Category Archives: Dani

Checking Emails: A Fun Pastime, or a Pesky Chore?

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Sending emails is one of those things that you either love or hate. I happen to love checking my email, and I find it really satisfying to see zero new messages.

My mom is the same way; she’s very prompt and timely with her email responses. However, I have many friends and family members who shall remain unnamed, who let their emails pile up for months and months, and never end up getting to them. They have the dreaded “two thousand six hundred and forty two” number in their inbox, and a stream of spam mail that never seems to end. This. Is. My. Worst. Nightmare.

I absolutely hate letting emails sit in my inbox, unattended to. In fact, I actually obsessively check my emails, multiple times a day. If I had to guess how many times I do so, I would guess roughly around 10-15 times a day. Admittedly, this is a bit excessive.

I think my love reading and responding to emails stems from the fact that I love checking off list items. It makes me feel less anxious when I can see that I completed a task. Marking an email as “read” seems like I am completing something. I also think that checking emails serves as a form of procrastination for me, because often when I don’t want to start studying for a stats quiz (which is the case as I type this) or when I don’t want to finish a final paper (also the case right now) I check emails because somehow it still feels productive. Not allowing emails to pile up also makes me feel more in control of work and school, because it means that I am taking on tasks as they come rather than letting them get out of hand.

The good news for me, is that most jobs require one to check emails somewhat regularly. However, I do think my hatred of “unread messages” could also indicate some of my school and workplace flaws: I sometimes prioritize small, concrete, logistical tasks in place of more important long-term tasks. In addition, I also think I need to learn how to leave things unread, both literally and figuratively. In other words I need to be able to sit with the anxiety that comes with being a little less rigid in some areas of my life.

Another piece of good news is that even though many jobs require sending many emails a day, not all do, and if you’re someone who hates the thought of even having to press the “send” button more than once a day, than perhaps you can find a job that is light on email-sending. Or in the case of someone like me, you could try to find a job that is mostly comprised of sending emails, but that contains zero spreadsheets or calculations, which are words that send my mood plummeting.

As with anything in life, it is good to set manageable goals. Right now, one of my goals is to check my email less—perhaps 5 times a day instead of 15. For many people, checking emails is an evil necessity, but I hope to convince others that it is actually a very wonderful source of procrastination. 

When You Don’t Have a “Dream Job.”

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“What is your dream job?”

I can not tell you the number of times I have been asked this question, either in person, or in a written job application. There’s nothing wrong with this question if you happen to know your dream job, but for indecisive, wandering, confused people like me, this question may prove to be more problematic.

First of all, if I had a dream job, and it was something that was somewhat feasible to pursue, I would be doing that. However, when I try to conjure up what that job would be, I can’t seem to figure out how to combine my interests into a single career; I like working with kids, doing things with my hands, creativity and design, writing, cooking and eating, playing sports, being outdoors, meeting new people, learning about political and social issues and causes, etc. I also find it difficult to separate my hobbies and interests from what would be viable career-wise. I sometimes have the fear that if i do something I love too much, I will end up hating it. For example, when I was deciding what sport to start in high school, I considered cross country because I like to run, but I instead opted for team sports like lacrosse and field hockey because I thought that if I just ran for the sake of running every single day, I would end up hating it, and I really did not want to end up hating something that was such a productive stress reliever.

In addition, something that I have realized with the help of my mom (my ultimate self-help guru and life coach) is that I don’t need to have a dream job or career figured out right now. Even though it often feels like everyone has it figured out, they really don’t. Sometimes when I am going on anxiety-induced-rants to my mom about how I need to “figure it out now” or else I will screw everything up, she reminds me that even my friends who have known their school majors or careers since they were four might change their mind, or they might end up sticking with it but then miss out on a lot of experiences they could have had exploring other interests.

Source: The Hills

My mom also reminded me that for the most part, any type of job experience is helpful, and just because all of my professional experience doesn’t fit into a linear narrative doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. I can be flexible, and see where things take me.

For example, when my mom was studying at UC Berkeley for undergrad, she didn’t know what to major in until her advisor “suggested” she do sociology because she “had taken the most courses in that department.” After that, she ended up managing a tennis club for around a decade before deciding to go to law school. The point is, unless you are planning on becoming a neurosurgeon or something with very precise prerequisites and requirements (and even then you still don’t need to have every little detail figured out) you don’t need to only do things that are a “precursor” for you dream job or career. You can try things out and see if there is anything that speaks to you.

I may not have a dream job, but I am coming to terms with it. I am trying my best to be flexible, and try out a bunch of different things. I still have interests, hobbies, and ambition, and I’m hoping that’s enough.

