sacha chua living an awesome life

I spent four hours on Friday drawing this beginners’ one-page guide to Emacs, and people really liked it. =) It’ll be awesome to make more things like that! Also, amazing amazing amazing comments from people helping me figure out all sorts of stuff. Thanks! =D

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending May 10, 2013
• Cherry blossoms in High Park, and playing with digital watercolour in Artrage 4
• Stepping sideways into Alternate Universe Sacha
• Learning update May 2013
• From cats to keystrokes
• Poll: How often would you like to receive e-mail updates? Also, quantifying my blog posting history
• Thinking about what I want to do and where I want to go with this blog
• How to Learn Emacs: A Hand-drawn One-pager for Beginners

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 –
    • Sketchnote GIST tech conference
  • Build
    • Practise drawing for two hours
    • Set up virtual box
    • Learn about Vagrant, Chef, and Puppet
    • Add polls to my site
    • Add brief bio to my blog sidebar
    • Learn at Toronto Comic Arts Festival
    • Upgrade my Linode
  • Connect
    • Talk to Matt about what he can help me with
    • Talk to Shawn about sketchnoting FITC
    • Talk to ZoomToLearn about illustration
• Relationships
  • Get together with W-’s family
• Life
  • Collect 50 sentences for my Japanese-English deck
  • Set up my Ankidroid
  • Have dental new patient exam
  • Take notes on “Strategies for Reading Japanese”
  • Fix library renew script

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Earn
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
  • Build
    • [ ] Sketchnote a book
    • [ ] Choose a topic to package
    • [ ] Set up clean development environment for Quantified Awesome
    • [ ] Build interface for goals
  • Connect
    • [ ] Talk to Bastien Guerry about Emacs
• Relationships
  • [X] Help W- with setting up the post
  • [ ] Help out with Linden visit to Hacklab?
• Life
  • [ ] Play some more FF?
  • [ ] Return books to the Japan Foundation library
  • [ ] Plant zucchini, more bitter melon, bok choi, and lettuce

Time review

• Business: 53.3 hours (Earn: 18.6, E1: 15.6, Connect: 5.9, Build: 28.7)
• Discretionary: 30.7 hours (Social: 0.7, Productive: 14.6, Writing: 5.7, Emacs: 4.1)
• Personal: 20.6 hours (Routines: 8.4)
• Sleep: 54.0 hours – average of 7.7 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 9.5 hours (Cook: 5.1, Tidy: 0.5)

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending May 3, 2013
• Thinking about movies
• Sketchnoting: Finding a balance of details and diagrams, and calibrating your writing to time
• Hacking my motivation for workouts
• Quantifying my habit of writing, and things I’ve learned along the way
• Use the weekly review to give yourself permission to do things you want to do
• Monthly review: April 2013

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Do some consulting this Wednesday
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • Discuss curriculum sketches and workshops with M
    • Start drafting a curriculum sketch for M
    • Send invoice
  • Connect
    • Help Cena Mayo with Emacs
    • Join ALU Lisp meeting
    • Attend Toronto Agile Support Group
  • Build
    • Accounting
      • Set up accounting thing
      • Ask accountant about QST
      • Send Interac transfer to accountant
      • Check out and send accountant’s copy of my Quickbooks records
      • Apply accounting changes
      • [#A] Call Revenu Quebec – Waiting for call back
    • System administration
      • Copy my home directory
      • Copy all the files for my website
      • Copy ~/all_dbs.sql
• Relationships
  • Family
    • Upload database
    • Recreate basic WordPress
    • Synchronize e-mails
  • Go to HackLab open house
  • Host tea party
• Life
  • Japanese
    • Register for a Japan Foundation library card
    • Study a Japanese song
    • Learn new Japanese song
    • Read a volume of manga
  • Gardening
    • Buy tomato plants from corner store
    • Plant tomatoes and other vegetables
    • Add compost and topsoil to grass and backyard
  • Set up dentist appointment
  • Game: Make progress toward endgame
  • See cherry blossoms
  • Draw for the fun of it
  • Declutter
  • Fill up my TFSA and RRSP

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Earn
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Talk to Shawn about sketchnoting FITC
    • [ ] Sketchnote GIST tech conference
  • Build
    • [ ] Practise drawing for two hours
    • [ ] Sketchnote a book
    • [ ] Interface for goals
    • [ ] Figure out org2blog publishing using Org 8
    • [ ] Set up virtual box
  • Connect
    • [ ] Talk to Matt about what he can help me with
• Relationships
  • [ ] Get together with W-’s family
• Life
  • [ ] Collect 50 sentences for my Japanese-English deck
  • [ ] Take notes on “Strategies for Reading Japanese”
  • [ ] Plant lavender
  • [ ] Have dental new patient exam

