A Day in the Life: August 2015

Today seemed like a long day! It started with me waking up and feeling more alert than expected. I had two events on my calendar today that were a little out of the ordinary: an orthodontist appointment, and a CSS meetup. I don’t think I was amazingly excited for both these events, but they still happened, and turned out quite well.

I managed to get out of bed before 7am, and downed some tom yum soup for breakfast. Words cannot explain how delicious that stuff is in the winter! Despite staying out in the cold a lot yesterday, I hadn’t gotten a cold, so hurrah for my superwoman powers.

Morning

I visited my orthodontist last week for the first time in about five years. I had my braces removed almost a decade ago. Because I was stubborn, I wore my retainer consistently but stopped because I couldn’t be bothered. You do need to wear it to maintain the alignment of your teeth. Unfortunately, I have bruxism, which means I grind and clench my teeth, which can be damaging to not only the alignment of my teeth, but to the surface of the teeth as well. The unfortunate part is that it happens in my sleep so I am not aware of this ‘habit’ and cannot stop myself. As a result, my teeth misaligned over time, and more than the average person’s teeth.

Last week my orthodontist suggested I continue to wear my retainer on my bottom teeth, as much as it hurt – to see how much resolution we could get out of that. I don’t really want to pay for braces again and it’s really only the bottom front four teeth that have become a little crooked. A week of wearing it almost all day did some good, and today I went to pick up a new retainer for my top teeth, because my old one was nine years old and quite simply – gross. It also had a lot of holes in it as a result of this really shitty bruxism.

My orthodontist also got a little metal strip and filed between my teeth a little to allow the teeth a little more room to move past each other. There was a bit of blood, that was a little unpleasant. It was over pretty quickly. I didn’t have to wait too long in the waiting room either, and I was out within fifteen minutes of arriving. Neat.

I walked to the train station nearby. It was a pleasant walk, and the train station (which I had never been to, as I was usually given a ride) seemed peaceful and clean. It took about an hour to get to work. On the train I managed to read some emails and reply to some messages, as well as tweak a few things on my blog.

Noon

My day at work went alright. I got a little distracted, so I picked up my laptop and moved to the couch area, where I sat in a big rounded chair. I have been doing that occasionally this week and I find that it helps me get ‘in the zone’. I am in a better state of mind to focus. I suppose it is because of my current desk location that I find it difficult to concentrate – I am amongst the support staff and there is a lot of chatter, people with their music on in the background, and a lot of collaboration. It can be good to leave my desk and work in a quiet corner. That’s the good thing about being provided with a work laptop!

I took a little bit of a break from my tasks at 1:30pm to revisit some jQuery exercises on Codecademy. I was listening to music on Apple Music at the time, sussing out a 1990s indie rock playlist, when I discovered a song I simply fell in love with. It’s called Merry Go Round by The Replacements. I did an internet search on the band and read briefly about their history.

Afternoon

Obsessed with The Replacements already, I listened to their last album All Shook Down, the one that had Merry Go Round on it.

Nick and I caught up in the late afternoon at about 3pm, after he went to a work lunch. By then, I had listened to All Shook Down in its entirety. I hadn’t eaten anything for lunch so my lunch was essentially waffles at one of my favourite cafes, Caffe Tiamo. Ha ha! Yum. And naughty. I like sweet foods but too much sweetness can be off-putting, so I got Nick to eat some. :D

Waffles from Caffe Tiamo
Waffles from Caffe Tiamo

After heading back to work I went to my little corner by the couch again. I was quite productive the rest of the afternoon, though I probably wasn’t working as fast as I had hoped.

Evening

After wrapping up at work, Nick and I went to the SydCSS (Sydney CSS) meetup, which is held monthly. This time it was held at the Campaign Monitor Sydney office. It was my second time attending, and I don’t know why I didn’t make an effort to attend these things before. I didn’t like the idea of meeting new people because I was not social and perhaps I am a little scared. Or just introverted. :P

The topics were not superbly focussed on CSS, but more about giving back to the community. The three speakers talked about public speaking, mentoring and open source projects, respectively. They were all very friendly and I think their insight was helpful – it helped me to realise that everyone out there goes through the same thing, and there were definitely people attending the meetup who could relate to some of these speakers’ talks.

I found it in myself to talk to one of the organisers, Fiona, and express interest in speaking at a future meetup. I held concerns about 1) talking about something that someone might have already covered, which would bore people, and 2) talking about… I don’t know what to talk about?! and 3) talking.

But the truth is that for the past few months I have been greatly inspired by well-known developers in the community, and wish to contribute by sharing my ideas. That’s why I began to blog about web development. I hope that I think of something to discuss in a talk, and exchange ideas with others.

It’s making me nervous, but it also seems fun.

