A Year In Review: 2014

• I quit my job back in March. Haven’t looked back, haven’t been back.
• I regained my health and happiness. I started the year with serious depression and was nowhere near fit. I had an unused gym membership for over a year that I was dumping money into. Today, I run three days a week and do yoga two days a week.
• I learned the basics of Ruby to pass the entry test for Dev Bootcamp, which I attended this summer. I learned how to program, but more importantly learned how to learn. I wept at the end after parting with some unforgettable new friends.
• I got a job as a UI Developer. This job pays more, has fewer hours, and I have an awesome mentor.
• I started writing weekly letters, this very series you’re reading in fact!
• I’ve continued journaling this year. I’m six books in for a total of 3.75 years of consecutive writing
• I drove across the country and back, totaling over 9,000 miles driven. 18 of those states I drove through was my first time there (Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and New Mexico).
• After the road trip, I hopped on a plane to South Korea. It was the first time I had ever been. I stayed for over a week helping a friend recovery from surgery. 
• I ran a coding club for four months after Dev Bootcamp ended. Plans to continue this are tentative next year.
• I attended my first hackathon this year. I had such a great experience, I attended two more. 

• Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us -This helped me put a persona to big food companies. I always knew the amount of salt, sugar and fat were increasing with processed food, but now I understand the driving force behind that, and the science they use to justify such actions.
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed - This is an old book that looks at adult education in different manner, beginning with the premise that we oppress rather than liberate. 
• Show Your Work - Austin Kleon’s follow-up to his first book, “Steal Like An Artist” about getting feedback and how to handle it for creative work. Quick read.
• East of Eden - I hadn’t read this classic before, and after starting a short book club this year, became one of my instant favorite classics. A fictional story that spans decades that resonates the biblical allegory of Cain and Abel.
• Kern and Burns - This is a collection of interviews from design entrepreneurs. It opened my eyes to design in the workplace and how companies are shaped from it. 

• 12 Years a Slave
• The Wind Rises
• Chef
• Boyhood

• Being nice. Throw that out. Be kind and be able to confront others by telling them what’s right, not cater to what they want to hear. But don’t  be a dick about it.
• Being a liar. Seriously, honest is the best choice.
• Spilling the whole can of beans. As a corollary to the above, I to be succinct. Entice others with a small amount of information first. Then see if they’re interested in learning more.
• Pleasing everyone, or living up to anyone else’s expectations other than my own. Why should I fantasize about making other people happy when they don’t always have my best interest? I am the sole person responsible for myself, and I should never forget that. 
• Haters. Period.
• Fitting in to a mold. I don’t need a label nor social circle to define me.
• Guilt. I have felt this weight long enough, and its time to stop dwelling on this one.

14. Falling in Love

 

If I learned anything in 2013, it’s that love — the overwhelming, this-is-the-one kind, the love that makes you weak in the knees, if not slightly duller in the head — isn’t real. It exists outside of reality, in a world devoid of calories and Kardashians. The fall is fun, for a while. But big love is just that… oversized and oversold. Overstated and filled with impossible expectations. I don’t want to fall into that kind of love again. It lacks substance. I prefer the little loves. My best friend’s daughter running around the kitchen chanting, “It’s all rainbows,” over and over again. The wag of a dog’s tail when you scratch the sweet spot behind her ear. Neglected nuances, subtle sincerity — that’s where love lives. Lost in a pile of unmatched socks, it sits and waits for you, overlooked and underappreciated. Flawed but sturdy; frustrating but frank. A beautiful mess of sadness and hope. Fuck engagement rings and moonlit walks on the beach. Love hurts because that’s the only way to tell that it’s real.
 

-- Chantielle MacFarlane