I feel like I am constantly consuming new information, and sometimes, it can be a bit exhausting. Sometimes, though, educational information can also be fun, as well, and good to help others understand things they may not have previously known before. One of the many podcasts that I’ve been listening to in the last year has been the Deliciously Ella podcast. Ella Mills is a British plant-based food writer and entrepreneur who has a London deli as well as a plant-based eating cookbook. Seven-plus years ago, the idea of “vegan” and “plant-based” seemed annoying to me, as so many delicious things exist in cultures across the word, so why would we need substitutes for already delicious and amazing things? But as I’ve read more and more about greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, the environmental impact of animal products, as well as their negative implications on our health, I realized that maybe reducing the amount of animal-based products I eat isn’t such a bad idea after all. It was Michael Pollan who once said: “Eat food — not too much; mostly plants.” I will always be a happy omnivore who won’t give up her Peking duck or pho, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t want to incorporate more plant-based foods into my diet and eat a little less meat.

Her latest episode on “How to Have a Healthy Gut” was especially interesting to me, as it discussed that so much of what people perceive as food allergies or celiac/gluten-intolerant diseases is actually a result of their bodies being overly stressed and thus rejecting the foods they could normally eat. So perhaps if one day, you are anxious from a work presentation you have to deliver and eat a banana, then immediately throw up, the reason you vomited is not that the banana actually was the cause, but rather that the stress in your gut affected how you ultimately digested that banana. The gut is truly the center of everything in our bodies whether we realize it or not, and that’s why it’s even more important in today’s high-speed, high-stress environments to focus on self-care, whether that means doing some form of meditation, yoga, exercise, or even just practicing breathing deeply to find a sense of calm and stillness in our lives. It really cannot be overstated, especially when you *think* you are getting sick from foods that are not actually making you sick at all. I wish that people would slow down a bit and instead of blaming the foods for these types of ailments to instead think about the lives they are leading and how they can either calm or slow down.

The other interesting thing the “gut doctor” who was interviewed in the podcast noted is that to have a well-rounded gut, each of us should be targeting to eat a variety of different foods (obvious, but oftentimes a challenge), but as a general goal, seek to eat about 30 different plant-based foods each week. So while it can be an easy routine or habit to always fall on whole wheat, spinach, tomatoes, or the same type of lentils, to instead mix it up: add wild rice or quinoa, mix some Swiss chard, kale, or red cabbage into your spinach. Roast some onions and chop some avocado to eat with your tomatoes. Vary up the usual green lentils with some red lentils or chickpeas. This would also include the little things you may even forget about, such as the sautéed garlic in your stir-fry, chia seeds, flaxseeds, a handful of cashews or walnuts, a few squeezes of lime, etc.

I was intrigued by the target “30” number and counted how many I had eaten in the last three days. I was at 33! How crazy!

An article by Fast Company recently noted that the author spent about 15 times as much on personal grooming products as her husband did, and this was not actually atypical in the average heterosexual relationship. This then prompted all kinds of questions about whether this was truly a choice that women made, or if the women who opted out from spending money on makeup or blowouts suffered professional consequences. One of the frustrations of women is looking too young or too old; sounding too young or old; dressing up too much, down too much; revealing too much or too little skin; is this dress too tight for that meeting? Are people going to take me seriously if I wear this bow or this style of headband? You name it; we’ve all been there as women in the workplace.

I usually indulge in only one facial a year, but given that I had treated myself to one with a friend earlier in the year, got a free one at the Ritz Carlton-Bacara resort for President’s Club in May, I figured, what the heck… Why not just get another one at the place I usually go to that is probably the most affordable place in New York City after work today? So I did and booked it in advance for this early evening. When I referenced a previous conversation from earlier this year with another esthetician and asked today’s esthetician about my old acne scars (which are quite faint, so if I really had to get annoyed with them, it would be safe to say that I am just nitpicking at myself), she said that a microdermabrasion facial would not be enough unless I wanted to get one every month for about 10-12 months; it would be gradual fade-away in this case. The only way to see a very dramatic improvement of the scarring would be to get 3-4 chemical peels spaced out about one week each; they’d definitely banish the scars once and for all. Here, as services are more economically priced, they are priced at $120 per peel… and at the average place in New York City, which I looked up, it could be anywhere from $250-350 per session.

Really? I thought. Pass.

Yep, that’s what women are told: if we want to look “perfect,” we have to throw more money at the problem. Chemical peels are terrifying to me; they are basically one step away from Botox, which I am not an advocate for AT ALL.

