Thursday, November 1, 2018

Hoody, Weather-Rated Clothing & Network For Women

Weekly Update 2018-44: My friend Saeha's K-pop fave Hoody, knowing how to dress perfectly for the weather and my company's female-positive empowering Network For Women.

Music: Hoody
The first in a series of listening to my friends' music at random. My friend Saeha is a fan of smooth Korean jazzy pop (or at least that's how I'd describe the music). It's catchy and mellow at the same time, possibly good for cooking along to. Apparently I'm really late on the bandwagon because Hoody is already extremely popular in the K-pop scene. Also known as Kim Hyun-jung, this Korean singer/songwriter rose to fame in 2013 as a member of the all-female underground hip hop crew Amourette. From there, she became the first female artist to sign to the hip hop record label AOMG and her fame was set.

Saeha's take on Hoody:
Hoody is one of the few artists releasing R&B/hip-hop music in Korea. Her soothing voice on tracks with a mellow, nostalgic vibe is perfect for my chill-hop playlist.
Check out Hoody's Spotify (Saeha was listening to the song HANGANG):


Accomplishment:
I have now officially taught a class at BrainStation all by myself! Yes, last week I taught a class of 21 designer hopefuls all about the ins and outs of wireframes and rapid prototyping. I got the chance to sharpen my ad-hoc presentation skills by giving a run-through of InVision (which I use almost every day at work), and felt pretty confident answering questions. I also really appreciated the way the class opened up and shared some of their experiences with others.

On my way home from class, I made a really pleasant Bunz trade with a woman named Cala - we originally agreed to meet in Bellevue Square Park but when she made last minute plans (to go to Spelling Bae, of all things), she offered to hide the trade item somewhere in the park. I would find it, send her BTZ, and go on my way.

When I got to the park, I was greeted with this:

The trade is in the bag, plus extra free sunglasses on this statue's head.

It turned out that I also knew this Bun through some drumming circles (figurately and literally) and we had some friends in common. It just figures, I can only make friends with other nerds who think spelling is fun.

In other news, I completed a three-day product training at work (still really only the tip of the iceberg), so now I am feeling a bit more prepared to actually provide something of value to my company. Not that I haven't been able to find other ways to contribute, of course, but I really want to apply my design knowledge to bettering this product. So many people already use it to improve their lives, and I want to help them improve even more.

Random Thought: Weather-Rated Wardrobe
As the weather gets colder, I've been having a bit of trouble dressing appropriately for the weather. Global warming is shortening our neutral seasons (Spring and Fall), so I already knew I wouldn't have a big window for Fall jackets (my most favourite thing to accessorize) before I break out the Winter coat. Plus, biking in cold Fall weather presents its own challenging mixes of frosty fingertips and sweaty foreheads.

I look at weather reports, but what does 9 degrees feel like? What about 3 degrees? I've been dressing in layers, but moreso I would love to do a bunch of research through wearing my entire wardrobe in different degrees of weather and just rate everything for the perfect degree. Of course this would take forever and just not be worth the time invested, but it would be great if clothing could come with some sort of rating system on how much cold it will block. Sleeping bags do, so why not this pair of jeans? Or this dress shirt? Not only that, let's apply some formulas. I bet there's some sort of calculation that could be made on two items being layered together that would determine their combined weather rating.

This would make dressing for different kinds of weather so much easier.

Inspiration: Network For Women
I recently discovered a committee at my workplace that specializes in the growth, mentorship, and leadership of women in the workplace (especially in tech). Since joining, I've attended the monthly meeting this past Monday and I have high hopes about the future of the company with lots of happy, empowered women. Of course, we're definitely not there yet, but I have never seen such a strong initiative like this in any company I have worked at before. More on this once I experience some of the events and actions of the network.

I also shared something with the members of the network that my friend Jamie shared on Facebook - a really lovely poster on how to be an effective trans ally. I know that life is much harder for transgender people than myself and since I don't share their experiences, I sometimes don't know the best way that I can be in order to help them. Of course I also can't know if this poster is 100% accurate but I know what it means to be a good person and it rings true. Check it out for yourself (originally from the 519).

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