//Sun, June 23, 2024//

//Sun, June 23, 2024//

One exam done! :) ♡

I was so surprised at how relaxed I felt yesterday until the end of the exam this morning. The exam started at 7 AM!!! It's been a while since I left my house that early >,< But I love the morning air :)

(some pics from yesterday)

We are doing 30 days productivity challenge

Day 18-19: Tuesday, Wednesday

Day 18 was good. A beautiful sunset with great coffee and i studied too. Also some research.

Day 19 was decent day too. Studied in some good lighting. The weather was lovely in evening.

Also, spot the cuties

23rd June, '24

day 53/100 days of productivity

got up around 8 am today, feeling so tired but it's good tired

Today's tasks

Continue monotonic stacks practice

Look up react from either Angela Yu or somewhere else

Continue essence of linear algebra by 3blue 1brown

Yesterday's accountability

Practiced 4 ques of monotonic stacks and now I know why it is a tough topic, it's taking me sometime to grasp the questions and implementation is a while another battle but we will persist

Gave the OA for Amazon ML summer school. It went good now just hoping for good result 🤞🏻

Remarks -

I need to remember that everyone is fighting their own demons and like need to understand what people who are close to me are going through. Other than that just deep breaths and focus and starting consistent daily...

🎧 22 - Taylor Swift

📖 The Priory of The Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

~ avid!

gotta get better🌦️ Going Challenge (50/82)

<insert diary entry here because i feel brain dead again after today. and my eyes are twitching. god, i just need one (1) stress-free night of sleep 💤😴>

😌 big stretch to start to morning (cheerful bgm because mentally it's still spring for me)

📚 read a chapter of The Guest Cat to get myself into a more relaxed, less stressed mental state before work

⛩️ Japanese Kanji review

🍱 was Japanese listening practice always this hard?? ya girl's getting rusty 😭

🇨🇳 watching my favorite Chinese variety show where i didn't even realize i was smiling until i had to pause because lunch was over 🥲

⛩️ Japanese lesson + unit exam

🏕️ hung out with family~

📚 i found online for free(!!!) an english translation of Exclusive Fairytale (my favorite Chinese drama which is based on a novel) so i know what i'm doing for the next few days 😂 it's so funny so far because the translation is clumsy at some parts and i love it a lot, it makes me so happy and i needed that. if you start reading it with me, let me know what you think hehe to be honest, the drama did a great job of layering their past, present and future where the book lays it out very linearly which might be a bit boring, but it's still ok, or maybe i'm biased lol

💌: 一緒に頑張りましょう! (let's work hard together!)

The Treaty of Peace! This part really speaks to me. Our minds often protect us from future letdowns by setting high standards. But they don't always work rationally. That's why it's essential to talk to that lovely little brain regularly, negotiating with it, as Zesty says :)

🥸 How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome and Make It Work For You ⛈️

🕳️ step 1: take a broader perspective to recognize your triggers and change your self-talk

ℹ️ this can seem pretty vague and unhelpful on it's own, so let's get into an example — i've highlighted the differences in my self-talk in blue:

i'm a very results-driven person by nature. it was drilled into me early on that intentions don't matter half as much as the results they produce. regardless of whether this is true or not, this is one of the core beliefs i'm working with right now.

so you can imagine my satisfaction and relief when i find myself breezing through various coding and project planning tasks with ease relative to earlier in my career when i was working overtime for months straight just trying to feel like i was on equal footing with everyone else.

but lately, i've been hitting roadblock after roadblock, fixing bugs in my own code like playing the world's most frustrating game of whack-a-mole until my hands have calluses from the damned mallet that's already falling apart.

once again, i found myself spiralling, working overtime for weeks, not sleeping or eating well due to stress, and neglecting myself and everything outside of work that makes me happy because i felt like that's what i deserved.

my deteriorating condition made me take a step back and i was able to talk to some trusted colleagues who reminded me of the true value i bring.

results will vary all the time due to a myriad of things beyond my control. it can be triggering, but now that i've re-learned to recognize it, i can confidently say to myself that the true value i bring is not in the results, but in my resilience.

🗝️ here's a cheat key for you:

📘 journal — don't underestimate the difficulty of sorting out these kinds of entrenched and automatic thoughts! write it down, circle the important points, address them one by one. it's a slow, sometimes painful, process. but don't give up if it gets worse before it gets better!

💤 sleep — we don't all have the luxury of taking a lot of time away from our triggers to really reassess, but a good night's sleep is not a bad second choice. our brains reorganize and re-consolidate everything from facts to emotions to memories. so let it do it's work and in the morning, you will feel yourself able to think with even a bit more clarity!