When traveling, especially in Asia, I’ve always really enjoyed seeing all the different food vendors in various markets and shops, each specializing in one or two particular dishes or food types, whether it’s tofu, soy milk, a certain noodle dish; it shows the level of craft and learned expertise that goes into specific foods and proves that food truly is an art form. In Manhattan Chinatown, I’ve enjoyed visiting certain vendors that specialize in fresh rice noodles, soy milk, tofu, grass jelly — it’s like a hint of what it’s like being at a bustling market in China or Thailand.

Fong Inn Too recently closed in Manhattan Chinatown, which was so sad; it was a multiple generations owned, family run spot that specialized in tofu, soy milk, and specific steamed Chinese cakes. I’d been there a couple times ages ago and enjoyed my rushed visits of choosing what I wanted, exchanging quick back and forths in Mandarin or Cantonese with a queue of people behind me, and stepping out to enjoy my delicious delights. So it was exciting news when I heard that a grandchild of the owners who retired and shut down their shop was planning to open in a new space and continue the family traditions. The new place is in a different location of Chinatown and is called Fong On. While exploring Chinatown today and noticing all the different shops and street art that have popped up recently, I visited Fong On and purchased three items: sweetened and unsweetened soy milk, as well as freshly made grass jelly. The soy milk was pure and clean (and preservative free, meaning I’d need to consume this within the next couple of days before it goes sour!), and the grass jelly texture was perfect – really firm, but soft and bouncy. It really puts grass jelly in a can to shame.

The prices have gone up, especially since they now take credit card and are trying to lure in more millennials into their shop, but I’m happy to pay an extra 50 cents or a dollar to support this family-run business to continue for as long as possible so that I can keep enjoying their lovingly made products.

I was at the gym yesterday after doing some long stretching, and our in-building gym trainer was between personal training sessions, so we had a bit of small talk, which included him suggesting some strength exercises to incorporate into my routine to complement my running (he tends to always come in when I’m on the treadmill). After just a few reps with his guidance and a resistance band around my thighs, I was already exhausted and feeling sore.

We exchanged comments and grievances about health and fitness, and I told him how frustrating it used to be going to the old gyms I used to visit before we had this in-building gym, and how frustrated I used to get when I’d see people sitting in the middle of the floor, talking on the phone or texting, or even just scrolling through Instagram. The gym is where you go to work out, to exercise, to get away from all the distractions of the day, I said to him. Why would you spend all this time and money to go to a gym and not do a real workout? That just boggles my mind.

He responded that a lot of people want appearances. They want to be able to say that they “went to the gym” or “had their workout.” In their minds, when they hear the saying, “Half of winning is showing up,” they are literally thinking that they have won just by going to the gym; whether they actually broke a sweat is another story.

“You know that saying — ‘All the world’s a stage?'” he said to me while I was doing my squats with the resistance band. “Everyone is constantly in a state of acting in this world: on the street, in the office, with their families at the dinner table. But at the gym, this is really your one chance just to be yourself, to be who you really are. No one is really watching you or keeping tabs on you. It’s just you and yourself. So what are you going to do when it’s just you? That’s when the real you comes out, and if you don’t want to actually do what you came there for, it reveals a lot about you. It’s why I love working as a personal trainer. I get to be with people when their true selves come out.”

That was pretty well stated, and he’s right: at the gym or during exercise, you have nothing to prove to anyone but yourself.

At our Opticon conference closing keynote, our team invited Mae Jemison, a well respected and renowned African American female engineer, physicist, and former NASA astronaut, to speak. During her talk, she mentioned this famous quote from Helen Keller:

“Science … has found no remedy for the worst (evil) of them all — apathy of human beings.” – Helen Keller

Apathy. Apathy is evil. This resonated with me a lot, particularly in recent years when I’ve grown frustrated at the indifference or lack of care when it comes to all the terrible things happening in the world, whether it’s President Dipshit’s reign over the U.S., innocent black men getting shot and killed, the Amazon being on fire, and children being locked up cages. How can you sit around and do what you always do, live your life in your bubble, when all these things are happening around us that are just eating away at the world around us? If you aren’t protesting, raising money, and making your voices heard, then what are you doing to make the world we live in a better place to be? I feel terrified sometimes reading the news today, thinking.. is it a selfish thing to want to bring a child into this world, where even the vegetables we are eating have less minerals and vitamins than they used to because the soil they are being grown in has just been fully exhausted? I don’t know. But I think about it a lot and am concerned. While no individual can change these things on her own, it’s individual actions that can be bits of difference along the way. And it all starts with discussing the issues at hand.

