A log of what’s happening on my allotted piece of the world.

You can make your own “Now” page: nownownow.com.

October 2024

Learning the basics of web development, and have already deployed my CV html file on GitHub Pages. I won’t be sharing it anywhere else, of course, since it’s quite simple and not even adapted for mobile screens. (shame). Next steps in the plan are:

  • Getting back to Git;
  • Learning the basics of responsive web;
  • Learning JS to make nice buttons.

While work with one client is on pause, I’m lazily building another case study before rolling into the next project. This one will be shortish, focusing mostly on business analysis with almost no UX — just as I’d hoped a couple of months ago. UPD: boy was I wrong.

I’m also finishing The Edge of Sentience (interesting, but sometimes deeply disturbing) with the book club and already looking for more books at the intersection of technology and life.

August 2024

I’m writing this first update on the last day of a summer that has been truly transformative this year, though I’m not fond of this particular word. So, the first log will be relatively long; I’m sorry.

1.

At the end of May, after filling out an application full of despair, I was selected as a mentee in the Women in Tech mentorship program. Almost three months have passed very fast: I didn’t have many resources to attend all the networking events (probably I just don’t want to stop sucking at small talk).

They also resulted in meeting my unforgettable mentor Sasha and a bunch of like-minded people, learning goal-setting techniques (and finding out that “being strong and kind” is not a goal), finally reading The Path to Senior Product Designer, and creating the first version of the portfolio site.

Naturally, I’m already planning how to rewrite it properly instead of using a no-code tool. After some years of working within teams, I’ve built an opinion that a good designer has to learn to deliver just to be relatively independent. So now I have plans to learn HTML and CSS, and then React, JS, and choose a framework. I’ve found some useful resources: Learn HTML, CSS to learn markup, Frontend Mentor, and maybe Next.js as a framework. It’s going to be a long path.

2.

I’ve read Lobsang Tenpa’s book on meditation and am now trying to incorporate meditation into my daily life. That also led me to get back to yoga classes I once stopped attending after appendicitis. It’s taught by a master who says things like “If you came here to relax, you entered the wrong door” and “It’s good that doctors recommend yoga. Why? Right, because it changes the way you look at death.” No regrets.

As a person who’s “clever, but lazy,” I eventually understood that the chaos I have in my mind is transmitted to the users I work for because it directly influences the product. It’s getting better, although I have to deal with the mistakes I made earlier on.

Also:

  • Started a reading club and am currently mentally preparing myself to schedule the first meeting.
  • Cut bangs.
  • Got myself A Pattern Language by K. Alexander, which I’ve been dreaming of since architecture school.
  • Booked tickets to my first real two-week vacation by the sea (earlier, I only attended events that took place somewhere where you could have a swim).
  • Watched Alien: Romulus and was deeply satisfied.