now to the real stuff for this post. the what i've been up to, where ya been, why didn't you post for months....post. lol. it's going to be a loooooong one, and i appreciate you taking the time to catch up with me! a quick summary: work has been super busy, i've been doing too many other things in my spare time, and i wasn't in a great mental state for quite a while. with these, the idea of working on the blog was starting to feel like work, and i was starting to reject it.
let's start with one of the first things i remember noting before.. my skin. my skin has taken a huge hit recently, as can and will be seen in my upcoming haul and empties posts, almost all skincare stuff... i've never ever really been all about talking about my acne or scarring to anyone really..because let's be real here..because i'm my biggest critic and society thinks you should have clear skin. no not really they don't totally, but again, there's that self-induced pressure, right? my problem areas have always primarily been my face and upper back, and a little on my shoulders and chest. and back to the insecurity, it'd affect how i dress, 'oh i can't wear that because it's backless', 'as long as my hair can hide it...' anyway, that's only a taste of the ongoing struggle that i'm 100% certain that i'm not alone in. π
anyway, all that said. i've been experimenting a lot for the past few months trying to figure out how to alleviate it all, and i haven't come to a solid solution yet. i've been trying to be better about following the tips and tricks of several people i follow that have faced the same problems. one main change that i've done so far is getting dye and fragrance free laundry detergent and dryer sheets. the only problem with this is that i haven't rewashed absolutely everything i use, and as a result i've been wearing the same things over and over lately because it's easier to remember. lol. but i have noticed an improvement by doing this. secondly, i've reduced my dairy intake. i say reduced and not eliminated because realistically, cheese and ice cream are pretty hard to give up. but if i consume them less frequently than before, it's better. third, i know that drinking plenty of water is also a good solution, but i'm still forever working on that one. not only does drinking lots of water help with your skin, it also keeps you hydrated. and guess what could happen when you're dehydrated..? migraines. i don't get them quite as frequently as i did when i was in college, but i still get them from time to time, and more times than not, it's because i didn't drink enough water the previous day. fourth, keeping your hair off your face/skin. for the past few years. i've been putting leave-in products in my wet hair and going to sleep or letting it air dry. i still do this, but the difference now is that i'm actually pulling the hair up and away from my skin by braiding it or putting into a bun. by keeping my hair loose with all this product on it..it's bound to get on my skin and irritate it. and i have also noticed a difference by doing this. and speaking of my hair.. as mentioned in an instagram post a couple months back, i think i do want to donate it again sometime soon, but i haven't fully decided upon when. it took about two years to get to this point, and as of now, i need it this length for an upcoming cosplay i'm doing at mechacon! (i haven't been since 2011! π±)
anyway, wish me luck on my current skincare journey, as it has been kind of weighing in my mind as of late. actually, so much so, that's a reason why i'm behind on some of my posts here. not wanting to photograph my face here or on instagram. it got to a point that when i finally did have a picture of myself again, one of my friends that lives far from away messaged me and said it was good to see my face again. that made me realize how stressed i'd been with so many things, maybe i was ruining my skin with too much going on. the mental affects the physical and vice versa. annnnd with that, we are going to segue into my work life balance and how it's been horrific. π©
anyway, wish me luck on my current skincare journey, as it has been kind of weighing in my mind as of late. actually, so much so, that's a reason why i'm behind on some of my posts here. not wanting to photograph my face here or on instagram. it got to a point that when i finally did have a picture of myself again, one of my friends that lives far from away messaged me and said it was good to see my face again. that made me realize how stressed i'd been with so many things, maybe i was ruining my skin with too much going on. the mental affects the physical and vice versa. annnnd with that, we are going to segue into my work life balance and how it's been horrific. π©
so. work and stuff. my client project work has been more or less the same level of effort. the thing that has changed most is things and goings on around at my office. i can't recall how much i've delved into it here in those last few life-related posts, so i apologize if i'm reiterating myself here. let's start chronologically. several months ago, a few people from my client's team that work in my office were replaced by others in our office due to various reasons. my coworker and i have been the replacements' go-to people between environment setup, processes and procedures, and programming. (i'm a developer, for you new people..) with them joining, it was a lot of distractions with trying to train them, and working on my own work. let's couple this with the buddy system that i think i'd mentioned before. new hires in our office are paired with existing employees to ask them questions and yadda yadda. and guess who is an office go-to? π so between my client, new client coworkers, coworker friends, newbies, people walking up to my desk, and people sending me various forms of notifications on my phone, i was literally distracted every 10 minutes of the work day for several weeks straight. and this stressed me out because i felt like couldn't get get things done. if you know me, i like getting things done and i like helping people to the best of my ability. and i was having trouble balancing these two for a while. thankfully, things have calmed down, and the onboarding and training process with my new client coworkers has stabilized and i'm feeling a lot less stressed.
