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2 min read

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Today I had to walk to work in the rain. Walking to rain is one of my least favorite activities to do, second only perhaps to walking in the snow. Walking in the snow is worse because umbrellas have no use against snow. I’m able to take BART to work, but after that I still need to walk uphill about a mile to get to work.

I arrive, am sweaty and tired already, and I’ve already started my day about 20 minutes later. I keep on forgetting that I need to add on 20 minutes of walking time when I give people my ETA or estimate when I’m going to be getting to work. Maybe this is why most people at my office don’t leave until around 6pm, which seems super late, especially as the sun sets earlier and earlier. It’s a little discouraging to leave the office when it is already dark outside. More so when I haven’t stepped outside the building the entire day.

One of my favorite parts of walking to work is seeing this store called “Small” across the street. It is one of my favorites because right across from it is a store called “Tallie.”

But my favorite part about walking to work is that I pass a street called “De Boom.” Hehehe. DEEEEEEEEE BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

It’s been quite a journey adjusting to new working life, figuring out the professional way to act, what I need to learn (and there is so much I need to learn!) and even just little things like figuring out how to get to the kitchen and bathroom without making a wrong turn. Every day I feel like I am learning something new, which is good! But I still feel overwhelmed and unsure of where I am headed.

On a side note, I was thinking about the process of writing and describing and even the purposes of entertainment and visual representations – all trying to capture something. Trying to capture thoughts, emotions, into comprehensible forms. What if there is just no way to completely describe how I feel? What if there is no analogy that can properly relate to the exact situation? In Pixar, Inc., a book I read written by the Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, about how they foster creativity and encourage progress within the company, he writes about the different analogies that each team leader has when trying to describe how to lead a team. I forget all the different ones now but I remember what Ed Catmull said about them – how the different analogies all captured a different part of how you truly want to lead a team but how each analogy had something lacking. That there wasn’t exactly one situation and image that you could use to fully represent what is ideal in leading a team.

That’s sort of how I feel when I imagine scenarios for my life. Right now I feel like I am on a ship in the middle of a very, very foggy ocean. I know I should feel like I am headed in a certain direction and that I should be searching for that direction but I also sort of just want to float right now.

But I also feel like this is a very incomplete analogy and I’m not sure how I would modify it to fully describe how I feel.