LONG STREAM OF THOUGHTS

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Moving to SF again

My boss brought up the possibility of me relocating to SF around February and my heart instantly dropped. "Nothing has to be decided now," she said "but keep it in the back of your head."

I lived in San Francisco from 2009-2012 with my then boyfriend. I grew up in the bay and being back in SF felt too familiar. An uncomfortable familiarity. My family lived close by and they saw me frequently which I was not used to being away from home for awhile. I went through a lot of ups and down during those 3 years I lived in that city. I remember mostly the dark moments. For a lot of reasons I would rather not go into, I saw a therapist for the first time and discovered my own Pandora's box. I had uncovered all this baggage I was unaware of. I felt like my experience in SF was slowly and painfully stifling my voice and killing my independence mainly because of my relationships. It was clear that I was not in a place to be around people that loved me the most. So I made the decision to apply for grad school and move across the country.

In 2012 I moved to NY to start grad school. I was relieved to escape the dark cloud I created in SF. I felt like I was finally my normal self again. Throughout the two years in grad school, I slowly regained my sense of independence and identity and rebuilt my relationships with my family. NY has always been good to me even when I was there for undergrad. It was an immediate attraction which then developed into a genuine love. I spent my formative years in this city and it cultivated and nurtured my autonomy. And it wasn’t just NY. It was also Shanghai and every place I traveled to that I didn’t consider my childhood home.

When my boss brought up the idea of moving back to SF, I didn't take the news well. I knew it was a decision that made sense for me professionally but I couldn’t get myself to admit it. I was afraid that moving close to my family again would suppress my independence and old family dynamics would return.

Ever since I left, I had been battling between the emotions of guilt and pleasure from being far from my family. I was angry that I could hear my mother's plea for my return in the back of my head and feeling coerced into a situation out of guilt. I was haunted by the past memories my ex and I shared during a tumultuous time in our relationship. I kept telling myself I couldn't do it over and over again. Everyday I would give myself a different answer. Yes I'm moving to SF. No I'm staying in NY. 

Even living between both cities for the last 5 months exacerbated my stress and left a feeling of instability. Deep down I knew it was best for me to move for my career but I couldn't come to terms with it. I tried to go through every possible scenario to get myself to stay in NY but none of them made sense.

I tried my best to stay in NY but the universe was telling me to go. My family and friends wanted me to return, I recently left an unstable relationship in NY, I found an amazing apt in SF, and my landlord decided to not renew my lease. I went to a psychic one slightly inebriated night a few weeks ago and expressed my concerns with the move. She assured me it was a positive decision. 

I came back to NY the beginning of this month to allow myself to process my move and say goodbye to this amazing city. I enjoyed every single day to its fullest and made sure to revisit my favorites places. Then something started to happen without me realizing it. I began to accept that I was moving to SF and slowly made peace with my decision. I became inspired to decorate my apartment which I have never done in my past apartments. I could envision my own space, separate from my family, in SF. A place that I could call my own, similar to what I created in NY. I began to realize that it is possible for me to recreate that same autonomous bubble in SF. 

I used to think that independence meant self sufficiency without the help of others. Financially, physically, and emotionally. Yet through this process of moving to SF and the self healing I’ve done in the past 2 years, I’ve come to realize its not about distancing myself from those I love but leaning into those relationships. It means still having a voice while balancing a strong, internal foundation and healthy boundaries in my relationships. I've been running away from this for awhile and so its time to confront it.  

At the end of this month I will be moving to SF and I feel pretty good about it. 

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Wellness pie

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Starting a new project on conversations.

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Finally feels like fall

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If I met me, but many years before, we’d talk about love and time. Love will not be polite. It does not wait for opportune moments to approach you. It knows not your life plans or schedule or current or future intentions. It will not wait for you to be ready. There is, in this way, no time for it. If you wait for it, then, it will not come. As love — for a person, a profession, a practice, a city — comes to you. It crosses your path and is only yours to accept. It is up to you to open your hands and heart.

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How I chose my next step

A rare moment of inspiration and motivation came to me to write a blog post since my last post in February. Damn that was a long time ago. In the past few months a lot has happened. I'm happy to say I'm a recent SVA graduate and a newly employed product designer at Capital One Labs. Even though I accepted a job and it feels good, I have no idea if it's the right thing.

How I chose my next step was oddly similar to my thesis process. It was messy, circuitous, and hard to predict future steps. There was some structure to the madness but even that had to be rearranged. I think what made it so difficult was hating the idea of how permanent commitment can be. I didn't grow up in an environment where it was ok to make mistakes. Committing to something meant seeing it through and if it was "wrong" there's no going back and time was wasted. There was a lot of "Oh, if only I did this..."