☁️ don't just push through it — i always try to ignore and push through it first and it doesn't work or even makes things worse every. single. time. without fail. it gets to a point where even following the points made above feels like too little, too late. so do yourself a favor and get out in front of it.

🎧 step 2: recognize your boosters and develop the discipline to actually engage with them

what makes you happy? try listening to your body and your heart. it can be difficult in times of stress. i mentioned in the previous step about how being triggered can lead to neglecting exactly the things you need to be bringing into your life more. here's what you need to remember:

do it anyway.

for example, you don't feel like talking to people when you feel this low? do it anyway.

i talked to friends, i talked to family, i even agreed to a paired programming session with a new engineer to help them with their work — something which always scares me a bit because what if i suck and can't help them? but not only was i able to help, i did so in a fraction of the time we expected it to take!

in going out of my way to engage with my booster, i remembered what i always felt i loved about my job, which is human connection and being useful to others.

🗝️ here's another cheat key for you:

💙 do an activity that doesn't require skill but gives you a lot of enjoyment — not only is fun a sure-fire way to hard-reset your spiralling brain, this will remind you that it's not the end of the world if you suck at something because there is so, so much of life that is wonderful and that doesn't take any sort of special ability to appreciate. bonus points if it's a social activity because oxytocin is an absolute miracle worker!

🫐 eat delicious and nutritious food — fruits, a favorite home cooked meal, trail mix if you don't want to have to prepare anything. don't forget to drink water and take any necessary supplements too! if your body is in good condition, it will have a ripple effect to your mental health too!

🎆 practice accepting compliments and celebrating wins — self-explanatory, but needed to be said

🔮 schedule it in — i cannot stress this last one enough. if you don't make time for it, it won't happen, especially under the worst conditions, which is exactly when you'll need it most. so schedule these activities in — even blocks of 5 to 15 minutes can already make a huge difference to none at all!

🖤 step 3: there is a reason for your insecurity

so you've overcome your impostor syndrome — for now. new triggers or the same triggers manifesting in new ways can still get the better of you at times, so it can feel like a futile battle and maybe you think of surrendering. don't. negotiate a peace treaty instead.

your impostor syndrome does not exist for no reason. in their own way, they're just trying to protect you and your reputation.

some psychologists suggest giving your impostor syndrome a name so that the mental image of an external persona helps you have more productive conversations with yourself. you don't have to do this (although it can make it more fun), the main idea is we're going to take our self-talk skills from step 1 and our discipline from step 2 to make our impostor syndrome work for us.

❄️ let's say my impostor's name is Imelda and Imelda the Impostor says that i am not a naturally good engineer like everyone else, so i need to focus and work extremely hard and for twice as long, be extra nice and never say no to anything so that my colleagues will like me and i won't get fired.

because i gave my impostor a name, it creates distance between it's words and my own thoughts or core beliefs which my brain takes as truth by default. so with this new objectivity, i might start with something like, “okay, that's a lot to unpack there, Imelda.”

keyword: unpack.

if i stop for a moment to think critically about what's being said, it's all hinging on one assumption: that i am not a naturally good engineer compared to everyone else.

🔍 so what's the evidence? i can readily cite both occasions when I've had a lot to learn from others AND when others have had a lot to learn from me.

like this, i can clearly see that it's not that i should completely disregard what Imelda has to say. it's not that i shouldn't be nice, i like being nice, but i don't want to think of it as the only thing i have going for me. i want to be able to say no when i'm being given more work than i can reasonably handle. and i want to stop working overtime and get my life back, even as i continue to apply my most focused and hardworking self to the job.

🗝️ here's the final cheat key:

💭 have an honest conversation with yourself — keep it civil and grounded in evidence, give your impostor syndrome a name other than your own if that helps

🖊️ make an agreement with yourself — you write down everything you will do and everything you won't do, so that you'll make sure to keep your future actions connected back to the evidence instead of operating off of your automatic thoughts that can sometimes be misleading. be realistic and reasonable as that is the only way you will actually stick to your agreement.

📬 i know that was very long, but it is a long and iterative process and i didn't want to leave anything important out! let me know if this has been helpful and what strategies you like to use to improve your esteem and confidence! 🙏

07.03.2024 / public health rotation 🐝

went to 3 local leaders houses and introduce ourselves

went to a small warung to get lunch, all of us

studying the stunting workshop materials (4.3h)

in the middle of the pomo sessions, i saw that Dokter Tanpa Stigma (Doctors without Prejudice) community is opening new recruits. so i hurried to the form page and fill my name in. i compiled my digital art pieces and set up a portofolio website via notion and adding alt texts (1h) i still have to submit my resume tomorrow

discussion

🎧 - l’assasymphonie, florent mothe (mozart l’opera rock)