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Blog

For a fuller view of my writing beyond my recent posts, dive in below and peruse as much or as little as you’d like. I write about a wide range of topics from WordPress to Surrogacy to Photography to Mental Health. Don’t follow me if you want to only hear about a certain topic as I write based on what comes up for me in that moment of time. As always, thanks for reading.

  • A Friday in Vancouver

    My mom came into town at the last minute after a friend bailed coming up to Vancouver (she got VERY sick). My mom and I have always talked about traveling together but it’s never been a reality we could reasonably pursue. Coming to Vancouver suddenly became the perfect opportunity to start our world travels. Fortunately, my […]

  • A Day In the Life of a Nomad Happiness Engineer

    I didn’t plan to travel a lot this summer. I knew I’d be headed home and to the World Cup but suddenly the list of travel destinations this summer has grown: Vancouver Portland, OR Philadelphia, PA Pittsburgh, PA Washington, DC Boulder, CO Orlando, FL San Francisco, CA Possibly LA or San Diego, CA I’m in Vancouver […]

  • UBC Bike Ride

    The owners of the airbnb where I am staying have been nice enough to leave behind a bike for me to use. As a kid, biking was my forte and my go to method of transportation. I’m still too fearful to bike in San Francisco but have heard awesome things about how Vancouver was basically […]

  • Japan vs Switzerland

    While I want the US to win, I was incredibly excited at the chance to see Japan, the previous World Cup champs, play. In particular, I was itching to see the footwork by the Japanese legend, Homare Sawa. I was expecting a straightforward game where Japan would dominate the play of the ball while running […]

  • The Adventure Begins: World Cup 2015

    I couldn’t sleep Friday night. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was nervous about traveling or if I was just too excited for it all to actually happen. Let me give some background information… In March 2011, it was announced that the World Cup would be in Canada. At this point, it was […]

  • A dog and his owner

    “She’s adorable” Looks down at his dog as if he’s talking to her. Looks back up at me. “Funny you say that – she was just telling me the same thing about you”

  • A perfect evening

    Shut my computer at 4pm, threw on running shoes, and headed off to run up 22nd street. 20 minutes later, I was sitting in Dolores park enjoying the peaceful view in the image above. I walked slowly back to my apartment to grab my wallet before heading to the 22nd street market. Half a roasted chicken […]

  • Dwelling

    I’m the master of dwelling. I can think about the same situation over 1,000 different ways and still not move on. It reminds me of a quote by Jonathan Foer: “Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of […]

  • Public Shaming

    Jon Ronson just might be my new favorite author. I recently finished his book “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” and consistently felt like I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough while reading it. It basically deep dives into the world of social media shaming where, for example, one inappropriate tweet gets shown to millions thanks […]

  • Those are days to rest and to feel.

    It’s one of those days again. One of the days where I seek out everything to distract me and to help me cope. I woke up this morning and felt it. I knew it immediately. For starters, I slept way longer than I normal would yet still felt tired. My first instinct: cope. I first […]

  • Koko vs. Happier

    Any chance I have to dive into the world of psychology + technology, I jump at the opportunity. Koko and Happier are two apps that have caught my attention as they are similar in what they want to help change but different in their approach. Since I’ve been an active user for both apps, work […]

  • Being social without social media

    “What! You’re having a baby?!” I wish I was kidding. Rather than finding out through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever, I found out 8 months late that someone was pregnant. Fortunately this wasn’t a close friend but it’s someone I knew well enough that I should have probably known. Put a bit better, if I was […]

  • You can never have too many people who love you

    “You fight your battles in the world, but you close your door and there’s comfort,” she said. “Now there was no door to close. I wanted to meet another family with a dwarf child, and I wanted to meet a happy adult. I kept in constant motion until I found them. Then I began to […]

  • Being open about introversion

    “Why don’t you like Dolores Park? It’s so pretty and alive.” I was asked this recently and paused momentarily before responding. There’s always the initial gut reaction to say something an extroverted millennial would say: “Oh I mean I LOVE it. How could you not? I just feel so carefree and happy here surrounded by […]

