coriander in pho

not a food blog

  • And then, it happens…

    I know I supposed to write about the recent Division Meetup in Denver, but in a most uncharacteristically me, I didn’t take a lot of pictures and videos. I found myself drained throughout the travel, and while I enjoyed the meetup and meeting my colleagues, I couldn’t be in my 100% condition as I really want to take things slow. The flight reservation processes have been long, annoying, and painful, and I think I’m going to swore off from Egencia for a decade or so.

    Anyway.

    I got Covid.

    I’ve been down with cold since Monday, and it was… Weird. It came suddenly. I remember I coughed once — once — in the morning, and things felt going downhill from there. I got tired easily and unable to concentrate. I had to excuse myself to logout earlier than usual and take a rest. In the night time, things got worse. My body aching all over, and I got serious chills. All that with my body temperature stays OK-ish/super low grade fever (37.2°C) so I didn’t suspect Covid.

    The tiredness continued on the next day, but slightly better. I managed to do my work and logged out on time, even though I still got some mild headaches.

    Now, at that point, I legit thought to myself:

    “Huh. This feels similar with what happened when I got my first vaccination dosage.”

    I got alarmed last midnight (last midnight? This midnight?) Being an Indonesian, I always have eucalyptus oil (minyak kayu putih) and Vicks VapoRub on my bedside table. This is the “if you know, you know”-moment. These two have really strong scents that said giving healing properties.

    I took the eucalyptus oil and when I opened it, I realized I couldn’t smell anything. I took Vicks and sniffed it, still no dice.

    With a really long whisper of “shitshitshitshitshitshit” because I didn’t want to wake up my husband, I took the Covid test and… Those two dreadful lines appeared.

    I woke up my husband, and he checked on me if I’m alright (no chest pain, no difficulty in breathing, etc.) Thankfully, so far so good. I still have a bit of runny nose, and a slight cough. Some mild headaches are still here, but in general, I’m doing alright.

    The only thing that I’m concerned is the loss of appetite, though. I guess it’s normal, since cold and flu tends to affect appetite, but I’m hoping I can get my appetite back so I can eat and recharge myself.

    Also, I know that it’s recommended for Covid patients to sunbath, but gosh dang it, Kuala Lumpur’s weather is not being super sunny right now.

    Thankfully, my husband and my kids are all tested negative.

    Oh well. I have faith in you, two vaccination shots and two booster shots! Let’s beat this darn virus!

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  • Drawing Practice: Night time

    I’m currently watching “The Sandman” on Netflix, and this image keeps popping on my head — also, I want to learn minimalist approach by using two colors only (with varied values.)

    Pretty happy with how it looks. I’m actually aiming it to be “less creepy” and “more Totoro-y” (that scene where Satsuki and Mei waiting for their dad on the bus stop, with Satsuki caught a glimpse of Totoro from under her umbrella.)

    Anyway, music mood:

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  • On WP Courses Blog

    Earlier today, I did a bit of touch-up on my Writings & Drawings page to make it tidier and not too overwhelming. I know that I’m aspiring to be a children’s storybook illustrator and at the same time, I’m trying to keep the traffic to this site really minimum as I’m still not comfortable having folks looking into my site, so it’s like dealing with a super weird paradox, but yeah, we’ll get there.

    Anyway, I tidied up the WP Courses area of my Drawings then I decided to check how the website is going. Now that I’m in a different role in my work, I am no longer actively involved with the WP Courses team. I kinda miss them, though. WP Courses was the first time I had public speaking and I was terrified, and the team has been super awesome in encouraging me and celebrating the fact that I finished my first time hosting a workshop without passing out in the middle of the event.

    I checked WP Courses’ blog, for fun’s sake, and I found myself pleasantly surprised to see so many awesome posts and workshop replays. One of my favorites is What makes good podcast art? – workshop replay.

    While the majority of your focus when starting a podcast is on creating the content of the podcast itself, thinking about what your art might look like is also worth considering.

    Competition is stiff – podcast art can grab the potential listener’s attention while they’re browsing!

    There is another post on How to interview people face to face – workshop replay. I personally feel it’s really neat and it covers not only the technical aspect of blogging, podcasting, and website building but on how we interview people in a general sense.

    It’s easy to tell me that I might be biased since I’m working in Automattic and I was part of WP Courses team, and perhaps I am. However, there are only so many things a Happiness Engineer can do for folks on chats or emails, and there is vast information available that might suit one’s pace. I’ve been dealing with enough customer service on chats and emails with me as the end-user, and as helpful as the support staff is, the process can be quite frustrating and nerve-wracking; the feeling that you got to be “there” and “present” when responding and the waiting time until you receive the reply from the support agent.

    For some urgent inquiries, such as billings, accounts, or security issues, I can understand. For some non-urgent things, or when I’m seeking tips or guidance, recorded workshop videos or blog posts like the ones in WP Courses are an excellent option. I can watch and read them on my own time and pause it whenever needed.

    Also, thanks to Domestika, I am now more open to the idea of online courses. Trust me when I said that I used to doubt online courses. “Is that legit? Are the courses actually, you know, courses? This is not some kind of that hit-and-run scam, right?” (then I joined WP Courses team– I KNOW, I KNOW.)

    I would say that we have been sleeping on WP Courses Blog for far too long, and it’s about time for folks to explore a bit more of WordPress and WordPress.com.

    Also, all courses in WP Courses are free (you read that right.)

    Anyway, fun fact, I was in the team doing illustrations for the courses and the blog posts, and here are some of the drafts I made before we changed our style to vector-look.

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  • Drawing Practice: Curiosity

    I’m experimenting with dark background and rust. You might know the robot from Peachtober’s “Robot”. I found myself liking this fella.

    Anyway! I want to share the timelapse video, but I want to be mindful of my site storage too. For the time being — until I found an alternative — you can find the timelapse video in my Instagram “nindya_draws”.

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  • Drawing Practice: Weekly Grocery Shopping

    While I love the idea, the colors came off too strong, and I just realized I went overboard with Overlay layer after I’m done. It also feels half-done, and I know I can do better.

    Be better next time then.

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