Update: I definitely have RSI—repetitive strain injury (as my coworker once complained, “Amazon has too many TLA’s—three letter acronyms) in my right forearm from a combination of overwork and bad ergonomics. It’s progressively worsened over the past few weeks and I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep publishing blog posts, let alone do much else these next few weeks, possibly months. I’ll still keep documenting, though published versions may have to wait (adding real grammar/media is a little taxing).
June 26th – Disaster strikes: upon waking up and heading out to open the chicken coop, my great uncle discovers only a ripped open wire door, lots of feathers, and only one mauled up duck. Casualties: 2 ducklings, 4 chicks, and our year old hen. My mom wrongly informed me that it was a bear, though after seeing it for myself, it was evident that (multiple?) much smaller animals, most likely raccoons, had clawed apart the wire on our coop and ransacked the place. It seems like every year, the flock gets eaten, though this is really the first time that their shelter has been broken into (most other years it was due to negligence in closing the coop at night). R.I.P. to the deceased and to our remaining American Pekin who now has serious mutilations all over its face and neck.
June 27th – it’s easy to blur the work/life barrier when working remotely, as evidenced by my doctor’s appointment causing me to make up the time after dinner, though I’m helped by having a mostly lenient manager and team at the Minneapolis office. I was also vindicated by my allergy doctor saying I wasn’t going crazy about my symptoms, though unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until the end of July to get a test done to confirm my suspicions about being allergic to my cat. Being off Zyrtec sucks though (enough that I’m nauseous during the day), so I’m going to keep taking it (I stopped in case they were going to test me today).
June 29th – I’ve found like seven other Dartmouth students in the Amazon network, and we’ve made a slack channel now—how hilarious. Our kitchen sink sprung a leak today, marking the 4th or 5th thing that’s broken in our house these few months (the heater, the AC, water softener, roof repair, etc.), which is much more than a typical year. I guess this is to be expected of a 20 year old house. Dad went to get another MRI today.
June 30th – Next vaccine shot of the series was today, and he’s now starting the second adjuvant cycle. They upped the dosage again on his temozolomide to 420mg since the last two dosages didn’t have any adverse effects. I went to get an annual eye exam after work and to try out contacts—it was like magic after they put them in my eyes. Everything was clear without something sitting on my face! The hard part was getting them out though, which consisted of me sitting there for 30 minutes trying to fight my blinking reflex while trying to squeeze a thin silicone sheet off my cornea. They say it gets easier with practice and I sure hope so, as I don’t want to spend another 30 minutes drying my eyes out and poking it with my fingers. As I’m writing this, Technoblade, a Minecraft YouTuber with 10+million subscribers I’d been subscribed to since 2013 (when he only had 5 thousand subs) has passed away from a grade IV sarcoma at the age of 23. I’d never been one to care deeply about online personalities or celebrities, not wanting to involve myself in a parasocial relationship, but this one was that one personal exception I allowed myself, mostly due to childhood attachment. Fate is cruel.
July 1st – This third vaccine shot for my dad was done on the leg since the last two had left swelling scars that hadn’t fully healed on his arm, but then this shot had even more swelling than the first.
July 2nd – A fun time at a car show in downtown Kent, and unboxing the Oculus Quest 2 that I bought. Ended the day with fireworks. The trial contacts I got from my eye doctor are breaking in nicely, though I’m noticing drier eyes than usual as a result.
July 3rd – Hot dogs and “A Salute to America” with fireworks at Blossom Music Center. They usually play 1812 overture as a program closer but it was cut this year for obvious reasons (though I disagree with the decision). I think out of 10,000+ people there, we were in the .1% wearing masks, and that might be an overestimate.
July 4th – Dad’s appetite has generally been worse for the week before and after this round of chemo—he was hit with an especially serious bout of nausea and weakness while doing yard work, and couldn’t eat much for dinner at all.
July 5th – Needless to say, I think the doctors found his tolerance for temozolomide and won’t be increasing it for the next cycle. He remained nauseous while eating and mostly rested for the day. I’m finally getting to start my intern project during work.
July 6th – The oculus quest 2 is insanely cool. Highly recommend. The contacts from last week make it so much better too.
July 7th – The solder job on my dyson vacuum battery fell apart so I had to redo it—second time was much easier!
July 9th – Ordered dinner from a Thai restaurant on my dime since my first paycheck came in yesterday💰, and spent some time fixing Wilton’s trashy bike into a meh bike (department store bikes, what can ya do).
July 10th – Spent the evening biking the trail at Hudson Springs Park with Wilton’s new bike while the family walked along. Dad seemed to have recovered somewhat since he stopped chemo for this round.
July 12th – Had a dental cleaning for the first time in 1.5 years. Yes, I was irresponsible… and my consequences included a worsening of some cavities that started forming 3 years ago. I’ll need to do fillings now (possibly even a root canal) without insurance!
July 13th – My manager is kind of on my butt about not having tangible deliverables yet but it’s kind of difficult when all you’ve been doing so far is project infrastructure setup… I also decided to try replacing the thermal paste on my overheating laptop (the GPU temps get hot enough to burn when I’m playing on VR with it).
July 14th – Sold our 10+ year old cacti on Facebook marketplace today. Needed to visit my eye center for a new pair of trial contacts as the previous ones weren’t powerful enough. Met with my thesis advisor, Prof. Zhu, for the first time (at 10pm, odd hours). Dad took vaccine shot #4 today, usual side effects of tiredness and weakness. Says he notices numbness on the tip of his tongue, which started with his last round of chemo.