Why being Busy has Made me Happier and more Productive

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Last year, when I was just starting out at Scripps, I would try to leave the majority of my weekend free so I could get schoolwork and other errands done. Having events and obligations to work around seemed like it would limit my productivity, so my solution was just to plan absolutely nothing. At the time, I truly thought this was the “responsible” thing to do, because it meant that I could get more done, and thus feel better about myself. I definitely did get a lot done, but looking back, I don’t think it was the most effective means for managing my time. The thing is, I turned down a lot of opportunities to go to meaningful social events because I was convinced that I needed to get ahead for the week. Instead of taking the two hours on a Saturday night to go to an event that would have connected me to others and made me happy, I would spend those two hours in the Clark dorm computer lab. The problem with this was that I could have done the work during the day and then gone out at night, and still have gotten the exact same amount of work done, but because I wouldn’t plan anything all day, I would be more likely to procrastinate during the day because I didn’t have any events to work around.

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This semester however, I have scheduled in a wide range of various social events and extracurriculars (many of which are off-campus). At the beginning of the semester I was worried I would get behind on school-work or other responsibilities, but I’ve actually done a much better job at managing my time when I have more things planned. For instance, every month or so I go away for the entire weekend for Ultimate Frisbee tournaments. I never end up doing homework on these weekends, but somehow it always ends up working out because having the knowledge that I am going away gives me an incentive to cross things off my list ahead of time so I don’t have to worry about it as much during the weekend. These weekends have also helped me learn how to prioritize certain assignments and tasks over others. Sometimes you can’t get everything you need to get done without sacrificing your mental or physical health, and I personally value my health over good grades or productivity. Thus, I have learned how to prioritize what needs to get done first, what can be done later, and what can be done someone hastily.

In addition, I also used to feel oddly guilty for planning too many “fun” things during my weekend, because I would sometimes hear my peers complaining about how they “got up at 5:00am to study for an exam,” or how they had “spent the entire weekend in the library,” and I would feel oddly competitive, like I had to prove that I was a good student.

Something I have really learned in college is that there is really no use comparing school or work schedules with others. Unlike high school, everyone’s college schedules are so incredibly different given the nature of how varied scheduling is for classes, jobs, and extracurriculars. Another thing I have realized, is that there is always someone who is doing more than you, or who is more productive than you, and at a certain point it’s out of our control and not worth feeling bad about. Plus, being balanced and well-rounded is extremely important in my opinion, so even the people who seem like they are absurdly productive and have it all together might actually be super stressed and unbalanced the majority of the time.

Doing school work is important. Working is important. Doing laundry, running errands, and paying bills is important. However, going to dinner with friends, eating chocolate, taking walks outside, playing sports, going to parties, and reading for fun is also important. Taking the time to do things I love has made me more productive in the long run, because when I don’t schedule in fun things, I inevitably burn out and lose interest. Of course, there is a fine-line between having a schedule that keeps you motivated and busy in a good way, and having a schedule that makes you stressed and busy in a way that is damaging to your health. It is important to know yourself, and plan a school and work schedule that is based off of your individual needs and stress-level, rather than anyone else’s.

“I’m bad at math,” and other lies I tell myself.

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This past week, I found out that I was offered a spot in an internship program that I applied for a few months ago. I am incredibly excited, but most of all I am so relieved that it worked out, and that I have one less thing to worry about.

This internship acceptance came at a good time, especially because these past few months have been filled with constant talk of internships, jobs, majors, study-abroad, housing, and all of the other long-term stuff that sends my mind into an anxious whirlwind. I have had many moments where I have felt like a “failure” for not securing an internship, and for not majoring in something “useful” or “lucrative.”

I recently declared a major in “Humanities: Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture,” and while I think it is a good fit for me, I often find myself wishing that I could have majored in something more “impressive,” like biochemistry or neuroscience. Nothing is stopping me from pursuing those majors, but they just don’t feel like majors that are right for me. In addition, for most of my life I have convinced myself that I am horrible at math and science, which rules out a lot of majors and minors. In hindsight, I think a lot of my hatred for these subjects stems (no pun intended) from some negative experiences I had with these subjects in elementary and middle school. I have told myself that I was bad at certain subjects for so long, that I eventually internalized it and began to hate them as well.

It also doesn’t help that I have a twin brother who is much more mathematically inclined. He is majoring in computer science, and I often find myself jealous of the fact that he is, in my opinion, pursuing such an impressive major.

I have done a lot of reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses this past semester, and I think I have become much more at-peace with the fact that I enjoy social sciences and humanities much more than I enjoy math or most forms of science. The thing is, we need all sorts of people in the world, and the fact that I am not going down a pre-med track does not make me any less valuable as a human, it just means I have different interests, strengths, and goals than some other people. Does the fact that I’m not majoring in a STEM field make me ‘less smart’ or ‘less hard-working?” Not really. Will people judge me for majoring in a kind of vague and potentially ‘less rigorous’ major? Probably. Does that matter? Not really.