now.. let's get to the other piece of the puzzle that i didn't include in the above scenario. well, i guess there's two or three? but let's keep with the work part... i don't recall if i'd mentioned, but aside from being everyone's best friend these days, i've also been given a shitton of administrative things to do with our team. without saying too much too early, i've been in charge of scheduling a ton of meetings, planning and orchestrating them, presentations, and doing followup work for them. but remember, i'm a rock star, right? hahaha. i guess it's to be expected, since last month i made 3 years at my company. to give everyone an update on our numbers, i am among the final 5. alrighty, piece number two. so, i'd mentioned above that we got some new people on our team. one of them is partially a cause of distraction, but it's also refreshing nonetheless. that person has a small, year-old youtube channel with regular video game play streams. i haven't the time to regularly watch all their streams and videos, but it has definitely influenced what i've been doing in my free time. in the past 4 months, i have bought more video games than i have in years. years! i've got 4 games on preorder right now, and about 10-15 others that i've bought. (i'm counting all items in steam bundles too, lol.) anyway, my recent reintroduction to gaming was also brought upon piece number three. teh paul's work has made him extremely busy and constantly traveling. his office takes on contracts of varying length, taking him to various places in neighboring states. so with him not being home as often....video games have made a comeback in my life. plannerdom and makeup have been put onto the back burner to some degree (π) as well. but as far as makeup, this is also part of me becoming a more informed consumer when i buy things, and i haven't been fully keeping up with the next thing coming out. i do find it very refreshing that several of the people i follow on youtube are realizing it themselves and are expressing the same feelings and frustrations. maybe we're all moving on in our lives? or we're aging and skincare is the next thing! lol. which, (full circle, guys!) brings me back to how i've been more focused on my skin than the next new lipstick.
i do want to conclude this post with a positive thing that makes me smile inside. after a few months of full-on stress, it was refreshing to see it paying off in some way, shape or form. first off, i got a bonus at work. woohoo! it was related to all of the administrative things i was referring to earlier. second, i recently spent a lot of time talking to my manager. like we've had random 15-30 minute meetings here and there, but we're talking a friday evening for an hour and a half. i left the office past 6:30 on a friday. π² it was super productive and ended up being that long because we were talking about random things (he was a coworker friend before becoming a manager), brainstorming things for upcoming meetings, etc. he brought something to my attention that i never really thought about or realized before. i have an impact on others. i know i've mentioned before, there's this one coworker that constantly helps me out with client work and how he's supah awesome, right? before my manager mentioned it, i never ever thought that i'd done something impactful for him as well. given the nature of the work we do in my office, a larger proportion of people are introverts. myself included. i will admit that i'm still growing as a person and could have better people skills.