  • How to make yourself miserable 

    Adjusting to San Francisco hasn’t been the easiest for me in some ways. The following post is how I made this transition even harder on myself. As a result, I present to you guidelines for how to make yourself miserable. Unrealistic expectations  Don’t eat sweets! Don’t drink caffeine! Try new recipes everyday! Code everyday! Workout […]

  • This sense of a life so extraordinary

    These two feelings, this knowledge of a world so awful, this sense of a life so extraordinary – how am I to resolve them? – Richard Flanagan When I was still using Facebook, I used to post quotes rather than personalized statuses about the great sandwich I ate or awesome run I went on. It […]

  • Lesbians Who Tech: personal recap 

    I’ve gone to a good number of conferences this year and have realized that I haven’t been the best about writing about them. I think it’s important to reflect and share as it allows the conference’s influence to spread as well as me to look back on the quotes and lessons at a later point. […]

  • Flying 

    Flying for me has gone from a somewhat anxious event to something that always leaves me amazed. To be able to fly above the world and to see things from such a different perspective leaves me in a place of peace these days. It may also be that I’ve started listening to podcasts like The […]

  • Cats

    I’ve always been a dog person or at least have always considered myself to be one. Until this week.. Why? Well just look at these two cuties below. I couldn’t help but fall in love with the little paws and deep purring. I’m officially a dog AND cat person.

  • Reflection on habits 

    I sat next to a woman about my age on my latest plane ride who was headed off to med school interviews. We chatted about a variety of things until an alarm went off on her phone. A bit embarrassed and apologetic, she said she needed to pray and had to do so in a […]

  • The people of New Zealand 

    Disclaimer: this is purely based on 10 days spent in NZ and my limited interactions with people there. New Zealand has one of the nicest cultures I think I’ve ever experienced. I’ll highlight my experience in a variety of coffee shops and cafes as I don’t know how else to explain it. Richmond Road Cafe […]

  • Conditioning my willpower

    I just finished the book Willpower after a friend of mine gave it to me to read. I took a ton away from it but will summarize main takeaway points below: My bad habits (mainly eating candy when I shouldn’t) are often a result of me using up my willpower elsewhere. I need to have better balance […]

  • 21 & 22

    To preface this, I just turned 22 years old on March 6th. It still feels weird to say/write 22 but that’s technically my age based on the arbitrary definition of days, weeks, years, etc. I like to reflect when I have a birthday because it’s a natural break in time to do so. I also find that […]

  • New Zealand: Day seven & eight

    Day Seven The official team meetup ended yesterday but I feel as if so much has happened between now and then. After a run through cleaning up the two houses, a smaller group of us jumped into a car. My teammate, Chris, and I are hanging around in New Zealand for a couple extra days […]

  • New Zealand: Day six

    We started the day showing off each group’s project work that had been done over the last two days. My group was focused on making the entirety of VaultPress easier. To that end, I was able to dive into the code and tweak things to make our overall system more user friendly, more informative, and overall […]

  • New Zealand: Day four and five 

    Day Four I woke up in the morning with a sore throat and knew I was in for a rough day. I had to power through though as the island of  Rangitoto was much to alluring. After a brief dash for parking, it quickly occurred to me that in order to get to said island […]

  • New Zealand: Day three

    The team is divided between two houses. There’s a larger main house where we spend most of the day and a bit of a smaller house where me and another coworker stays at night. The result is that I get to take a nice and refreshing walk in the morning to the other house to […]

  • New Zealand: Day One & Two

    My team is having a meetup this week in New Zealand. I have been wanting to here for years so you can imagine my excitement! I was the first person to land from my team in Auckland so I had some time to reign in my excitement. It wasn’t even light out but I was […]

  • Any other place 

    “But to look back from the stony plain along the road which led one to that place is not at all the same thing as walking on the road; the perspective to say the very least, changes only with the journey; only when the road has, all abruptly and treacherously, and with an absoluteness that […]

  • Control & experimental groups

    Here’s the scene. I’m at TEDxUNC and a research study is mentioned where the experimental group outperforms the control group by x amount. Think sociological study where the experimental group gets access to solid early childhood education, parental resources, free day care, etc. They follow the participants for a number of years and find that having access […]