Matt Chung's Site

Category: Singing

Daily Review – Day ending in 2020/08/26
What’s your chief aim for today
- Writing
  - Write and publish one piece on this blog
- Graduate School
  - Complete typing up answers for assignment #1
  - Edit answers for pre-lab assignment
  - Watch and take notes on second module in advanced operating systems (Lesson 2)
- Organization
  - Review Inbox items sitting in OmniFocus
  - Quickly glance over project
- Work
  - Continue to chip away at writing one-pager design for a prototype for new feature at work
  - Survive today’s on call and flurry of operational issues that may arise
How did yesterday go?
- Realized that checking my work laptop first thing in the morning for just that one little thing doesn’t work: I get sucked in and begin tackling other items, including checking my e-mail inbox, or slack messages, or whatever. So my rule of thumb is to not flip open the lid of my work laptop until I am ready to fully work
- Work drained me. All the back to back operational issues not only enervated me but derailed my entire day, something I should just expect since on call is so variable
- Being on call yesterday, I was unable to break away from the laptop while my mom was visiting Seattle, not getting to spend much quality time with her. Bummer. These feelings make me reevaluate work (see Feelings section)
Word of the day

underscore – verb (n) – to underline or to emphasize

Even Atlanta, Donald Glover’s Twin Peaks–esque FX series, toys with the supernatural and the surreal to underscore points about race made in its quieter moment¹.

In an internal memo, Stan Deal, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Greg Hyslop, Boeing’s chief engineer, sought to underscore the message that safety is the company’s top priority ²

What are you grateful for?
- My sister delivering a healthy little girl, her birthing free from any major complications (unless you consider an epidural a complication)
Feelings
- As mentioned above, on call operations for my team (and many other teams in Amazon) can drain every ounce of energy. Every time my phone sounds an alarm, my body releases cortisol and stress washes over me. Granted, there are some weeks where very little issues crop up: but that’s the not the norm as of late. But is this how I want to live my life 24×7, once every 5-6 weeks? Sure, the work is rewarding and challenging and intellectually stimulating but one entire week of pure exhaustion may not be worth the cost
- Seeing my wife watch over both my daughter and niece (Maiya) sends butterflies to my stomach. She’s patient and gentle with them, two important qualities for anyone.
References
1. https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/08/lovecraft-country/615259/
August 27, 2020
Daily Review – 2020/08/26
What’s your chief aim for today
- Write and publish one piece on this blog
- Review Inbox and Important projects sitting in OmniFocus (this was a miss yesterday)
- Put in 1 hour study session before and after work for advanced operating systems (seems unlikely since I woke up at 05:00 instead of 04:30 and made the fatal mistake of checking my work laptop first)
- Continue to chip away at writing one-pager design for a prototype for new feature at work
- Drive from Seattle to Renton in the early morning (while express lanes are flowing in our direction) to visit my sister and my new niece (Charly) who was born just a few hours ago. Looking forward to seeing my mom, who lives in OC but who is visiting us up in sunny Seattle for a few days now that Charly has arrived
How did yesterday go?
- Pretty good (although Jess says that I’m always a bit more on the edge, a little less patient, when I’m on call and getting paged throughout the week
- Felt good about squeezing in early morning and after work study sessions. I admit that I find myself taking the longer path on some homework and reading assignments, but then I remind myself that my purpose of graduate school is not to just get a master of computer science degree but to learn, to grow, to change the way my mind thinks. So I find solace in my decisions to reading a little more than necessary, generating and answering my own questions while reading the textbook
- I did not review my inbox (or personal e-mail, really) in neither OmniFocus nor my excel backed project list. Need to remind myself that to trust the system of getting things done (GTD), I need to establish a routine of extracting to-do items out of my brain and into the same location — every time. And of course, reviewing that list (which as I mentioned as part of this post, I did not do)
- But I am consistently writing, editing and most importantly, publishing on my blog, a strong cadence unfolding. In some ways, I am carrying out Jerry Seinfield’s “Don’t break the chain” strategy¹, a self motivation tool
Word of the day

The men set off in fear and trepidation

A few days ago, five-star basketball recruit Keion Brooks was asked about his level of interest in the Louisville Cardinals and expressed some trepidation².

trepidation – noun (n) – a feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen

What are you grateful for?
- Jess dropping off snacks at my desk, fresh slices of peaches and toast covered with peanut butter helping me relax while tackling on call
Feelings
- After not speaking to my dad for 2 months and then very briefly video chatting with him on his birthday (August 23rd), he now is suddenly active on WhatsApp, sending Jess and I random links to Facebook, his way of communicating with us. I’m unsure how to engage with him: I’m never sure actually, how we — as a family — should move forward when we’re this entangled since dealing with addiction in the family is a complicated matter. Oh well. I’m not in this alone: I have Jess. And we’ll sort it out. And also, I need to remind myself that I need not figure this out all alone.
References
1. https://medium.com/@MrBuzzFactor/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-hack-don-t-break-the-chain-8d1944b8323d
2. https://grammarist.com/usage/trepidation/
August 26, 2020
Daily Review – 2020/08/25
What’s your chief aim for today
- Recover from waking up from 03:00 AM from being woken up from operational issue
- Write and publish one piece on this blog
- Review Inbox and Important projects sitting in OmniFocus
- Put in 1 hour study session before and after work for advanced operating systems
- Chip away at writing one-pager design for a prototype for new feature at work
Word of the day

You cannot geld the human race

Geld – verb (v) – to deprive of vitality or vigor

What are you grateful for?
- Having a steady income and job that I enjoy despite being in the midst of COVID-19
Feelings
- Tired as I type this out since I got paged out of bed for 03:00 AM for a NOP (no operation) issue at work
Yesterday
- Woke up naturally (i.e. without alarm) at around 04:15
- Felt good about being able to connect the dots between theory and practice (when reviewing out to generate virtual private numbers using a BITMASK and SHIFT operations)
- Followed my morning Routine (e.g. walk dogs at local park, blended fruit and vegetable smoothie, warm up chai, write)
- Pulled into Discount Tires for scheduled appointment to replace punctured front left tire
- Finished reading chapter on paging systems while waiting for tired to be replaced
- Recorded a short little melody and harmony on my iPhone while playing guitar for Elliott and Jess during lunch
- Ad-hoc shopping at Target to pick up size 4 diapers, bottle scrubber for the kitchen, plastic hooks to hang the broom, stasher reusable zip lock bags
- Ordered and picked up sushi for dinner (avocado rolls, cucumber rolls, croquette and vegetable mini tempera udon soup)
- Chopped up fresh vegetables and stored them away in the (just purchased) stasher bags
- Cut up Jess’s recently purchased book, scanning the book using my Fujitsu IX1500 ScanSnap and then converting the document in mobi format using calibre (new open source software I discovered while searching stack overflow)
August 25, 2020