one year in: what I learned about myself after a year in san francisco
reviving this blog-letter from the dead & exploring my say:do values ratio
Dear sweet summer child Kaci from 1 year ago: I give you a mighty bold A for effort in consistently posting on this blog-letter. 🙃
The last time I wrote and published life updates was last November (this is me acknowledging how truly embarrassing this is.) This time around last year, I’d begun a new chapter of life I like to deem “The Working Woman.” I picked up the proverbial pen to document shifts in my life as a way of benchmarking who I was then and who I am now. That was a major flop. But I’m back to give it the old college try again 😄
A lot has happened since November of last year, and I wish I captured every month’s memories in detail and stowed it away in a silly little post like I said I would. Instead, I can only offer the past 10 months in highlight reel bullet form:
I went on two Tahoe ski trips: one at Palisades with one of my besties and her family and the other with RPMs at Sierra-at-Tahoe. I suck at skiing, but both were still fun bonding experiences I’ll always cherish.
One of many ski pics from Sierra-at-Tahoe I took Spanish lessons on italki with an instructor from Colombia and learned about her family and Colombian culture. This has taken a nosedive but I’m working on integrating it back into consistent practice.
I traveled to Costa Rica with a few friends from college, rappelled down a waterfall, toured a cacao farm, and saw a sloth in the wild. This was big trip #1 of the year.
I unapologetically became a tourist and went on two food tours: one in North Beach and one in the Mission to get the true SF native recs and history lessons behind these neighborhoods. As an SF implant, I find value in learning about the city I now live in–namely, the history and the people that made it the way it is. Plus, I love food.
I co-hosted a coffee shop party with friends and lived out my dreams barista-ing for friends
our menu I went hard on managing my finances and budgeting. I eventually hope to build my own predictive models of spending and compare how it shrinks or grows over time. I’m actively trying to avoid lifestyle creep at all costs, so it’ll be interesting to see how the data changes (assuming I keep up with recording this data.)
I took 2 weeks off to go to Iceland and had one of the best vacations of my life hiking waterfall trails, walking on glaciers, climbing ice, going to geothermal spas, visiting a tomato greenhouse, riding horses, and freshwater snorkeling between tectonic plates with friends from college. This was big trip #2. I learned 2 weeks of traveling is too long for me. 10 days seem to be the sweet spot between running out of things to do and not having enough time to do everything you want.
us suited up in drysuits moments before snorkelling in glacial water I finished reading a few books including Sapiens, Mad Honey, The Stationery Shop, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and The Flatshare. In college, I mostly read non-fiction books to accumulate and refine my knowledge on the world. Since then, I’ve begun to read more fiction books as a form of escapism. I love how fiction can transport you away from your life and into another. I firmly believe that reading fiction develops empathy and offers new ways of seeing the world.
I spent the 4th of July in Tahoe celebrating my best friend’s birthday, paddle-boarding in clear waters (thank you zooplankton!), and blissfully watching the sun depart behind the mountains from a viewpoint. Everything about this trip felt like an Emily Henry novel, minus the romantic interest. It was idyllic, a perfect summer tale to tell.
I partook in Barbenheimer. It was my first time watching a movie in theaters since before COVID. I forgot how much I missed the magic of seeing and experiencing a movie with others in real-time in the same room.
I went sand ATV-ing for the first time at Pismo Beach with RPMs. I love the RPMs. Every event I experience with them reinforces how special whatever we all have is.
I went to the Taylor Swift Eras Tour and basically blacked out.
production quality off the charts 🫶 I went whale-watching in Juneau and got extremely close to 2 pods of humpback whales and was almost brought to tears. This was a lifetime experience for me.
I moved into a lovely classic SF Victorian twice the size of my first apartment and hosted an afternoon tea-themed housewarming. Since then, I’ve been my happiest. I believe the space you live in heavily influences your lifestyle and how you spend your time. Small spaces discourage community-gathering. Multi-room spaces encourage better work-life balance especially if you work from home.
I had my first year-end performance evaluation and experienced what it’s like to get a salary adjustment raise and bonus. Up until that point, this whole process was a black box. I got lucky in that my manager did a lot of advocating for me, but I now realize how important it is to be the active driver in tracking your work, advocating for it, and building a case for what you want.
I impulsively bought a keyboard with said bonus. I’m trying to get back into music by learning how to play one of the most versatile instruments to ever exist.
I finished my first product management rotation and started a new 6-month rotation working with Generative AI. As someone who considers themselves non-technical, I’m excited for the opportunity to learn about the technology in a low-risk, non-committal way.
