now ✨

a log of musings on what i’m currently focused on / things that have happened / other relevant shenanigans that I wanna share - inspired by Derek Sivers’ Now page concept, which i first saw on Maggie Appleton’s Now page

TLDR ☀️

  • frontend engineer at outverse
  • building radical, a visual calendar app where you can see your time differently and adhd directory, a tool to help ADHD folks in the UK find medication + independent pharmacies amongst the medication shortage
  • buildspace nights + weekends season 5 grad
  • on the side: figure skating ⛸️ dance 🕺 kickboxing + assistant kickboxing coach 🥊 olympic weightlifting 🏋🏻‍♀️

~

August 2024

  • Visited San Francisco for the first time to take part in the buildspace IRL event. 1000 builders went, and it was genuinely a life changing experience. I made new friends, and came home incredibly inspired by everyone and motivated to continue building radical :) have about 220 people on the waitlist after the event.
  • Saw Deadpool vs. Wolverine
  • Accepted into the zerobase 6-week program

July 2024

  • Was invited to become an assistant coach for my kickboxing club, and I got to do a 2 day coaching course. Pretty cool to be introduced to other martial arts too, such as BJJ, Karate and even nunchucks!
  • Competed in my first ever olympic weightlifting competition (on my birthday!) - was a really fun day, and came home with a silver medal
  • Graduated nights + weekends s5 - see my project video about the 6 week journey. had 64 people on the waitlist on demo day. this tripled to about 180 after posting on twitter after demo day.

June 2024

  • Completed my second kickboxing grading to achieve my Orange belt
  • Had our company offsite in beautiful Spain! Did a little bit of solo travelling after, visiting Barcelona + Valencia
  • Joined the buildspace program to start building radical

May 2024

  • Passed my first British Ice Skating skills test (Level 1). I’d been meaning to do this for ages, so it was awesome to finally get it done!

April 2024

  • Took a solo trip to Salzburg + Innsbruck in Austria. It was stunninggggg, literally my favourite place in the world
  • Competed in my first kickboxing tournament. My entire category was brown/black belts so it was a lil scary but it was so much fun, and I ended up winning gold!
  • Attended the Future of Code meetup in London

March 2024

  • Had my first kickboxing grading. Went for my first two belts at the same time + passed red + yellow!
  • Competed in my second Adult Nationals competition for figure skating. Placed 11th/33, which I was super happy with!
  • Practiced sparring for the first time

February 2024

  • Attended the Future of Code meetup in London
  • Joined a weightlifting club for olympic weightlifting!

January 2024

  • Celebrated my 1 year work-aversary at Outverse 🪐
  • Gave this site a makeover 💅
  • Built version 1 of the ADHD directory, an easier way of checking Boots stock for ADHD medications amidst the shortage and a pharmacy finder 💊

December 2023

November 2023

  • Enjoyed Loki season 2
  • Won my first pole competition! 🥇

October 2023

  • Saw ADHD the Musical - very entertaining, and surprisingly emotional! I felt v seen
  • Went bouldering, it was fun!
  • Starting exploring Threlte and took part in the first Threlte Hackathon with Aurasphere, which came 3rd place 🥉
  • Other side projects - Slack Cats, Cozy Timer

September 2023

  • Started Alphabet Superset!
  • Started kickboxing classes 🥊
  • Had my first competition of the season for figure skating, the Adult Club International ⛸️ I debuted a new programme; it’s to ‘Dog Days are Over’ by Florence and the Machine, inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy 3. It brings me a lot of joy to skate to! I came 13th / 18, and although I had some trips and forgot some of my choreo, I ended up getting a PB! (was 10.81, now 12.58) - I also landed my first ever loop jump in competition, which felt amazing! (I also kept falling over the in the warm up so it was also very much a positive suprise lol)
  • Attended my first Future of Coding meetup hosted by Maggie Appleton - it was a very interesting event with some really cool and creative demos!!

August 2023

  • Had a rebrand of my own identity! Allow me to reintroduce myself
  • Had some time off from the gym
  • Started (properly) learning Tagalog by having lessons with a language tutor

July 2023

  • Had a lovely little holiday to Norway with friends from university 🇳🇴
  • Celebrated my birthday by watching the Barbie movie 💅
  • Submitted my first ever entry to a pole competition

June 2023

  • Gave my website some love after a long time of not looking at it! Created this now page and the notes page
  • Feeling to urge to get back into writing and sharing again. I realised perfectionism is probably getting in my way!! So yeah, now I’m trying to just take messy action, and encourage myself with the thinking that what I share doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t need to make sense to anyone, or be formal and well articulated. I’m here for the funsies in my little corner of the internet - and if it helps or inspires someone then that’s pretty cool!
  • My first note in the spirit of the above, and my second setting up my mac for development
  • Enjoying learning and using Svelte ✨
  • Saw Guardians of the Galaxy 3 in the cinema, and CRIED SO MUCH i loved it tho
  • Joined the asthma club 😮‍💨 i had exercise-induced asthma as a teenager, but grew out of it and didn’t need an inhaler for years - then had a flare up so I guess inhalers are back in my life now
  • Working on some new skating skills (front to back sit spins, back spins, camel spins and flip jump) and improving my skating technique in foundational elements like crossovers
  • We had our Outverse team offsite, a few days of good vibes, good food, good ideas and good weather ☀️
  • Derek added my own NowNowNow page on the NowNowNow collection site! super cool idea and a nice to have a look through other people’s now pages

