Blog
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About six months ago, I enrolled myself in a computer organization (i.e. CS1410) course offered by University of Northern Iowa and I’m taking it remotely from Seattle, where I work full time as software engineer at Amazon (Web Services). I’ve completed about two thirds of the course, which consists of sixteen homework assignments and three…
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On Saturday, just before the sun began to rise, Jess and I began loading our luggage into black Mazda hatchback for our Christmas trip from Seattle to Los Angeles. Normally, when packing, we haphazardly shove our suit cases into the trunk and squeeze bags between the front and back seats. But this year, we decided…
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I just finished reading my first science fiction book! Up until three years ago, I really only read non-fiction books (e.g. The Power of Habit, Outlier) with the single purpose of expanding my intellectual knowledge. I read to increase my depth in a subject (e.g. programming) or read to pick learn about an entirely new…
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Last Saturday, I woke up at 06:00 AM (about 30 minutes later than I normally wake up on weekdays) and slipped into a striped, cotton t-shirt that my sister bought from target for my last birthday and my favorite knee length corduroy shorts, dressing myself in preparation for a 2 mile, dog friendly run in…
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Over the past month, I’ve been investing more time in learning the ukulele, sitting in the office area in the morning, strumming and picking my soprano ukulele for at least 30 minutes either in the early mornings or just before hitting the sack. In addition to my daily routine, I’ve not only been taking weekly,…
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For the past year and a half, I’ve disconnected myself from all my social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Those platforms still presumably store my data (e.g. posts, images, chat logs) but I no longer log into the system, neither consuming or contributing any content. This disconnect was motivated by several reasons. First, I had…
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Although Jess and I legally married six months ago (February) in King County Court, a municipal court in Seattle, we threw our wedding ceremony just three weeks ago. The Saturday ceremony was held in Malibu at Great Spirits Ranch, a ranch that overlooks the Pacific Ocean and Ojai mountains. Most importantly, this venue was dog…
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Every Wednesday morning, I attend therapy. Not the physical kind, where one goes to rehabilitate some injury afflicted by blunt trauma. Rather, I sit in a cushy sofa chair that’s positioned six or so feet away from Roy, my psychotherapist, and I voice not only what I’ve been thinking—the primary focus of cognitive behavioral therapy—since the past…
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He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it – George Orwell Are you a masculine man? How does one even define masculinity? By the American, western definition, a masculine man is someone who carries a heavy beard on his chiseled chin, speaks in a deep Clint-Eastwood voice, commands respect from those around…
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My wife (Jess) and I were both dead tired from yesterday—friends had come over to our house and cooked a Vietnamese meal the night before and we fell asleep around just before midnight, a little over two hours past our bedtime—and we had decided to spend the Friday night staying in doors, eating leftover, vegan…