Time review

• Business: 35.8 hours (Earn: 18.2, E1: 18.2, Connect: 3.1, Build: 14.5)
• Discretionary: 43.6 hours (Social: 8.6, Productive: 15.5, Writing: 3.7, Emacs: 2.6, Play: 3.4)
• Personal: 20.9 hours (Routines: 11.3)
• Sleep: 54.1 hours – average of 7.7 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 13.7 hours (Commuting: 1.5, Cook: 4.6, Tidy: 1.9)

So much writing, yay! That felt wonderful. It was great to follow my curiosity and write about what i’m learning. Mmm, more of this next week…

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending April 26, 2013
• Sunday
• Quantified Self: a year of grocery data
• How I got started in investing
• Learning how to deal with mild panic
• Sketchnote: Solving Wicked Problems with Dialogue Mapping (Chris Chapman, Toronto Agile Support Group)
• Keeping in touch
• Visual book review: Red Thread Thinking: Weaving Together Connections for Brilliant Ideas and Profitable Innovation (Debra Kaye with Karen Kelly)

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn
    • Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • Consulting – E1 – Thursday
  • Build
    • See about setting up Quickbooks review
    • Pick up package from store
  • Connect
    • Talk to Jo’Ann about sketchnotes
    • Talk to Patrick Finucane about sketches
    • Sketchnote Hackernest/Girls in Toronto talks
    • Co-host Visual Thinkers Toronto meetup
• Relationships
  • Measure cushions
  • Have coffee with Evan Willms
  • Send letter to Mike
  • Send letter to Clair
• Life
  • Buy seeds
  • Get my PCFinancial savings account out of dormancy
  • Have a massage
  • Declutter
  • Checked my finances

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Earn
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Discuss curriculum sketches and workshops with M
    • [ ] Start drafting a curriculum sketch for M
    • [ ] Call Ministry Quebec
  • Connect
    • [ ] Join ALU Lisp meeting
  • Build
    • [ ] Set up accounting thing
    • [ ] Sketchnote a book
    • [ ] Interface for goals
• Relationships
  • [ ] Host tea party
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Monday
  • [ ] Go to HackLab open house
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Friday
  • [ ] Make second test cover for cushion
• Life
  • Japanese
    • [ ] Register for a Japan Foundation library card
    • [ ] Learn new Japanese song
    • [ ] See cherry blossoms
    • [ ] Read a volume of manga
  • Garden
    • [ ] Plant tomatoes and other vegetables
    • [ ] Add compost and topsoil to grass and backyard
  • Other
    • [ ] Draw for the fun of it
    • [ ] Declutter
    • [ ] Game: Complete another three missions
    • [ ] Figure out org2blog publishing using Org 8

Time review

• Business: 29.2 hours (Earn: 13.2, Connect: 7.5, Build: 8.5)
• Discretionary: 46.1 hours (Social: 3.7, Productive: 25.0, Writing: 13.8, Emacs: 0.8, Play: 3.0)
• Personal: 24.8 hours (Routines: 13.9)
• Sleep: 58.1 hours – average of 8.3 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 9.8 hours (Cook: 4.8, Tidy: 0.4)

やった！会議で素描した。「素描」の意味は「(n,vs) (1) drawing; sketch; (2) outline; summary; synopsis; (P)」だ。丁度いいね。もし辞書を読んだら、面 白い言葉を習う。

(… it’s totally awesome that a Japanese word for drawing/sketch also means outline/summary/synopsis. =) )

Blog posts

Lots of writing this week. =)

• Weekly review: Week ending April 19, 2013
• Crossing worlds
• Squishing my excuses: idea edition
• Emacs chat intro
• Things I learned from sketchnoting the FITC design conference
• How I use Evernote to support my sketchnoting practice
• Why and how I’m (re)learning Japanese

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Move Sketchnote Index to Heroku
  • Tidy up permissions on my server
  • Set up virtual box image for Rails development
• Relationships
  • Set up next party (May 5)
  • Look up how to make slip covers
• Life
  • Write a simple Japanese blog post
  • Check the status of my Canadian citizenship application
  • Analyze my grocery expenses
  • Arrange for alternate source for project R

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Earn
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • [ ] Start drafting a curriculum sketch for M
  • Connect
    • [ ] Talk to Patrick Finucane about sketches
    • [ ] Sign up for Decisive talk?
    • [ ] Attend Toronto Agile Support Group
    • [ ] Help Cena Mayo with Emacs
    • [ ] Schedule a chat with nicferrier in May
    • [ ] Sketchnote Hackernest/Girls in Toronto talks
  • Build
    • [ ] Interface for goals
    • [ ] Sketch out what visual book reviews would look like as a business
• Relationships
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Friday
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Wednesday
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Monday
  • [ ] Measure cushions
• Life
  • [ ] Buy seeds