As someone who has always enjoyed writing and once edited for middle and high school newspapers as a student, I’ve always been pretty anal when reviewing anything that is going to be published. I obsess over grammar, and with photos, I obsess over lighting, contrast, and brightness. Yet somehow, despite being this anally attentive to detail, I somehow missed in my last two video posts that my end title template had spelled the word “follower” with three Ls. One of my very detailed friends caught that immediately and called it out to me, and I just started groaning. How did someone like me miss something as basic as that? I was way too eager to hit “publish post.”

Chris refused to let me edit and republish, partly because re-exporting the media file would take ages, but mostly because these tiny errors show growth and can also give way to engagement and comments. So, I sucked it up in the spirit of testing and iterating, learning and growing, and have moved on…. painfully. .

I’m nearly close to wrapping up four fully edited videos for my new YouTube channel. It only took about three months of learning and working on this on and off, but I think I finally at least have the hang of basic cutting of clips, and now I need to focus more on adding variety, music, different angles, to make my videos more interesting. I think the big thing is really to do this more regularly so that I don’t forget basic tips and tricks.

I’m planning to upload the fourth video by tomorrow, so before I leave for San Francisco, and then gradually share information about this to friends and family. It’s kind of exciting, but also anticlimactic because it’s not like I have some massive PR team helping me. We’ll see how it goes…

Two years ago they came, and now two years later, they are leaving. Not only are they leaving, but they have a little one on the way and are packing their bags to go all the way back to Melbourne. It’s always exciting when friends move to New York and then sad when they leave because it feels like the friend group just starts dwindling and dwindling. At this point. I don’t even think we have that many friends left in New York to do a Thanksgiving gathering that I’d want. I’m even thinking about forgoing it this year. The friends we have remaining… I really do not want them to be under the same roof again. It was too much the last time for me, and I think I ended the night feeling more agitated than happy about how the food turned out. That’s never a good thing.

I have never enjoyed large friend groups or cliques. I learned from an early age that that just wasn’t for me. But as I’ve gotten older, it’s harder and harder to meet people I not only click with, but also who live nearby and are willing to commit time and energy to spending time together. Time is the one commodity we really need to cherish because it never feels like we have enough of it, and it’s also the one thing that most people can be quite stingy about.

We have an office for our company right in the heart of Manhattan in the Flatiron district. Any rent for a space of our size would be quite considerable, but it’s sad when we think of exactly how little time is spent in our office overall. It’s one thing to be away traveling for work or on vacation, but we legitimately have colleagues who barely come into the office one or two days a week, not because they are at meetings or on vacation, but because they simply do not want to come in. We have colleagues who live less than 10 blocks away who regularly work from home on Fridays, and somehow, it’s just acceptable. The culture in our office has definitely gone down a bit over the last year and has shifted (I would even argue that a tiny handful are trying to foster a stupid “bro” culture that we’ve never quite had before, but that is another story), but this is comical, ridiculous, and pretty unacceptable when I think of how much rent our company is paying for this extremely covetable and nice space, and the cost of the upkeep. We get free lunch when we go into the office from any restaurant in the vicinity that delivers; that in itself is a massive perk.

I don’t really know when this started to be okay, but I suddenly thought about it when I looked around the office today, which is a Friday. When I counted that there were nine of us in the office today, I was shocked, catching myself thinking, “Wow, we have a lot of people here!”

No one would ever say that about just nine people in an average office setting.

One of our least performing, least-in-the-office colleagues seemingly has been forced to resign. After not showing up at work for months, slacking on all his accounts, endangering one of our most loyal customer relationships, constantly online shopping, and even watching porn at work, he’s officially no longer here as of tomorrow.

I lament all the time that life is not fair… because it isn’t. Mass shootings happen where innocent bystanders get wounded or killed. They never asked for that. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s chilling because that could literally be any of us here in the U.S. People are born into poverty and get blamed for being “lazy” when they never really were presented with the right opportunities or role models to help them succeed. And this scumbag happened to be here the last eight months and get paid a comfortable salary to do nothing… Why? Probably because he was a white male who had favoritism with certain people higher up in our organization, and somehow, that’s all you really need sometimes – that white male privilege.

But it’s nice to know that he’s no longer here, and so maybe there really is some justice in the world.. occasionally.