And while I am still pretty convinced that I don’t have a mind that naturally “gets” math, I had a really positive experience with a science class last semester that pushed me outside of my academic comfort zone, and really caused me to rethink some of the lies and half-truths that I tell myself. I took a chemistry class called Land Air and Ocean Science to fulfill my natural science GE, and even though I was filled with trepidation (it had been quite a few years since I had taken a chemistry course,) I ended up LOVING the class. A large part of this was due to the fact that the professor understood that everyone in the class was taking it for their GE, and that many of us did not consider ourselves to be “sciency.” Thus, she tried really hard to make the material clear, engaging, and straightforward. Like I said, I have had some really negative experiences with math and science classes that left me feeling stupid and incompetent, so this class was such a breath of fresh air.

Overall, this class also helped me realize that it is not always helpful to narrowly categorize ourselves. As mentioned, my twin brother and I kind of grew up knowing that he was the “math-and-science-one,” and I was the “reading-writing-social-science-one.” We both placed ourselves in narrow categories that probably did us both a disservice through making us believe that we weren’t really capable of doing the things we were less talented at.

Me, when it comes to math.

Me, when it comes to math.

There have probably been a lot of things I have missed out on in life because I have convinced myself that I’m bad at it. I am now determined to stop categorizing myself in unhelpful ways, so that I will be more willing to go out of my comfort zone and try new things—even if I fail at first. Honestly, if I ended up loving a chemistry class—something I never thought was possible—then I can imagine there are so many other “lies” I tell myself that are probably not entirely valid. In the end, I have mostly come to terms with the fact that it’s okay for me not to love certain subjects, but I am also determined to challenge some of my internalized notions about what I “like” and “don’t” like, and I suggest that we all try this exercise out more often.

Don’t Cry Over Spilled Latte Foam

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This past weekend, I was lucky enough to participate in a “latte art workshop” with a few of my Motley Coffeehouse co-workers, at Klatch Coffee in Rancho Cucamonga.

Whenever I go home for breaks and tell family and friends that I work part-time as a barista, I always have to embarrassingly admit that I can’t actually make pretty latte art-or any latte art for that matter. So when I saw that the Motley was offering free workshops at Klatch Coffee for baristas, I was elated; This was my chance to work on being a better barista, and I was definitely going to take advantage of it.

When the workshop started, I became oddly nervous. My hands were shaky and I was spilling milk left and right. In the car ride over, one of the Motley managers who was with me had been detailing how successful and impressive Heather (the person who was leading the workshop) is. This definitely made me more nervous. I didn’t want to mess up too badly, or look like a complete disgrace of a barista in front of someone who really knows what she’s doing. You see, Heather Perry is really, really good at what she does. She holds the 2003 and 2007 United States Barista Champion titles, plus the 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Western Regional Champion titles. She also finished 2nd in the world at the 2007 Barista Championships, and holds numerous other honors and awards, and is now currently the Director of Training and Consulting at Klatch Coffee.

I think you can all understand why I would be nervous about making latte art in front of someone with those types of credentials. I definitely had fun learning how to make cool designs out of milk foam, but I also found myself getting legitimately frustrated and mad at myself when my latte art came out looking like oblong blobs rather than symmetrical hearts and leaves.

What I wish my latte art looked like...

What I wish my latte art looked like…

...What my latte art actually likes like.

…What my latte art actually likes like.

As obvious as it sounds, getting really good at something takes a ton of time, practice, and patience, and this is something I often forget. Whenever I start a new activity, hobby, or job, I am guaranteed to cry at some point out of sheer frustration and feelings of inadequacy. I’m a fairly impatient person, and I don’t like the amount of time I have to wait before I get really good at something; I just want to be good right away. However, it is simply not realistic to expect that I could become an expert in something after only a few tries. Furthermore, most decent people do not expect you to be an expert at something when you’re first starting out. I remember literally crying on one of my first Motley coffeehouse shifts because I couldn’t remember how to make any of the drinks, and customers were getting impatient, and I just felt so overwhelmed and inadequate, but the manager shadowing me was so understanding and insisted that I was just learning, and it would get easier over time. Luckily for me, I stuck with it, and have now memorized all of our drink recipes-though my latte art is obviously still seriously lacking).

There is so much value in sticking things out, and pushing past the feelings of discomfort, frustration, and inadequacy that come along with starting any kind of new endeavor. I may not be as good as Heather at latte art, but I also have not had the years of experience that she has. Instead of getting discouraged when my latte art doesn’t look Instagram worthy, I should acknowledge and appreciate how much progress I have made since my first shift when I cried and didn’t even know how serve a cup of drip coffee. It seems that all of those cliche adages really are true: Practice makes perfect, patience is a virtue, and don’t cry over spilled milk (latte foam included).