Time review

• Business: 41.8 hours (Connect: 4.8)
• Discretionary: 34.1 hours (Social: 3.0)
• Personal: 21.8 hours (Routines: 11.6)
• Sleep: 57.2 hours – average of 8.2 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 13.1 hours (Commuting: 1.5, Cook: 4.1, Tidy: 0.3)

修正した：もっと丁寧です！

いろいろな事を準備しました。来週は忙しくなりそうんです。日曜日から火曜日まで会議で図をかきます。木曜日も働きます。でも、土曜日にマッサージがあります。楽しみにしています。

私と主人は日本語を勉強します。主人は平仮名を覚えています。私は漢字を復習しています。私達は今年日本へ行きたいです。日本語は難しいですが、がんばります！

私の下手な日本語ですみません。改善するために、練習しなければなりません。誤りがあれば訂正お願いします。＾＿＾

We prepared various things because next week is going to be busy. I’ll be drawing at a conference from Sunday to MondayTuesday. On Thursday, I’m working too. But I’ll be having a massage on Saturday, so I’m looking forward to that.

W- and I are studying Japanese. He’s memorizing hiragana. I’m reviewing kanji. We’d like to go to Japan this year. Japanese is difficult, but we’ll try our best!

Please pardon my bad Japanese. If I want to improve, I have to practice. If you see any mistakes, please correct me! =)

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending April 12, 2013
• Time enough for friends
• How to present using Org-mode in Emacs
• Building bridges to geekiness
• Towards wonderful new normals
• Practice Perfect: Calling your shots
• Impatient for spring

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Build
    • Set up Heroku tools on virtual box
    • Contact kaizenaccounting to see if they can help me
    • Clear up disk space on my server
    • Despam quantifiedself.ca/directory
    • Clear up disk space on my laptop
  • Earn
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
  • Connect
    • Process March 27 2013 video
• Relationships
  • Renew my passport
  • Reply to Clair Ching by mail
  • Help W-’s mom with computer stuff
• Life
  • Work on project P

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Earn
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Sketchnote FITC – Sunday
    • [ ] Sketchnote FITC – Monday
    • [ ] Sketchnote FITC – Tuesday
  • Connect
    • [ ] Transcribe John Wiegley’s session
    • [ ] Transcribe chat with Matt Tanguay
    • [ ] Process audio podcast – Matt Tanguay
    • [ ] Co-host Visual Thinkers Toronto meetup
  • Build
    • [ ] Sketchnote a book
    • [ ] Set up virtual box
    • [ ] Write about edebug
• Relationships
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Wednesday
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Friday
  • [ ] Measure cushions
  • [ ] Send letter to Clair
  • [ ] Attend conversationalists meetup
• Life
  • [ ] [#C] Study for the Canadian citizenship test
  • [ ] Draw emotions
  • [ ] Declutter
  • [ ] Buy seeds
  • [ ] Write a simple Japanese blog post
  • [ ] Read a volume of Doraemon

Time review

• Business: 30.0 hours (Earn: 18.4, Build: 11.3, Connect: 0.2)
• Discretionary: 33.7 hours (Social: 3.3, Family: 9.4, Productive: 10.2, Play: 2.4)
• Personal: 21.2 hours (Routines: 11.6)
• Sleep: 63.9 hours – average of 9.1 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 19.3 hours (Commuting: 1.8, Cook: 11.9, Tidy: 2.6)

This was the week of video-processing! I cut the livestream recording into talk segments, spliced in close-ups of the screen when available, and added a short call-out with people’s names. Now the videos are up at http://j.mp/emacs2013videos . Worth the time and effort! I also spent some time helping people out with Emacs over IRC, Skype, and Google Hangouts. I like it, and I’m looking forward to turning more of these things into shareable resources.

I really enjoyed the pacing of this week – it felt like there was plenty of space for the things I wanted to do. I had a wonderful lunch conversation about friendship (blog post tomorrow). I wrote a lot, too. Work was great, of course! It’s fun knowing how to pull the pieces together.

Next week, I’d like to follow up on some of the ideas that came out of the Emacs conference. I’m also looking forward to helping Peter Stradinger with Emacs. W- and I are learning Japanese in preparation for a potential trip, so I’ve been listening to lots of podcast lessons. I’ll be scribing at work this week – exciting!