Jan 2022 - May 2023

I was pretty offline during this period and stopped writing for a while! So backfilling this section with some notable things 🕰️

2023 (Jan - May)

  • Starting the new year with a new role! Joined the Outverse team as a Frontend Engineer 🪐
  • Ended my blog break with a lil post about what I use and my tech set up
  • Went to see Lizzo in concert - it was SO MUCH FUNNN i loved it 💃
  • Caught Covid for the first time 😷
  • Finally achieved my goal I’ve had since started skating as an adult - 3 years later, competed in BIS Adult Nationals and placed 16/32!! I was really pleased with this and really just enjoyed finally getting to skate my routine there 🥹 video here
  • I also made the competition dress that I wore from a leotard I got in the Capezio sale for £2.40, bargain 😂 with stretch mesh from Funki Fabrics and rhinestones from Magpie Crystals
  • Performed my first ever pole routine in our studio’s showcase - it was a very wholesome and supportive evening 🥰
  • Got a new kitten (called Toast 🍞) to accompany our 3 year old cat Churro 🥨

2022

  • Started 2022 with that ✨ new year energy ✨ and wrote this chonky blog post about my life system and digital tools (the way I organise my life looks a lot different to this now!)
  • Competed in my first figure skating competition as an adult - a spin, jump, spiral competition and placed 1st / 8, I was shoooook 🥇 video here
  • My Lolo (my Filipino grandfather) passed away unexpectedly. This is the eulogy I wrote for his funeral
  • It was a real eye-opener to the finite nature of life and made me re-evaluate how I want to be spending my time going forward - I withdrew from studying my MSc Comp Sci
  • Also realised my life-system worked well when I was thriving - not so much post-trauma and just kinda surviving 🌊
  • Enter late-discovered neurodivergence + the whole rollercoaster of emotions and processing post-diagnosis. Going through the process of starting spicy brain medication. Trying to re-build my systems and differently approach how I’m showing up for myself after getting this new lens on how my brain works.
  • At the start of the year, after finishing 365 Days of Code, I decided to continue and aim for 1000 days (including stuff done at work) - I got to about 570 days and my motivation fizzled out especially with other things in life happening. So I took a step back, but looking back that was pretty good going!!
  • Started embracing my natural wavy/curly hair - learning how to take care and style it after many many years of straightening!
  • Competed my first ice skating competition with a program! Placed 8th/11th, video here
  • Was due to compete in British Ice Skating Adult Nationals, but got a grade 2 ankle sprain doing off-ice jumps in the gym, lol
  • Spent a couple of months out of training, and rehabbing my ankle with the help of a physio
  • Had my first international offsite with the HiPeople team - we literally stayed in a CASTLE in Porto, Portugal ☀️🏰 It was huge! Here it is on AirBnb - also yay for Portugese custard tarts yum yum
  • We had another HiPeople team week in Berlin later in the year 🇩🇪
  • From Berlin, I did a solo trip by train to Salzburg, Austria and met my Filipino developer friend from America for the first time IRL! Perks of working remotely, I got to take my calls and do some coding tickets with the views of the mountains, I felt so lucky and it was so pretty 😭. Also booked a spontaneous AirBnb experience, a day hike/tour to the Eagle’s Nest - the views were STUNNING (video here). The tour guide was super knowledgeable about the history and our group was lovely - highly recommend if you’re visiting the area! Did Salzburg to Vienna by train before flying home, and got to taste Vienesse coffee and a deliiiiish apple strudel in some very fancy café ☕️
  • My personal website got featured in the Gatsby newsletter! Also got some free Gatsby swag 💜
  • Went down to London, saw Coldplay at Wembley which was good vibes and cool audience lights, then visited my colleagues café for the first time, Nama Cafe serving yummy vegan foods - the Biscoff cheesecake was soooo good 😋
  • Celebrated my 1 year work-aversary at HiPeople
  • Watched all the Marvel films and series in chronological order. Thor Ragnorok, Doctor Strange, Spiderman No Way Home and Avengers Endgame are up there as my faves! Also enjoyed the Wandavision and Loki series
  • Went to a pole dance lesson out of curiosity and to try something novel to get me through the winter blues - very glad that this is a hobby that’s stuck (a lot of my ADHD hyperfixations are short lived 🥲). It’s been great to build better connection with my body, make new friends (not always the easiest in the post-uni adult world!) and also get stronger!!
  • Competed in another Spin, Jump, Spiral competition - this time at my home rink - didn’t place but it was a lot of fun 🥰
  • Started taking flexibility classes / lessons
  • I won runner up in the AWS Amplify x Hashnode hackathon with The Win Jar
  • Left my role at HiPeople
  • Had a little winter staycation in the Lake District with uni friends 💜
  • Had my first root canal 🦷 was absolutely not a fun experience, but they did a great job 🥲
  • Competed in the last Spin, Jump, Spiral competition of the year - came 1st! 🥇

December 2021

Completed 365 Days of Code

November 2021

Autumn in Review: Fresh starts and finding balance

September 2021

Summer 2021 in Review

May 2021

May 2021 Back on the ice and saying goodbye to harry

April 2021

Published my first blog post

July 2020 - October 2020

Completed 100 Days of Code