let's have a lil storytime! i'm less of an introvert than i was over ten years ago. in high school, i started out as being someone who wanted to keep a relatively low profile, but still have fun and do things that can only be done in high school. which, thinking on it, is in stark contrast to the large group of friends i ended up having in middle school.... our circle was like 30+ people! and that's a lot for a 500 person school. anyway, at some point, i decided that i probably should stop thinking that way and start doing something. i joined clubs. the first of which was founded by my friend (and sadly not too long after my departure, died...) was anime club. that friend ended up moving schools, and i became club president. and then katrina happened, and i was able to join student council and i got a part time job at a restaurant. all of these happening so fast and close to one another helped me a lot. i was always uncomfortable talking to new people, and even though i knew my friends and classmates in my clubs and classes, i still would be super nervous presenting in front of them all. but i managed to make it through at the end of it all. eventually, i made it into college, and i feel like i regressed. college is a big place, and it's easy to become a fly on the wall. it took me a while, but i think it wasn't until i was working on my second degree that i became better about talking to people. which, this is also funny because i ended my first run with a psychology degree, lol. anyway, i'm not sure if my current state can be partially attributed to me going back to school with a more mature mindset, or the fact that i was working on a business degree which included a ton more group work and presentations. two things that certainly did help me change were 1. a presentation business course i'd taken. it involved taking technical knowledge of a topic and presenting it in such a way that a layman could understand. i really enjoyed the knowledge and experience gained from this class and my group. and 2. forcing myself to do things i don't like. if you want to change, you need to step out of your comfortable bubble.
ok, end of storytime, back to my coworker and me being an impact. he and i have been on the same two projects (for one client) for about two and a half years now. my manager said that he and another noticed my coworker had changed, he frequently makes small talk and talks to people about random things. they were trying to figure out what had happened, and after further observation they concluded that i was a catalyst. he said that prior to me joining the project, this coworker would rarely talk to anyone around him, outside of normal work-related conversation and hellos and goodbyes. no small talk about anything. these days, he's making jokes, sending us random videos and memes, recommending video games to us, and playing MMOs after work with others in the office. anyway, i thought that was something really cool to share. whether you know it or not, you can have an impact on someone, and it could be something as simple as noticing an anime desktop wallpaper on their computer or a video game figurine on someone's desk and striking up a conversation.
as i said before, i appreciate your time and interest in what's been going on with me. i hope that my sharing this experience helps you in some way, shape or form! ~Lindsay
now.. let's get to the other piece of the puzzle that i didn't include in the above scenario. well, i guess there's two or three? but let's keep with the work part... i don't recall if i'd mentioned, but aside from being everyone's best friend these days, i've also been given a shitton of administrative things to do with our team. without saying too much too early, i've been in charge of scheduling a ton of meetings, planning and orchestrating them, presentations, and doing followup work for them. but remember, i'm a rock star, right? hahaha. i guess it's to be expected, since last month i made 3 years at my company. to give everyone an update on our numbers, i am among the final 5. alrighty, piece number two. so, i'd mentioned above that we got some new people on our team. one of them is partially a cause of distraction, but it's also refreshing nonetheless. that person has a small, year-old youtube channel with regular video game play streams. i haven't the time to regularly watch all their streams and videos, but it has definitely influenced what i've been doing in my free time. in the past 4 months, i have bought more video games than i have in years. years! i've got 4 games on preorder right now, and about 10-15 others that i've bought. (i'm counting all items in steam bundles too, lol.) anyway, my recent reintroduction to gaming was also brought upon piece number three. teh paul's work has made him extremely busy and constantly traveling. his office takes on contracts of varying length, taking him to various places in neighboring states. so with him not being home as often....video games have made a comeback in my life. plannerdom and makeup have been put onto the back burner to some degree (π) as well. but as far as makeup, this is also part of me becoming a more informed consumer when i buy things, and i haven't been fully keeping up with the next thing coming out. i do find it very refreshing that several of the people i follow on youtube are realizing it themselves and are expressing the same feelings and frustrations. maybe we're all moving on in our lives? or we're aging and skincare is the next thing! lol. which, (full circle, guys!) brings me back to how i've been more focused on my skin than the next new lipstick.