I’ll be sketchnoting FITC next next week, so things will be busy. Good to prepare for the crunch. =)

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending April 5, 2013
• Weekend cooking
• Emacs Conference 2013 Sketchnotes (also, PDF!)
• Visual book review: The Culture Blueprint (Robert Richman)
• How I read books and do visual book reviews
• Emacs Conference 2013 videos
• Things I’m learning about sharing other people’s knowledge, or why you should show me what you’ve been meaning to teach others

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn
    • Write agreement for F
    • Prepare invoice for F
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • Follow up with U
    • Sort out my schedule
    • Talk to Patricia Kambitsch about M
    • Confirm received cheques from M
  • Connect
    • Emacs
      • Write about Org and presentations
      • Help Dave Cooper with Emacs
      • Upload all the videos
      • Convert first FLV to MP4
    • Process March 27 2013 video
    • Attend Visual Thinkers call
    • Chat with Matt Tanguay about delegation and business
    • Send patch for org-read-date-get-relative
  • Build
    • Have coffee with Christopher Cowperthwaite
    • Sketch Culture Blueprint book
    • Root tablet
    • Explore Word 2013
    • Explore OneNote 2013
    • Explore Powerpoint 2013
• Relationships
  • Reply to Byron Uy by mail
• Life
  • Declutter

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Earn
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
  • Connect
    • [ ] Process March 27 2013 video
    • [ ] Process audio podcast – Matt Tanguay
  • Build
    • [ ] Write about planning a sketch out on index cards
    • [ ] Move sketchnoteindex to Heroku
    • [ ] Sketch out what visual book reviews would look like improved
    • [ ] Sketchnote strategy book
• Relationships
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Monday
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Wednesday
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Friday
  • [ ] Renew my passport
  • [ ] Reply to Clair Ching by mail
• Life
  • [ ] [#C] Study for the Canadian citizenship test
  • [ ] Set up dentist appointment

Time review

• Business: 27.2 hours (E1: 16.5, Connect: 3.9, Drawing: 2.4, Coding: 1.1)
• Discretionary: 39.2 hours (Emacs: 12.6, Social: 7.3, Writing: 5.7)
• Personal: 18.0 hours (Routines: 11.1)
• Sleep: 62.9 hours – average of 9.0 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 20.8 hours (Commuting: 1.5, Cook: 9.4, Tidy: 2.2)

The Emacs conference was a blast! I’ve volunteered to process and post the videos, and I’m looking forward to making a lot of follow-up resources. =) Back on the ground and getting lots of things done, too. Yay!

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending March 29, 2013
• Brainstorming ways to help build the Emacs community
• Analyzing my London trip decisions: What worked well? What can I improve?
• Understanding my procrastination
• Monthly review: March 2013

Accomplished this week

• Business
  • Earn
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • Work on SR edits
  • Connect
    • Quantified Self: Process March 27 2013 video
    • Go to E1 get-together
    • Work on MT edits
    • Emacs
      • Colour and add more information to sketchnotes
      • Verify my account on YouTube
      • Write about London trip
      • Back up the files onto Alex’s computer
      • Pack for going home
      • Upload audio for keynote
      • Figure out plans
      • Give Emacs talk
      • slideify my talk
      • Reschedule with Cena Mayo
• Relationships
  • Accompany W- to eye appointment
• Life
  • Write about how I use Ledger
  • Reenable library holds
  • Write about procrastination

Plans for next week

• Business
  • Earn
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Thursday
    • [ ] Follow up with U by phone
    • [ ] Sort out my schedule
    • [ ] Earn: Consulting – E1 – Tuesday
    • [ ] Start drafting a curriculum sketch for M
    • [ ] Talk to Patricia Kambitsch about M
  • Connect
    • [ ] Help Dave Cooper with Emacs
    • [ ] Attend Visual Thinkers call
    • [ ] Write a blog series focused on Emacs
    • [ ] Chat with Matt Tanguay about delegation and business
    • [ ] Process March 27 2013 video
  • Build
    • [ ] Sketchnote strategy book
    • [ ] Write about planning a sketch out on index cards
    • [ ] Write about Org and presentations
    • [ ] Sketchnote a book
    • [ ] Sketch Culture Blueprint book
• Relationships
  • [ ] Renew my passport
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Wednesday
  • [ ] Drop by HackLab.to on Friday
  • [ ] Reply to Clair Ching by mail
  • [ ] Reply to Byron Uy by mail
  • [ ] Cook a lot
• Life
  • [ ] Study for the Canadian citizenship test
  • [ ] Declutter

Time review

• Business: 17.5 hours (E1: 9.2, Connect: 3.5, Illustration: 1.7)
• Discretionary: 69.9 hours (Emacs: 27.2, Social: 3.3, Writing: 6.0)
• Personal: 20.0 hours (Routines: 13.7)
• Sleep: 52.3 hours – average of 7.5 hours per day
• Unpaid work: 4.5 hours (Cook: 2.8, Tidy: 1.0)