Down the Rabbit Hole

Today I am grateful for balance. There are times when work is stressful or unfulfilling — the days drag by, or the tasks ahead seem overwhelming. Often, during those times, though, I look forward to activities on the evenings and weekends. Dancing, singing, playing games and seeing my friends and family makes me happy and reminds me that there’s so much to do and enjoy in life. But there are also times when my nights are empty — illness or injury prevents me from going out as much, or I feel disconnected from people I’ve been close to. Left to my own devices I’m liable to feel lonely and sad or escape into hours of fiction reading. If work were at a low point, my life would be pathetic indeed, but instead I find that work not only distracts me from brooding but stimulates me and gives me a sense of accomplishment when I solve a tricky problem or work well with my team mates. The analogy that just jumped to mind is asset allocation: a portfolio with diverse investments usually provides less risk and more stable performance, so that even if one particular stock or fund drops steeply, the overall worth of your investments won’t be dragged down with it. Of course, there are still times when a whole class of assets (or even the whole market) performs poorly and nothing seems to be going right. Even then, the investing analogy holds pretty well — if your focus is on long-term growth rather than the daily ups and downs, don’t panic and withdraw everything, but stick it out and trust that eventually things will turn upward again.

Life is like a … financial portfolio? Somehow it doesn’t have the same ring.

Clearly I don’t blog very regularly. Whenever I do write, there’s always so much that’s happened in my life since the last time that I hardly know where to begin. This past week marks my two year “Googleversary.” That means I’ve been working full time at Google for two years. In that time I’ve been promoted once and switched roles slightly so that I now focus on internal tools development, though I’m still on the same awesome team. The new position has been challenging at times, but my team mates are great and I enjoy how much I’ve learned, and how many cool technologies there are to at a company as innovative at Google. It’s a great environment in which to be developing new knowledge and skills.

My Googleversary also means I’ve been out of school for over two years now, and I have been considering going back to school for a masters degree next year. It was always likely I would go back to school, but now I have additional incentive from the (generous and amazing) scholarship foundation which has paid for my education thus far: they are winding down the scholarship program, and I need to make a request for graduate school funding by this September 1. Really soon! This means I need to spend some quality time honing in on what I actually want to study — top candidates at the moment are computer science, computational linguistics, and information sciences.

The past few months have also marked more personal anniversaries. At the beginning of May I turned 24, a nice round number with lots of divisors. I’m hoping 24 will be a more stable, less emotionally rocky year than 23 was. And the end of May saw the one year anniversary of my Nana’s death. It’s easy to forget just how much time I spent in the second half of last year helping my family take care of her estate, but I often think of her and miss her. I moved into my current apartment last summer (yet another milestone coming up) at the same time we were clearing out Nana’s house, and a lot of my kitchen implements are inherited from her collection. I make tea with her tea kettle, pour water from her cheerful lemon-patterned pitcher, and bake with the spices that once graced her productive kitchen. If I’m lucky maybe some day I’ll be as good at it as she was.

This year I spent my first new year’s at the San Francisco Folk Music Society’s Camp Harmony. On December 30, I drove up to Camp Newman, which is just outside Santa Rosa, with Graham and Lacey, who have both been attending camp for years. Even though they had told me how wonderful it would be, I was still a little nervous about diving into a completely new experience with so many new people. Turns out I had nothing to worry about! We arrived early to help set up, and the first person I met, the camp director, gave me a hug and a warm welcome. We got to work assembling the rented dance floor and had many more happy reunions and introductions throughout the day, particularly with Quena and Jonathan, who are an integral part of Graham and Lacey’s extended ‘family’.

That night the real fun started with the first dance of camp, an English country dance. Harmony is a home-made camp, so anyone can lead or attend workshops for all kinds of music and dance. I particularly enjoyed the Irish dance workshops, and had a blast at the swing/rock’n'roll night. Got in lots of good contra and country dancing as well, and even a bit of square dance! Unfortunately between all the dancing and some steep hills at the camp site, my right knee got sort of wonky and I had to take it easier the second half of camp.

Luckily there was plenty to do besides dance. In fact, it was sometimes hard to choose among all the great classes and sessions being offered, even though there were about 7 hours of workshops every day! I took advantage of the supportive atmosphere to try something new and attended a beginning recorder class. It was fun to work out how to play simple tunes like “Doe a Deer,” and someone was kind enough to give me an extra recorder to keep and practice with. Some of my favourite parts of camp, though, were definitely singing. I loved being able to show up with nothing but my voice and join other singers and musicians to jam and swap all sorts of songs. There were two great Shape Note sessions, along with workshops for Disney songs, classic pop songs like Simon and Garfunkel, rounds, Balkan a cappella, musicals, and much more.

Camp was just bursting at the seams with good music and fellowship. People were happy to pull out their instruments and play just about anywhere, from their cabins to the dining hall and even along the paths in-between! The total immersion in the arts was really the best thing about Camp Harmony. Being surrounded for five days by wonderful song and dance was good for my soul, and a lovely respite from the regular world. It helped that I didn’t touch a phone, computer, or car for the whole time, so I was wholly present and engaged in the people and activities around me. Okay, so I did bring a book, but I promise I didn’t read that much.

Other highlights of camp included:

• Mask making. I much admired Graham’s mask from last year, and was fairly pleased with how mine turned out.
• New Year’s Eve. Everyone gathered in the dining hall to count down, and as we all hugged and wished each other well people started singing the traditional Camp Harmony New Year’s round, whose words go:
  

  Ring it in ring in the new year
  Bells are ringing
  Peace and love throughout the new year
  Joy Joy Joy

  More and more people joined in, linking arms and raising their voices in a swell of sound that drowned out all thoughts and feelings but love and joy. It was fabulous. Plus, I finally found an occasion to wear the cool purple corset Sandra got me last year.

• Checking out the cool murals on the buildings at camp, especially this one of ‘friends’.
• Bob Reid’s kid’s concert, which was attended by ‘children’ of all ages (like me). Unlike many of the camp regulars I didn’t know the songs, but most were easy to pick up and sing a long to, and all of them were either fun or touching or both.
• Cramming 12 people into a small room in the dark to surprise Katie, the camp director, for her birthday. I think we were hiding there for almost half an hour!

Overall it was a great experience, definitely worth repeating. Even though it felt sort of like a break from the “real” world, I’m hoping some of the spirit from camp will carry over into the rest of this year and inspire me to keep singing and dancing and trying new things.

[All photo credits and thanks go to Graham and Lacey]