i do want to conclude this post with a positive thing that makes me smile inside. after a few months of full-on stress, it was refreshing to see it paying off in some way, shape or form. first off, i got a bonus at work. woohoo! it was related to all of the administrative things i was referring to earlier. second, i recently spent a lot of time talking to my manager. like we've had random 15-30 minute meetings here and there, but we're talking a friday evening for an hour and a half. i left the office past 6:30 on a friday. π² it was super productive and ended up being that long because we were talking about random things (he was a coworker friend before becoming a manager), brainstorming things for upcoming meetings, etc. he brought something to my attention that i never really thought about or realized before. i have an impact on others. i know i've mentioned before, there's this one coworker that constantly helps me out with client work and how he's supah awesome, right? before my manager mentioned it, i never ever thought that i'd done something impactful for him as well. given the nature of the work we do in my office, a larger proportion of people are introverts. myself included. i will admit that i'm still growing as a person and could have better people skills.
let's have a lil storytime! i'm less of an introvert than i was over ten years ago. in high school, i started out as being someone who wanted to keep a relatively low profile, but still have fun and do things that can only be done in high school. which, thinking on it, is in stark contrast to the large group of friends i ended up having in middle school.... our circle was like 30+ people! and that's a lot for a 500 person school. anyway, at some point, i decided that i probably should stop thinking that way and start doing something. i joined clubs. the first of which was founded by my friend (and sadly not too long after my departure, died...) was anime club. that friend ended up moving schools, and i became club president. and then katrina happened, and i was able to join student council and i got a part time job at a restaurant. all of these happening so fast and close to one another helped me a lot. i was always uncomfortable talking to new people, and even though i knew my friends and classmates in my clubs and classes, i still would be super nervous presenting in front of them all. but i managed to make it through at the end of it all. eventually, i made it into college, and i feel like i regressed. college is a big place, and it's easy to become a fly on the wall. it took me a while, but i think it wasn't until i was working on my second degree that i became better about talking to people. which, this is also funny because i ended my first run with a psychology degree, lol. anyway, i'm not sure if my current state can be partially attributed to me going back to school with a more mature mindset, or the fact that i was working on a business degree which included a ton more group work and presentations. two things that certainly did help me change were 1. a presentation business course i'd taken. it involved taking technical knowledge of a topic and presenting it in such a way that a layman could understand. i really enjoyed the knowledge and experience gained from this class and my group. and 2. forcing myself to do things i don't like. if you want to change, you need to step out of your comfortable bubble.
ok, end of storytime, back to my coworker and me being an impact. he and i have been on the same two projects (for one client) for about two and a half years now. my manager said that he and another noticed my coworker had changed, he frequently makes small talk and talks to people about random things. they were trying to figure out what had happened, and after further observation they concluded that i was a catalyst. he said that prior to me joining the project, this coworker would rarely talk to anyone around him, outside of normal work-related conversation and hellos and goodbyes. no small talk about anything. these days, he's making jokes, sending us random videos and memes, recommending video games to us, and playing MMOs after work with others in the office. anyway, i thought that was something really cool to share. whether you know it or not, you can have an impact on someone, and it could be something as simple as noticing an anime desktop wallpaper on their computer or a video game figurine on someone's desk and striking up a conversation.
as i said before, i appreciate your time and interest in what's been going on with me. i hope that my sharing this experience helps you in some way, shape or form! ~Lindsay
Yay long update, my fave!! Even if I am already aware of most of this already lol. Don't know when the last time I told you this was, but I am still super proud of you and love calling you my best friend. I have loved watching you grow into the person you are now and only look forward to what else you're able to achieve.
ReplyDeleteI am all here for the skincare, give it to me LOL Ever since being on this korean skincare trend, it's all I watch and think about. I even made friends with the owner of the Korean Beauty store in Houston and she gave me her cell number and told me to text her when I run out and she'll ship me what I need. How cool?!
I miss our high school days where I would watch you game. We need to rectify this if you're back into playing new games.
sorry for not seeing this until now! my stupid comment moderation is messed up!
Deletethanks bestie!! <3