Up until graduate school, I was taught to have a plan. It was easy because I modeled it after the "traditional" path. Acquire skills in college, apply those skills to a job, work for a few years, go to grad school to get a higher paying job, and stay there for X amount of years to climb the corporate ladder until retirement. This may work for some people but it didn't for me. I came from a painting background and somehow ended up in interaction design. After finishing grad school, the opportunities felt like they were limitless and the types of career paths were just as abundant. I overwhelmed myself with questions like, "Should I work for myself or at a company?", "What kind of company? Non-profit, Agency, Startup, Corporation?", and "What kind problems do you want to work on?" Not a bad problem to have but throw in my fear of commitment into the mix and I was paralyzed with anxiety.

I started with what I knew. 

I want to make a positive impact by solving real problems.

I want to feel passion and creative fulfillment in my work.

This can take many forms. I romanticized about being independent and working full time on Sticky Jots and 20 Questions but also comforted by the idea of benefits and being part of a team and working within an institution that has the potential to make a huge impact. 

After talking to countless people about career advice, I compiled a list of  tips that helped suppress my fear of commitment.

No decision is permanent. You can always change your situation.

Your work does not define you. Your identity is a culmination of your life experiences. 

One job does not define your entire career. It's not that big of a deal if you learn after the fact that decision was a terrible idea.

There's no right or wrong. Even if it was a terrible decision, it's still valuable because you learned you won't do it again. 

Trust your gut. On paper that decision might seem like a great idea but if you're still feeling "meeeeh" then something is wrong. 

I won't get into too much of the specifics in why I decided COL but what helped immensely was understanding how I define success. To me success means exploring different things. I've dabbled in entrepreneurship, worked in a design agency, and freelanced. It made sense to see what it was like to work for an innovation lab within a large corporation. 

I realized for a long time I had a very specific way in approaching things. Plan Step 1, 2, and 3 and then complete all 3 steps. Do not stray off path because it's scary. If you're unhappy then start all over. With so many paths to choose from, it was impossible to predict which was the best for me.

So I shifted my thinking and approached it like a design problem. Experience variations of step 1 which will help define step 2 and then proceed to step 2. If step 2 fails, breathe and do not panic. Take what you learned, re-evaluate what you want, and then create another variation of step 1 but call it step 3. Try multiple options if needed. 

It takes a little bit of future planning but I have to remember what I want in 5 or 10 years will change just as my definition of success will change during different stages of my life. What I do know is now is the time to try as many things as possible to learn what I want. This means being uncomfortable and learning to live with uncertainty. Not an easy task.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited to be part of the COL team and have a long list of why it's the right job right now. I've also decided to keep experimenting with my side projects and see where they lead me. For now I'm just happy to have started that next step. 

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Dogs are so wise.

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The U.S.--like Brazil or England--likes to think it has moved beyond race. After all, we elected a black President, twice. But in reality, the terrain of race-baiting has simply shifted. The condescension once aimed squarely at African Americans now also claims as its targets Latinos, Muslims and--in a novel twist--large swaths of whites. And the people doing the condescending might be black or brown themselves.

Suketu Mehta, The 'Tiger Mom' Superiority Complex

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...we have profound stereotypes about how groups of people are supposed to behave. And those stereotypes drive our perceptions of who people are, not just how they behave.

Study: Stereotypes Drive Perceptions Of Race

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Design Criteria V2

Talking to Beth and Steve has helped me think of other possible methods in bringing up race into conversations. I've been rethinking my design criteria and I think the most important thing for my users is finding a commonality with others. It can be direct but not direct to the point where they feel guilty or defensive. I think talking about race from a cultural standpoint might be easier because it resonates with more people. Possible entry points might be food, music (pop music), language (profanity). These  topics are less emotionally charged which could turn into more constructive conversations. 

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Prototyping Roadmap

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Minorities Against Humanity

This week I made a new prototype that centered around the issue of racial stereotypes in America's media. Prior to this, my ideas focused mainly around the individual's story. As an experiment, I wanted to step back and look at it from a systemic point of view and see if that could be a potential entry point in conversation. 

I realize I'm not going to eradicate racism with my thesis but what I'm interested in is how to start that dialogue about race. Humor is a great entry point to bring up uncomfortable topics such as race so I designed a card game based on Cards Against Humanity but with an emphasis on race. Each blue card has a question and each white card displays a topic and an explanation of the topic at the bottom. The white cards are a mix of neutral and race conscious topics in our pop culture. The same rules apply. One person is the judge who puts down a blue card. The other participants put down a white card in response to the blue card. The judge then picks which white card they like and the person who put down that card wins that round.

