August 2024

I'm writing this first update on the last day of a summer that has been truly transformative this year (though I'm not fond of this word). So, this log will be relatively long; I'm sorry.

At the end of May, after filling out an application full of despair and a loss of sense in the tech industry and my work in particular, I was selected as a mentee in the Women in Tech mentorship program. Almost three months have passed very fast: I didn’t have many resources to attend all the events, mini groups, and networking (probably I just don't want to stop sucking at networking and small talk).

But they also resulted in meeting my unforgettable mentor and a bunch of like-minded people, learning goal-setting techniques (and finding out that "being strong and kind" is not a goal), finally reading "The Path to Senior Product Designer", and creating the site you are reading at the moment. Upd from april 2024: I'm transferring to this website all the content from that old Framer portfolio I was writing about in this note.

Naturally, I'm already planning how to rewrite it properly instead of using a no-code tool. After some years of working within teams, I've built an opinion that a good designer has to learn to deliver just to be relatively independent. Upd from april 2024: She was right. So now I have plans to learn HTML and CSS, and then React, JS, and choose a framework. I've found some useful resources: Learn HTML and CSS and Frontend Mentor. It's going to be a long path.

I've read Lobsang Tenpa's book on meditation and am now trying to incorporate it into my daily life. That also led me to get back to yoga classes I once stopped attending after appendectomy. It's taught by a master who says things like "If you came here to relax, you entered the wrong door" and "It's good that doctors recommend yoga. Why? Right, because it changes the way you look at death." No regrets.

As a person who's "clever, but lazy," I eventually understood that the chaos I have in my mind is transmitted to the users I work for because it directly influences the product. It's getting better, although I have to deal with the mistakes I made earlier on.

Also:

Started a reading club and am currently mentally preparing myself to schedule the first meeting.
Cut bangs.
Got myself A Pattern Language by K. Alexander, which I've been dreaming of since architecture school.
Booked tickets to my first real two-week vacation by the sea (earlier, I only attended events that took place somewhere where you could have a swim).
Watched Alien: Romulus and was deeply satisfied.