s stopping the great? Costs. I like to buy quality things, and the price of an excellent stage keyboard is in the many thousands (I am not going to buy the hundred-dollar kids specials they sell at Costco). Furthermore, I’d also need an iPad, so I can plug that into the keyboard and take lessons via an app.

Nobody said hobbies were cheap. I should know: gestures at car and camera kit.

First

Hello, friends. Welcome to this side of 2021. Consider yourself lucky - as I do - if you’ve made it through the pandemic 2020 with your health and job intact. The onus is on us to give those that have lost plenty a helping hand. For example: those in a position to not really need the $600 stimulus check should donate it to a charity. Consider a local food bank, or the Barstool Fund.

Because I work in education, I got the week and a half between Christmas Eve and New Years Day off. The white-collar winter break, if you will. While it sucked that I couldn’t travel back home to China as it’s my usual during this time, it was still nice to have some solitude at home. The weather was rainy for the most part as well, which is just about the perfect backdrop for some quiet contemplation.

Of course, it seems to be impossible for me to do absolute nothing, even when I’m on vacation. I feel best when I’m productive, so over the winter break I kept on reading books and studying Korean for a few hours per day. I also wrote a personal reflection piece on 2020, and a December update to owning my BMW M2 Competition. Please kindly give those a read.

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions anymore, preferring consistent processes and habits. Sometimes the end goal can overwhelm the brain into failed submission. A small daily habit is much more palatable. Read 100 books for the year seems like climbing Everest; read for a half hour every day is infinitely more doable. Let your daily habits compound, and by the end the year you might as well end up reading 100 books.

I have no new habits to make for 2021; not yet, anyways. One mental goal I am working on this year is to truly ignore the opinion of others, to not give a crap what other people think. Too often I’ve let how I think others will react dictate my actions. This doesn’t mean I’m going to be a narcissistic asshole to people; the point is to be completely myself. I’m not going to restrict who am I and what I do just because I’m afraid what people will say.

Last of the year

Yesterday the was the last time I had to physically go into campus for the rest of this crazy year. Now it’s just a few more days of working from home until we are off for Christmas Eve until New Years. One of the many perks of my public sector education job is that we get this small reprieve at the end of December, without needing to dig into our vacation hours. Campus is closed, and so are the workers.

In some ways, it’s amazing that we are nearing the end of 2020 already. The COVID circus that began back in March doesn’t seem like that long ago, until you start counting the months. It’s like we’ve been stuck in suspended animation for going on nine months. At least the thawing process have begun: the vaccines are here.

I am immensely grateful that my immediate circle of family and friends have weathered through this pandemic with our health and employment intact (so far). A great too many Americans do not have that privilege. It’s important to remind myself of this: yes, it sucks that I can’t travel back home to China as I typically do during this time of the year, but things could be much worse. Just got to hunker down for a bit longer; it’ll be over soon enough.

So instead of meeting up with family back in my hometown of Guangzhou, the plan during this break is to sit at home and read many books. The goal is to whittle down the list of unread that are currently sitting on the shelf. After which I will be free to buy even more from my Amazon shopping list! Who said reading books can’t be equivalent to mindless media consumption?

I am signing off from this blog until 2021. There’s still two more things to come on this website, though: my year-end long form on 2020, and the December update to the BMW M2.

Take care, everyone. I’ll see you soon.

Shipping tip

A quick word of advice: before you head to the local post office/Fedex/UPS location to ship a package, make sure it is prepaid and ready to go. That way, you can skip the long lines and simply drop off the package at the counter. You’ll thank me later for the massive time saved.

Yesterday, I had to ship a package to a friend via USPS, and the service line snaked out of the post office and down the block. Of course, the need for social-distancing probably caused the line to appear longer than it really is, but I would say there’s still significantly more people than a typical year. Due to COVID, the demand for shipping presents this holiday must be tremendous. In lieu of being able to gather, you’ve now got to ship presents out to multiple places. No wonder the wait at the post office is so long.

I had to drop off a package at Fedex as well, encountering a similar situation. Honestly, I did feel a slight smugness, being able to walk pass everyone in line and put the package down at the front desk. Caveat: you’ll have to be okay with not getting a receipt. There isn’t a clerk there to print one out for you. If you insist on a receipt, maybe because it’s a particularly expensive item, then you’ll have to wait in line like the rest of them.

Kudos and shoutout to everyone working in logistics. Surely it’s been tough year, with people buying stuff online more than ever before. The workload right now must be crazy, since everybody is buying presents as well and shipping them out. Despite that, I am still getting my Amazon Prime packages in the promised two days. A great testament to the efficiency and skill of workers and machines.

Healthcare professionals deservedly get most of the publicized glory, but delivery personnel should get a lot of the credit as well for keeping this whole thing together.