Night-ish

Nick and I bought bubble tea before catching a train. On the way home, a freight train broke down in front of our train. Nick and I had to wait for a bit, and we had a bit of a laugh at a small group of people who were impatient and decided to get off and wait for another train on the opposite platform. We could tell by their gestures, as our train finally moved after fifteen minutes, that they regretted not waiting. :P

Now I am at Nick’s house where I am writing this blog post and will be staying the night.

How was your day? :) Don’t forget to blog about your day some time this month and join the linkup! More details here.

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Comments on this post

I’m going to try to join in with this linkup this month. I’ve been wanting to do a “day in the life” post for ages so I’m going to make sure I make time to write one.

I’ve been wearing my retainers nearly every night since I had my fixed braces removed about 5 years ago, and they are absolutely disgusting. I clean them constantly, but if you wear anything for that long it will become tatty. I’m considering getting some fresh ones made while I still have free dental treatment!

I’ve also been using Codecademy for jQuery practice. I have a job interview for a position for which it’s a “desirable skill” so I’m trying to get to grips with it. Also, the CSS meetup sounds quite interesting.

Oh, and I love the updates you’ve made to the layout!

I can’t wait, Holly! I am definitely looking forward to more people participating because I like to read about what is happening in people‘s lives (not being creepy haha).

I guess I am not the only one then. My retainers were getting gross even though I was cleaning them all the time. :( My orthodontist said that getting them changed every five years is OK, so you ought to go back!

A lot of positions in web development (front-end, anyway) require knowledge of jQuery or JavaScript. I have known that since I started working in the industry but never bothered to learn because I thought I would get by. But I realised I wasn’t growing, so I had to take the step. My current workplace does a better job of encouraging that kind of growth compared to my previous workplace. :)

Thanks! :D If I think about it, it looks pretty similar overall, but it’s a nice refresh.

That’s probably good that you can assist your teeth before it gets too bad. It will probably be worth it having to wear the retainer even though it wouldn’t be that comfortable. I had the problem of grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw and it caused a number of issues. I hope for you things get better there.

That would be complicated working in a space with support staff. I can understand why you would need that space to yourself. Maybe you will be moved to another area soon! *fingers crossed*

So cool that you found another band that you like. :D It’s always such an awesome feeling when you really connect to a sound. <3

It would be so awesome if you did a talk and I know that there would be a lot of people interested. You are one of those people that others are attracted too, I don't mean in a romantic sense, but that people want to listen to you and take notice. :D

DOES KYA HAVE A CRUSH? :O

c:
I kid.
or do I?

I am glad I am not the only teeth-grinder here! :D I tried to read about fixing that problem but I think it will be hard. Recently I have tried to make sure my tongue sits close to my bottom teeth so it makes my mouth sit open rather than having my teeth clamp down, but other than that, I am not sure what works.

We are getting some new tables installed at work, so hopefully the wait isn’t too long. The good thing is that I have a laptop so I can move around if I like!

Hahaha. Public speaking isn’t one of my goals, but I hope I am able to talk about something related to web development that people will like. I shouldn’t worry about them not liking me!

I went to a WordPress Ann Arbor meetup once or twice. It was okay, but I haven’t gone back. I guess that’s because it seems like a lot of the topics are more for bloggers than developers and a lot of the people in attendance were a) much older than me and b) much less experienced than me, so I got annoyed at what seemed like stupid questions. I’ve heard the local JavaScript meetup has pizza… ;P

Free food at the SydCSS meetups! And beer, apparently, but I don’t like beer.

I went to a coders meetup but I didn’t really bond with the people that much. It was more of a ‘get together with your laptops and work’ kind of deal.

I am feeling so bad right now. I have been one of the laziest people in terms of retainers ever. It’s been almost 7 years since the treatment. But I sort of stopped wearing the retainers years back. my bottom four teeth were never in a perfect shape and surprisingly they are still in the same alignment! But there is a little alignment issue overall… but i’m not gonna do that costly treatment again!

Getting braces is expensive but it is good to wear your retainers to make sure the problem doesn’t get worse. I am sure you wore it for at least some time before you stopped, and it sounds like you may be one of those lucky people whose teeth doesn’t move too much. I learned the hard way but I am willing to fix my teeth, and hoping to without spending too much money.

I love the new colors! The aqua and coral work so well together. Has the bottom bar been updated? It seems like the turquoise is still in use.

My dentist wanted me to shell out for braces for my bottom teeth a few years ago–for one tooth. A single tooth. I said no, but perhaps retainers would be a useful choice.

Thanks! :) I wrote about the changes when I deployed them, and I did write that the footer is still ugly because this change was only meant to be MVP. I haven’t updated the background colour but my main gripe was with the very bright turquoise/teal, which is now gone.

It is possible to fix a single tooth with a retainer or a plate, I think, and I am sure there are other more affordable methods of moving just one tooth. It depends, but I can understand why you wouldn’t want braces for such a small problem. I am hoping my bottom teeth can be fixed without the braces. :(

I finally posted my blog ^^. Also, those waffles look amazing.