Three of my classmates were brave enough to test it out

Insights I gathered from class:

Feels too direct

Doesn't facilitate people to engage

When a neutral card comes up, people might think there are racial implications

Kept coming back to the individual because the player was being judged in which card they played 

Things to think about:

How can you get past the racist humor to a conversation

How were the dynamics change if the group is homogenous vs. heterogenous?

What happens when all of your cards are all racist?

How can you explain why some of those cards are offensive?

This prototype was a start in getting people to think about race but I think the next steps for me is to try for a more subtle approach. I want to test this with high school students to see how they engage with it. 

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Issues in the Race Discourse

Moving the Race Conversation Forward

It's becoming more clear to me that many issues of race and racism stem from the lack of constructive conversations we have. So can we do to make it more constructive? I'm starting to explore this but there are many factors that prevent us from understanding it. I was reading this paper Moving the Race Conversation Forward (I highly recommend reading this) and came across some interesting insights:

Most of mainstream media's racism content is not systemically aware

Amount of systemically aware content varies by topic

Mainstream media rarely cover racial justice advocacy or solutions 

Racism defined into 4 pillars

When talking about racism, many stories focus on the individual level and omit the context and perspectives in policies, rules or practices in industries and institutions. Cultural and institutional settings enforce our biases and dictate the conversations we have today. This leads to either people feeling frustrated about the current state of race discourse or they prefer to turn away and not talk about it which promotes the idea we are all colorblind. Yes talking about race can be uncomfortable but I think we need to get over that.

When there is a lack of knowledge of the effects of systemic racism, it is very difficult to have that conversation of race. The conversation leads back to the individual's story which inevitably leads to feelings of anger and guilt. It's hard to change to culture but dissecting it and understanding why issues of race still exist is important in having more constructive conversations and it helps us reflect on our own behaviors we may not be aware of. Being placed in a diverse environment is not enough. We need to have actual conversations to understand the nuances we all experience. 

I've narrowed it down into a few areas I find interesting: 

The conversation of race is split within different groups. Most race events I attend primarily focus on one race. Often times when it is a non-Asian event, I find myself the only Asian person. I learn a great deal from these events because it gives me more perspectives on the similarities and differences other people of color face. While I think it’s great these events are happening its not enough. When the conversation is separated within each racial population, it starts to marginalize other groups. 

Not knowing your own history. I think this is a key part in feeling part of the race conversation. Knowing your story and your family's story will allow you to see how you fit into the bigger narrative. 

Lack of vocabulary. Identity is super confusing. Distilling it down to race is still confusing. Many of us have unanswered questions but unsure if we can ask those questions. We all have different experiences and perspectives which makes it difficult to relate to one another. We learn from what is portrayed in our media which often times is inaccurate. So how can we better communicate?

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Opposite Pen Pals' Documentation

Title of prototype

Opposite Pen Pals

Thesis area of concern

Facilitating interactions between strangers who come from different racial backgrounds. I am exploring ways in creating a space where people can discuss race, racism and identity to build a vocabulary for constructive conversations. 

Thesis concept thus far

My prototype connects strangers who share a mutual friend and have them interact with each other for one week through a series of prompts. They start out not knowing what the other person looks like. The prompts start out pretty neutral but towards the end they get harder to answer. 

Prototype interaction

Everyday both participants exchange a picture of their life based on the prompt. An example of a prompt would be, “Take a picture of your breakfast” or “Take a picture of an object that best represents you”. The last prompt asks both users to reveal themselves.

Summary of what worked well, and what didn't

Good

Users were curious enough to engage with each other

Wasn't too disruptive in their schedule

Low barrier to entry

Not too confrontational

Felt safe 

Bad

Prompts weren't enough to get a sense of their pen pal's identity

No opportunity for other types of communication 

No way of measuring success

Takes commitment

Forget about prompt so I have to send out reminders

What you learned about your intended users from interaction with prototype

It's a fun experiment but the value of the surprise element quickly fades after they receive the image. I'm not even sure my participants still think about the experiment after its over. 

Things to work on next, if you continue with this idea

I want to still experiment with prompts to see how personal I can get without it being too intrusive. Also I want to think of ways to facilitate more engagement and communication between users. Have them explain the meaning behind their pictures or allow them to ask each other questions.

What the mobile version could look like

Currently testing through text messaging

Documenting one of my participants taking a selfie