July 15th – I think I almost injured my ankle learning how to wheelie a bike.
July 16th – Our kitchen sink faucet is leaking again, prompting my dad and great uncle to investigate and order new parts. The taillight on our Honda broke too, so they fixed it. They also went to pick up some free mulch from a nearby industrial site.
July 17th – I’m putting my CS degree to use once again by learning how to set up a Minecraft Bedrock server for Wilton and his friends. In my weekly call with my grandparents, they couldn’t stop talking about the record heat hitting Shanghai right now, while we simultaneously prepare for 100+*F this coming week in Ohio. Lovely times we live in!
July 18th – Sometimes, hospital admin are just busy, I get it. But sometimes, you just wonder what’s going on when they miss a scheduled call check-in for a third time? It’s not a huge deal, but if they can’t handle the simple stuff, should we worry about anything else? Also called Sandy and Charlie to catch up.
July 20th – (In retrospect, the beginnings of my RSI manifesting). Wrist has been hurting since the start of last week. Worried about my posture and desk ergonomics now. Plus, my room doesn’t have any AC as it’s connected to the rest of the basement but it’s always significantly hotter (80+*F in the afternoon on bad days).
July 21st – A lot of times, the aural memories you make are overlooked for the visual ones during both novel and mundane times in your life. I was reminded of this when, while searching for white noise backgrounds while working, I stumbled across a video of sounds you’d hear in the Hong Kong MTR (its metro system). Who could’ve thought that some platform announcements, door closing alarms, and random background Cantonese could give me goosebumps and send me on a nostalgia trip? As for growing wrist pain, I suspect tennis elbow.
July 22nd – I learned why you don’t deploy to prod on a Friday today. Wasn’t prod for me but actually a test environment but still a bad taste in your mouth knowing you have a mess to fix the following Monday. Also getting depressed at how little control I have over being sick or not, as my brother passed another (very mild) cold virus to me. It’s very mentally taxing when it seems I’m the only person in my family who even cares about respiratory illness transmission (not just covid)—not even my dad is a little worried when Wilton is quite obviously symptomatic with some illness coughing everywhere.
July 23rd – Wilton has been greatly enjoying the Minecraft server I’ve set up for him and his friends (Java and Bedrock compatible!). We took a family outing to a nearby trail with a waterfall and in the evening, called my grandparents and ranted at them a little about how we tore down our pre-war walkable cities only to replace them with interstates and suburbs in the 1950s (it’s not easy to find people that will listen to me, but since they’ve gotten their taste of living in the U.S. while taking care of me as a toddler, they get why I’m depressed that we don’t have 25,000 miles of high speed rail crisscrossing our country).
July 24th – My great uncle has been feeling arm tingling and numbness for a few days. He does have diabetes and high blood pressure and we thought it might be related to him not taking his prescribed medications, though after MinuteClinic heard his history, they refused to see him (probably as to not misdiagnose him and get sued). Wilton has actually been interested in chess recently, and though I still managed to beat him in a few games, he has definitely been improving. Not bad for an 8-year-old. I also received the vertical ergonomic mouse I ordered to try and alleviate my tennis elbow; I’ll have to see its effects over the course of the next week(s).
July 25th – the work week starts again with my boss being passive-aggressive during our daily standup, reminding me and everyone that a “big deadline” is coming up at the end of the week. Today was unique in that I spent the afternoon at the library after biking there in anticipation of seeing University of Michigan’s solar car cross our town in its journey from Princeton, NJ to LA, with my high school friend as its lead engineer. Lately, I’ve also been very nostalgic about Hong Kong, as this time last year, I would be preparing for my departure and quarantine, mentally hyping myself up for one of the best times of my life (and those expectations were absolutely shattered, in retrospect). Been missing the food, transit, sights, and sounds; but especially the good times with my fellow exchange student friends and extended family there, which are all in stark contrast and dearly lacking this summer while I work from home.
July 26th – so $350 and a 1 hour commute later, I’m told I need a dental crown, fillings, and a night-guard for nighttime teeth grinding (another $1800), all without insurance. This will be fun. Also had to make up the time I wasn’t in the office in the evening since I didn’t use the 3 hours of PTO I’d built up. Our garage door opener also broke this evening—just another item in the long list of things that need fixing in this house. Lately, we contracted a power washing and painting company to redo our house exterior and they keep spraying water through the gaps in all the doors in our house too.
July 27th – They say you shouldn’t really judge how your life is going based on thoughts you have after 9pm, but that was a little tough last night. On the topic of aural memories again, I received stimulus in the form of Disney’s “When You Wish Upon a Star” (see below), once again bringing me back to some of the happiest times in my life (March – December 2021); specifically, two memories of our weekly movie nights (many of which were Disney animations) when I was staying with 6 other friends in Chester, VT in Spring 2021 and when I visited Disneyland Hong Kong during my last month there. I couldn’t help but compare that to where I was at now, stuck at home with responsibilities I didn’t want thrusted on me, work that doesn’t align with my moral values and which is currently deteriorating my health, and with hardly much to look forward to when I would eventually return for senior year now that I’ve been told I likely wouldn’t be able to play the concerto I’d been preparing for so long during my senior year, and not to mention the ongoing pandemic that most of the world has “moved past”.
On most days, I tell myself I am 21 and just trying to figure out who I am. On bad days, I talk to people who know me best and try to understand how they see me. U not alone~
best big brother ever <3