I went outdoor climbing for the first time in Calistoga which also happened to be my first time top-roping. Climbing combines two things I love: solving puzzles & being active. It’s such an SF hobby to have, but I’ve fully embraced it.
I tried out pottery and wheel throwing for the first time and hand-built a cactus wearing a cowboy hat. Another SF hobby to have but understandably so. It’s a sensory-based art form. You’re using your eyes, hands, and feet in unison to mold the clay. It’s a perfect reprieve from working on the computer all day.
🤠🌵 I walked the SF Crosstown trail – 17 miles across the city!
Sutro Baths / Lands’ End – the endpoint of the trail I went to the Grace Hopper Celebration for the first time in Orlando and met amazing women doing incredible work in technology. While in Orlando, I was persuaded to go to Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights against my desires. Both were eye-opening experiences for very different reasons.
I tested the limits of my social battery after attending 4 different parties on Saturday and going on an all-day trip to Point Reyes trying mead and buffalo milk soft-serve ice cream with RPMs on Sunday. At the parties, I was able to meet lots of new people whom I think would make great friends, but I’m conflicted with the exploit vs. explore problem of which friendships I should invest time in.
Now that it’s been a year, I thought it’d be a helpful exercise to take a look at my experiences and evaluate whether what I’ve done matches up with the values I say I have. Any misalignment identifies opportunities for further introspection:
If my actions don’t line up with my values:
Have my values changed?
Am I not living up to my values?
If the answer to (a) is yes, am I okay with that?
If the answer to (b) is yes, how can I improve?
What are my core values?
Growth
Am I learning new things and exploring new places and ideas?
Am I building habits that lead to continuously improving myself either physically, intellectually, or spiritually?
Curiosity
Am I open and willing to explore and learn?
Passion
Am I enthusiastic and excited about what I do?
Balance
Am I investing equal time into my work and my life?
Am I taking adequate care of my physical, emotional, and intellectual needs?
Community
Am I contributing to the communities I’m a part of?
Am I helping to strengthen social bonds and create a sense of belonging?
Say vs. do: How have I lived up to my said values?
I pick up a lot of hobbies (pottery, climbing, piano) but never deliberately focus on one long enough to get anywhere meaningful with it.
My entire life, I’ve been a dilettante. I think the world is so fascinating in its expansiveness that I find myself cyclically dropping one thing to pick up another, never investing enough into any one thing. At some point this past year, I proclaimed writing, Spanish, fiber arts like embroidery, and biking would be my hobbies. That turned into trying out pottery, buying climbing shoes, and buying a piano to “get back into it.” It was my first year in a new city with my own money, so I was over-indexing on exploring rather than exploiting. I’m only in my twenties and still have a lifetime to dedicate to my select few hobbies. After having tried so many things though, I’ve decided Spanish and writing are the two things I want to master. For everything else (cooking, piano, fiber arts, etc etc) I’m happy to continue dabbling.
There were times when work tipped the scale more than life, but I’d say the trade-offs were justified.
Working in big tech, I sometimes feel ashamed when my working hours bleed past 5 p.m. At these kinds of companies, it’s common to even log off and mentally check out for the day by 4 p.m. Whenever I approach the time for me to snap back to my outie, unlike my innie/outie, I’m always highly cognizant of it. As an agent of my own control, I let it happen. I love what I do. I love the intellectual stimulation I receive when working on my projects. I love feeling how close you are to the brink of revelation after turning a problem over and over in your head. I love bathing myself in pools of research gathered near and far to provoke lateral thinking and find a solution that sits squarely in the center of viability, feasibility, and desirability. I can’t say I can do this sustainably (life moves so quickly, you have to be deliberate about creating and savoring its precious moments!), but I’m okay with the occasional passes I’ll give to my work life.
Having space for a community was a limiting factor in building a community.
Living in a one-bedroom 600 sq. ft. apartment deterred me from hosting anyone. It worked fine for two people but the moment you start bringing in more people, the crampedness factor scales quickly. Now that I’m in a place that’s DOUBLE the size with room compartmentalization (mama I made it), I feel it my manifest destiny to have people over for make ‘n bake craft nights, Asian potlucks, and writing+book clubs.
Building habits for sustained improvement
Writing daily. Hosting monthly. Making quarterly. Reflecting constantly.
I’m bringing back this blog-letter to hold me accountable to my goals.
As James Clear wrote in Atomic Habits:
You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
Writing in public on this little site is my system to stay true to my core values and constantly grow 🌻
Perfectly imperfect. In the spirit of progress over perfection, I’m spending more time writing the 80% and less time editing for the 20%. This is my disclaimer to the written stories & ideas that may be still half-baked and clear as mud. ❤️